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Editorials

If it’s broke …

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it's broke, restructure it. 

Presbyterians in the pews may be excused for rolling their eyes over reports that the General Assembly Council is restructuring itself. Many will tell you that the GAC is broke--functionally, if not financially. Many wonder if it can be rebuilt at all. Some think it's not worth the effort.

Such a state of affairs is tragic, to say the least. Organized to implement the directives of the General Assemblies to facilitate the fulfillment of Christ's commission, the GAC is endowed with a high purpose, a broad authority, and huge resources. 

The model currently in use was structured to broaden the representation on the elected GAC and to recruit multi-gifted members to serve. On paper the structure is very post-modern, being led not by a lofty hierarchy but by representative elders and ministers who share equivalent authority with their colleagues throughout the denomination. True to those intentions, the members of the GAC have invested an enormous number of hours into the task entrusted them.

Nevertheless, the processes keep stuttering, the work keeps stumbling, and the systems keep imploding. And folks in the pews sense a widening disconnect between national church and local church.

Voices

Suffering and rejoicing together

If one member suffers, all suffer together ... (I Cor. 12:26.)

        

There are certainly many parts of the church hurting at this time. I am particularly aware of the Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) and its facility in Montreat. I served as the moderator of the task forced charged with the responsibility of exploring the future direction for the PHS operations.

My first trip to Montreat was in 1970, one of the first Youth Conferences. Several members of our youth group approached the session to ask permission to raise money in order to attend the youth conference in Montreat. This was highly unusual in a PCUS church that strictly adhered to a unified budget. Our youth director took me to the PHS facility because our session had sent its records there that summer to be copied. She showed me the minutes where my name had been recorded. I was impressed that our church's records could be found in Montreat. But I was more impressed with Lookout Mountain, and the coffee house (this was the 70's) in Upper Anderson Auditorium, and the worship services. Even so, I caught a glimpse of our connectional church.

Uncategorized

Reflections from the theological center

Editor's Note: The following essay is one in a series dealing with topics of interest and importance as Presbyterians prepare for the 217th General Assembly this June in Birmingham, Ala. Author Johnson explains: "The report from the General Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church provides us both the occasion and the urgency for theological dialogue within the PC(USA.) This and succeeding essays are offered as a constructive effort in that direction."

        

The New Testament invites us to be "rightly dividing the word of truth" (II Tim. 2:15, KJV). Sometimes it seems like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has taken this to mean "just divide" in a win-lose strategy, winner take all. I believe the time has come to explore alternative ways to move ahead without compromising the Gospel or pursuing a win-lose approach.

The first issue to raise: Jesus Christ as the means of our salvation. Both Scripture and the Presbyterian confessions expound at length how Jesus Christ saves us from our sins and sinfulness. He is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world (I John 2:2.) The atoning work of Jesus Christ was accomplished by his life and ministry among people, his teachings, his death on the cross, and his resurrection. I will deal with particular theories of atonement in a later essay.

The question often put to Christ's atoning work is whether Jesus is the only means of our salvation or whether he is one means of salvation among many by which God saves sinners. This question has sharply divided Presbyterians for at least several decades. In 2001 the 213th General Assembly (meeting in Louisville, Ky.) commissioned its Office of Theology and Worship to address the issue. They produced the excellent short treatise, "Hope In The Lord Jesus Christ." Hope ably surveys the creeds and confessions of the PC(USA) and reaffirms the centrality of Jesus Christ for the Gospel, hence for Presbyterians.

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Budget realities, per capita rates discussed as GAC begins meetings

LOUISVILLE -- The per capita rate for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) would rise 15 cents in 2007 and would stay at that rate in 2008, if the General Assembly approves a recommendation coming its way.

That change, if approved, would set the per capita rate at $5.72 per active member for both 2007 and 2008, compared with $5.57 per member now.

Despite that proposed increase, however, there won't be enough money to go around. Both the Office of the General Assembly and the General Assembly Council "faced the reality that major reductions would be necessary unless there was a very substantial increase in the per capita rate, which we determined would create a very real hardship for the church," a joint report to the council and to the Committee on the Office states.

