Monthly Archives: October 2009

Church of Scotland General Assembly 2010 Moderator Designate

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This morning the nominating committee announced the Moderator Designate for the 2010 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.  I would like to congratulate the Rev. John Cairns Christie on receiving this honor.

Rev. Christie is a native of Glasgow and is a second career minister having a first career as a teacher with training in biology.  He holds the highest professional certification of Chartered Biologist from the Society of Biology.  After nearly two decades in education he was ordained to the ministry in 1990 and his early service included work as a school chaplain.  He has also served as convener of the Glasgow Presbytery Education Committee, among others.  Since 2004 he has been serving in Interim Ministry and currently serves at St Andrew’s Parish Church, West Kilbride and some times at Scots Kirk, Lausanne, Switzerland.  (And I thought I had an interesting commute. )  The Rev. Christie appears to have plenty of activity in his life having served on several GA committees, recreational activity that includes 5-a-side football, and his wife Annette is on the international team for the Scottish Indoor Bowling Association.

The Church of Scotland has an official press release of the announcement and so far the media appears to be using the info in the press release.  I’ll update here when more detailed stories or interviews have been published.

UPDATE: I was glad that we still have an insider view of the process thanks to the Rev. Ian Watson at Kirkmuirhill.

UPDATE: An interesting editorial in The Times about The Kirk needing to have a Moderator for longer than one year so they can “make a mark.”

Exit Strategy? Parallels In Institutional Realignment And Consequences

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The parallels are very interesting, if not striking…

For the past week the big news in religion circles has been the Roman church establishing a structure to bring into full communion Anglicans that are now at theological odds with their own denomination and are looking for a more conservative church.

But consider this Anglican-Roman possibility compared to the PC(USA)-EPC situation.

At the top level there is the structural similarity.  In each case the receiving church has created a specific auxiliary structure within the church to accommodate the beliefs, polity and practices of the immigrants.  While Rome is still ironing out the details, it has been announced that the post-Anglican branch will have a “personal ordinariate” (read bishop or other episcopal type person)(update: a good note on personal ordinareates from Called to Communion) for that branch.  The EPC has of course set up the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery.

Now, yes, I am fully aware of a couple of points where these two cases are reversed.  First in size, the larger Roman church is offering to receive from the smaller Anglican church while it is the other way around for the PC(USA)/EPC relationship.  But there is a historical relationship in each of these cases with the smaller denomination braking away from the larger at some point in the past.  One other important difference in this situation is the speed that each developed.  While the founding of the New Wineskins Presbytery was not immediate, it did happen relatively quickly by church history standards.  The reunification of the Roman and Anglican branches has probably been a goal of Rome for, oh, say 500 years, and this most recent move should be viewed as something specific that has been in the works for a while, maybe a couple of decades.

But beyond the structural parallels there are at least two dynamics in this where we may see parallel activity as well.

The first is the effect on the receiving institution.  Interestingly, in both cases the receiving institution will have to make accommodation for women serving in ordained positions.  While the EPC had this as a local option, we have seen some question about how former PC(USA) churches would be integrated into EPC presbyteries that do not currently have women ordained to church office.  For the Roman church, it will have to accommodate not only women serving as priests but the reality of married clergy.  And while Rome has previously accepted married clergy that have realigned to them from the Anglican church, this will require a whole new level of accommodation.

But what this really does is raise the possibility of questions from the established side.  “If they can be part of us and have women clergy, why don’t we?”  “If they can be part of us and the priests can be married, why can’t we?”  I have previously spoken of the PC(USA)-ization of the EPC, it will be interesting to see what the ramifications are for the Anglican-ization of the Roman church.  How much interest will there be in members and clergy drifting from the established side to the new branch?

(Correction:  After multiple contacts about my line above about women priests (see the comment below) I did some more looking and 1) can not now locate my original source for that and 2) located a lot of commentary that implies no women priests.  Accordingly, I have struck that comment.  If I can locate my original source I will reinstate the above line and cite a reference.  Until then it is not an issue. Sorry about that.)

The second parallel is the one of pragmatism and practicality — The idea looks good on paper, but will they come?  Put another way — How much will this be viewed as the better of two imperfect options?

Within the PC(USA) the situation is still developing.  The church has, for the moment, retained the ordination standards but the majority view seems to be that when in all likelihood the PC(USA) presbyteries vote on it again a year from now there is the distinct possibility that G-6.0106b will be modified or removed.  At the present time not all of the churches who are part of the New Wineskins Association of Churches have moved to the EPC New Wineskins Presbytery — many see their calling to remain with the PC(USA) for the moment.  And Presbyterians for Renewal has proposed a non-geographic synod for churches to be able to remain in the PC(USA) while holding differing views on ordination standards.  While the EPC option is available it appears that so far a minority has viewed it as the appropriate way forward.

