Monthly Archives: April 2009

Two Additional Overtures To The 37th General Assembly Of The PCA

With about a month and a half to go before the opening of the 37th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America two additional overtures have been posted to the overtures web page.

Overture 14 – Amend BCO 25 by adding Section 25-12 regarding Giving Notice to Presbytery of Intention to Withdraw from the PCA
This overture from North Texas Presbytery seeks to add a new section to Book of Church Order Chapter 25 on Congregational Meetings. The overture recognizes the different nature of the relationship of a teaching elder with the presbytery and that of a congregation. Section 25-11 permits congregations to vote to leave the denomination, but teaching elders as members of the presbytery are not automatically released with the congregation but must be released by the presbytery. In fact, this overture would encourage teaching elders to leave without taking the congregation where it says in one whereas: “ministers participating in, instigating, and leading congregations out of the denomination are not being faithful to the Scriptures or their ordination vows. If they can no longer remain in the denomination then they should seek their own dismissal without seeking to create schism and take a church as well.”

The proposed language for the BCO would require teaching elders to “give reasonable advanced notice to the Presbytery of the intentions of the local church to withdraw.” With this notification the Presbytery “shall assist the local church in making an orderly withdrawal.” The proposed new section closes with this:

It should always be the desire of a faithful minister of Christ to effect reconciliation between all bodies of Christians but especially those of his own denomination.

Overture 15 – Direct Philadelphia Presbytery to Adopt Specified Policy on Role of Women in Mercy Ministry
First, it must be pointed out that this overture comes directly to the GA from a session (Crossroads Community Church, Upper Darby, PA) after it was unanimously adopted by the session but rejected by their presbytery (Philadelphia). The Session adopted it on August 11, 2008, it was received by the Presbytery at their meeting of September 10, 2008 and then rejected at a special meeting on March 31, 2009. The Session then voted to send it to the GA themselves on April 13, 2009.

The overture itself is actually an overture to the Presbytery, not the
General Assembly, which was moved up when the Presbytery rejected it. While clearly unusual I’m not sure if this is a proper use of the overture process. It is my understanding that the appropriate response would be to take an overture addressed to the Assembly to the Presbytery for endorsement and then if rejected send it on to the Assembly from the Session.

This overture comes with an arriving note that the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and the Committee on Constitutional Business ( CCB ) advise that the overture is out of order. The reasons are not given here but will appear in the Clerk’s Report. One possible reason is that based on the Rules of Assembly Operations Chapter 11 this overture, since it does not propose a change to the Book of Church Order, should have been submitted 90 days before the Assembly convened and it was barely submitted 60 days before (RAO 11-7). It appears that from a timing perspective it was held up by the scheduling of the special meeting of Presbytery, but I am not familiar with the history and that is only an interpretation based on the reported dates of meetings. Another possible reason for the advisory may be related to the nature of the overture as I discuss in the preceding paragraph. The GA Junkie in me eagerly awaits the rational for the opinion.

The overture begins by running through the BCO references to the different ordained offices and the requirements, including that they are only open to men, for those offices. It then points out that some candidates and transfered elders hold opinions contrary to this. Finally, it includes the decisions from the last GA that arose from the records review of Northern California and Philadelphia Presbyteries where their records showed women commissioned to the diaconate.

The overture asks Philadelphia Presbytery to acknowledge the BCO requirements for deacons, to have candidates and ministers transferring in to affirm these standards and promise to “conform their practice” to this position, to remind elders that have a substantive exception to these confessional standards that exceptions are in belief only and not practice, and that Sessions be reminded of these standards. Finally, it requests that churches not presently in accord with the BCO present a plan to come into compliance.

It will be interesting to see the Clerk’s opinion on this overture and to see if the Assembly agrees. It will also be in the mix with the other three overtures related to women in the church and a consistent response across all of these would be expected. We will have to wait and see.

Finally, it is always interesting to see how certain elements of the polity issues one Presbyterian branch is working through are echoed in another branch. In this case the aspects of reconciliation and church departure in Overture 14, and the reminder that exemptions can be in belief but not practice as mentioned in Overture 15 are both issues the PC(USA) is also dealing with.

The Current Church of Scotland Controversy Remains Active

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In many ways I regard the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as very similar branches of global Presbyterianism. They are both the largest and most visible Presbyterian denomination in their respective countries and both have a wide theological diversity in their membership. But they have differed in two significant respects. First, the Church of Scotland is a national church while the PC(USA) is one mainline denomination among many. The second is that the Church of Scotland seemed, at least from this distance, to have a much less vigorous debate going on regarding the place of GLBT individuals in the church. Until now…

Back in 2006 the CofS General Assembly sent to the presbyteries an item approving the blessing of same-sex unions. The item was defeated. But what made the business interesting, and in some ways telling, was that it came from the Legal Questions Committee which deals with civil legal issues, not from a theological or polity committee. In a sense, the issue was co-opted for the church to make a statement on same-sex unions. The Kirk has had several groups working on reports related to aspects of human sexuality, principally the 1994 and 2007 reports, but most have been accepted only for reflection and discussion and they have not lead to statements or acts concerning polity or theology.

Now a relevant issue has come up regarding ordination standards and clergy lifestyle when a previously ordained minister was called to a church in Aberdeen and he will be bringing his gay partner with him. The presbytery approved the call, some of the commissioners protested to the Commission of Assembly, and the Commission decided (correctly in my opinion) that this was too significant in issue for it to decide and they sent it on to the full, new General Assembly less than a month from now. So far all done in a very Presbyterian manner, decently and in order.

The issue “blew up” when an editorial appeared in the CofS official, but editorially independent, monthly magazine Life and Work that expressed the opinion that the Kirk should be broad and accepting and that this call should be approved by the GA. Conservative ministers in the CofS were upset about the editorial and the Scottish press ran with the story.

Well, the press is still running with it, but more about that in a moment. Decently and in order stuff first…

The Presbytery of Lochcarron and Skye have overtured the General Assembly in this matter. The overture is short and the “whereases” are telling so here is the full text, courtesy of The Fellowship of Confessing Churches:

OVERTURE

ANENT MINISTERIAL CONDUCT

From the Presbytery of Lochcarron-Skye

Whereas:

1. the Church’s historic understanding of the Biblical teaching on homosexual practice has been questioned in recent years.

2. a lengthy period of reflection has elapsed without a resolution of the issue.

3. it is undesirable that the courts of the church should be asked to judge on individual cases in advance of any such resolution.

It is humbly overtured by the Reverend the Presbytery of
Lochcarron-Skye to the Venerable the General Assembly to receive the
Overture set out below,

“That this Church shall not accept for training, ordain, admit,
re-admit, induct or introduce to any ministry of the Church anyone
involved in a sexual relationship outside of faithful marriage between
a man and a woman”.

Polity wise this is a simpler, yet broader, version of the PC(USA) “fidelity and chastity” requirement. The PC(USA) standard applies only to candidates for ordination. The GAPJC extended preceding statements to apply to “positions that presume ordination.” As you can see in this overture it proposes applying a standard to ministers only, but applying the standard to both the ordination as well as the call process. (That would be the “induct” or “introduce” for the American readers who “install” pastors.)

In addition to the overture there is also a statement/online petition from The Fellowship encouraging the GA to oppose the call and another conservative group, Forward Together, has a statement on their home page also opposing the call. The liberal group Affirmation Scotland has a statement posted on their website supporting the call.

