The Outrage Wing of the PC(USA): Time to Look in the Mirror

There has been yet another trial in yet another presbytery on the same old questions of human sexuality.  A pastor was tried in Southern New England presbytery for allegedly violating his ordination vows and the constitution of the church by marrying his partner.  He was found not guilty on all charges by the presbytery PJC.

The decision was, by what information is available, made based on binding GAPJC and GA authoritative interpretations and on the present constitution of the church.  Still, that has not stopped the outrage wing of the PC(USA) from crying foul and declaring the presbytery PJC members everything from heretics to Baal worshipers.  (Props for that last name-caller not just going with the usual pagan worshiper label.)

I refer to these particular critics of the decision as the outrage wing of the church rather than the conservative wing because as tempting as it is for some people to lump them together, they are not the same thing.

Despite recent changes to the constitution of the church and the growing consensus that human sexuality is not the single defining issue of all things faith-related, there are many members of the PC(USA) (clergy and laity alike) who remain unconvinced that the church is headed in the right direction.  They hold deep convictions that the church should return to the former position that homosexuality is contrary to scripture and the life of faith.

Part of what I love about being a Presbyterian is that there is room in the church for people who hold that more traditionalist view and room for those of us who are convinced of the faithfulness of the church's current direction.  I love being a part of a church that can embrace the truth that we all see through the glass dimly and none of us has a full comprehension of the mind and perspective of God.  Many of my more conservative friends in the church share that feeling about our church.

Unfortunately, there are still those in the PC(USA) for whom the present direction of the church is anathema to faithfulness and who are determined 24/7 to root out those who disagree with them and rid the church of any opinion that does not fit their own perspective.  This outrage wing of the church is constantly going on about how the church has abandoned scripture, the confessions and the Book of Order.  We have, in their opinion, become "post-constitutional" and "post-confessional."  One comment on a letter posted on the Presbyterian Layman website went on and on about how we have abandoned the constitution and are no longer bound by the words of those books.  Another writer declared that Jesus (who had NOTHING to say about same-gender relationships) would be appalled by our abandoning of the constitution.

What, I have begun to wonder, matters more to these members of the outrage wing of the Presbyterian Church (USA)...that we worship Christ or that we kneel before books?  It seems from their level of vitriol and outrage against those with whom they disagree that what is most important is that we root our faith in the bible, confessions and Book of Order as books rather than in the Christ they seek to proclaim.

When the single most important thing in your lived life of faith is rooting out those who do not share your own personal devotion to words on a page, it might be time to look in the mirror and do some self-evaluation before throwing those stones.

For my part, I will continue to worship and proclaim the Christ who time and time again demonstrates that he will not and cannot be contained by the words or pages of any book.

ECG Dispatch 4: The Need for New Words?

The afternoon session I attended yesterday was great.  It was titled Disciple-Making in a Fresh Context and I think I took more notes than I did in all of the second semester of Systematic Theology in seminary!  In a nutshell, the speaker urged us to get out of the mindset that "disciples" are somehow super-Christians and to stop using the idea so sparingly to describe the "saints" of the church and begin to use it for what it really is; a descriptor of all who honestly and earnestly (and imperfectly) follow Jesus.

I was with him the whole time.  Theologically and pastorally I  was amen-ing right along with the rest of the group.  Except for one thing. I wonder if we need a new word?

I have no particular objection to the word itself. "Disciple" is not somehow a bad word in my context and it is not objectionable on its face.  But it is one of those words that carries vernacular baggage that can get heavy and even burdensome.  It got me wondering if we stick to the vocabulary sometimes at the expense of the thing itself.  I wonder if we sometimes lose something by sticking with the words when they have been hijacked by the culture for meanings that might not be quite so helpful.

Just think of how we hear that word "disciple" used in the world today.  A few random news items:

"Larry Summers, disciple of the Phillips-curve...

"Paul is often criticized for his disciple-like adherence to the writings of Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand" 

"A disciple of market economics..."

"Jonah Hill plays Peter Brand, a computer whiz and disciple of Bill James..."

To be a "disciple" in our modern vernacular means simply to adhere to or subscribe to a philosophy.  It is so rooted in a modernist-individualist understanding of voluntarily opting to follow one leader or idea over another that discipleship has come to mean little more than joining the parade of a person or idea.  But that sort of discipleship is easily set aside.  Alan Greenspan used to sit at the feet of Ayn Rand and now he has walked away.

In our modern sense, disciples come and go pretty easily.  It is easy to be called a disciple of  "A" one day and "B" the next.

That is not what the presentation was about yesterday.  At all.  We were talking (and the church needs to be talking) about discipleship in a truly biblical way; a way of living that cannot easily be set aside; that defines the very core of who we are.

If being a disciple of Jesus means something radically different than what being a disciple in the eyes of the world means, is rehab-ing the old worth it?  The same could be asked about much of our vocabulary in the church.  How much do we cling to the words of the faith a the expense of the faith?

We are not about to throw out the Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, but maybe we need to think about whether or not the words are standing in the way of the message.

Personally I don't care if you call me a disciple, a danish or a Dallas Cowboy fan as long as it means "defined by following Christ."

ECG Dispatch 3: Knowing Jesus a Little too Well

Yesterday afternoon's break-out session focused on helping your ministry write and articulate a vision. It was a good workshop with a great leader, Erica Liu from Pres House at UW-Madison. They are very lucky to have her!

As part of the workshop, she led us through a mini-visioning process to introduce some of the steps. One person at the table described their context and a ministry priority and that was the focus for the group. The observation was made that it is hard to vision when you only know a very little about the context and community and their priorities. Erica pointed out that although they is certainly true, it can be good to have new ears in the conversation because we know so much about our own contexts we often make lots of assumptions on what everybody knows.