There is a similar situation in the Anglican Communion even without the offer from Rome.  In the U.S. there is both the Anglican Church in North America that broke away from the Episcopal Church as well as some dioceses that are looking at staying, but just barely.  The Diocese of South Carolina has a special convention this weekend where it will consider five resolutions that would keep them in the church but withdraw from many of its functions.  Similarly, within the Church of England there are groups within the church that are eying the announcement from Rome, but seem to be leaning towards the loyal opposition route.  And then there is the Global South where the “liberal trajectory” in parts of the Communion is an issue, but not for them at home.

One area which does not seem to be a parallel is the politics of the exit strategy.  In the PC(USA) the EPC option seems to really be viewed as just that, an option.  Despite charges of recruiting PC(USA) churches, and the effort by the PC(USA) to hold onto property, it has seemed to be something that churches consider for the sake of their ministry.

Now maybe I am reading too much into some of these stories (or the media is writing too much into these stories), but over the last week I have gotten the impression that many of the conservatives in the Anglican Communion see the offer from Rome in political terms and a development to be used as a bargaining chip.  Maybe it is just me, but from the comments welcoming the new option (e.g. ACNA) it almost seems like some members of the Communion are using the Roman Church as a “white knight.” They are not so much interested in joining Rome as to use its offer to put pressure on the Anglican Communion to reinforce conservative views.  But maybe this is just me reading some conspiracy theory into all this.

If you are interested in more of the practical realities of this offer to the Anglicans from Rome I would suggest a piece by Diana Butler Bass on Beliefnet and Peter Smith at the Louisville Courier-Journal.  And of course, one of my favorite reads, GetReligion, has five different articles analyzing the coverage of the announcement.  (One, two, three, four and five)

Now, if you are regular readers of my blog you probably realize that I have an analytical interest in church realignments.  It will be interesting to see how this develops.  I think that my first Ph.D. degree is probably enough so I won’t be doing the comprehensive research and analysis, but there are probably a couple of good dissertations about church structure and realignment that will come out of this and I look forward to that research.

In addition, it will be interesting to see what develops in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America over the same issues after this past summer’s Churchwide Assembly.  So far about ten ELCA churches have had a first vote on realigning with the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ.  But I need to start closely following another denominational branch like I need…

Anyway, it is interesting to see how both the structures and practicalities of these realignments are developing.  We will see what the actual outcome of all this will be.

Considering the Belhar Confession — The PC(USA), RCA And CRC Are All In The Process

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In an inter-denominational synergy (or maybe a cosmic convergence or providential parallel) it turns out that the Belhar Confession is currently under consideration in three Reformed churches in the U.S. — In addition to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) it is also being looked at by the Reformed Church in America (RCA) and the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) for adoption as a confessional standard.

If you have not had a chance to get acquainted with the Belhar Confession yet, it was written by the Dutch Reformed Mission Church of South Africa, under the leadership of the Rev. Allan Boesak, and it spoke to the concern that the concept of apartheid was at odds with the justice and equality of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Belhar Confession is now one of the standards of unity of the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa.

Of the three denominations the one furthest along in the adoption process is the RCA which has been studying it in the wider church since 2000.  In 2007 it was provisionally adopted by the General Synod and this past summer the General Synod approved the formal adoption process and it must now be approved by 2/3 of the 46 classes (like a Presbyterian presbytery) to become their first new standard in over 300 years.  (OK, the three standards, the Belgic Confession, Canons of Dort, and Heidelberg Catechism were written over 300 years ago but adopted by the RCA in 1771.)

As it turns out the process in the CRC is a bit ahead of the PC(USA) but their study period will close at the same time as the PC(USA) in 2012.  The CRC has been in consultation with the RCA about this and their Synod 2009 recommended that the church study the Confession and that it be adopted by Synod 2012 as their fourth confessional standard, the same as the RCA.  For the CRC the approval by Synod 2012 is the final step and no vote of the classes is required under their polity.  (A unique feature in my experience.)

Concerning the PC(USA), if approval is gained at each of the planned steps then it would enter the PC(USA) Book of Confessions following the 220th General Assembly in 2012.  The specific steps are the formation of a study committee by the 218th GA, report back of the study committee recommending adoption to the next GA, the 219th, and approval of the confession by that Assembly.  It would then be sent to the presbyteries for approval requiring an affirmative vote of 2/3 of the presbyteries.  There must then be a final vote of the next GA, the 220th in 2012, to finish the process successfully.  The first and second steps, creation of the study committee and a positive recommendation of that committee have now been completed.  The committee’s work has included consultation with the CRC and the RCA, even holding their first meeting back in June in Grand Rapids, MI, a location chosen to better dialog with the CRC.

While this is not the hottest topic (maybe this, or this, or even this is) in the Reformed circles of the blogosphere, it does have pretty good coverage.  Bloggers from the RCA (e.g. Steve Pierce and Kevin DeYoung) and the CRC (e.g. Algernon Peak) are weighing in on the confession.  And of course, there is plenty of opinion from the PC(USA) as well (e.g. Toby Brown, Byron Wade, Viola Larson, and Mark Koenig).