In the popular press this issue continues to make headlines and apparently The Sunday Times surveyed CofS ministers and found a significant number that said they would consider leaving the church if the call was upheld by the General Assembly. The survey is reported on-line by Pink News (I searched and could not find an original reference to it at The Times Online so I have to wonder if it was only in the print edition of the paper.) According to the report 50 ministers were surveyed, 23 said they opposed the call and eight said they would consider leaving. (GA Junkie note: Pink News, and maybe The Times, refers to it as a question about the “ordination.” In this case the minister is already ordained so the question is about the call to this pastoral position.) There is independent on-line verification of this survey from the Rev. Jim Dewar’s blog. He reports that he was one of the ministers contacted by The Times and that he told them he was opposed but not considering leaving. In regards to whether he would leave he says that he told the reporter “No; there is more to the Christian faith, more to my ministry and the mission of the Church than sexual ethics!”

So the story continues. The General Assembly convenes three weeks from tomorrow and more than one story I read predicts that this could be the most controversial, or at least the most closely watched, in two decades. As an indicator, this story has been picked up by blogs not specific to Scotland (Reformation 21) and other denominational writers (Anglicans United, Virtue OnLine, Clerical Whispers). Let us pray that by the time GA gets here the commotion will have calmed down so the commissioners can focus and discern God’s will.

Voting Trends For Amendment 08-B — Part 1 – Summary Statistics

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I would suspect that most of you have heard by now that the unofficial vote tracking on Amendment 08-B places the count as 69 yes and 89 no as of last Saturday, a sufficient number to defeat the amendment. It appears that the “fidelity and chastity” section in the Book of Order for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will remain for another two years. That still needs to be verified by the Office of the General Assembly, but based on the official vote tally this appears to be the only item sent to the presbyteries that will not pass. (At this time amendment 08-I is listed as very close to passage but not yet.) But voting is not over yet — there are still 15 presbyteries that need to vote and the General Assembly recognized that the process, and not just the vote, was important.

However, the results appear certain enough that the Presbyterian News Service has issued an article and the reports are spreading around the news services (exempli gratia Associated Press, The Christian Post, Advocate.com, Dallas Morning News), the advocacy groups (exempli gratia More Light Presbyterians, Presbyterian Coalition, Witherspoon Society), and the blogs (exempli gratia Presbylaw, Psalms Modern, A Classical Presbyterian, Ray’s Net, Mark Time).

Having now had 158 presbyteries vote, and 143 of those presbyteries with vote counts on both 08-B and 01-A recorded at PresbyWeb or the Presbyterian Coalition counting sites, there is a significant amount of data to crunch to compare the two votes and see if it says anything about the PC(USA).

Now, while I have some questions that the two amendments are really comparable since the text of the two is significantly different in content and action, it is still my conclusion that in many quarters they are viewed as similar actions. For most of this analysis I will take it as a precondition that the two amendments are similar enough in their perceived intent, if not their text, that it is valid to compare the voting numbers.

I will break this analysis into several different posts primarily so as not to overwhelm the casual reader with extensive statistics. As a research scientist I am used to providing and drinking numerical data through a fire hose. I am going to try to spare you the experience. Also, some of the individual case studies will wait until all the presbyteries have voted. But with over 90% of the data in I will go ahead today with the summary statistics of the population.

Finally, as a research scientist I accept peer review and as a Presbyterian I welcome accountability. If anyone does want to see my raw data I will gladly send you a copy of my source spreadsheet once I have most of my analysis presented.

And a word on philosophy: I sometimes wonder if some of my readers view this as “dwelling on the past,” “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” “majoring in the minors,” or “analyzing the obvious.” I however consider this interesting (yes, I am weird), I am concerned about some of the other statistics and their interpretation I see out in the news, and I do feel that taking a serious look at these things is part of the third note of the True Church – “ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered.”

Summary Statistics
From the data sources listed above there are 143 presbyteries that have voted on Amendments 08-B and 01-A for which vote counts are listed in the sources. In the discussion that follows I will only be addressing presbyteries that have reported numbers for both votes. There are 15 presbyteries that do not have reported numbers for one or both votes.

On 01-A 42 (29.4%) of these presbyteries voted “yes” and 101 (70.6%) voted “no.” On 08-B 64 (44.8%) of these presbyteries voted “yes” and 79 (55.2%) voted “no.” Of the presbyteries that voted “yes” on 01-A two (1.4%) have voted “no” on 08-B. Of the presbyteries that voted “no” on 01-A 24 (16.8%) voted “yes” on 08-B.

Looking at the number of reported votes, on 01-A there were 21,732 total commissioners voting in these presbyteries. Of these 9,375 (43.1%) commissioners voted “yes” and 12,357 (56.9%) voted “no.” For 08-B there were 18,562 total commissioners voting in these presbyteries. Of these 9,189 (49.5%) voted “yes” and 9,373 (50.5%) voted “no.” (Note: the data sources do not include blank or “abstain” ballots. From experience these are <5 per presbytery and using an average of 3 per presbytery it could be another 429 ballots or roughly 2% of each vote that I would estimate as an upper limit.)

Between 01-A and 08-B the number of total voting commissioners in these presbyteries declined by 3,170 which represents a loss of 14.6% of the 01-A total votes. The decline in commissioner “yes” votes is 186, a 1.9% drop relative to the 01-A “yes” total and a 0.8% decline relative to the total number of votes cast. The decline in commissioner “no” votes is 2,984, a 24.1% drop relative to the 01-A “no” total and a 13.7% decline relative to the total number of votes cast.

Preliminary Analysis Comments
I don’t want to make any substantial comments on the analysis and conclusions until I have spread out some more detailed statistics in front of you. However, let me set the framework in which I have been studying these numbers.

In modeling the data I have selected five different factors that I think are influential. These five factors pretty much cover any of the reasons for changes in the vote numbers and so as a whole probably introduce too many degrees of freedom. However, in working with the numbers it seemed that relying on only the three “general” factors still left out some identifiable variation. This is part of what prompted my “every presbytery is different” post a bit over a month ago.

The nice thing about working with the overall statistics is that the larger population size should minimize the influence of the special cases and that individual special cases might average, or cancel, out. I will investigate each of these in detail later, but briefly the three general
factors that I am working with are:

1) Overall, uniform membership changes. This is the documented membership change (generally decline) in the membership of the PC(USA) and how it would translate into changes in the number of commissioners voting.

2) Vote changes. This is the switching of commissioner votes from “yes” to “no” or “no” to “yes” between the two votes.

3) Selective decline due to realignment of churches. This is not the uniform membership decline but the selective departure of churches and individuals of one particular theological perspective that has been happening over the past few years. The theory is that it is primarily conservative churches that are leaving the denomination so this should manifest itself as a preferential decline in “no” votes.

There are also two special cases that I am considering.

A – Fundamental change in the presbytery. In some (probably limited) cases there are changes the presbytery has made, apart from typical membership changes, that would influence the number of commissioners voting. The changes to counting active membership in San Gabriel Presbytery would fall into this category (I discussed that back in March.)

B – Special circumstances of that meeting. Situations where some external cause influences the number of commissioners at that particular meeting. There was discussion that the number of commissioners at the John Know Presbytery meeting was significantly reduced (60%) by a winter storm and that there were conflicting conferences that influenced the attendance at the San Francisco Presbytery meeting.

It appears that both of these special cases are very limited. While it is tempting to consider the factor as uniform across “yes” and “no” votes, if a special circumstance was involved in the San Francisco vote change is was clearly not uniform. I will drop the special cases for now and return to that topic a few posts from now.