So a lower rate of increase was proposed, and both the Office of the General Assembly and the council "are making major reductions in expenditures for the next two years," the report states.

The per capita budget being proposed for 2007, at $12.4 million, and for 2008, at $14.9 million, will be slightly less than the 2005-2006 budget, even with inflation and some necessary additional costs. So cuts are coming from other areas, including staffing levels, ecumenical expenses and funding for the Presbyterian Historical Society.

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GAC discussing spinning off PDA into separate corporation

LOUISVILLE -- At first, it may seem like legal ho-hum, not a question to ignite much passion. Should three church programs, including Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, be spun off into a separate corporation?

But for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), there's a lot at stake in the answer including a public tussle at the General Assembly Council over what to do, and the bigger issue this discussion raises over what the PC(USA) will look like in the future.

Voices

Out!

When I was a child we didn't have Lent,

not down in Nashville, Tennessee,

where my father was a Presbyterian minister,

That's not to say there wasn't any of that "giving up"

   business going on;

It's just that Presbyterians didn't do it.

Oh, we waved our fronds as we went into the sanctuary

   on Palm Sunday,

and we observed Holy Week,

the most memorable day being Friday

when we had hot cross buns and didn't go to school,

but went instead to the worship service downtown,

and listened to one of those Last Words Sermons

and afterwards ate at the B & W cafeteria.

Editorials

Intelligent design–a cultural code phrase

Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: Reflections on Intelligent Design by Mark Achtemeier

 

Intelligent design has become a common cultural code phrase. It appears in our newspapers. It inspires indignation, delight, dismay, confusion and curiosity. A deeper look is worth the effort to understand what is going on.

To understand how "Intelligent Design" is used in our society today, we need to look back at the history of evolution over the past 150 years, and fundamentalist responses to it beginning in about 1920. We also need to think clearly about the finer distinctions between modern science and religion. 

 

Darwin's Origins

The history of evolution took wing with the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species on November 22, 1859. In it, he outlined the implications of observations made while traveling on the British survey ship Beagle 1831-1836. Darwin's ideas created religious upset in some quarters, and continue to do so to this day.

Unbeknownst to Darwin, Gregor Mendel, a Czech-born Austrian monk, was conducting experiments on the genetics of pea plants that fit well with Darwin's observations. He published two lectures in 1865 and journal articles in 1866. His work was unnoticed, and forgotten for 30 years.

Mendel's work includes some fundamentals we all appreciate: Everyone has two biological parents. Children look like their parents. Children are not identical to their parents. Most of us consider these three obvious facts truisms, and therefore we believe the fundamentals of evolution.

To these basics, Darwin added that, for the animals he observed, not all offspring survive, and that only the progeny that survive to have descendents will pass along their genetic material. Mendel added the notion of genes, the particles of heredity that parents pass to children in a way that a child receives half his genetic complement from each parent, without blending. He worked out the basic arithmetic of inheritance.

In 1902, Walter Sutton of Columbia University found that grasshopper sperm cells had only half as many chromosomes (DNA strands in the cell nucleus) as other cells. He asserted that genes are part of chromosomes, and that they are inherited, half from each parent, just as Mendel described. This notion was widely accepted by the 1950s.

In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published their description of DNA. They revealed the now-famous double helix, a molecule shaped like a spiral staircase in which each step was one of four letters in our basic genetic code. By 2001, the Human Genome Project had decoded a complete copy of the human genome: a spiral stair with 3.2 billion steps! Our DNA is in 23 pairs of chromosomes (seen by Sutton a century earlier) and we inherit half of them from each parent, as Mendel had deduced in 1865.

Modern evolution, from the viewpoint of the biological sciences, consists of far more than Darwin's work. For example, the DNA coding structure is found in every known living thing on our planet. It is one line of evidence for a central tenet of evolution, "Common Descent," which holds that all life on earth is genetically linked by common ancestors. We are members of a single family of life on earth.

Modern evolution also uses lines of evidence from plate tectonics and geology. Plate tectonics is the well-regarded science of how continental plates form and move on the liquid core of the earth's mantle. It provides a coherent explanation for findings of identical fossils at what are today widely distant places. It does the same for some modern animals as well: marsupials in Australia, and the opossum in North America with no apparent connection other than through plate tectonics.