There is general agreement that the Belhar Confession would bring a couple of new items to the Book of Confessions — its focus on equality and justice as well as its Southern Hemisphere perspective.  Those are aspects that you may or may not agree should be represented in the Book of Confessions.

Regarding the justice aspect there is a concern among many of the bloggers that it comes from the perspective of Liberation Theology.  In the fourth section of the Belhar Confession, the second bullet-point reads “We believe…that God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged.”  The current debates revolve around the phrase “is in a special way” and what that means.  In some varieties of Liberation Theology the scriptures are viewed as saying that God not only comforts the poor and oppressed but is inherently against the rich and powerful.  Algernon Peak comments on this saying:

The first aspect of the Belhar that makes me uncomfortable is that it makes the claim, “that God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged.”  While Scripture makes clear that God cares for the poor, and Christ says in Luke 6, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”, we go too far to say that God is in some special way God to those who are impoverished.  According to the Scriptures, God is God in a special way to his chosen people, to go beyond that truth is to say more than the Scriptures do.  This does really concerns me, because that particular portion of the Belhar seems much more indebted to contemporary liberation theology than it does to the Bible.  We are lost if we start allowing our confessions to say that which God’s revealed written testimony does not give us the right to say.

The aspect of the Belhar that is probably the focus of the greatest debate is how the pronouncements about justice and equality regarding racial divisions can be extended to current controversies of gender orientation equality.  That this extension can be made seems
to be acknowledged by all engaged in the debate.  In the case of the Rev. Joseph Small of the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship this is a good and legitimate extension.  The official PC(USA) press release says this about his comments to the committee:

Adopting the Belhar also means more than presenting a simple statement against racism, Small said.

“It does speak to the contemporary reality of racial discrimination in our church and the world,” he said. The church can’t ignore the situation of apartheid that led to the Belhar, Small told the committee, but also can’t limit it to that. “Belhar is something that speaks about the diversity of the church but doesn’t restrict it to one dimension.”

That openness to a wide range of social conflicts could also be a barrier to adoption for Belhar, which some could argue opens the door to gay and lesbian ordination. That issue was raised recently when the national governing bodies of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) and the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) also considered Belhar.

But the confession mentions only membership in the church — not ordination — and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people have long been welcomed as members in the PC(USA), Small said.

One of the people raising concerns about the extension of the Belhar Confession to this current debate is Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary.  His is an interesting voice in this discussion because, as he describes in his recent piece about it, he has significant experience with all three of these Reformed branches as well as the individuals and denomination that wrote the Belhar.  (He has an earlier article from last Spring raising concerns as well.)  In the article from last week he wrote:

So why am I opposed to our—the CRC, RCA, and PC(USA)— adopting Belhar as a confessional document? When I wrote about this earlier I mentioned that Allan Boesak, also one of the gifted anti-apartheid spokespersons in South Africa’s Reformed community, had recently appealed to Belhar in support of including active gays and lesbians in the church’s ministerial ranks. I might also have mentioned that many fear that Belhar will now be used to reinforce an unnuanced anti-Israeli stance.

I think those worries are real. But my critics, many of whom share my views about same-sex issues and Middle East matters, rightly insist that this is no reason to oppose Belhar as such. What we must do, they rightly argue, is to make sure that Belhar is understood as a prophetic word against racial and ethnic discrimination within the Christian community.

We will see to what extent Belhar is held up as a “particular stance” in particular circumstances at a particular time versus how it is applied as applicable today to any perceived injustice or inequality.

But Dr. Mouw continues on from there to express an even greater concern on his part — the nature of confessional standards in general and how this one fits into that framework.  The nature of confessional standards is something I have discussed before and this is of concern to me as well.  I encourage you to read the whole discussion, but here are some excerpts that I hope gives you the basics of what seems to me to be the strong case that Dr. Mouw makes:

My real concern about adopting Belhar has to do with the broader issue of the nature of confessional integrity in our Reformed and Presbyterian churches. I think I know all three denominations very well. I was raised in an RCA pastor’s home, and attended two of that denomination’s colleges and one of its seminaries. I was an active member of the CRC for 17 years. And for two decades now I have been similarly active in the PC(USA).

When I was studying at an RCA seminary in the 1960s, one of my more conservative professors explained the differing views on the status of the Reformed “Standards of Unity”—Heidelberg, Belgic, and Dort—in this way. The CRC, he said, takes them very seriously. If you are Christian Reformed you are expected really to believe what is in them. […] Some people in the RCA, on the other hand, said the professor, tend to see the book of confessions as a kind of museum. […]

I think the professor had it right at the time. But today all three of the aforementioned denominations basically endorse the museum approach. Or it may be a little more like a “Great Books” approach. The documents from the past are all there up on the shelf, and we all acknowledge their importance, but some of us really like James Baldwin and others of us prefer Jane Austen.

[…]

These days it is rather common for people—CRC folks included—who have taken ordination vows publicly to express their disagreements with what I take to be essential Reformed doctrines. Indeed, I am often treated as a curiosity of sorts when I make it clear that I still subscribe to the actual doctrinal content of the Reformed “Great Books”—predestination, individual election, substitutionary atonement, the reality of hell, Christ as the only Way.