I wonder, how much of our "church growth and evangelism" challenge is actually a challenge of our own creation? A challenge built not out of resistance to the gospel from outside the church but assumptions about the gospel from inside?

Consider young adults. Survey after survey shows that the current young adult generation are both deeply committed to community and open to spirituality. If ever there was a ripe harvest for the church since the implosion of Christendom in the 1950's, this should be it. So why do we have such a hard time with the YA generation?

More and more, I think the problem is less about YA (or anyone's for that matter) resistance to "tradition" than about our assumptions about the vision of the gospel. We assume that the point of the gospel is providing a foundation for the church. That's pretty orthodox modern view Augustine/Calvin stuff. Most YA I know see the church as providing a foundation for teaching and living the gospel rather than the gospel providing an excuse to have a church. More and more we see that for YA it is the gospel that is the point.

Why then do we think that "if we don't get more young people the congregation will die" is not a persuasive vision for the future? Isn't the whole point of the work of the gospel (reaching out to the world) ensuring that the church will survive for another generation? In too many churches that assumption is the uncritical basis for a vision for the future.

Assuming that the gospel is propelling us into the world to love and serve the people of God so we might realize the vision of not seeing the thing we love die is an assumption we cannot afford to keep making. Not just with young adults but the whole of our communities.

So, what to do. If I had that answer I would charge to read this blog. One thing I am going to try is to make sure that when my congregations start to vision for the future, there will be someone in the room who doesn't know Jesus in exactly the same way we do and might just press back on some of the assumptions bred by outer familiarity.

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Location:PC(USA) ECG Conference

ECG Dispatch 2: On the Other Hand, Please Do Stand so Close to Me

This morning's plenary focused on living out (rather than merely describing) the life of Christ in the world through the church.  The thesis was pretty straight forward and did not break a lot of new ground for most listeners, but some things need to be repeated until we finally get it!  The idea of living into living a Christlike life was summed up in six words:

• Presence: We need to physically move to the places we hope to evangelize. 
• Proximity: We need to reach out and touch and share with people who are not always just like us.
• Prevenient: We need to remember that God's grace has been at work in the life of another long before we get there.
• Powerlessness: We need to remember that God id not coerce the world into loving God but took on the mantle of powerlessness.
• Passion: We need to remember that Jesus suffered for his message.
• Proclamation: We need to let our lives as well as our words proclaim the glory and grace of God. 

On the whole, I was with her.  I do get a little concerned when we get to far afield in the "Passion"bit and too closely relate our suffering to Christ's suffering.  What I heard this morning though was a little closer to Moltmann's idea of the Crucified God which is a beautiful theological model.  (Well worth the read.)

What struck me in particular today was something that may not have been an intended theme and may even be counter to what the speaker was trying to communicate.  So if this is wierdly off the wall, it is not her fault!

In describing what it means to take on the powerlessness of Christ, she spoke of Philippians 2 and the idea of kenosis or emptying oneself.  That was the basis of the fourth "P"in the list above.  Just as Christ emptied himself and took on powerlessness so must we.  I agree.  I also think that there is something to be said for the kenotic nature of the second "P" however.  

To really draw near to another person- to diminish the distance between us physically- requires a sort of interpersonal and spiritual kenosis; a giving up of personal space and personal security.  We tend to think of being Christlike in almost exclusively spiritual terms, however there is something Christlike about holding a hand or standing shoulder to shoulder or walking toward rather than away from another person.  

Perhaps the most important question for us to ask when thinking about reaching out beyond the walls of the church is not "who"are we trying to reach but "where"they are.  If we are going to live the witness of Jesus Christ, we need to be ready to unload the baggage that keeps us physically as well as spiritually at arms length from others.  We need to close the gap between the body of Christ in the world and the world we seek to serve the way God, in Christ, closed the gap between heaven and earth.

ECG Dispatch 1: When Hymns Tell a Half-Truth

Posting anything about conference worship is a dodgy thing. It is important to be honest, but at the same time it is wise to remember that the people who lead are doing so sincerely and faithfully. So let me begin by saying thanks to the group who gave their time and talent to lead worship last night and today. Turning a critical eye to our shared worship life is good, but not personal.

I came to this conference trying to approach worship as a visitor. It is my first time to this particular gathering so I dod not know what to expect but I had some preconceived ideas about worship. They were quickly set aside.

My assumption was that worship would serve as a "teaching moment" for conferees. It was never said that this was the case, but it is often the way at gatherings like this. If that was indeed the case, I learned four things:

1. Presbyterian worship consists of a prayer, 25 minutes of praise band singing and a sermon. (a VERY good sermon at that mind you. Say what you will but we Presbyterians can flat out preach.)

2. If you do not already know the songs you are on your own.

3. There is no evidence at all that the PC(USA) has literally just published a new worship book/hymnal.

4. The PC(USA) has two theological priorities (based on the songs) and they are a) substitutionary atonement for salvation and b) an uncritical happiness about Jesus.

There was no confession of sin, no opportunity to pray beyond praise for how awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome Jesus is and how happy happy happy happy happy we are for that.

There is nothing wrong with the music we were singing. It is not my favorite but that is taste not content. The trouble is that we sang SO MANY songs that had only a very narrow theological message. Worshipers only got a glimpse into the breadth of theology in the church. If I had walked in from the street, I would not know it was a Presbyterian worship experience.

Both opening worship and morning "praise" were disappointments. After 15 years of parish ministry I felt like I was worshiping from the outside.