Editorials

Reflections on Intelligent Design

 

Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: Intelligent design--a cultural code phrase by Walter R. T. Witschey

 

Even a casual glimpse at current headlines leaves little doubt that the Intelligent Design debate has become yet another battleground in the culture wars, with culturally-aggressive fundamentalists and equally-militant secularists well represented among the contending parties. Beneath the surface-level politics, however, there are substantial scientific and philosophical issues at play that ought to be of interest to any thinking Christian. It is the purpose of this essay to highlight some of these more substantive issues, lest they disappear beneath the waves of partisan politics.

One of the founding documents of the Intelligent Design Movement is Darwin's Black Box, by Michael Behe. Those who have seen Intelligent Design linked repeatedly with biblical Creationism in the popular press may be surprised to find that Behe's book contains no scriptural citations, no references to Genesis, no theological arguments, no appeals to faith, no sweeping rejection of evolutionary theory and no speculation about the nature or identity of a Creator.

What Behe's book does contain is a lot of biochemistry: technical descriptions of the chemical machinery that underlies life-processes such as blood clotting, immune response, vision, etc. These molecular machines turn out to be vastly complex, Rube Goldberg contraptions whose operation depends on the precise interaction of dozens of large, intricately-structured protein molecules.

Behe contends that while evolutionary processes of random mutation and natural selection can account for much of the living world around us, they cannot explain significant portions of what modern biochemistry has uncovered at the molecular-level of living organisms. Why is this so?

 

Voices

What if ID Is true?

I am a scientist. I am also a Christian. As a scientist, I believe in the laws of nature that govern much -- some might say all -- of what happens. As a Christian, I affirm that God designed and created the universe and its natural laws, although Scripture is vague about the details. In this sense, I believe in God's intelligent design. That is theology, not science.

However the proponents of "Intelligent Design" (ID) claim something different. ID is proposed as a scientifically valid alternative to Darwinian natural selection. It holds that "certain features in the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection" (definition from the Discovery Institute web site). ID is attractive to many religious people because it appears to offer a scientific basis for William Paley's "watch found on the beach" design argument for God. However, trust in ID may be premature.

U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III, in his decision in Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., wrote: "After a searching review of the record and applicable case law, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science" (p.64). Most scientists agree. As commonly understood, an acceptable scientific explanation may use only empirically established universal principles ("laws of nature"). "Design" as understood by ID does not satisfy this criterion. ID proponents argue that science should be redefined to permit non-natural causes for certain kinds of phenomena, which they claim can be identified empirically by normal scientific methods.

Voices

Don’t teach religion in science classes

The recent ruling by federal Judge John E. Jones III that it is unconstitutional for public schools in Dover, Pa., to offer intelligent design as a scientifically valid alternative to evolution is a graphic reminder that our schools are the most visible battlegrounds in today's culture wars.

The divisive struggles deciding our nation's future are being fought at thousands of up-close-and-personal public school board meetings. At such bitter sessions, board members argue with one another and with an audience of often-angry parents.

In October 2004, the Dover school board voted to make certain that "students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design." The clear aim was to present intelligent design (or ID) as a scientific explanation for the creation of the world and the human family.

Although ID adherents rarely mention God, most of them are theologically conservative Christians and frequently speak of their faith in creationism -- the belief that the biblical account of creation found in Genesis is scientifically accurate.

 

c. 2005 Religion News Service

 

Movie Reviews

‘The End of the Spear” and “Curious George”

Both are about journeys from the cosmopolitan United States to the jungles of another continent. In both, the central characters are nice, trusting, non-violent, and affectionate. In both, the first foray ends in great disappointment, but perseverance pays off when the second attempt succeeds. In both, there is a kind of determined optimism, almost to the point of suspending disbelief. In both, love triumphs, but it's not always romantic love that matters, but the genuine caring that binds one being to another despite their unlikely alliance.

Editorials

Show me your ID

So what are we to make of Intelligent Design? Perhaps a glimpse at life between two offshoots of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) can give us insight. Take a look at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).  