So, looking at the changes in the summary statistics what can we say as a first pass? The number of both the “yes” and the “no” votes declined but the “yes” only slightly and the “no” substantially. You can not explain the difference with only changes in the vote. You can not explain the difference in the votes with any one of these three factors alone. A combination of two or more is required.

(Factors 1&2) If you want to say that the difference in the total is uniform decline then you could expect about 8000 “yes” votes on 08-B based on the 01-A percentages. That would mean that there was a net change of 1200 commissioners (6.5% of the 08-B total) changing votes from “no” to “yes.”

(Factors 1&3) You could also interpret the numbers to say that there was no changing of votes, but rather the differences in votes reflects a 0.8% uniform decline (the 186 vote decrease in the “yes” votes) and then an additional 12.9% decline in the “no” votes due to conservative departure. (That would be the 2984 total “no” vote decline split between 188 uniform decline and 2796 selective decline.) With a total uniform decline of a bit less than 400 votes in this scenario the conservative departure is clearly dominant and this comes closest to explaining the voting differences with a single factor.

(Factors 2&3) The other possibility is that there is no uniform decline but the 3170 vote drop in numbers reflects the loss of only conservative “no” votes combined with 186 “yes” votes switching to “no” votes to account for the drop in the number of “yes” votes.

From the summary statistics we can probably say all three of these factors are present but it is difficult to distinguish the level of influence of any of these three factors individually. As this series of posts progresses I will work my way up to my model where individual presbyteries can be classified as having one or two of these factors dominate the vote changes. The factors will get limited on a presbytery level so we have an over-determined rather than an under-determined matrix for the model. (That is mathematical jargon, not a psychological analysis of the matrix.) And I have found that there are a couple of presbyteries where there is statistically no change in the vote pattern.

But all that is in the future. For today it is enough to say that from my analysis of these summary numbers the statistic that really jumps out is the 13.7% drop in the number of “no” votes between 01-A and 08-B. Based on other membership numbers it appears unlikely that this drop could be accounted for in uniform decline alone and it can not be purely vote changes since the total numbers show a similar 14.6% decline. The question then is how much of the vote shift seen between 01-A and 08-B is truly a shift at the individual level, and how much is a mathematical result of the departure of conservative churches.

Stick with me and I’ll give you an answer to that question. Next time we move from the denominational level to the presbytery statistics and start including pretty pictures with charts and graphs.

Episcopal Polity Statement From The Anglican Communion Institute — The Rest Of The Story?

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I had a professor in graduate school who commented how much he really liked the articles in the magazine Scientific American. Except, he said, for articles in his discipline and then he found that they had errors or were incomplete. The implication is that we can analyze and critique what we know but in other areas we may miss the full story.

This is how I feel after reading the new Bishops’ Statement on the Polity of the Episcopal Church issued by the Anglican Communion Institute. Reading through it I found the Statement interesting and I learned a lot. In fact, in many of the sections I was drawing the parallels to the polity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). But then I hit the short section on PC(USA) polity and I found it superficial and incomplete causing me to call into question the document as a whole. They are not very good at the area I know and I can’t properly critique the rest where I am not experienced.

The purpose of the Statement is to argue that The Episcopal Church (TEC) is not a hierarchical church — that the dioceses and their bishops are autonomous and that the General Conference is a voluntary association of dioceses. This is argued with a number of lines of reasoning, some of which make a lot of sense to me and a couple that don’t seem to support the point.

Now I know a lot about Presbyterian polity but very little about the fine points of Anglican or Episcopal polity so I am not going to do a point-by-point analysis. But as I read through the document there were clear parallels to American Presbyterianism.

1. They discuss “ordinary power”

“Ordinary” is a term of art in Anglican and Roman Catholic ecclesiology and canon law that refers to the power inherent in the office given by the Lord to Peter and the Apostles. (p. 3)

There is clearly no direct Presbyterian parallel to the office of the bishop as an individual with apostolic power, but the Presbyterian concept of “permissive powers of the congregation” appears similar to the “ordinary power” discussed here. (That would be G-7.0304a(5) in the PC(USA) Book of Order and check out my discussion at the end of my post on congregational power for more on the various thoughts about permissive powers.)]

2. Historically dioceses were organized earlier and later associated into a national structure similar to presbyteries being the first higher governing body in American Presbyterianism predating synods and the general assembly.

3. In the Episcopal General Convention each diocese has an equal vote while in the PC(USA) it is apportioned by membership. But maybe more important, in the PC(USA) each presbytery has an equal vote when it comes to agreeing to confessional or constitutional changes.

4. The Principle of Subsidiarity — there is a difference in the nuances here, but the parallel with the PC(USA) is still striking. This document says (p. 11):

“Subsidiarity expresses a preference for governance at the most local level consistent with achieving government’s stated purposes.”

This is reflected in two ways in the PC(USA) Book of Order. From G-9.0402b

b. The administration of mission should be performed by the governing body that can most effectively and efficiently accomplish it at the level of jurisdiction nearest the congregation.

And from G-9.0103

All governing bodies of the church are united by the nature of the church and share with one another responsibilities, rights, and powers as provided in this Constitution. The governing bodies are separate and independent, but have such mutual relations that the act of one of them is the act of the whole church performed by it through the appropriate governing body. The jurisdiction of each governing body is limited by the express provisions of the Constitution, with powers not mentioned being reserved to the presbyteries, and with the acts of each subject to review by the next higher governing body. [emphasis added]

So far all well and good. There are these points that I see as strong parallels between TEC and PC(USA) polity. And then…

I hit the section where they compare TEC to other churches. The discussion makes sense to me when they talk about clearly hierarchical churches, like the Roman Catholic and Serbian Orthodox Churches. But in the Protestant branches they include the PC(USA). It is not the inclusion of the PC(USA) that irked me but the way they did. Here is the complete discussion of the church:

Likewise, the constitution of the Presbyterian Church USA indicates unequivocally the hierarchical relationship of its bodies:

The General Assembly is the highest governing body of this church and is representative of the unity of the synods, presbyteries, sessions, and congregations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). [G-13.0101]

The General Assembly is also given the explicit power “to provide authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order which shall be binding on the governing bodies of the church….” [G-13.0103]

Where do I begin…

What may be the most surprising to you is that if I had to provide a Book of Order citation to “prove” the PC(USA) was hierarchical I would have used something out of G-4.0300, the Principles of Presbyterian Government. For example:

f. A higher governing body shall have the right of review and control over a lower one and shall have power to determine matters of controversy upon reference, complaint, or appeal; [G-4.0301f]

So what are the problems with the citations they use? First, as I have mentioned above, while the General Assembly may be the “highest governing body,” it bears many similarities to the General Convention which they argue is not a hierarchical power. These similarities include the presbytery/diocesan representation to the body and the fact that the higher body can not unilaterally change the confessions or constitution. They are correct that the General Assembly is given the power to interpret the constitution but as Presbyterians know there are subtleties here, especially over the last few years with alternate and superseding interpretations by the Assembly itself and the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission related to ordination standards. It also should be noted that constitutional changes are not only ratified by the presbyteries but nearly all begin as overtures from the presbyteries. Finally, in Presbyterianism the term “higher governing body” is a term of art and is understood not to be an entity unto itself but a part of our connectionalism, a sign of unity of the church since it is comprised of commissioners from the lower governing bodies.