If there was a teaching moment there for me it is this, we cannot overestimate the strangeness of worship to someone unfamiliar with our worshiping communities. Part of being hospitable is helping the uninitiated become part of our traditions.

It makes me think about Thanksgiving and my mother's table. It is not uncommon for there to be someone there for the first time. Whether it is extended family or a friend who was unable to travel to see family at year, we like having someone extra at the table.

Part of our Thanksgiving ritual is saying grace and two traditions are part of that. First, we are hand holders. Second, my sister giggles. Part of welcoming new people to the table is telling them the first and explaining the second. We hold hands just because we like to. My sister giggles because she thought my prayers got a little long and ponderous and though they are shorter now, she still laughs. Part of being hospitable to our guest is helping translate our table.

When a stranger/visitor/seeker experiences our worship, do we have tools in place to help translate the movement, words, assumptions, theology of worship or are we leaving them to their own devices? More importantly, are we telling them the whole truth? Is life in Christ always and only awesome awesome awesome and full of happy happy happy days?




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Location:Gulf Blvd,St Pete Beach,United States

Big Tent Day 2 Part 2: A Holy Spirit Thing

I just finished a 90 minute workshop titled "How to Start and Grow New Immigrant Worshiping Communities led by Angel Suarez of the PMA.  It was disappointing at first that there were only three participants who were not already leaders of Immigrant Worshiping Communities.  The disappointment abated, however, when we realized that the three of us got to have a unique experience: just us for 90 minutes with PMA staff, a local presbytery staff person and pastors of communities representing south Asia, Haiti, west Africa, Indonesia and Latin America.

To put it mildly, I learned a lot.  I think I took more notes in that 90 minutes than in my first Barth seminar!

The conversation was incredibly helpful and I had some of my assumptions about ministry with an immigrant community affirmed and some turned upside down.  I learned how I was overestimating the challenges in some areas while underestimating them in others.  I learned strategies and models for ministry, some theological context for doing ministry with immigrant communities and heard stories of worshiping communities represented.

Beyond all that, though, I learned that the Holy Spirit can find a small group of Presbyterians even when they are tucked back in a corner of the Galt House Hotel in Louisville, KY.

At the end of the meeting, after all of the conversation, one of the pastors in the group asked if they could pray for the three of us who came to the meeting and for our ministries.  That is when a pretty extraordinary thing happened.  A dozen or so brothers and sisters in Christ from around the PC(USA) representing congregations made of immigrants from around the world came together in that moment, laid hands on us and prayed.

I am not one to throw around Holy Spirit language.  I am pretty staid and almost rigid in my Calvinist reserve sometimes.  But in that moment, sitting in that room, feeling my colleagues hands on my shoulders, back and head and hearing the prayers being offered for our ministry, I felt the Spirit in that place.

Over the last couple of days as I heard the same old song about changing church culture and the need to change the church, about membership decline and all the plans we have to stem the tide, about how this curriculum or that program promised to turn things around, I began to get a little disheartened about the church.  Sometimes we seem to act like the first class passengers who didn't want to get in the lifeboats just yet because the deck on the Titanic was cold.  Then this happened.

In that awkward annoying Holy Spirit way, God reminded me that despite our best efforts, God is nowhere near done with the Presbyterians.  If I God was done with us, the small turnout in that workshop would have been the story.

But it wasn't.

And that is pretty damn cool.

Big Tent Day 2: Pick Your Battles

A recent opinion piece on National Review Online has caused some stirs in the PC(USA) and some quiet chatter among attendees at the Big Tent event in Louisville.  The piece responds to a decision of the PC(USA)’s new hymnal committee as reported in the last issue of First Things.

The committee, by a 9-6 vote, chose not to include the contemporary hymn “In Christ Alone” in the new 800+ song hymnal hitting pews this fall.  The rationale offered publicly by the moderator of the committee is a discomfort with the line “till on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.” The lyric refers to St. Anselm’s theory of penal atonement arguing that the salvific power of Christ is as sacrificial lamb slain to satisfy God’s anger.  Jesus died for our sins and in our place.

I can think of few more thankless jobs than serving on a hymnal committee.  I can’t manage to keep the people in worship happy week to week and I only have to pick three at a time!  So I want to start by saying I think the hymnal committee made far more good choices than bad and have produced a hymnal that will serve the church well for many years.  Theirs was a hard job and they did it pretty darn well from where I sit.  The church owes them our profound thanks.

On this one song, though, I have to say I think they dropped the ball. 

“In Christ Alone” is a good song for modern church music.  It is not the usual pedantic academic attempt to write in the 19^th century tradition nor is it a fluff piece like most 5-3-8 contemporary Christian worship songs (five words, three chords, sung eight times).  There is theological substance to the song and there are not many contemporary songs you can say that about.

Still, the committee felt this was the place to draw the line on substitutionary atonement.  I agree with the committee that there is a problem when the church’s ONLY language of atonement is Anselm’s model, however I’m not sure this decision was the wisest course for a few reasons.

First, substitutionary atonement is still present in the hymnal.  If the problem is substitutionary atonement, the decision lacks consistency.  “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” remains in the hymnal along with its words on the “imposition” of Jesus blood. 

Second, substitutionary atonement is still present in the theology of the church.  Although much has been written and argued in recent years against a reduction of atonement to nothing but substitution, the PC(USA) has taken no steps to declare Anselm’s model outside the orthodoxy of the church.  For some in the church, myself included, who hold to a multi-fold understanding of atonement, substitution is one of many parts that create the whole. 