These two denominations hold many beliefs in common: adherence to the inerrancy of Scripture, subscription to five point Calvinism, opposition to higher criticism, rejection of women's ordination, repudiation of modernism and post-modernism. Yet they remain separate denominations. Why?

One reason: They do not read the first chapter of the Bible in quite the same way.  

While both denominations allow some latitude in interpretation, the PCA leans toward a literal, scientific chronological reading of the six days of creation. Ordination candidates who question whether the world was created in 144 hours about 6,000 years ago risk disqualification.

The OPC takes a less certain view. While some of its clergy and elders hold to six 24-hour periods of creation, "those who hold to the day-age theory or framework hypothesis argue that the biblical text is inconclusive as to the length of the days ..." They add that the Westminster Confession (and its catechisms) does not require exacting agreement, so "there must be latitude in this area." Yes, the OPC allows latitude in interpretation; see their Web site: https://www.opc.org/qa.html?question_id=131 .

Note the two kinds of latitude they affirm. One suggests that each of the six days may constitute an indeterminate length of time. The other, the "framework hypothesis," requires more explanation.  

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Church of England disinvests, citing Israel’s “illegal occupation”

(RNS) The Church of England has voted to pull its investments out of companies, including the U.S. machinery giant Caterpillar Inc., that it claims are profiting from Israel's "illegal occupation" of Palestinian territory.

The surprise action came Feb. 6 at the behest of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. It was approved overwhelmingly by the Church's general synod and appears to target the 2.2 million-pound ($3.92 million) holdings it has in Caterpillar. The holdings in Caterpillar are part of the Church of England's overall share portfolio that published figures put at $1.6 billion.

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Elaine Barnett named APCE’s ‘Educator of the Year’

(PNS) Elaine Barnett, a lifelong Presbyterian who has served the church for more than 40 years as a Christian educator, was named "Educator of the Year" by the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE) on Feb. 3 during APCE's annual conference.

Barnett, a North Carolina native, served churches as an educator in Charlotte, Chapel Hill and Monroe, N.C., and also was on the staff of Southwest Florida Presbytery. She is now an elder at First Church in Sarasota, Fla., and moderator-elect of Peace River Presbytery.

Barnett has co-authored several books on Christian education and stewardship, and has contributed to numerous Presbyterian publications. She served on the APCE cabinet from 1996 to 2002, and was its president for 2000-2001. She now serves on the Christian Educator Certification Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

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Gospel music, singers highlighted at Grammys

 

(RNS) Gospel singer CeCe Winans added two more trophies to her collection Feb. 8 at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards. The Detroit-born artist earned awards for best contemporary soul gospel album for "Purified," her seventh solo album, and best gospel performance for the album's first single, "Pray."

Gladys Knight and the Saints Unified Voices choir earned best gospel choir or chorus album for "One Voice."

Other gospel category winners included:

 

-- Best Gospel Song: "Be Blessed" by Yolanda Adams, James Harris III,

Terry Lewis & James Q. Wright

 

-- Best Rock Gospel Album: "Until My Heart Caves In" by Audio Adrenaline

 

-- Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album: "Lifesong" by Casting Crowns

 

-- Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album: "Rock of Ages,

Hymns & Faith" by Amy Grant

 

-- Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album: "Psalms Hymns & Spiritual Songs" by Donnie McClurkin

 

The show featured several performances by gospel artists, including the Hezekiah Walker & Love Fellowship Choir, who sang with Mariah Carey; Robert Randolph, who lent his guitar prowess to Aerosmith in a tribute to Sly Stone; and Yolanda Adams, who sang during the show's finale in a tribute to New Orleans.

Irish rock band U2 swept up five Grammys. U2 lead singer Bono, an international advocate for the poor, spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington Feb. 2.

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Overtures reveal major issues for GA action in Birmingham

Skimming the early batches of overtures submitted to the 2006 General Assembly is sort of like watching a one-minute highlights show of the controversies of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Divestiture.

Gay ordination.

Churches withholding per capita.

Non-geographic presbyteries.

The Theological Task Force.

It's all there -- and more, in the first opportunity the church has had in two years to ask the assembly to take a stand.