In analyzing the arguments in this Statement I thought back on the oral arguments before the California Supreme Court on the Episcopal Church Cases regarding church property and the trust clause. I tried to review the arguments to give a direct quote but the video appears to have been removed from the web. But, as I reported at the time, when the lawyer for the churches was answering justices’ questions about the principle of government theory and the hierarchical church he said that break-away churches would prevail under that legal theory because even though they have left TEC they are still part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion
. They are still part of a global hierarchy.

Now, I am not arguing that under their arguments and logic the PC(USA) is not a “hierarchical church.” One of their marks of a hierarchical church is review of lower bodies by higher bodies which is a hallmark of Presbyterianism. But from a legal point of view for civil litigation I don’t know if that is either necessary or sufficient to pronounce a body a hierarchical church. Similarly, while I understand and appreciate the arguments made in the Bishops’ Statement at least a few state supreme courts have not seen it the same way. (Although California sort of dodged the issue by using neutral principles to side with the denomination in the majority decision.) And if scrupling is upheld we may see how hierarchical the PC(USA) is if a presbytery is forced to accept an officer ordained in another presbytery after declaring an exception.

It is an interesting article and I enjoyed reading it, especially the sections related to the shaping of the church in the late 1700’s. Historically their argument seemed to hold up. But after finishing the document I had to ask myself “what is the rest of the story?” I know what it was for American Presbyterianism. What else is left out regarding the Episcopalians?

And You Think Presbyterian Polity Is Confusing…

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It has been a while since I commented on the Anglican Communion, but those who closely watch the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) issues know that there is a very close and parallel situation in The Episcopal Church (TEC) at the moment. Close enough that we write amicus briefs on each others court cases and we have churches realigning in the same places that Episcopal dioceses are realigning, such as the San Joaquin valley of California.

There are two different, but related, tracks of controversy developing in the Anglican world at the moment. The first involves the Episcopal Church and an effort by conservatives to demonstrate that it is not a “hierarchical church.” This is of course important because one of the legal theories for a national church retaining control of the local church property, the “principle of government,” is the trust clause for a hierarchical church. If the church is not hierarchical the trust clause is harder to argue.

This news was broken earlier this week by the Rev. Mark Harris in his blog Preludium. He said:

In
the next few days a position paper signed by a number of bishops
connected to the “Communion Partners” bishops group will be published,
in all likelihood by the Anglican Communion Institute. It will
challenge the notion that dioceses of TEC are part of TEC
in any other way except by voluntary association, and that therefore
they are free to independently subscribe to the Anglican Covenant and
maintain pastoral visitation and oversight independent of any agreement
with TEC or its leadership. At least that is the conclusion to be reached from a thread of emails send to Preludium today (April 21).

And the Rev. Harris says later

The
second point of reference is the belief that Episcopal Church polity
legitimately arises out of the autonomy of dioceses who gather in
voluntary association at The Episcopal Church in General Convention. In
this view it is the diocese and not The Episcopal Church that is the
“basic unit” of The Episcopal Church. In this argument TEC is not a metropolitical entity, but rather a free association of dioceses.

Note here the parallel to the PC(USA) principle that the presbytery is the “central governmental unit.” (I wrote a bit about that earlier in the week.)

Well, there was a bit of an uproar on both sides about the information leakage. The Rev. Harris mentions it yesterday as does the Rev. Susan Russell. But the Anglican Communion Institute has released the statement signed by fifteen bishops. At the present time there does not appear to be an official statement from the national office, but there is a press release with unofficial critical quotes. I should also point out that Mr. Haley, the Anglican Curmudgeon, has a two part post (Part 1, Part 2) about why the Episcopal Church is not hierarchical.

But looking at this debate there is more than one implication if the Episcopal Church is not hierarchical. The property is one thing but realigning a diocese with the Worldwide Anglican Communion is another part of it. And related to that the Worldwide Anglican Communion is now writing a new Anglican Covenant that is conservative in its tone. I won’t go into all the nuances of this, but for the purposes of the preceding news, if a diocese is the core unit of the church than it would be free to associate by itself with the covenant without being associated through the national church.

This is important because based on the current draft of the Covenant the leadership of the Episcopal Church has indicated that it might not sign on. An article from Episcopal Life, the official Episcopal News Service, says

Should the ACC [Anglican Consultative Council] accept the draft during the Jamaica meeting, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has said
that she would “strongly discourage” any effort to bring such a request
to the 76th General Convention in July 2009. The Episcopal Church’s
Executive Council agreed in
January, saying that such a decision would need the full three years
between meetings of General Convention to “prayerfully engage the
faithful of all the dioceses of the Episcopal Church as to their
discernment in respect to the covenant” and listen to other provinces
“as they discuss and wrestle with the generalities and particularities
of an Anglican covenant.”

Ruth Gledhill of The Times points out that the Church of England may not be able to legally sign the covenant either because it “might subvert the authority of the Queen as Supreme Governor.”

So, if you think you have now reached the complexity of this polity think again. Ms. Gledhill also reports on the likely implementation of this covenant:

The covenant, by virtue of a quasi disciplinary process, is likely
create a multi-layered communion, with the ‘conservative’ provinces in
the inner circle, with full voting rights at all the communion bodies,
and the pro-gay liberals on the outer circle and presumably some rights
removed, if they insist on consecrating more gay bishops or sanctioning
gay marriage and refuse to sign up to the covenant in all its biblical
orthodoxy.

And for a more elaborate exposition (and I gather he is being a bit tongue-in-cheek) there is Damian Thomas over at the Telegraph picking up where Ruth left off:

What I didn’t know is that the proposals are tied to an intricate scale
of “degrees of communion” – full, impaired, partial and broken – that
will ascribed to different provinces by a Lambeth Communion Review
Commission, which will itself be multi-layered, supervising Review
Sub-Committees based on the Indaba model that will ascribe State of
Communion Assessments to individual dioceses, non-territorial episcopal
oversight areas and parishes. It would, of course, be inappropriate for
the same Review Sub-Committees to cross the boundary between inner and
outer circles of the Anglican Communion, and so – in a radical proposal
drafted by Dr Rowan Williams himself – the Lambeth Communion Review
Commission will divide into inner and outer circle Areas of Special
Responsibility that will shadow each other’s assessments.

Got that? He keeps going so if you want the whole thing check it out. It sort of reminds me of my favorite Monty Python game show parody where the rules are so complicated there is not time for the contest itself. An earlier version is available on line.

So is this an Anglican version of the PUP report? Is this modeled on Dante’s circles of Hell? What will the Anglican Communion look like in a few years? The PC(USA) and the Episcopal situations are so close and somewhat linked so it will be interesting to see where they go from here.

Amendment 08-B One Vote From Failing With More Presbyteries Switching Votes Yesterday

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It ain’t over until it’s over… But it is now very close with the unofficial vote at 68 yes and 86 no. That is one “no” vote away from being defeated.

The headline from yesterday is that of the four presbyteries voting, three switched votes from their previous position.

The part of that which is the real headline is that the first presbytery switched from “yes” to “no,” and the really surprising news is that it was San Francisco Presbytery that switched.

So, thanks to PresbyWeb, here is what happened yesterday…

National Capital voted “Yes” with numbers very consistent across the years: 222-102 yesterday, 220-116 on 01-A, 212-71 on 97-A, and 105-226 on 96-B. (For all of these remember that pro-equality is a yes except on 96-B when it is a no vote.)

