The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has just completed a 25-year theological-legal debate over ordination standards with a resounding reaffirmation of the “fidelity-chastity” requirement for ordination of ministers and church officers. Presbyteries have voted to disapprove an amendment that would have undone the legislative work of the whole church in recent years.
Two deleterious movements began after the celebratory march down Peachtree Avenue in Atlanta following the reunion vote in 1983. Groups began to move in different directions and factionalism took on new life. Second, the predecessor denominations’ commitment to racial integration and interest in economic justice were moved off center stage and replaced by issues associated with human sexuality.
The views expressed in this article are my own, not those of the Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity on which I serve. In successive editorials, Outlook editor Robert Bullock voices high hopes for the task force. His expression of confidence in the task force and his offer of prayers are most welcome.
An eagerness for peace lies at the heart of five overtures to the 214th General Assembly meeting this summer, each having to do with the denomination’s process for amending the Book of Order.
Olympia Presbytery sounds the concern plainly. As a rationale for proposing that the General Assembly vote on amendments to the Book of Order only every fifth year, Olympia writes, "The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been in a constant battle over divisive constitutional issues for years and years and years."
By Richard Lischer.
Doubleday. 2001. 243 pp. Pb. $$23.95. 
ISBN 0-385-50217-6
— reviewed by Agnes Norfleet, Decatur, Ga.
Richard Lischer is a Lutheran pastor who teaches preaching at Duke Divinity School. Open Secrets: A Spiritual Journey Through a Country Church is a wonderfully engaging memoir of his first experience as a parish pastor. It reads like a novel with character development, plot, intrigue, pathos, humor, conflict and sometimes even resolution. And yet it is more than a good story.
"Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the LORDís hand double for all her sins" (Isaiah 40:1-2).
We Presbyterians have been in bondage for a long time. We have allowed ourselves to become trapped in a never-ending cycle of violence. We have absolutized our theological positions in such a way as to deny the rule of the living God.
It's pretty clear by now that what some are calling a "judicial season" in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has taken off faster than a toddler chasing the ice cream truck.
A flock of accusations has been made. Many of them are by Virginia lawyer Paul Rolf Jensen, who has made allegations to several presbyteries against ministers and elders he does not know, but who he sees as trying to defy openly parts of the PC(USA) Constitution.
When Katherine Amos suggested a few years ago that the Association of Theological Schools hold a seminar on distance education, the group agreed — and at first limited enrollment to 28 people, thinking that's about as much interest there would be from seminary folks for ideas such as establishing extension campuses or offering on-line courses. But the applications poured in and they finally cut off registration at 150 when they ran out of room.
Teaching at a theological seminary has its fun moments, but it is mostly the serious business of trying to provide survival skills for the leadership of the church. Presbyterians especially obey Our Lord's command to worship God with the mind (Mk 12:30; Mt 22:37; Lk 10:27). Obviously we need first-rate institutions to nurture first-rate ministry. I am truly grateful for my quarter century on a seminary faculty and the importance of the subjects I teach.
As Presbyterians seek to make sense of the church — the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — into which they have been called by the Lord Jesus to serve God and our fellow humans, the need to discern the spirits is more important than ever. And with the rising significance of this activity is the reality of its increasing difficulty — for all the reasons enumerated in recent offerings in this space — distraction, ignorance, indifference, self-seeking.
LOUISVILLE — With relatively little discussion, and no significant questioning of the details of the plan, the executive committee of the General Assembly Council voted 10-1 on Friday, April 26, to approve a proposal for cutting $4.2 million from the 2003 budget of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — a plan that calls for eliminating 66 jobs.
The idea of conflict in churches is not something most people like to think about.
However, Christian Boyd, pastor of Jeffersontown church in Louisville, is a redevelopment pastor who tries to think of conflict not as battle, but as a new beginning.
God's raising Jesus from the dead on the third day is the central message of the Christian movement in every time and place. If the church ceases to preach Christ crucified ó and raised from the dead by God — it ceases to be the church.
We are in grave danger of ceasing to be the church. Jesus' resurrection from the dead — the good, glad tidings of God's triumph of life over the devil, sin and death — is far too infrequently preached in today's mainline church, including the Presbyterian, and with far too little conviction.