But these overtures also reflect a real desire that the PC(USA) be a light of hope to a hurting world -- that it be a denomination not afraid to wade in to troubled waters in places like Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

So far, more than 60 overtures have been formally submitted, with more surely on the way. Here's some of what lies ahead.

 

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The changing faces of American Presbyterianism (1706-2006), Part 1

Editor's note: Three hundred years ago this year, the first presbytery was organized in what became the United States of America. This article is the first in a series exploring the historical overview of the Presbyterian presence in our country

 

Three hundred years. That's how long it has been since the first presbytery was organized by Francis Makemie (c. 1658-1708). Has anything remained the same through the years?

When reflecting on major changes in Presbyterian faith and life in America over the centuries, my thoughts focus immediately on my own ancestry. The first James Smylie landed on the Carolina Coast in the very early years of the eighteenth century. Over time these Smylies multiplied and gradually found their way to and settled in Mississippi Territory. I am descended from a John Smylie, brother of another James who made history, not the best kind of history. He wrote a pro-slavery tract in the 1830s which some contemporaries considered the "first shot" of the Civil War. Migrants from the British Isles, in the Smylies' case from Scotland and Northern Ireland, began to flow across the Atlantic in the latter part of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They faced the challenges of settlement up and down the eastern seacoast. Clergyman and entrepreneur Francis Makemie (c.1658-1708) helped us adjust. In his A Plain and Friendly Persuasive . . . for Promoting Towns and Cohabitation (1705) he urged migrants to move, in this case, to the west and south, in order to establish towns, churches, schools, and businesses. He even suggested that people in the new world might become strong enough one day to separate from the mother country -- although he did not encourage it. 

He recommended putting drunks, or "sots," in stocks until they behaved. Makemie argued with the Anglican authorities, and won the right to settle and build churches. In 1706 he organized the first presbytery in Philadelphia and began raising up "meeting houses" (dissenters could not use the term church in some places, a term reserved for Anglicans). He prepared ministers to pastor the wave after wave of immigrants who flowed into the colonies.  After some debate, members of the church agreed to an Adopting Act (1729) in which they embraced the Westminster Confession and Catechisms as being "in all essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound words and systems of Christian Doctrine," leaving the Presbytery the right to settle disagreements over interpretation of the documents. 

Editorials

Something old, something new?

Wouldn't it be great to be able to go back to the good ol' days?

Many a Presbyterian totes around a mental sketchbook filled with scenes depicting how the church ought to be. Its pastel pictures strikingly resemble how the church used to be, that is, how we remember it used to be.

A quick comparison to the church of today produces piqued exasperation. The soft pastels have been overwhelmed by glaring, clashing neons. The view has changed and not for the better.

We know we can't blame the church for the accelerated pace of living and for the startling turns in the road. As warned over 35 years ago by Alvin Toffler, Future Shock is our world. However, when we gather with the household of God, we expect to find at least an hour's respite. We want to sense a certain steadiness, a reassurance that "God's in his heaven; all's right with the world." Instead, the church provides disruptions and disturbances not conceived in those good ol' days,   

Can't we turn down the conflict? Can't we reclaim the way it used to be? Can't we go back to those good ol' days?

Then again, when are those good ol' days?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnragai/16579788935/
Editorials

Ash Wednesday in miniature

Are you one of those miniatures collectors? Do you know any one who is?  Back in the days when printing presses would utilize little blocks of wood and metal, with forms of each letter with which they would lay out the type for their newspaper or an advertisement, they would put those letters in printers' boxes. That's how they sorted their  As from their Bs, Cs, and so forth.

Today, the letter blocks are long gone, but the printers' trays still sell.  You find them in antiques stores and flea markets. They get scooped up by collectors--miniatures collectors. They provide just the right sized cubby holes in which to display tiny cars, tables, chairs, dishes, figurines, and other decorative items that are less than a square inch in size.

Why? What's the value of having unusable tiny imitations of the real thing?

An international team of psychologists is studying this phenomenon, in the hope that an answer to this mystery could lead to solving countless other unanswered mysteries. All kidding aside, one part of the answer may be that collecting small items affords persons the opportunity to get their arms around their world, or literally, get their hands around it. When you look at miniatures, you get to see things more completely. You get a grip--literally--on life.