Third, and really most importantly in this context, excluding this hymn for this rationale picked a battle that just didn’t need to be fought.  The PC(USA) has been under constant bombardment in recent years for perceived departures from orthodoxy.  Most of the theological criticism is baseless and rests on Glenn Beck style “logic” and extrapolations of conclusions from scraps of irrelevant evidence.  David French’s adolescent rant on National Review is a case in point. 

French takes the committee’s decision on a Jonathan Swift worthy flight of the absurd to conclude that because this one hymn was not included in the hymnal, the PC(USA) has abandoned orthodoxy on the theory of the atonement.  French writes, “The core of the dispute is the mainline break with orthodoxy on the very nature of God and mission of Jesus.” Of course, the core of the dispute was disagreement among 15 people about the inclusion of a song in a hymnal.  

When it comes to these ridiculous debates with hysterical commentators who want nothing more than to tear down the mainline church, I have learned one important lesson in my ministry; there are no victims of their vitriol and venom, only volunteers.  And it is time that we quit volunteering to be their punching bags.

Hindsight being 20/20 and acknowledging the unfairness of Monday morning quarterbacking the committee’s decision, I think it is worth asking, “Would saving the church yet another round of bomb throwing be worth including this rather benign hymn that is already being sung in many of our churches?”  In other words, is this really the battle we want to pick and is this the place to pick it?  It is a question we do not ask often enough in the church. That is especially true when we tackle issues on a national level.  We have had groups tackling issues from peace in the Middle East to hymns we sing in church and there are important issues that come up in all of those conversations.  There are important things that the church needs to say and there are some battles worth choosing.  But not all of them.

Not every theological battle worth fighting has to be fought right that moment.  Yes, we need to be mindful of our theology of atonement and yes, there are reasons to question the theology of some music.  But I would much rather read about how the PC(USA) is boldly standing against violence in schools, the use of drones to spy and kill and other matters of life and death.  A small church like ours is only going to get so much ink in a religiously diverse world and although it may be tempting to pick every battle that comes along, it may not be the wisest course for us to take.  

The criticism from French and others on this and so many other small issues is overblown and a bit silly at times.  Still, I’m tired of the denomination I love volunteering to stand in front of their firing squad so often.

Big Tent Day 1: Millenneal Musings

Greetings from Louisville, KY and the PC(USA) Big Tent gathering.

Big Tent is advertised as a "family reunion" for Presbyterians and it has been great to see friends from around the church and catch up on news of ministries and families and friends.

So this morning I was having coffee at a place across the street from the Convention Center and struck up a conversation with a few other Presbyterians (easily identifiable by the yellow name tags and the theological pun t-shirts).  Two of the group are recent seminary graduates seeking calls and one is still in seminary.

We started talking about ministry in general and the future of the church and eventually the conversation came around to generational shifts in the denomination (shocker, I know).  Born in 1970 I am right in the middle of Gen-X.  The other three are part of Gen Y or Millenneals depending on which name you use for those born 1983 on.

After a few minutes of talking about ministry in different contexts and the growing number of bi-vocational pastors, one of the three said, "the problem with the church is that your generation thinks the institution is so important."  As a Gen-Xer, I reveled in the irony of that declaration being made by a participant in the largest annual gathering of the institution that is the PC(USA).  Irony is important to my people.

I spent a few minutes doing what so many people have done for me over the years and listened patiently as he worked himself up into a lather about the need to re-imagine what it means to be the church and what it means to be the people of God in an anti-institutional post-denominational age.  And if I am fair, I have to admit he made some good points.  There are some pretty substantial chinks in our denominational armor and this guy had a pretty good bead on most of them.

Once he had completed naming the sins of my generation (an I assume he was lumping the Boomers in with us), I posed a question.  "If not the traditional institutional church, what should the church look like today?"  In other words, he had a pretty good idea what is not working, so I wanted to hear what he thought would work.  That's where the conversation got really interesting.

Some of his ideas were familiar: stop worshiping Sunday morning and start worshiping God whenever the people gather; get more creative with liturgy and stop being so staid; Communion should not be saved for special occasions.  Those I had heard.  I was looking for new information.

What else should we be doing/being to reach the Millenneal generation?

His answer can best be summed up as "be different than you are now." There were not any new suggestions beyond what we needed to stop doing.  And that is the problem with so much of our generation focused ecclesiology.  It is too often based on what a generation does NOT want the church to be/do/say.  Want to attract young people, stop doing X, Y, Z.

I don't mean to beat on Millenneals.  My generation did exactly the same thing.  We came out of seminary declaring all the things we were going to fix that the Boomers and the WWII generation messed up.  It is a right of passage for church leaders to criticize past generations of church leaders.  The difference now is that we are at a turning point in the life of the church and we don't have the time or luxury of generational recriminations.  There is work to be done.  Serious work and we need all hands on deck.

So perhaps to move forward we need to stop romanticizing the wisdom of the Millenneals and demonizing the perceived follies of other generations.   At the same time perhaps we should stop putting the salvation of the denomination on the shoulders of one group;  we need to get past generational differences and rely instead on our common calling in Christ;  we need to stop TALKING about how the church needs to change and START CHANGING it.

I'm glad I got the chance to talk to those guys this morning.  It was good to hear the energy and excitement they have about the church (even the institution!) and to share our different perspectives on the form and future of the church.

I guess this is what they mean by Big Tent.

Why the New Pope Matters to Presbyterians (or Should at Least)

In a few months, a new Pope will be elected. For a billion Roman Catholics, that means the election of a new spiritual leader for the church. For Protestants who do not recognize the Pope as anything other than a fellow follower of Christ, it means little or even nothing.

Who serves as the Bishop of Rome matters (or should at least) to every Christian in the world because, for better or worse, the Pope is the public face of the faith. His priorities for the church dominate much of the worldwide focus Christianity and occupy much of the media attention paid to matters of faith.