So, let me put it bluntly. If we—for all practical purposes—don’t care about genuinely subscribing to the actual content of, say, the Belgic or the Westminster confessions, why would we think that adopting Belhar would be in any way binding on the consciences of persons who take ordination vows? When detached from the content of the rest of Reformed thought, many of Belhar’s formulations—as stand-alone theological declarations—are dangerously vague. Belhar deserves confessional status only in a community that takes the rest of its confessions with utmost seriousness.

To sum up this whole issue his concluding paragraph is concise and to the point.  I leave you with that:

The most compelling case being made for adopting Belhar is for me the pleas of underrepresented racial-ethnic minority groups in our denominations. They have a right to ask us to declare our firm conviction that racism and ethno-centrism are not only unjust, they are theological heresies. But I fear they are assuming that we are more committed to confessional integrity than we actually are. When all of this debate is over and Belhar—as is very likely—is on the confessional shelf, I hope they will push us hard on whether we really take that whole shelf seriously.

Free Church Of Scotland General Assembly Moderator Designee

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The Free Church of Scotland yesterday announced that the Moderator of their 2010 General Assembly will be the Rev. David Meredith of Inverness.  The Rev. Meredith has pastored the Smithton Free Church for the last 25 years and is credited with building a tiny outreach congregation into a thriving one.  (That church name is from the announcement although the church web site lists the church as the Smithton-Culloden Free Church.  The church web site also brings news they had a 25 year celebration for Rev. Meredith just a couple of weeks ago.)

Mr. Meredith is a career minister having earned a degree in English and Politics at Strathclyde University before studying for the ministry at Free Church College.

I like the description that Rev. Meredith gives of his interest in ministry:

David says he has a desire to bring contemporary applications to
ancient truths, and to see vibrancy within a Free Church which is free
from parochialism and focused on the spiritual needs of Scotland.

In particular I like that idea of bringing “contemporary applications to ancient truths.”

The Free Church of Scotland General Assembly will convene in May in Edinburgh.  I look forward to Rev. Meredith’s leadership.

The PC(USA) New Revised Form Of Government — Introductory Thoughts And The Revised Foundations

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I am sure that most of the G.A. Junkies in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) know that the Form of Government Task Force will be bringing their revisions to the New Form of Government  to the 219th General Assembly next July.  Having now had time to study the revisions I wanted to share my thoughts and observations.

It is important to keep in mind the goal and history of the revision of the Form of Government section of the Book of Order.  The goal is to make the Book of Order, or at least the Form of Government, a constitutional document that sets forth the basic principles but is not loaded up with the detailed procedures that the church is to follow.  In addition, it is to be a “missional” document reflecting the concept that the church exists for mission — to go out into the world and make disciples.

The first recent major revision to the Book of Order came from the 217th General Assembly when that Assembly sent a revised version of Chapter 14 to the presbyteries, and the presbyteries concurred.  (An interesting discussion at this time would be whether the presbyteries still think the new Chapter 14 is a good thing and how that will influence the outcome of the present decision.) What we have today in that chapter is the stylistic goal for the whole Form of Government section.  At the 218th General Assembly the Form of Government Task Force brought a complete revision to the rest of the FOG but the Assembly committee and the full Assembly decided it was “not ready for prime time.”  The tenure of the task force was extended, three Assembly commissioners were added to the task force, and given the opportunity one member of the task force opted out of the “extended mission.”  Just over a month ago the task force released their New Revised Form of Government for the review, consideration, and discernment of the church.  This revision is to reflect the vast amount of input the task force received both at the 218th Assembly as well as through the presbyteries and directly.

If you wish to follow my discussion closely, or you want to have a detailed comparison yourself, there are several documents that you might want to consult.  The first, of course, is the current 2009-2011 Book of Order.  From the 218th GA (2008) there is the Report of the Task Force as well as a great side-by-side comparison of the revision to the Form of Government section at that time.  From the extended mission we have Report of the Task Force with the full text, as well as the Foundations and Government sections separately.  As tempting as it is to refer to the first revision as the “revised version” and the new one as the “new revised version,” for my discussion here and in following posts I will refer to them as “nFOG 2008” and “nFOG 2010.”  (The dates are for the year of the GA that considers them, not the year of release.)

For those just joining the discussion, or those who wisely have better things to do between GA’s than remember all these details, I should point out that a major recommendation in the nFOG 2008, and maintained in nFOG 2010, is the division of the existing Form of Government section into two sections.  The first four chapters would be split out on their own, rearranged into three chapters, and called Foundations of Presbyterian Polity.  They would now be the “F” section of the Book of Order and their placement into a new section would emphasize their application to all the other sections of the Book of Order.

In this post I will focus on just the Foundations section and leave the remainder of the Form of Government section for another time.  If you are curious what I said two years ago about it you can check out my previous comments.  As I read back through them today, with the exception of one messed up sentence where I am not sure what I was trying to say, I think my attitude now is still the same as reflected in that post.