That may be one of the reasons that so many people have been so taken with the movie "The Passion of the Christ"--which broke attendance records almost everywhere that it has was released--including Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.  In just two hours and six minutes, that movie gave people a handle on Jesus. Frankly, it exposes the horrors of violence and evil that thrive in human hearts, but in the process, that movie also provides us a picture of the sacrificial suffering of Jesus.

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Belhar Confession: Does it speak To PC(USA)’s challenges?

During the Sunday morning coffee hour, the Confession of Belhar probably isn't at the top of the conversation list.

It's not in the Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), so lots of Presbyterians have probably never read it.

But this confession -- adopted in 1986 in South Africa during the heart of the struggle over apartheid -- is beginning to draw renewed interest among Reformed Christians in the United States and internationally. South African churches have been urging the rest of the world to read it for years, saying it has a message Christians need to hear.

For while it was written in a particular time and place, its themes are unity, reconciliation and justice -- exactly, some contend, the issues confronting American churches in the 21st century.

So some are starting to pay closer attention to Belhar.

At Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, this year's Sprunt Lectures are being given by H. Russel Botman and Dirk J. Smit, two South African theologians who were involved in writing the Belhar Confession.

In 2004, the PC(USA) General Assembly, responding to a task force studying the issue of reparations, commended the Belhar Confession to the church for study and reflection. It's been posted on the PC(USA) Web site https://www.pcusa.org/theologyandworship/confession/belhar.pdf , where Joseph Small of the Office of Theology and Worship says it's receiving a respectable number of hits. (The complete text is available here in this Outlook issue.) Some study materials on Belhar should be ready for the church by this summer's assembly in Birmingham, Small said.

And in the Reformed Church in America, which began a study of the Belhar Confession in 2000, grassroots support is building to make Belhar an official confession of the RCA, according to Douglas W. Fromm, a pastor from Ridgewood, N.J., who also is the RCA's associate for ecumenical relations.

If that happens, that would mark the first time in the denomination's history the RCA had added a confession to the three sixteenth-century confessions it already claims (those being the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession and The Canons of the Synod of Dort).

Internationally, the Belhar Confession is making an impact too.

Uncategorized

Behind Belhar: South African theologians lecture on context, concepts of Confession

A denomination dealing with questions of diversity, theology, and culture in a country with ongoing divisions of race, economics, and social norms. Today's Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)? No, Reformed churches in the South Africa of the 1980s.

The time and situation out of which the Belhar Confession was born were evoked during the annual Sprunt Lectures at Union Theological Seminary/ PSCE in Richmond, Va., January 23-25. Speakers included two of the originators of the confession: H. Russel Botman, professor of missiology and vice rector of the theology faculty of Stellenbosch University in Matieland, South Africa; and Dirk J. Smit, professor of systematic theology on the theology faculty at Stellenbosch University. Both Botman and Smit relate to the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa. They lectured on the theme, "Not Our Own: Being Christian in Difficult Times."

The Belhar Confession is being distributed and discussed in PC(USA) circles as possibly informational and inspirational as the church struggles with current issues and efforts such as the Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church as a way to address them.

Both Smit and Botman said the Confession was written quickly and without much pre-planning as their Synod struggled with a World Alliance of Reformed Churches report coming from the recently-held Ottawa conference in 1982. They realized "we had been debating church unity for thirty, forty years; it was no longer a moment for theological debate. The truth of the gospel was at stake," said Smit. Synod representatives including Botman and Smit prepared the draft Belhar Confession in a day or so; it was sent to the churches for four years of scrutiny and discussion before being finally adopted in 1986. The two reformed groups that adopted the Confession have merged into what is now known as the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa.

Editorials

A kairos moment?

It's one thing to obey God. It's another thing to obey God. Or to put it in the words of H. Russel Botman, "In retrospect we learned to decipher a difference between 'simple obedience' and 'complex obedience.'"  