Salem and Wabash Valley switched from no to yes.
Salem: 156-149 on 08-B, 160-187 on 01-A, 141-156 on 97-A, and 153-143 on 96-B. (Interesting to note the spike in turnout for 01-A. They other votes are strikingly similar in numbers, with the reversal on 08-B.)

Wabash Valley: 84-67 on 08-B, 83-102 on 01-A, 76-125 on 97-A, 116-100 on 96-B. (Wabash Valley has had a number of churches depart the denomination and the change in no votes from 01-A to 08-B may reflect that. It is notable that the switch occurred not because the yes votes increased, they are statistically identical. This may be one of the few cases that a significant decrease in no votes can be clearly tied to churches realigning.)

San Francisco: 167-177 on 08-B, 216-186 on 01-A, 207-167 on 97-A, 179-214 on 96-B. (The previous votes show a significant consistency, as does the no vote with the past vote numbers. In this case it appears that the yes voters were not there because it shows a decrease of 40+ votes from the typical level.)

Anyway, to have San Francisco vote no took many people by surprise. There is a lot of reaction on Facebook, which I won’t link to. The vote results must have been announced late because the news media has not picked it up yet. (The results had not been posted when this left-coaster went to bed at a later than normal hour.)

East coast blogs are starting to pick it up and you can count on John Shuck for a lively response:

This is an embarrassment. The presbytery of San Francisco

Home of the PCUSA moderator…

Home of out candidate, Lisa Larges…

Home of the Covenant Network…

Home of Jack Rogers…

And well it’s freaking San Francisco…

voted No on amendment B last night 167-177. San Francisco has the honor of being the only presbytery
to switch from equality to inequality in this year’s voting. Last time
the vote was 216-186. That means 40 commissioners decided they had
better things to do than to show up for the meeting.

Looks to me like they took it for granted while the opposition organized.

[Editorial note: We down here in SoCal claim Jack Rogers now. ]

As news and blogs respond to the vote I’ll add updates to this post.

Update:
The Layman has posted an article that Amendment 08-B has now failed with 86 negative votes. They say at the end of the article that 171 presbyteries are voting, which would require 86 on one side or the other. Not sure where they got that from because the official PC(USA) vote tally page sets 87 as passage.

In addition, and maybe I’m reading too much into this, the Layman seems to extract a bit of “turn-about” in the article, citing San Francisco as the home presbytery of GA Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow. This could be interpreted as a “back at you” for John Edward Harris‘ observation that the first presbytery to switch, Western North Carolina, is the home of the Layman’s long-time editor. Or maybe I’m just too into conspiracy theories and reading articles for hidden meanings. I very well could be wrong and it is all innocent reporting.

Update: I must confess my surprise that now almost 24 hours out there is not more reaction in the news or on the blogs. The PC(USA) Presbyterian News Service did release an article about the vote in general that included yesterday’s votes in the tally but no reporting on any of the presbytery meetings themselves.

Probably the most interesting comment so far has been by Clay Allard on his blog The Right Side of the Trinity. (For those not familiar with the geography of Dallas, TX, the title is a clever turn of phrase on the Trinity River that flows through the city.) The best thing about Clay’s comments is that he takes a bigger view – “The amendment has failed, now what?” He writes:

Now That the Voting Is Over

What an interesting sense of humor God has. As Amendment 08-B moves to
defeat, I was sure that the Puerto-Rican presbyteries would deliver the
coup-de-grace. But instead– it’s SAN FRANCISCO?! I think that it’s
time to examine all the ideas and attitudes that have been slain by
this vote.

and he closes with

Let’s spend some time outside of our own echo chambers, not acting like
this is a football game and we are just “fans” of our side. Instead of
figuring out a strategy of beating “them,” why don’t we find out who
“they” are, and what they want? Why don’t we act like we are not
competing for some prize, but that we are trying to be faithful to
Christ? The voting is over– let the learning begin.

Also, More Light Presbyterians has an article up about the San Francisco vote and the significance of the presbytery meeting being held at Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church.

Elsewhere, Wrestling With Wrelevance and Life Along The Homeschooling Journey comment on the San Francisco vote and the almost-defeat of 08-B. The Reformed Pastor has reaction to both the San Francisco vote as well as the Layman article.

Controvery Headed To The Church Of Scotland General Assembly Increases

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[Editorial note: Before I begin with the news I did want to let my readers know that life has gotten busy and my blog writing production has dropped off. The family events are good and exciting but time consuming. That last massive post took me five days. As my list of news items to blog about quickly increases I anticipate a few shorter posts to cover some of them and probably bumping some of the others off the list. Thanks for your understanding.]

When we last looked at a controversial pastoral call in the Church of Scotland the Commission of Assembly had decided not to rule on the protest of the presbytery’s concurrence with the call but to let the upcoming full General Assembly decide the matter. Well, in the last few days the issue has hit the press and has increased in visibility and verbiage, as well as published opinion. What was happening “decently and in order” as we Presbyterians like suddenly is having its trial in the press.

First the background: The Rev. Scott Rennie, a partnered gay man, was called by Queen’s Cross Church, Aberdeen, to be their new pastor. The Presbytery of Aberdeen concurred but 12 commissioners protested the decision because of Mr. Rennie’s lifestyle. As I said, the Commission of Assembly, a body with interim authority between Assembly meetings, heard the protest and decided this was of such significance that the full Assembly needed to deal with it. So we were waiting for the Assembly meeting in just about a month.

Over the last few days the issue has now flared up in the press. It appears to have begun with an editorial in the latest issue of the Church of Scotland’s monthly publication Life and Work. The magazine is editorially independent and appears only in print so the editorial is not available on-line as best as I can tell. Accounts all seem to agree that the editorial in the latest issue takes the side of the Rev. Rennie. As the Rev. Louis Kinsey says about this in his blog Coffee with Louis:

In her editorial, Muriel Armstrong writes about the General Assembly
of the Kirk, shortly to take place in Edinburgh, and focuses entirely
on the case of the Rev Scott Rennie, whose call to the congregation of
Queen’s Cross in Aberdeen is being resisted by dissenters from that
Presbytery, amongst whom I am one.

The serious mistake that Life & Work has made here is
that the magazine attempts to argue this case and to bring it to a
liberal conclusion long before the General Assembly even convenes. How
can it be considered fair or proper to discuss a case and to say what
the outcome should be before the Kirk’s highest court has convened and
debated? This is simply prejudice, not journalism.

Mr. Kinsey goes on to fault the magazine not for being editorially independent but for being “so manifestly one-sided and unbalanced.” And his concern is with the timing so close to the beginning of GA it will influence the commissioners. And he has concerns about how she has formed her opinions:

How can she know the evidence? Has she seen all of it? If not, and I
most sincerely hope she has not, for the evidence is confidential, how
can she offer anything resembling a responsible point of view. Her
editorial is factually incomplete and numerically misleading. It is
naive about the way scripture is to be read and used in the modern
world. It also demonstrates remarkable ignorance of the biblical and
theological issues that are involved, choosing to try and conclude the
argument with a few sweeping generalizations about homosexuality and
the integrity of relationships.

And Mr. Kinsey finishes with this:

The editorial ends with a swipe at the dissenters, reminding us of our
ordination vows – which we are presumably forgetting – vows about the
preservation of the peace and unity of the church, the very peace and
unity that is being threatened by those who press this matter,
including Life & Work, and not by the dissenters. It is no wonder at all that Life & Work
is so disregarded in evangelical congregations and by evangelical
ministers and elders… It presents itself as the magazine of a
broad church, but it is clear that the broadness of the church works
only in one direction. It is a broadness that suits those who are
theologically liberal but which shows a growing intolerance towards
evangelicals and their theology.