So who will it be? Who will the voting members of the College of Cardinals elect to be the next Pope?

Lacking anything remotely resembling inside knowledge, my own thoughts on the papal election come from what is said in the press and what little I have read of the papabile's writings. One thing I think we can be certain of is that the new Pope will be conservative. Do we really expect an establishment body to elect a leader who will disrupt the status quo too much? Church teaching on issues like abortion, celibacy for priests and women in ministry are not Going to change anytime soon. (If Mother Theresa could not loosen the lid on that jar, I'm not holding my breath.).

Still, although we mainline Protestants may not come to terms with some theological positions of the church in Rome, we may yet find blessing in this election; depending on who is elected.

Among odds makers, a few favorites have emerged but as in most conclaves, the election is far from a lock for anyone. (Think John XXIII or John Paul II)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York is the only American mentioned to any serious degree. Of all the candidates, he will be the most unfortunate choice for the larger church. Whatever his gifts, Dolan is so closely associated with the cover-up of clergy child sexual abuse that little else will be seen.

If the church just has to stick with a European, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin would be a bold choice. Though not a cardinal, his election would make the opposite statement a Dolan election would make. Martin led the church in Ireland through both the Ryan and Murphy reports on child sexual abuse and in the end he showed far greater pastoral leadership and responsibility than the Roman Curia including the current Pope could be bothered to show. A Martin election would be both an act of acknowledgement by the church of its past sins and a statement that cover-up is no longer the party line. No choice will be totally outside of the box, but Martin would be more outside than most.

Two African and a few Latin American cardinals are mentioned. I don't know much a out any of them. Generally speaking, the cardinals who serve in the two-thirds world have a perspective on the realities of poverty, economic and political oppression, the burdens of environmental destruction and climate change, and, in the case of Africa especially, the reality of HIV/AIDS that their north Atlantic rim colleagues do not. Having a Pope whose ministry has been partly defined by first hand experience in a non-European context and outside the debates of the privileged class (when you are starving, do you really care if your priest gets married?) will help shape the public face of the faith in a new way. While the Christian world may remain divided on matters of polity and doctrine, our commitment to the poor and the oppressed should be universal. A Pope whose ministry is focused on the world's poor would be a great blessing to the potential of unity in the church's ministry if not its hierarchy.

One caution about the African candidates may be their relationship with Islam. Both Cardinal Arinze of Nigeria and Cardinal Turkson of Ghana have made statements about Islam that raise questions about their willingness to engage in dialogue across the boundaries of faith. If these men temper their rhetoric about Islam, the election of a Pope from the two-thirds world may be a great blessing for the church universal. If not, the good that may come from a Non-European Pope would be diminished.

Canadian cardinal Marc Ouelett has openly criticized what sees as the drift of the post-Vatican II church away from mission toward dialogue. He too may hamper inter-religious relationships. To his credit, he managed to lead the church with grace in one of the most hostile and secular places in the world; French-Canadian Quebec. a theologian focused on contemporary issues facing the global church rather than one focused on the nuance of ancient doctrine would be a refreshing change.

Whoever wears the "Shoes of the Fisherman," he will be the face and voice of global Christianity. Hopefully he will use that voice to rally the church, Catholic and catholic, to the cause of the world's poor and oppressed in a way seldom done in recent memory. Although the Pope holds no spiritual or ecclesiastical authority for me or the church I serve, he does have the bulliest of bully pulpits and his words will shape much of our shared life as a global church.

For that reason alone, this Presbyterian will be anxiously waiting for the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel and the announcement from the balcony "habemus papem!"


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Yes to the Means of Grace; No to 12-B

It is Book of Order amendment voting season and, thanks be to God, the PC(USA) will not be voting directly on an issue of human sexuality.  In their wisdom, the 220th General Assembly left the current language alone for the most part and called the church into a season of discernment and prayer on the issue of same-gender marriage.

Of the 10 proposed amendments to the Book of Order, none is terribly controversial.  There is some question about whether a few are really necessary, but in the end their impact will be negligible and will do no harm to the church.  One, proposed amendment 12-B, does raise some questions, however.

12-B proposes an addition to G-2.0104a "Gifts and Qualifications for Ordered Ministry."  The proposed language would add a sentence to the text:

“This includes repentance of sin and diligent use of the means of grace.”

"This" is in reference to the previous sentence which calls on those who would be ordained and installed to ordered ministry in the church to live in a manner that exhibits "a demonstration of the Christian gospel in the church and the world."

It is a nice elaboration on the church's understanding of what it means to live a life that demonstrates the gospel and it is difficult to argue that it is somehow inappropriate as a qualification for ministry.  On those points, 12-B is on solid ground.  But those are not the only questions at stake when we amend our Book of Order.

After spending many years and vast sums of money to revamp our polity, we must proceed with any amending language carefully and with an eye toward preserving the advances made when our polity was simplified and streamlined.

The first question we need to ask is whether or not this provision, in its enforcement, can stand as a principle of Reformed theology.  Although the notion that those in ordered ministry will repent of sin and diligently use the means of grace is a solidly Reformed principle, it presents a troubling issue for the church.  

Embedding such language in our constitution imposes a requirement on councils of the church to enforce the standard.  Unlike other areas in which councils enjoy latitude in interpretation (suitability for office, sufficiency of theological knowledge, etc.) this standard requires councils to determine concretely what are and are not means of grace.  By what standard shall those decisions be made?  Are the means of grace limited to the sacraments?  Does personal devotion count as a means of grace?  