Botman was speaking, along with colleague Dirk Smit, at the Sprunt Lectures at Union/PSCE in Richmond, outlining how the theological work of forming and adopting the Belhar Confession had helped his country find its way out of the practice of apartheid.  South Africa will never be the same, thanks to these two men and their colleagues who shared the task of writing Belhar--and thanks to the courage of their people who pursued a path of "complex obedience."

What's that? As in most other situations, the text carries with it a subtext. The text here is the Confession of Belhar, a potent application of Christian theology and ethics to the church's life in secular society. The subtext is another document, the Kairos Document, which emerged in the days that intervened between Belhar's composition and adoption.  

True to their denomination's policies, Belhar was proposed at a general synod meeting (1982), but it needed to be studied for four years before it could be adopted by the next synod meeting.  Three years into that process, the Kairos Document was published as "an attempt to develop ... an alternative biblical and theological model that will in turn lead to forms of activity that will make a real difference to the future of our country." Kairos was an uncompromising, prophetic call to action.  

Kairos lamented that, "the Church is divided. ... Even within the same denomination there are in fact two Churches. In the life and death conflict between different social forces that has come to a head in South Africa today, there are Christians (or at least people who profess to be Christians) on both sides of the conflict--and some who are trying to sit on the fence!" Specifically, the document outlines three competing kinds of theology in the church: "'State Theology,' 'Church Theology,' and 'Prophetic Theology.'"

Voices

Why Belhar? Why now?

Martin Luther reminded us we live in a world "with devils filled that threaten to undo us." This line from his hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, is a powerful image of the forces that seek to pull us apart. In our church, in our nation and around the world, hostilities and hatreds thrive and the peace and unity for which we yearn seem far away.

Does the church have a word to speak into this racial and political strife? In many times of crisis, the church has borne witness to the life-giving power of the gospel in living that takes up the cross of Christ. It has also borne witness in its confessions. One of those confessions has come to us from the suffering experienced by those in the Dutch Reformed Mission Church during the time of apartheid in South Africa -- the Belhar Confession.

So, before answering the questions why Belhar and why now, it might be better to first ask, "What is Belhar?" In response to the oppression of apartheid in South Africa, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church proposed this confession of the Christian faith in a synodical meeting in the town of Belhar in 1982 and adopted it in 1986. It was not only a stance against the injustices of apartheid, it also provided a theological rationale for a way forward in its aftermath. The process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, which focused on restorative justice rather than punishment, owes much of its motive power to the Belhar Confession.

There is now, in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and in the larger church, a renewed interest in the Belhar Confession. The Reformed Church in America, one of our Formula of Agreement partner churches, is currently considering whether it should be included among their confessional documents.

Voices

Is the “Big Lie” no big deal?

It's official. Fibbing is OK if it serves a higher purpose. Oprah said so.*

The queen of all media tossed this ethical grenade recently when she called CNN's Larry King to defend his guest, James Frey, author of mega-best-seller A Million Little Pieces. Frey's memoir of addiction and recovery was featured on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" when it was anointed the October selection of the world's most powerful book club.

The champagne went flat in January when The Smoking Gun, a Web site devoted to investigative reporting, posted a damning story with the tantalizing tagline "The Man Who Conned Oprah." What followed was an old-school piece of "gotcha!" journalism that showed how Frey had embellished and, in some cases, fabricated significant events in the account of his life. Frey admitted to King he had taken dramatic license but said he stood by "the essential truth" of his life. As King was about to sign off, Winfrey phoned to say the report outing Frey was "much ado about nothing."

What mattered, Winfrey said, was that millions of people struggling with their own monkey-on-the-back habits had read Frey's book and felt better. In a nation addicted to feeling good, she implied, swallowing a little pill of deception is a small price to pay.

Winfrey's take on lying is not new -- Machiavelli said it first when he wrote, "the end justifies the means," the greatest rationalization for bad acts ever -- and it appears plenty of Americans agree.

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Confession of Belhar

This is a translation of the original Afrikaans text of the confession as it was adopted by the synod of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church in South Africa in 1986. In 1994 the Dutch Reformed Mission Church and the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa united to form the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA). This inclusive language text was prepared by the Office of Theology and Worship, Presbyterian Church (USA).

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