You can also check out media coverage of the editorial by the BBC and Christian Today.

But this editorial and the Rev. Kinsey’s response was only the beginning. Yesterday Mr. Ron Ferguson authored an opinion piece in The Herald that raised the possibility of a modern split in the Church of Scotland like the Disruption of 1843. Again Mr. Kinsey responds to this article saying:

A divide may indeed eventually come over the issue of the affair of
Aberdeen Presbytery, but whatever form and shape it will take, it will
only be the visible manifestation of a divide that has existed for some
time.

In addition, The Herald has posted some letters to the editor on both sides of the issue.

With these two opinion pieces being widely reported the blogosphere has lit up as well, including this post. Others discussing it include Anglican Mainstream, Euangelion, and Gay Religion among many others.

While I expected this to be a major focus at the Assembly, I am a bit surprised that it has become such a high-visibility story ahead of the Assembly. I expect that we can see statements from Forward Together and Affirmation Scotland leading up to the meeting. We will see how much more this issue develops in the next month.

Presbyterian Congregations And Presbyterian Government — A Point Of Tension?

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As Presbyterians we have a unique system of government that holds the Session of the church and the Congregation in a tension that sometimes is not readily grasped or easily explained. And in my years on the Committee on Ministry I have found that often the session and congregation each thinks it has more authority than it actually does. I have also found that a Session, intentionally or unintentionally, has led a congregation to believe that the congregation has virtually no power. In reality the congregation has significant power and authority but in a narrow range.

If you want a clear demonstration of the tensions around congregational powers you need look no further than the recent decisions from the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) of the PC(USA). The case of Yun v. Korean United Presbyterian Church had to do with election of officers and procedures at congregational meetings. In Sundquist v. Heartland the GAPJC ruled, in part, that it is not a right of a congregation to be able to vote to be dismissed from the denomination. This ruling upheld an authoritative interpretation (AI) from the 218th General Assembly specifying this. But this AI also reinforced the congregation’s authority to specify the quorum for a congregational meeting and that this was not something the session or the presbytery could not alter.

It is interesting that with these cases concerning what a congregation can and can not do, if you look at the “What Presbyterians Believe” section of the PC(USA) web site you will find articles concerning what they believe about elders, deacons, how Presbyterians make decisions, the priesthood of all believers, and many more topics, but nothing clearly about congregations, covenant community, or the body of Christ.

So, as I was working on another piece about polity and Presbyterian congregations I figured that I should tackle the role of the congregation in Presbyterian government first. However, in this post I will review the powers and responsibilities of the congregation without the full development of the congregation as the “Body of Christ” and the “Covenant Community.” That will come later.

There is a short answer to the question about what the roll of the congregation is in governance: Across most, but not all, Presbyterian branches it is the right and responsibility of the congregation to decide almost all matters related to the officers of their church. As the PC(USA) Book of Order puts it:

The government of this church is representative, and the right of God’s people to elect their officers is inalienable. Therefore, no person can be placed in any permanent office in a congregation or governing body of the church except by election of that body. [G-6.0107]

The Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand puts is another way in the Background section of Chapter 7:

In the Presbyterian tradition, a congregation calls a minister and elects elders to undertake spiritual oversight, leadership in mission, and pastoral care. A congregation may elect either a deacons’ court or a board of managers to manage the property and finances of the congregation.

And this understanding goes back to the Reformation. The 1556 Genevan Book of Order, used by the English speaking congregation in that city (you can’t say the immigrant fellowships are a new phenomenon), begins with this sentence about selecting ministers, and the elder and deacon selection sections refer back here to do it in the same way:

The
ministers and elders at such time as there wants a minister, assemble
the whole congregation, exhorting them to advise and consider who may
best serve in that room and office.

And in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin concludes a section arguing from scripture and the writing of Cyprian with

We see then, that ministers are legitimately called according to the
word of God, when those who may have seemed fit are elected on the
consent and approbation of the people. Other pastors, however, ought to
preside over the election, lest any error should be committed by the
general body either through levity, or bad passion, or tumult. [Book IV, Chapter 3, Section 15]

As I said, this is not completely universal and An Introduction to Practice and Procedure in the Church of Scotland tells us:

Elders are chosen in one of three ways, but it is important to note that, whichever method is followed, the final decision, both as regards the method to be followed and the persons to be appointed, rests with the Kirk Session. Elders may be chosen (a) by the Kirk Session itself; (b) by a congregational meeting; or (c) by means of signed lists.

While the Church of Scotland can have elders appointed by the Session, they join the majority of Presbyterian branches in making it the right and responsibility of the congregation to search for and call a pastor. In most branches the congregation elects the search committee from among its members and when the search committee has a nominee they bring it back to the congregation for approval. There are some branches, like the Presbyterian Church in Ghana, where their tradition is to appointed ministers to parish positions.

It was in the pastor search process where I have had to deal with tensions with the session. Sometimes the session wants a hand in the selection — they may want veto authority or they may want to direct the selection either by being the search committee or by guiding the search committee. In a few circumstances related to calling temporary or interim pastors I have seen the session empowered as the search committee. But when it comes to searching for a regular installed pastor or associate pastor the session can have input and make suggestions, but the selection process is up to the committee and the approval up to the congregation as a whole. This does not mean that session members can not serve on the search committee, but like regular nominating committees in the PC(USA) the majority of the membership should be from the congregation at-large.

I have seen this lack of control confuse, irritate, and annoy session members. Some have the understanding that they run the church and that should apply to the leadership as well. When they find out they do not have a deciding voice in the selection process for the next pastor they sometimes are very surprised.

Now, as they say, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Since the congregation selects and calls the pastor, the congregation also has the full responsibility to support the pastor, including the prayer and financial support. The congregation approves the compensation package for the pastor. And in the installation questions the congregation must promise their support. The Presbyterian Church in America Book of Church Order asks these questions in section 21-10

3. Do you promise to encourage him in his labors, and to assist his endeavors for your instruction and spiritual edification?

4. Do you engage to continue to him while he is your pastor that competent worldly maintenance which you have promised, and to furnish him with whatever you may see needful for the honor of religion and for his comfort among you?

And the PC(USA) wording is similar in W-4.006b

(2) Do we agree to encourage him (her), to respect his (her) decisions, and to follow as he (she) guides us, serving Jesus Christ, who alone is Head of the Church?

(3) Do we promise to pay him (her) fairly and provide for his (her) welfare as he (she) works among us; to stand by him (her) in trouble and share his (her) joys? Will we listen to the word he (she) preaches, welcome his (her) pastoral care, and honor his (her) authority as he (she) seeks to honor and obey Jesus Christ our Lord?

In my experience, the congregation has a great and important power and responsibility in selecting its ordained officers and for all of the officers this task should be approached with prayer and discernment. It is not a responsibility to be taken lightly.

The other powers lodged in the congregation are more of a temporal nature, to use the Church of Scotland terminology, and vary across state and national boundaries. But since these items do affect the ability of the church to carry out its mission they should not be viewed as being entirely non-spiritual or secular in nature.

The PC(USA) explicitly lists matters related to real property as another area that the congregation must make the decisions. The theory here is both a corporate one, that the members of the church are members of the civil corporation, as well as the pragmatic view that since the members of the congregation have paid for the building or will have to pay off the loan, they should be making the decision on property matters such as these. In some branches, like the Church of Scotland and the PC(USA), certain of these property matters must be reviewed and approved by a higher governing body.