Someone or some group will have to determine what are and are not means of grace.  If that power is invested in an individual, such a provision would violate the very principle of Presbyterian governance and the rejection of spiritual hierarchy vested in any individual.  If that power is invested in a council below the General Assembly, such a provision would violate the principle that higher councils guide lower councils.  This would also lead to inevitable conflicts not only in application of the constitution but is very meaning from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.  Presbytery A may define the "means of grace" as the sacraments while presbytery B may define the "means of grace" as prayer and study.  

Either of these solutions would violate fundamental principles of our polity and our theology of the priesthood of all believers.

The GAPJC has ruled repeatedly in recent years that presbyteries may not impose standards on candidates for ordination and/or installation that go beyond those adopted by the entire church.  (I.e. a presbytery may not require a sixth ordination exam.)  Proposed amendment 12-B does exactly that.  It requires a council to determine, beyond the text of the constitution, what is and what is not a "means of grace."

That councils are required to go beyond the text of the constitution in violation of our current guiding polity raises the second question that must be answered: does this provision uplift or undermine the peace, unity and purity of the church?

That a governing document may contradict or limit itself is not necessarily dis-positive to its validity. Governing documents can and often do include provisions that are facially contradictory.  Such contradictions are inevitably worked out through some process of discernment.  In the case of the church, such a contradiction would have to be decided by either judicial process or an authoritative interpretation issued by a GA.  Either solution would plunge the church into another season of judicial complaint and counter-complaint.

Why, if it is not necessary, would we impose another season of litigation on the church?  What purpose is served by inserting well meaning but ill defined language into our just revised constitution?  

In the end, 12-B is a solution in search of a problem.  There is no evidence that there is an epidemic of unrepentant behavior among those in ordered ministry.  (At least no more epidemic than it is among any population of sinful people.)  There is no evidence that its inclusion in the Book of Order will clarify or enhance our polity.  In truth, it may serve to confuse and undermine it.   

That those in ordered ministry should be ever mindful of our sinfulness and repentant of our sins is a worthy reminder for the church.  If Teaching and Ruling Elders and Deacons are to serve Christ and the church with faithfulness, we must indeed repent and encourage in one another diligent use of the means of grace.  That it is wise advice is clear.  That it is constitutionally necessary is not.

12-B should be defeated by the presbyteries.

Note: Edited at 12:20 pm 1/25/13 to correct a spelling mistake in the third paragraph and to finish a word that was truncated in the first paragraph when edited.

Dues Plus: Part 2

            I wrote in this space yesterday about the “Dues Plus” plan proposed by the PC(USA) Board of Pensions (the BOP).  Dues Plus is a plan to revise our medical plan in an effort to find a solution to an increasing deficit problem common to health plans. 

            That some solution needs to be found can hardly be debated.  Our benefits plan is not just a matter of present needs, it is also an expression of promises made to pensioners and future pensioners.  The board has a responsibility to wisely use the resources they receive from our congregations through the BOP dues paid by each church. 

            In my post yesterday, I said that I support the Dues Plus as a solution not because it is ideal but because it is necessary.  I recognized that it will change to some measure the structure and the underlying assumptions of the plan, however I do not believe that it fundamentally violates the covenant shared by the BOP, its members and the churches who pay the dues.

            Based on the responses I got yesterday (some made in public that were both helpful and insightful and some sent under cover of email that were occasionally profane and decidedly unhelpful), I am not persuaded to change my position on Dues Plus as a solution to a very real problem.  However, I am persuaded that there is a need for more conversation in the church about possible alternatives to this one specific plan. 

            For better or worse, something needs to be done and it needs to be done sooner rather than later. 

            These are the facts as I understand them outlined in detail or implied by information in the BOP communication to the church.[i]

• Dues income is not sufficient to cover annual costs.  At the current rate of income/expense the medical reserve (this is not related to pension reserves) will be exhausted in 36-48 months.
•  The medical plan must be self-sustaining in order to prevent disruption of the pension plan which is fully funded and able to meet all present and future obligations.
• In order to maintain current dues structure and close increasing deficits, member dues will necessarily increase above 25-27% of effective salary for medical only (36-39% for all benefits combined.)
• More than ½ of plan members are 50-64 and actuarially likely to consume an increasing rather than decreasing level of healthcare.
•  The decreasing number of dues paying institution and the declining real dollars collected in dues exacerbates the rising costs and use of healthcare.

            This is not an ideal situation.  That is for sure.  However, it is our shared reality and we have to do something or risk the solvency of the plan.

            Some commenters to me and in other forums have made a point that the BOP has done a poor job of communicating the issues and options to the larger church.  That is a fair criticism.  The BOP has done a poor public relations job throughout this process.  (Calling for austerity last fall from Hilton Head and this spring from the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Philadelphia does take something away from the argument.)

            The BOP’s poor communication aside, the math does not change.  Something has to be done.

            So what are the options?

            Well, we know Dues Plus.  It shifts part (only part) of the cost of dependent coverage from regular dues to the medical plan to an additional premium.  Every member remains covered 100% and dependent coverage, while heavily subsidized, would require the payment of a premium based on who is covered.  This has the advantage of solving the problem presented; however, it does so by placing a burden on a particular group- clergy with children or spouse in need of coverage.  To be fair, despite the proposed 2% decrease in dues, Dues Plus still heavily subsidizes the cost of dependent coverage through the dues payed on pastors with no dependents.