By Frederick Buechner.
Harper San Francisco. 2001. 160 pp. $22.00 ISBN 0-06-251752-X
—reviewed by Blue Calhoun Wood, Watkinsville, Ga.
A month after the August 2001 publication of this anticipated new work of Frederick Buechner reverberated with particular poignancy. Its title, from Shakespeare's King Lear, expresses the necessary response to "the weight of this sad time."
There are moms pushing strollers, mall lap-walkers in sneakers, workers grabbing a sandwich, shoppers intent on their bargains, teens hunting down their friends. That's a typical mall in America. And a few churches have started to think: if this is the place where so much of the country goes, maybe there's room for us too.
As we walk with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem where our Savior will be executed by the authorities as a common criminal, it behooves us to consider the issue of leadership in the church, which has been much talked about for some time now, the lack of it, that is. Yes we have leaders: pastors in pulpits, elders on session, deacons on diaconate, staff and elected officers in governing bodies from session to General Assembly, but there is a sense that the truly "great ones" are no longer among us.
In our church we are constitutionally committed to a high view of the authority of Holy Scripture. This commitment reflects not only the Reformed tradition, but also (as ought not to be overlooked) the broad consensus of the entire ecumenical church. Although there are still significant differences in the ecumenical church about how to think in accord with Scripture, the day is long since gone when Reformation churches could assume that only they are the custodians of binding scriptural authority.
From its earliest period the ecumenical church has recognized that some forms of life are incompatible with faith in the gospel. Baptism meant not only being incorporated into the church as the body of Christ, but also breaking decisively with the ways of the world. Certain worldly occupations — like prostitution, acting in the salacious dramas of the theater and military service — were regarded as impermissible, especially in the first three centuries. Certain practices, moreover — like incest, drunkenness and the abuse of worldly power — were cause for at least provisional excommunication. Bishops, presbyters and deacons, as officers in the church, were expected especially to live lives worthy of the gospel.
People who think outside the box threaten to become invisible. They do not fit within the conventional categories. In our situation, theological and political liberalism are usually linked. Theological and political conservatism are also linked. Few find this situation odd, even though a case could be made that, properly, theological liberalism tends toward political conservatism, and theological conservatism toward political liberalism.
I start with a basic intuition. Whenever a long and protracted debate rages in the church, chances are that it cannot be resolved because significant truth actually exists on both sides. In such cases neither side can discern the truth represented by its opponents. Nor can either accommodate the truth important to the other within its own, highly polarized modes of thought. Only by thinking outside the box can the controversy be resolved.
By Wesley A. Kort
Oxford. 2001. 208 pp. $25. ISBN 0-19-514342-6
— reviewed by Daniel L. Durway, Raleigh, N.C.
If you last read something written by C.S. Lewis during your student days, or if you have never read anything at all by him, you may want to pick up C.S. Lewis Then and Now by Wesley A. Kort, professor of religion and member of the graduate faculty at Duke University.
When the General Assembly appointed a task force to explore what ails the church, the task force members decided to call their group the "Peace, Unity and Purity Task Force." These simple words have been in our ordination rubrics for decades: "Do you promise to further the póó, uóó and póó of the church?" Any minister and almost all officers can fill in the blanks. And yet, those three little words ensnare us in controversy when the going gets rough in the church. As it is now.
Common sense tells us that you canít have it all. A sign in a farm equipment dealerís repair shop states: "We do three types of jobs — Cheap, Quick and Good. You can have any two. A good quick job — wonít be cheap; a good job cheap — wonít be quick; a cheap job quick — wonít be good."
This column in recent weeks has provided an ongoing examination of and commentary on the life of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as it is in fact today. To sum it up, we’re like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights of the oncoming car. Frozen in place. In deadly peril. But unable to do anything but stand in place and wait for it to happen.
Fortunately, we Presbyterians know who is the driver of the ongoing vehicle: the sovereign, loving merciful God. In that fact lies our only hope.
When Norman Blessing retired and moved to Florida about four years ago, he joined First church in Sebastian because it was the closest Presbyterian church around. He had no intention of launching what one observer has characterized, in a letter posted on the Internet, as "the last great battle" of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
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