I would begin by saying that while the nFOG 2008 did a major reorganization of the first four chapters, nFOG 2010 leaves most of their reorganization in place and has done more modification of the text, mostly to improve readability.  To my ear the Foundations section reads better than before.  A good example of this language:

 Current nFOG 2008  nFOG 2010
G-3.0100 Form
The mission of the Church is given form by God’s activity in the world as told in the Bible and understood by faith.

G-3.0101 God’s Activity
a. God created the heavens and the earth and made human beings in God’s image, charging them to care for all that lives; God made men and women to live in community, responding to their Creator with grateful obedience. Even when the human race broke community with its Maker and with one another, God did not forsake it, but out of grace chose one family for the sake of all, to be pilgrims of promise, God’s own Israel.

God’s Covenant
b. God liberated the people of Israel from oppression; God covenanted with Israel to be their God and they to be God’s people, that they might do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord; God confronted Israel with the responsibilities of this covenant, judging the people for their unfaithfulness while sustaining them by divine grace.

  F-1.01 GOD’S MISSION
The sovereign mission of the one triune God—Father, Son,and Holy Spirit—gives substance and form to the Church’s activity in the world. The Church knows God’s sovereign work in creation and redemption through God’s Word in Scripture, the witness of the confessions, and the presence of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. As the Church responds to God’s gracious call, it participates in the divine mission—proclaiming the time of the Lord’s favor, bringing good news to all who are impoverished, and announcing release to those who are imprisoned, sight to those who are blinded, and freedom to those who are oppressed. In its faithful mission, the Church is assured of God’s blessing and filled with hope in the fulfillment of God’s purpose. Along with Christians everywhere, Presbyterians have no higher goal in life or in death than to live in covenant fellowship with the triune God, to embrace and serve God’s mission, to glorify and enjoy God now and forever.		  F-1.01 GOD’S MISSION
The good news of the Gospel is that the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—creates, redeems, sustains, rules, a
nd transforms all things and all people. This one living God, the Scriptures say, liberated the people of Israel from oppression and covenanted to be their God. By the power of the Spirit, this one living God is incarnate in Jesus Christ, who came to live in the world, die for the world, and be raised again to new life. The Gospel of Jesus Christ announces the nearness of God’s kingdom, bringing good news to all who are impoverished, sight to all who are blind, freedom to all who are oppressed, and proclaiming the Lord’s favor upon all creation.

The mission of God in Christ gives shape and substance to the life and work of the Church. In Christ, the Church participates in God’s mission for the transformation of creation and humanity by proclaiming to all people the good news of God’s love, offering to all people the grace of God at font and table, and calling all people to discipleship in Christ. Human beings have no higher goal in life than to glorify and enjoy God now and forever, living in covenant fellowship with God and participating in God’s mission.

In this particular case I do think the nFOG 2010 reads better, theologically presents the might acts of God in a more logical manner, and I like the filling out of the nature of the triune God in the first line.

It does leave the question of whether this is the best opening for the Book of Order and as I argued before I still favor the current language for its force and gravity:

All power in heaven and earth is given to Jesus Christ by Almighty God, who raised Christ from the dead and set him above all rule and authority, all power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. God has put all things under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and has made Christ Head of the Church, which is his body. [G-1.0100a]

There are places where subtle changes were made that, to my reading, do have significant theological or historical implications.  One example is from the last line of F-2.02 on the confessions as subordinate standards:

 Current nFOG 2008  nFOG 2010
Yet the church, in obedience to Jesus Christ, is open to the reform of its standards of doctrine as well as of governance. The church affirms “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda,” that is, “The church reformed, always reforming,” according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit.
[from G-2.0200]		 Yet the church, in obedience to Jesus Christ, is open to the reform of its standards of doctrine as well as of governance. The church affirms “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda,” that is, “The church reformed, always to be reformed,” according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit.
[from F-2.02]		 Yet the church, in obedience to Jesus Christ, is open to the reform of its standards of doctrine as well as of governance. The church affirms Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei, that is, “The church reformed, always to be reformed according to the Word of God” in the power of the Spirit.
[from F-2.02]

First, I appreciate the extended Latin phrase being included as well as the use of italics rather than quotations.  But the change from the “call of the Spirit” to “power of the Spirit” is one that I currently am not persuaded of.  While I would fully endorse the power of the Holy Spirit, when used in the context of the church being reformed I would prefer referencing the initial action of God through the call of the Spirit in that reformation.  We affirm that reformation is not of human initiative but of God’s.

There is a similar change when the new version speaks of the Protestant Reformation:

 Current nFOG 2008  nFOG 2010
G-2.0400 Faith of the Protestant Reformation

In its confessions, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) identifies with the affirmations of the Protestant Reformation. The focus of these affirmations is the rediscovery of God’s grace in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. The Protestant watchwords—grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone—embody principles of understanding which continue to guide and motivate the people of God in the life of faith.