Other items of congregational business typically include the decision to have a board of deacons or a board of trustees, since those are officer related, and approval of church bylaws, since that is a corporation decision.

There can be one more congregational power that It is not as well defined. In the case of the PC(USA) this is found in G-7.0304a(5) where it says what business may be conducted at a congregational meeting:

(5) matters related to the permissive powers of a congregation, such as the desire to lodge all administrative responsibility in the session, or the request to presbytery for exemption from one or more requirements because of limited size.

The question is what are the “permissive powers” of the congregation. A few observations about this:

1 – In what may be a rarity, this paragraph has no associated comments in the Annotated Version of the Book of Order

2 – It is a concept regarding government powers and “permissive powers” are like common law powers. They are contrasted with statutory powers, enabling powers, and prescriptive powers. (The examples given in the following links are not definitive but give examples via usage within government reports.) This seems to be used much more in Britain where it is frequently used in the context of town or city regulation and management of land. (Used in the first line of this UK Parliament publication) It is also found in reference to restructuring government, including a Task Force Report for Toronto, Ontario, Canada and a PowerPoint presentation for Spring Lake, Michigan, USA. And thanks to the magic of Google Books I found a couple of useful paragraphs in Social Welfare Alive! by Stephen Moore and Peter Scourfield and in The Law Of Public Officers by Ruben E. Agpalo.

3 – If you refer to a template for a manual for stated clerks (here is Seattle Presbytery’s version, excerpt from page 11) it says of the business of a congregational meeting:

“permissive powers” relates to adopting congregational bylaws, establishment of a unicameral board, waivers from election of officers, raising of the quorum, and buying, selling, and mortgaging of real property

This seems to take the “such as” items listed in G-7.0304a(5) and make them “limited to.”

4 – For an extensive discussion of the concept of “permissive powers” that follows the governmental-based concept that they are the opposite of “prescriptive powers” you need to check out Michael McCarty’s discussion a year ago on his blog Around the Scuttlebutt. He tackles the concept of permissive powers head-on with some preliminaries in parts 1, 2 and 3, a detailed discussion in parts 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, and wraps it up in part 9. Mr. McCarty looks at the Presbyterian tradition and the ambiguities in the Book of Order around this and other issues of polity, and concludes that the congregation has a significant say in its relationship to the higher governing bodies and that in the ambiguities deference should be given to the congregation.

5 – It is the general tradition in American Presbyterianism that the “central governmental unit” is the presbytery. This is reflected in the presbytery’s responsibility to organize, unite, receive, divide, dismiss and dissolve churches. (G-11.0103h-i PC(USA) Book of Order) It is also seen in the presbytery’s oversight of pastors and the pastoral call process. And for the PC(USA) [from G-9.0103] “The jurisdiction of each governing body is limited by the express provisions of the Constitution, with powers not mentioned being reserved to the presbyteries, and with the acts of each subject to review by the next higher governing body.” In the PC(USA)’s revision of the Form of Government the mandate stipulates that the presbytery is to remain the central governmental unit and the version presented to the last General Assembly eliminated the permissive powers of the congregation. This latter change did draw some criticism.

6 – Not all Presbyterian branches lodge the fundamental power with the presbytery. Some, like the Bible Presbyterian Church, place it with the congregation. As their Form of Government says in Chapter 1 on Preliminary Principles:

9. All powers not in this Constitution specifically granted to the
courts of the Church are reserved to the congregations respectively, or
to the people.

Typical of the Presbyterian form of government, the relationship of the congregation to the governing bodies is one that holds the power and responsibility in tension so that there is accountability and shared responsibility within the Covenant Community. But when there are misunderstandings or ambiguities the working out of the shared responsibility can lead to tensions between different entities in the system.

Having now laid the fundamental foundation of the role of congregations in Presbyterian polity I, at some future point, will post some thoughts about building on this foundation and tweaking it a bit.

A Long View Of Membership Changes

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Much has been made over the last few months about the decline, or potential decline, of various Protestant subgroups. The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) singled out the Mainline churches, there was the op-ed piece by Michael Spencer on “The Coming Evangelical Collapse“, and last week Newsweek had one of their famous, or is that infamous, C&E (Christmas and Easter) articles on “The End of Christian America.” And that does not count the current debate about whether the United States is now or was a Christian nation to begin with (some say yes, others say no, and some say that it depends on the context and what you mean), a debate sparked by the President’s recent comments in Turkey. There is also an NPR piece today about the secularization of Britain.

I’m working on some of the membership stories and will post more detailed commentaries on that at a later date. But in the midst of all this I found an op-ed piece from the Wall Street Journal that takes the long view and is a must-read if you are interested in the church membership trends. Check out “God Still Isn’t Dead” by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge.

They point out that with the Constitutional separation of church and state, the lack of a state church forced American churches to be “market driven,” free enterprise if you will, in order to have the members to be viable.

America has long stood out among developed countries for its
religiosity. This has less to do with innate godliness than with the
free market created by the First Amendment. Pre-Revolutionary America
was not that religious, because the original Puritans were swamped by
less wholesome adventurers — in Salem, Mass., the setting for “The
Crucible,” 83% of taxpayers by 1683 confessed to no religious
identification.

America became religious after the Constitution separated church
from state, thus ensuring that religious denominations could only
survive if they got souls into pews. While state-sponsored religion
withered in Europe, American faith has been a hive of activity: from
the Methodists, who converted close to an eighth of the country in the
half century after the Revolution, to the modern megachurches.

Yes, from the founding of the nation right up to the present you need those people in the pews to put their pennies in the plate to keep the lights on. But while I agree that American Christianity is consumer driven, we use the term “church shopping” in a positive way after all, I do think a later paragraph is a bit short-sighted:

Meanwhile, the supply seems as plentiful as ever. Religion, no less
than software or politics, is a competitive business, where
organization and entrepreneurship count. Religious America is led by a
series of highly inventive “pastorpreneurs” — men like Bill Hybels of
Willow Creek or Rick Warren of Saddleback. These are far more sober,
thoughtful characters than the schlock-and-scandal televangelists of
the 1970s, but they are not afraid to use modern business methods to
get God’s message across.

Yes, there are some who base churches on more secular business methods. And yes, I think many of us have “issues” with churches that promote “positive thinking” or “prosperity gospel” Christianity (if that isn’t an oxymoron). But I also believe there are many faithful Christians who are drawn to churches because what the church offers is “the true preaching of the Word, the right administration of the sacraments, and discipline uprightly ministered.” That people are drawn to a church because it fulfills the “notes of the true church” does not mean it is lead by a “pastorpreneur,” to use their term. A good, faithful, vital product will succeed in the marketplace.

And the authors do consider the spiritual side in the article. Towards the beginning they say:

Has this model really run out of steam? Betting against American
religion has always proved to be a fool’s game. In 1880, Robert
Ingersoll, the leading atheist of his day, claimed that “the churches
are dying out all over the land.” In its Easter issue in 1966, Time
asked “Is God Dead?” on its cover. East Coast intellectuals have
repeatedly assumed that the European model of progress, where modernity
equals secularization, would come to the U.S. They have always been
wrong.