            What about just raising dues?  That is certainly an option.  It is what we have done for years.  Simply raise dues to meet existing needs.  The BOP did consider that as evidenced by the information they give in the Q&A published for the church.  Simply maintaining the status quo would require dues to continue to rise from the current 21% to 27% and beyond within five years.  This too would solve the problem presented; however, it too balances the budget on the back of a particular group.  I this case small churches like one of mine would simply have to forego pastoral leadership.  Dues are a stretch now and a significant increase in dues is simply not possible. 

            What about farming out the plan and no longer being self-insured?  Just on a lark, I called a couple of insurance folks today to find out how much it would cost to move me and my secretary (who is in the affiliates program) to private insurance.  Let’s just say we would be missing the days of 27% medical dues!

            There is just no easy answer to this problem.  But it has to be solved. 

            I claim no special insights or ah-ha moments on this.   I wish I had a magic wand to wave and make the problem go away.  Unfortunately, the only options presented so far are a) keep increasing dues for everyone or b) Dues Plus.  No other options that I have seen solve the fundamental problem of the math.

            One last note, I realize how emotional an issue this is.  However, I hope that my colleagues and friends will take care when calling this unjust because it puts the burden of the solution “on the backs of families.”  For more than a generation the church has been silent on the reality that the 16% of us who are single and have no children have been overpaying for years.  As I said yesterday on Facebook, I am fine with that.  I am fine having my income lowered a bit to help ensure that my friends and colleagues coverage is not out of reach.  That is how our plan does and should work.  

            Let’s not let this become a struggle about who shoulders the most burdens.  Together, let’s try to find a solution that allows us to share and shoulder it together. 

---

[i] http://web.pensions.org/Publications/pensions/Home/Forms%20%26%20Publications/Booklets%20%26%20Brochures/MedicalDues-QandA.pdf

Board of Pensions "Dues Plus" Is the Right Thing to Do

Forty-five days from now the governing board of the PC(USA) Board of Pensions will vote on a proposal to restructure the medical dues and benefits they oversee for the church.  In November 2012, the BOP proposed a program informally called “Dues Plus.”  The purpose of the plan is to bridge the growing gap between dues received and benefits paid by the plan each year.

Under the current plan rules, churches pay a set percentage of pastor’s salary and housing compensation as dues for medical, pension, death benefits and disability coverage  (21% medical, 11% pension, 1% death and disability.)  Under the existing plan, medical dues are neutral in terms of the number of people covered.  A single pastor’s dues are 21% as are the dues for a pastor with spouse and six dependent children. 

Two principles are said to be at the heart of the BOP plan and each is an important expression of our theology of church and community.  First, dues are charged under a principle of “call neutrality.”  Call neutrality simply means that single or married, children or no children, a pastor’s dues are the same.  This principle eliminates any advantage or disadvantage or employing a pastor based on his or her family status.  The second principle is the community nature of the plan.  Dues are not paid into individual accounts but a pooled fund that ensures that every plan member is equally covered regardless of the resources available to their congregation.  Large church pastors and small church pastors are the same in the eyes of the plan.

Dues Plus will change all of that...sort of.

Under Dues Plus, medical dues will decrease from 21% of effective salary to 19%, however that cost will cover the pastor only.  Family coverage will require payment of an additional premium (currently estimated at $5700/year.

Few have argued with the necessity of doing something to curb the deficits and deal with rising costs to the plan caused by an ageing membership and increasing medical costs.  Some, however, argue that the Dues Plus plan is not the right fix because it violates the two principles underlying our plan; namely call neutrality and the community nature of the plan.

I disagree.

Dues Plus is certainly a departure from the way our plan works today, however it is a stretch to say that this policy shift undermines or violates the fundamental nature of the plan.

Call neutrality is an admirable principle and a worthy way of understanding our benefits plan, but we are fooling ourselves if we think that call neutrality exists anywhere in the church but in the BOP dues structure.  There continues to be a hierarchy of supposed worthiness or desirability among clergy.  From my perspective as a single early 40’s pastor, I have no illusions that I am on the same vocational footing as a 30-something pastor with wife (yes, gender matters too) and two kids.  Call neutrality is a nice idea, but it does not happen in the real world of the church and the small savings Dues Plus will offer to churches employing single pastors or the cost increase for married pastors will not turn that reality on its head.

The community nature of the plan is unchanged under Dues Plus.  Yes, there is an added cost to some churches and not to others.  The fact that the difference between current dues (21%) and proposed dues (19%) demonstrates that churches who employ single pastors will continue to subsidize coverage even for those who pay the dues plus.  Does $5700 really cover the full cost of a spouse and two children?

There are yet unanswered questions about how small churches will cope and how new worshiping communities fit into this picture. 

However, in the end, the pressing question before the church is a practical one; how can we most reasonably and responsibly use the resources our members stewardship makes available?  The Dues Plus plan is not ideal but then neither are the contemporary circumstances of healthcare or congregational finances. 

Dues Plus is an honest, thoughtful and ultimately workable solution that maintains the church’s commitment to its clergy and responds to the reality in which we find ourselves today. 

For my part, I support the BOP and thank the board’s members for their willingness to do this frequently thankless job.

There Is Yet Hope Here: A Response to Ed Koster

In a recent Outlook guest editorial, Rev. Ed Koster brought his considerable experience with Presbyterian polity to bear in an indicting portrayal of the current state of discipline in the PC(USA).  Koster explores issues ranging from the adoption of the Book of Confessions by the United Presbyterian Church to recent decisions by the GAPJC to demonstrate what he sees as an epidemic of disobedience to church polity.   Reading his bleak and despairing words about a church in which, “(T)here is no discipline in the land, and everyone does what is right in his own eyes,”  one wonders if there is any hope for the PC(USA).

Despite the prognostications of doom and demise from Koster and others, I believe there is. 

In fact, there is hope for the church found in the very places Koster sees only decline and doom.