 F-2.04 The Confessions as Statements of the Faith of the Protestant Reformation

In its confessions, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) identifies with the affirmations of the Protestant Reformation. The focus of these affirmations is the rediscovery of God’s grace in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. The Protestant watchwords—grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone—embody principles of understanding that continue to guide and motivate the people of God in the life of faith.

 F-2.04 THE CONFESSIONS AS STATEMENTS OF THE FAITH OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

In its confessions, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) upholds the affirmations of the Protestant Reformation. The focus of these affirmations is God’s grace in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. The Protestant watchwords—grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone—embody principles of understanding that continue to guide and motivate the people of God in the life of faith.

Again, there are a couple of subtle changes that, to my thinking, make different theological and historical statements about the Reformation confessions.  The switch from “identifies with” to “upholds” is one that I think I disagree with, but I am still wavering.  On the one hand, “upholds” distances us from the confession like “it happened and we acknowledge it.”  On the other hand, while it has a greater sense of distance “upholds” does have, to me, a greater sense of affirmation or attachment than “identifies.”  I’m still debating these changes with myself.

One change that I am grateful for is the return of a paragraph related to the historical nature and “stance” of confessional standards:

 Current nFOG 2008  nFOG 2010
b. Thus, the creeds and confessions of this church reflect a particular stance within the history of God’s people. They are the result of prayer, thought, and experience within a living tradition. They serve to strengthen personal commitment and the life and witness of the community of believers.
[G-2.0500b]		 [not included] The creeds and confessions of this church arose in response
to particular circumstances within the history of God’s people. They claim the truth of the Gospel at those points where their authors perceived that truth to be at risk. They are the result of prayer, thought, and experience within a living tradition. They appeal to the universal truth of the Gospel while expressing that truth within the social and cultural assumptions of their time. They affirm a common faith tradition, while also from time to time standing in tension with each other.
[from F-2.01]

Well, if you have gotten this far in my post I thank you for caring so much about this.  As I said there are several subtle changes that have been made that may affect whether you do, or do not, like the revision.  I won’t give any more side-by-side comparisons, but another subtle change that jumped out at me was the opening paragraph of the Principles of Order and Government where nFOG 2008 talks about the historic principles of church order “which have been a part of our common heritage in this nation,” the nFOG 2010 drops the “in this nation.”  While I can appreciate an attempt to remove a nationalistic tone, I do want to affirm that the PC(USA) is only 25 years old and there are almost 300 years of American Presbyterianism before that.  In addition, I think the qualifier is useful since in my study of Presbyterianism globally there are certain distinctions to church order in the American branch that these principles reflect.

I would note that two additions I appreciate are the inclusion of more scripture references throughout the section as well as more attention paid to the triune God.  And while the changes in structure are few, I would also complement the task force on the few times they did move sentences and ideas around with putting them in places that they more logically fit.

I suspect that most G.A. Junkies have particular sections of the Book of Order that they appreciate and value for the precise wording as well as the doctrine behind the section.  I have three in the Foundations section that are dear to me.  In my post from the last go-round two years ago I ranted about the change to the beginning of Chapter 1 where Jesus Christ as the head of the Church has been moved one section later.  I am pleased to say that the Great Ends of the Church have remained untouched.  But between nFOG 2008 and nFOG 2010 they had to go and change the section [F-1.0301] that begins “The Church of Jesus Christ is the provisional demonstration of what God intends for all of humanity.” and ends “The Church is called to give shape and substance to this truth. The Church is further called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond themselves to the new reality in Christ.”  In nFOG 2010 it is no longer the “provisional demonstration” but is to demonstrate the gifts through Jesus Christ.  Furthermore, it does not risk its life for the mission but for the community. No only do I miss the specific wording that I have memorized and love, but it gives the appearance that is intended to be a missional document is not quite as missional.  Then again you can’t please everyone.

I think that is more than enough for right now.  I am still working on the new Government section of nFOG 2010 and will post on that probably in a week or two.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — The Assembly Business Is Now Live

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While I have been anticipating the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) “going live,” I can now report that within the last week or so it has.

In this case, going live has two components:

1)  The anticipated official web site of the Assembly is now up and running complete with several sub-pages and lots of pictures of the 218th GA.  There is a greeting from GA Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons on the front page, a nice set of FAQ’s for commissioners, and the beginnings of an on-line commissioner orientation including a video tutorial of PC-Biz, the on-line business system.  A preliminary schedule is posted and the right navigation bar has a suggestive, but inactive, region titled “GA 219 Social Networking.”  There are still some broken and interesting links on the pages (particularly for the OGA graphic) but the web site represents a good start.

2) Speaking of PC-Biz, I had mentioned that it had been primed for the 219th but now when you check out the business there are three overtures posted.

Overture 1 asks the Assembly to issue an Authoritative Interpretation that essentially restores previous AI and General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission decisions regarding Book of Order section G-6.0106.  The previous AI’s on this section were removed by the 218th GA as part of the action that sent the ultimately unsuccessful Amendment B to the presbyteries for a vote.  This Overture comes from the Presbytery of San Diego with concurring overtures from Central Florida, Cherokee, Washington and Yukon.