And towards the end they observe:

Looked at from a celestial perspective, the American model of religion,
far from retreating, is going global. Pastorpreneurs are taking their
message around the world. In Latin America, Pentecostalism has
disrupted the Catholic Church’s monopoly. Already five of the world’s
10 biggest churches are in South Korea: Yoido Full Gospel Church, which
has 800,000 members, is a rival in terms of organization for anything
Messrs. Warren and Hybels can offer. China is the latest great convert.
There are probably close to 100 million Christians in China, most of
them following a very individualistic American-style faith. Already
more people attend church each Sunday than are members of the Communist
Party. China will soon be the world’s biggest Christian country and
also possibly its biggest Muslim one.

In the long view, no theological branch is monolithic in space and time. If I may narrow down the perspective a bit and just comment on American Presbyterianism: Almost from its inception the American Presbyterian church has been a dynamic entity. The first presbytery was founded in 1706 and the first division occurred in 1741. While the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) counts its General Assemblies from the first one in 1789 so that there have now been 218 of them, really the PC(USA) came into being in a merger in 1983. And while the PC(USA) can legitimately trace its history as the main branch of American Presbyterianism from 1706, it is important to note that the history is shared with other branches. The Presbyterian Church in America, formed in 1973, also traces his history and polity back through the southern church, the Presbyterian Church in the United States. One diagram of American Presbyterian history shows nine different American Presbyterian churches at the present time, and I am aware of a few more that have spread into the country rather than branching off of the historical trunk. (For example the Free Presbyterian Church of North America)

Anyway, as much as we might like to think there is, and always has been, a single branch of American Presbyterianism, in the long view that is not the case. While American Presbyterianism as a whole can legitimately claim a solid 300 year history, the individual denominations show an ebb and flow. There is no reason to think that should end now.

Latest News And Some Local Commentary On The Presbyterian Church Of Ghana

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Many of you have probably noticed that one of the global Presbyterian branches I try to follow closely is the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG). What makes this possible, and in itself is one of the aspects that I find interesting, is the amount of media coverage that the church receives. Based on the amount and nature of the media coverage this Presbyterian denomination is a recognized entity in the life of that nation. So today I will bring a few short notes on that church in the media, and finish with something unusual — a published local criticism of the church.

A couple of weeks ago the Moderator of the General Assembly of the PCG, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Dr Yaw Frimpong-Manso raised many eyebrows when he commented on several recent fatal traffic accidents. In addition to human factors he raised the issue of “forces of darkness” being involved. Joy Online writes

“The spiritual dimensions of the recent spate of fatal accidents,
therefore, call for spiritual solutions”, Rev Frimpong-Manso told The Ghanaian Times in Accra on Monday in sharing his thoughts about the carnage on the roads.

It should not be a surprise that those writing on the comments page for this story mostly criticize the Moderator for invoking “superstition.” And while this criticism takes on some cultural aspects, it also has parallels in the just released Barna survey that most U.S. Christians don’t believe Satan or the Holy Spirit exist.

There have also been a couple of recent words from the church leaders addressed to the people of Ghana. At a chapel dedication on Easter Sunday the Rt. Rev. Dr. Frimpong-Manso “urged political leaders to mobilize the country’s human and material
resources… to
enhance the living standard of the people” and “appealed to Ghanaians to use the resurrection of Christ to transform
the nation and avoid negative tendencies such as corruption, armed
robbery and laziness but should work hard to increase productivity in
the country,” according to an article in Modern Ghana. In another appearance he “advised the youth to avoid indecent dressing and other immoral activities during festive occasions,” also from Modern Ghana. The Rev. Abraham Nana Opare Kwakye, a District Minister in the church, in a report from AllAfrica.com, warned his listeners about “the increasing spate of ethnicity and tribalism in the
country.” The article goes on to say that “He warned that if the practice was not checked with the
urgency that it deserves, it could ruin the development of the country.” Finally, Modern Ghana reports a speech by the Rev. Otuo Acheampong at another dedication (this a public sanitary complex) where he encouraged virtue and moral behavior by the young people. The article quotes him as saying “The act of going to church regularly is good in itself however, we
must be more conscious of putting into practice what the Holy Book says
if we are to achieve our aims and objectives to be sons of God”. And this is just a sampling of the many public comments by PCG clergy to the citizenry as reported by the media over the last couple of weeks.

But, there has also been a rare published piece of criticism of the church this past weekend as well. In an op-ed piece in Modern Ghana Mr. Yaw Opare-Asamoa writes about “The Reformed Tradition and the Presbyterian Church.” Beginning with the motto “The Church reformed and always to be reformed” (as he phrases it) he complains that the church should have a “dissatisfaction with the status quo” and then asks “Why does the church today seem to be so satisfied with the status quo?”

He raises three issues that, in his opinion, need to be dealt with. The first issue is “postings,” where a minister is assigned to work, especially new ministers. While the “field” areas outside the cities need good ministers those ministers who are well connected can get more desirable and comfortable assignments in the cities. He suggests that the process is political

Ministers go to the head office to lobby for placement to
congregations/stations they consider favourable. If you are not
‘connected’ at the head office, then your chances of being posted to
any of the ‘plush’ congregations are virtually nil.

And he holds up the Methodists’ system as an alternative

They (the Methodists) have a laid down structure where new ministers
join the ‘queue’ and wait their time. You start your ministry from the
village/town and work your way to the city.

He points out that one effect of the political nature of the process is that new ministers don’t immediately take parish work but continue in school to earn more academic qualifications in an attempt to avoid the country churches.

The second issue is that some ministers don’t want to be posted outside the main city of Accra. For those that speak Ga they avoid serving the country churches since many of those speak Twi. Yet, Mr. Opare-Asamoa points out that they don’t seem to have a problem serving a Twi church in Accra.

Finally, he takes issue with the quality and editorial bias of the church’s monthly newspaper, Christian Messenger.

Third issue has to do with the ‘Christian Messenger’ (Ghana’s oldest
Christian monthly newspaper). I have never seen any Christian newspaper
that is as unchristian as the Christian Messenger. If you pick up this
newspaper expecting to be edified or spiritually exhorted forget it!
You would be lucky to find a page of biblical/spiritual content. The
rest of the pages are reserved for obituaries and announcements. There
are pages devoted to activities that various congregations have
embarked upon. For years the former editor had a stranglehold over the
paper. Nobody could say anything to him. The quality got from worse to
worst. During private conversations with some ministers, they
acknowledged the sorry state of the newspaper but were not ready to
cross the editor. I wondered why. He eventually went on pension only to
be contracted back as a consultant, for what I don’t know.

Unfortunately Christian Messenger does not appear to have a web presence, as far as I could tell, so checking out the content and editorial bent for ourselves is not easily done.

Based upon the Modern Ghana page Mr. Opare-Asamoa is a regular contributor of op-ed pieces to the web site. He usually deals with the politics in Ghana and from looking through his other pieces this appears to be the only one that addresses the PCG. Also, his style and level of criticism of his other targets seem to be similar to this article. None the less, as he points out churches in the Reformed tradition are to be “always reforming” so a voice pointing out potential problems and holding the church accountable has a place.

As I said at the beginning, this style of criticism is unique in the numerous articles I have read about the PCG. The church generally seems well regarded by the media and the people and the PCG is an active and supportive part of many communities. As such, I have not found either corroboration or contradictory evidence of Mr. Opare-Asamoa accusations. Particularly regarding the “posting” system, the potential for abuse is clearly understandable. This is one advantage of the “call” system in many Presbyterian branches, that the congregations select the pastor rather than receiving a pastor by appointment. However, even in the PC(USA) there is a preference among ministers for urban over rural parishes. Some things are constant in the church no matter where you are on the globe.