Koster takes issue first with the language of the new F-1.0303 which identifies the three marks of the church; proclamation and hearing of the Word of God, administration of the sacraments and nurturing a covenant community of disciples of Christ.  It is the third mark of the church that appears to worry Koster.  He points out that the former language referred not to building covenant community but ensuring that “ecclesiastical discipline is uprightly administered.”  The change in language, he claims, represents a rejection of the notion of discipline in the church; that somehow the the church has rejected this important part of our Reformed heritage.  In fact, this premise, that discipline and order are no more, underlies most of Koster's expressed concern about the church.

I disagree.

The change in language adopted in F-1.0303 represents not a refutation of our Reformed heritage but a reclaiming of the theological role of the church in the right ordering of our spiritual lives.  Over the last two decades, ecclesiastical discipline in the PC(USA) has been reduced to a court for the punishment of unpopular opinions.  Whether against progressives who fought for full inclusion in the church or conservatives who have withheld per-capita funding out of a sense of conscience, the courts of the church have been used less to order than to punish. 

The purpose of ecclesiastical discipline, according to the language of the Scots Confession, is not merely to punish vice but to simultaneously nurture virtue. (Scots 3.18)  That our understanding of discipline had become consumed with the former and neglectful of the latter was a matter of grave theological concern.  The adoption of the new language in F-1.0303 represents a reclaiming of discipline as a tool for building up the community of faith and not merely beating down individuals within it.  True ecclesiastical discipline orders, it does not merely punish.

Koster next turns his attention to a second concern, what he calls “the notion that a person has the right to disobey a church rule when he or she thinks it wrong.” 

On this point, he is absolutely right. 

This is a pervasive idea in the church and thank God it is!  One of the great pillars of our Reformed tradition is the rejection that any human institution or visible combination of persons or powers can ever be deemed infallible.  The rules and policies and, yes, polity of those institutions must be resisted when, in good conscience, the individual believer finds it necessary.

The problem is not that we have a tradition of “civil disobedience” in our shared ecclesiastical life.  The trouble comes when that civil disobedience is not paired with a willingness to pay the price of one's actions.  

The misstep in Koster’s argument is his assumption that those who, in good conscience, decline to be governed by a rule they believe to be unjust believe that their resistance should come with no consequence.  That is not the case.  Jane Spahr who has resisted the church’s policies denying full fellowship to GLBTQ Presbyterians knew and faced the consequences of her resistance.  She acted as her conscience dictated and paid the price required by the courts of the church.  Wynn Kenyon famously did the same in the 1970’s.  He stood on principle (one with which I personally disagree) and suffered the consequence of his stance.

The Reformed tradition, indeed the whole history of Protestantism, rests on the shoulders of courageous people of faith who resisted.  They knew and paid the price, often dearly.  Disobedience rooted in conscience is a time honored and valuable part of our church's history. 

Koster’s third argument points to what he sees as the result of a permissive attitude within the church for such disobedience.  He points to the decision in Parnell, et al v. Presbytery of San Francisco (220-10) as evidence that the PC(USA) has rejected any sort of standard rooted in scripture or the confessions.

This is a profound misreading of what the GAPJC did.

In Parnell, the GAPJC ruled that “(T)he Book of Confessions, much like Scripture itself, requires discernment and interpretation when its standards are to be applied in the life and mission of the church.”  Far from ruling that scripture or the Confessions are insufficient to be used as a standard; the GAPJC ruled that they cannot be reduced to a static list of essentials without doing violence to the breadth of witness in each.  

The place of scripture and the Confessions as standards in the church is not diminished but enhanced by this affirmation.  In a world in which every aspect of human life and relationship is persistently reduced to formulae and lowest-common-denominator sound bites, that the PC(USA) continues to cherish the complexity and depth of scripture and the Confessions is a reason to celebrate.  The standard in the PC(USA) is an insistence that God’s word in scripture and the heritage of the church in the Confessions will not be reduced or redacted to meet the desires of a world addicted to simple answers.  The theological evaluation of candidates for ministry in Christ’s church is worth the effort.

Finally, Koster turns to “the ethos…that an individual’s wisdom is deemed greater than that of the church assembled.”

Given that the issues with which Koster takes the greatest issue are rulings by the GAPJC, actions by the General Assembly and the general direction of the church, he seems at risk of being hoisted on his own theological petard if his actions are misunderstood the way he evidently misunderstands the actions of others in the church.

For my part, I find no theological threat in an ethos that individual wisdom should be proclaimed in the midst of the church.  I do not sense that Koster seeks to substitute his own perspective for that of the church nor do I think that is a pervasive ethos among those whose voices may not be in the mainstream of current church thinking.

Instead he is doing what so many in the church have done for centuries.  He is speaking what he believes to be a faithful word in the midst of a church that has discerned a different faithful direction. 

He is certainly right that there are instances in which individuals and councils have flaunted the authority of the church.   As has happened in the past and will no doubt in the future, those situations will right themselves in time.  To say that these isolated incidents define the whole culture of the church or that they risk the unraveling of the church requires an incredible leap of imagination.

That the PC(USA) has recaptured its role as a body meant to build up the community of Christ rather than simply keep human vice in check; continues to embrace the importance of individual conscience in the midst of that community; cherishes and lifts up both scripture and the Confessions as standards that will not be diminished by reductive standardization; and remains a church in which a voice ringing out counter to the current of the church may be heard and valued is elegant proof that the PC(USA) remains filled by the life of the Spirit.

That is not a doomed church. 

That is a living and breathing community of the Spirit.

That is the Presbyterian Church I know and love and thank God for it!