Overture 2 is a fairly routine matter of transferring a church from one presbytery to another.  The original location of Community Church of Seattle Presbyterian Church was in the Presbytery of Seattle but in 2003 they relocated to a property that is in the Presbytery of North Puget Sound.  There is a bit of a twist because the transfer did not happen at the time of the move six years ago due to North Puget Sound not being in a position to accept a loan guarantee that would have transfered with the church.  As they say, now the way is clear.

Overture 3 requests a fairly substantial change to the position of Commissioned Lay Pastor (CLP).  At the present time a CLP receives basic theological training and can then be commissioned by the presbytery to serve in a specific congregation.  When the CLP finishes at that congregation they are available for work in another congregation but are not able to do freelance work.  This overture from South Louisiana Presbytery requests a change to the Book of Order G-14.0560 to allow a CLP to have “at-large” status between calls and be free to serve on an as-needed basis, even in their own congregation if requested by the session.  The rational section of the overture says this:

Given the current reality that many of our smaller membership congregations are unable to afford the services of a commissioned lay pastor, even if one were available in or near the community, much less a minister of the Word and Sacrament, it is incumbent upon the denomination to provide avenues where these congregations may be served by trained laity, especially for the celebration of the sacraments. Having adopted the essential tenets of the Reformed tradition, we should exhibit a visible expression of the Reformed tenet of “the priesthood of all believers” or what Scriptures call the “royal priesthood,” (1Peter 2:9; Ephesians 2:19–22; 1Corinthians 6:16–18).

The realities of ordained ministry in the PC(USA) are that many congregations can not afford ordained leadership and those that are seminary trained have less interest in serving small rural congregations.  This is a situation the church will have to address and this is one approach to it.  Personally, I’m not sure yet that this would be my preferred course although it is a very reasonable proposal.  On the other hand I was very much in favor of a parallel move about 12 years ago when the church changed the Book of Order to allow “commissioned” deacons so that individuals could serve in the ministry of the diaconate in a specified means of ministry without the particular congregation having a full board of deacons.

So hold on to your hats as this is only the beginning.  We have almost exactly nine months before the Assembly convenes, lots of overtures to go, I am sure, and several committee and task force reports to be issued.  In addition, I have gone through enough parts of the New Revised Form of Government that the 219th will have to address to begin making some comments, probably tomorrow.

Church Property Case Not Accepted By Supreme Court… At This Time

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It is the first Monday in October and that means two things…

They begin announcing the Nobel Prizes for this year and…
The U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term.

Now, I will leave the Nobel Prizes (and their humorous cousins the Ig Nobel Prizes) to you.  (Although it does strike me that there is something theologically significant about the fact that cows with names give more milk than cows without names. See the Ig Nobel award for Veterinary Medicine.)

But with the start of the new Supreme Court year it brings a list of the cases that the court has agreed to hear, and the vastly longer list of those the Court will not hear.

For those looking for a Supreme resolution to the diversity of views and court decisions on church property, the trust clause, and neutral versus hierarchical principles, we won’t have it from the national court this year.  The Court has declined the request of St. James of Newport Beach to have their California high court decision reviewed.  If you look at the list of court orders you will see that their case, 08-1579, is just one in an approximately 80 page list of cases that the court has declined to hear, almost all with out comment.

What this means is that the case goes back to trial court as the California supremes ordered.  It also means that once the trial court has rendered a decision the case can once again make its way through the appeals system and possibly have another shot at the U.S. high court.  There is also a possibility that a different property case could make it there first.

As always, for the legal context, interpretation and decoding into plain English check out the Anglican Curmudgeon.

And the story continues.

Presbyterians Certainly Are A Peculiar People

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After putting my earlier post to bed I continued thinking on the topics I raised in that discussion about Presbyterian reorganization and started to do additional analysis on some of those thoughts.  This is a follow-up based on what I have contemplated and researched in the last couple of days.

To remind you of my thoughts from Saturday, in a nutshell I said that in historical Presbyterian divisions I regularly see certain proportions in the divisions.  Those are generally about 1:1, 2:1, and 19:1.  Put another way, when a division happens it regularly involves either 50%, 33%, or 5% of the Presbyterian branch.

What happened next was that I decided to be a bit ecumenical about this and look at some other Protestant branches:

Observation #1: The split of the Anglican Church of North America from the Episcopal Church is a 5% split.  (Actually it is 4.5% if you use the ACNA membership of 100,000 but only 3.1% if you use the 69,000 number that is also floating around.  This from a total of 2.2 million for the Episcopal Church.)

Observation #2:  As I went looking for historical divisions in other traditions I started looking for the “family tree” type charts for other churches.  Short answer, they are few and far between.  There are charts for all of Christendom (example 1, example 2 – note the Pentecostals with no connection to the trunk of the church).  There are a few that show division or union on a particular branch.  But with the exception of a great chart for the United Church of Christ, I could find nothing comparable to the Presbyterian charts.  Why?

