In 1993 the General Assembly adopted an insightful, prophetic document presented by Worldwide Ministries, "Mission in the 1990s." It offered five crucial challenges, all of which have as much urgency and relevance now for the PC(USA) as at the beginning of the decade.
Over my ministry I've been called a conservative, a Communist, a secularist, an evangelical, a liberal, a Congregationalist and now lately a centrist. I'm getting calls from people saying, "You represent the center. Do something." A person cozies up to me at a meeting and asks, "What are those of us in the center going to do when the denomination splits?" I am hearing a plea that the ill-defined, nebulous center will miraculously rise up to hold our denomination together.
The 212th General Assembly affirmed the fragile unity of our denomination by rejecting one of the Beaver-Butler overtures and by delaying for one more year consideration of the overtures dealing with sexuality and ordination. One can infer from their decisions the belief that Presbyterians are neither ready to divide the denomination nor to continue debating the issues surrounding sexuality and ordination.
Long time pal Phil is retiring. I write, inviting him to join me in forming a senior step ball team. We were champs in seminary -- in the game where the batter throws a tennis ball against the Alexander Hall steps at Princeton and the fielders have to catch it before it bounces.
A professor friend at Union-PSCE some time ago sent me a tape recording of one of his classes. The visitor for the day was a Methodist bishop whose assignment was director of worldwide evangelism for the United Methodist Church. He described in detail his experience in his first parish in a small church in a poor neighborhood in Sydney, Australia:
There are some questions which need to be asked:
* Are denominations any longer viable? Or are they archaic? Or are they "The moral failure of Christianity?" (Richard Niebuhr)
There is an increasingly urgent voice in the church, calling for our governance to be more enabling and less regulatory. Chapter 14 of the Form of Government, which deals with ordination, certification and commissioning, is the most severe focal point for this frustration, and is a major source of the disconnect between congregations and the denomination.
Mission is not something done "to" or "for" others, but "with" others. We participate in God's mission in loving communion with: (1) the Triune God who empowers, sends and directs us; (2) one another in the local- global church; and (3) those to whom we are sent and those whom we receive.
In many ways the response to the General Assembly's call for Unity in the Midst of Diversity conferences is like Jonah's response to God's call to go to Nineveh. He did not want to go, neither do many of us. From what little evidence is available, it seems safe to say only a small portion of our presbyteries are planning Unity in the Midst of Diversity conferences.
That's the question I have been asking all my pals since I read the wonderful article in Sunday's paper by Henry Allen. He is a professor at the University of Maryland. In his honors seminar on meaning and culture he asks students with whom they identify in those classic cartoons: Wile E. Coyote or the Roadrunner?
As the church continues to focus on the shadow of the circling "membership" vulture, I would make a radical but potent proposal dealing with growth:
1. Focus on average attendance, rather than membership, for appraisal of growth or decline.
I fear for the soul of our church. I fear because I believe I am seeing a fundamental premise of our polity thwarted, with a resulting fragmentation and conflict that may tear us asunder.
The fundamental premise to which I refer is that a person will always vote his or her conscience.
No, I'm not talking about declining membership figures or any kind of financial or staffing questions, budgets or bureaucracies.
The 212th General Assembly, which met in Long Beach, Calif., gave graphic and depressing evidence of the shocking way in which our Presbyterian Church has "shrunk."
I am writing in response to the recent article, "Women's Ministries program area review to go beyond survey responses." Having served as Associate Director of Women's Ministries Program Area [WMPA] for the past three years, and having until May 15, 2000, before my term is officially ended, it is time for me to speak out and resist the continuing abusive words and violent actions directed toward my colleagues in women's ministries, and ultimately, directed toward all women.
In baptism every parent promises to bring up a child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The Greek term for nurture is paideia, which was really a dynamite word for the Hellenes, especially those who were kept in the Attic. One needs only to mention the magisterial three volumes of Werner Jaeger's study of that topic. Paideia was the unlocking key to the glory that was Greece. It means the intentional transmission of values and may be translated as civilization, culture, education, nurture and tradition.
Baseball is, of course, a biblical game because we are taught "the homer shall be the standard measure" (Ezekiel 45:11, RSV). Jesus was looking for the diamond when he asked, "Where are the nine?" (Luke 17:17) Baseball is congenial to Christians because it is played in green pastures and often beside still waters (in Pittsburgh, however, we can cross three rivers to get to the park).
Our son Gary was born in a hospital connected with the prison where his mother was serving time for grand theft. With a birth weight slightly more than three pounds, Gary could whimper softly but was too weak to cry for his first year on Earth. We were told Gary would never walk because to his mental retardation was added cerebral palsy affecting all four limbs.
Is the center -- the 75-80 percent of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) between the theological/ideological ends of the spectrum -- finally finding its voice? The actions of the 212th General Assembly which recently concluded in Long Beach, Calif., indicate a new self-consciousness on the part of the great majority of Presbyterians and new possibilities for moving forward in faithfulness to our calling.
When he was a teen-ager, my son, who was not wearing a shirt, approached his mother and said,
"Look, Mom." "I'm looking." "What do you see?" "I see your chest." "Yes, but what do you see on my chest?" "What am I supposed to see on your chest?" "You're supposed to see a chest hair named Fred."
I am often, and rightly, described as an athletic supporter. I love all sports but especially track and am proud to say that I am one of the few persons in the world to see Bobby Morrow (1956 Olympic gold medals at 100 and 200 meters and the 4-by-100 relay) run a full quarter mile.
Fundamentalist and Modernist; Liberal and Conservative. Sadly, these clumsy assignations are still made by Presbyterians. I regret to say that I am myself victimized by this distinction, and I regret even more that I perpetuate its use. The Apostle Paul discusses the broader problem of "we" and "they" (or to be more objective -- "us" and "them") in Philippians 1:15-18, coming to the remarkable conclusion that we should rejoice because Christ is being proclaimed, whether by "them" in pretense or by "us" in truth.
Chocolat, by Joanne Harris (Viking Penguin, l999), is a modern fairy tale. The "good fairy" is Vianne Rocher, a mysterious young woman who takes up residence in a tiny French village. The "wicked wizard" is the local pastor, Father Francis Reynaud.
As a lifelong student of muliebrity, I have learned that Earth has few intellectual delights to compare with the satisfaction of embarrassing the woman you love. Although I. Kant say it out loud, an axiom of both pure and practical reason holds that a woman will never get angry at you if you are trying to express your devotion to her.
Most of us learn to preach by imitation and we imitate what we admire. When I was in seminary, the preacher I most admired wrote his sermons in a black, 6 b 9 notebook -- so I bought a 6 by 9 notebook.
Moreover, I noticed that when he was ready to turn a page, he made a dramatic gesture toward heaven and while everyone was looking up, he flipped the page. I practiced that maneuver too.
On August 11, 1991, after 37 years of devoutly offering burnt offerings to heaven, I smoked my pipe for the last time, quitting, as they say, cold duck. I had taken up pipe smoking because I thought it denoted a kindly, reflective, manly person such as I considered myself to be.
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