The answer could be operational – I might not have found the right search terms for the search engines or things like this for other denominations might not be on line.

But I think the answer is also likely denominational.  Are Presbyterians peculiar in some way that we need these charts?

One explanation could be retention of our shared tradition:  Often, when divisions occur in denominations a new denomination is formed. (And it would therefore leave the chart.)  A prime example of this is the creation of the Methodists from the Anglican church.  Even within the Presbyterian tradition we have the Disciples of Christ originating from Presbyterianism, but never recorded on our family trees.  But for Presbyterians that seems to be the exception rather than the rule and usually when Presbyterians split there is simply another flavor of Presbyterians formed.  Our complexities of tradition could be attributed to dividing branches staying “in the neighborhood,” so to speak.

Another possible explanation is that there is something about Presbyterian governments that make our divisions, multiple branches, and reunions more likely than in other forms of church government.  (It actually would be an interesting discussion of whether it is the polity itself or if it reflects the type of people who are attracted to that polity.)  But given the recognition that, within the bounds of the collective judgment, a governing body can not bind an individual conscience the stage seems set for disagreements leading to a parting of ways.  More on that another time.

So are Presbyterians just more inclined to these divisions and mergers that, if we are to keep track of our tradition, give us a need for these complicated charts?  And can we take this a step further and ask if because we have these charts and are aware of our heritage of reorganizations, has that lowered our resistance to future divisions?

Put it another way, how much is it a part of, or maybe even inherent in, our system and how much is it because “that’s the way we have always done it?”

The bottom line is that as far as I can find on the web Presbyterians seem to corner the market, or at least dominate it, in diagrams showing our reorganizations over the last five centuries.

This led to the third point for today, (WARNING: this is about to get very geeky) I started thinking about the use of fractal behavior in numerical models of church division and recombination.

The numerical modeling of church division is not new to the last post — As you may have noticed from other posts I have some numerical models of mainline decline which I am working on to make them independent of denomination.  One of the features of these models is that the decline of a mainline church is not linear to zero but will reach an equilibrium point.  What I have been struggling with is what conditions to place on the calculation of that “plateau.”  My recent thoughts on the possible fractal nature of denominational size may help provide those conditions.

It was at this point in my previous post that I made a logical jump that may have left a lot of my readers behind.  I began by talking about proportions in church divisions and then turned to seeing if various Presbyterian traditions might be fractal.  The thing I should have added there is that if divisions regularly occur with about the same proportions then the various branches that develop will have similar ratios of their sizes.  That is to say that two small branches would have the same relative proportions compared to each other as two large branches.  This “self-similarity” is what is known in the jargon as “fractal” behavior.  A concrete example in a moment.

So what would the development of a fractal church look like?

A quick answer is taking the beginning population (Scottish churches in 1560?) and progressively divide them according to some ratio over a certain number of cycles.  If you take five cycles you end up with 32 different churches that each has one of six possible sizes.  Using a 70:30 split the continuing “main” church has 17% of the members and the “always minority” church has 0.2% of the population.  For a 95-5% split (19:1) the numbers change to 77% “always majority” and an effectively zero “always minority.”

But the interesting thing is that if you compare the largest branch to the second largest branch it will have the same ratio as comparing the second smallest branch to the smallest branch.  For the 70:30 split that ratio is 2.33 and for the 19:1 split the ratio is 19.  Going back to the previous post I observed that a number around 6.5 was seen as a ratio for American Presbyterianism in several cases and that would result from an 87-13% division.

Two refinements are immediately obvious:  1)  Provide for merger of branches based on theology and 2) Provide for merger of branches based on practicality when one or both are too small to survive.

How you introduce mergers will clearly influence the outcome.  One simple model is that in each cycle the minority of one branch finds more theological kinship with the majority of the neighboring branch and merges with them.  (Think PC(USA) churches moving over to the EPC.)  This gives six separate branches after five cycles.  The unmerged ends (only splits) have the same proportions mentioned above, but the four middle and successively reorganized branches have varying sizes.  For the 70:30 split the largest branches end up being part of the reorganization with one having 36% and ano
ther 30% of the total population.  For the 19:1 split no other branch has enough membership to grow to rival the unmerged majority with the second-largest branch having 20% of the population.

But with the mergers the ratio of sizes is now varied but lower than it was in the no-merger case.  In the 70:30 split a number around 1.5 is commonly seen and in the 19:1 case there are a few lower numbers (3.8, 9.5, 1.5) but the very smallest branches have very high ratios (such as 473).

From here countless refinements are possible including pruning or merging of branches that fall below a particular threshold of sustainability, the introduction of a virtual coin-toss to decide if two branches would merge and add a component of variability, and some sort of rule or probability that would result in mergers with the edge branches.  Maybe over the Thanksgiving holiday I’ll program up a Monte Carlo simulation.

So there are my extended thoughts on all of this.  I’ll provide future updates on where my reading or modeling takes me with this.