Monthly Archives: January 2010

Presbyterian Mutual Society Gets Its Hearing

First, I apologize for the silence the last week.  A lot going on in my life at the moment and my relaxation time blogging has been severely cut back.  The next two weekends I have a big meeting and a big family event and I suspect I’ll get back to my regular rhythm in about eleven days.  I hope so because I have a lot of material piling up in draft and note form.

Having said that, I just sent off a major “deliverable” so I have a very short break to look at the latest events this week related to the Presbyterian Mutual Society in Northern Ireland.  I gave an update about three weeks ago and want to thank “Anonymous” for the pointer to a current forum for discussion of the situation.

Unfortunately this week’s news about the situation is not confirmation of the rumored deal to bail out the savers and investors.  (And as noted in the comments from last time I have been sloppy with my use of the terms “savers” and “investors,” lumping them together.  I will try to be more precise.)  But the Society was in the news this week as a select committee of the U.K. Treasury met in Belfast to inquire into the collapse of the Society.  For Northern Ireland this was front page news being covered by the Irish Times, Derry Journal, Belfast News Letter, and Belfast Telegraph, among other.  It was also a topic among the blogs including Alan in Belfast and William Crawley: Will and Testament.

And then we have the reports from the Rt. Rev. Dr. Stafford Carson, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.  More than an outside observer, he was a focal point at the inquiry as he led the delegation from the Church.  The Irish Times article includes a brief report on a question asked of him by the committee chair, Mr. John McFall, former Northern Ireland Minister:

Mr McFall also demanded to know from the moderator of the PresbyterianChurch, Dr Stafford Carson, if it felt any responsibility to the 10,000savers left unable to access their funds by the sudden failure of thescheme. Dr Carson said the church was very aware of the plight of itscongregation who had invested in the society.

Since the collapse of the Society this has been a sticky point for the Presbyterian Church.  While the Society was a free-standing financial entity, it had very close ties to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland which promoted saving and investing in the Society, had several congregations that were heavily invested, and savers had to be members of the church to put their money there.  However, the Presbyterian Church has made it clear that it does not have financial resources to even begin compensating savers and investors and the collapse was part of the greater global financial crisis so the government should help the mutual societies the same way it helped other financial institutions.

It is important to note that Rev. Carson mentioned this meeting twice in his own blog.  He posted the day before the meeting with a brief description of what this was about and the text of his prepared remarks.  He then posted again after the meeting and among his thoughts he says:

The Treasury Select Committee asked some hard and good questions. Theeffect of that was to re-focus and re-energise the efforts we have madeto get the situation resolved, and for that we are very thankful. Muchof the discussion was taken up with the question as to how this crisiswas allowed to develop, and the failures of the registration andregulation process. The Committee report will make for interestingreading.

This seems to be as close as he gets to mentioning the question to him reported by the Irish Times.  He goes on to say…

All through this crisis, however, we have sought to stay focused on theresolution of the problem. When other financial institutions in the UKgot into trouble, they were bailed out without any inquiry into thecause of their collapse and without regard to the culpability of theinstitution. What became clear yesterday was that no one is reallytaking ownership of the drive towards a resolution, and, as John McFallsaid, the “pass the parcel” game needs to stop and a new political willneeds to be found. We hope that the visit of the committee will helpcreate that will and purpose.

So, we will see if this brings any government action, specifically a bail out like the other financial institutions had.  And without news soon this could become a very hot topic at the upcoming General Assembly.

Finally, it is important to note another piece of news about the Society and that is a further delay in the Administrator making the first payment to investors and savers.  This is where the distinction between the two groups may become important because under the bankruptcy laws the investors, who technically loaned the Society large sums of money, would be due payment before the savers who had lesser quantities on deposit with the Society.  A first payment was initially anticipated last month but clarifying the legal issues, and maybe accumulating more available cash, are holding up the payments until at least March. (Belfast News Letter, statement on PMS web site)  Next week the High Court is scheduled to rule on this as well as hear the request from the Administrator to extend the administration of the Society for five years.

Stay tuned – this has a long way yet to go.

Destructive Haitian Earthquake

It has been a while since I have drifted from my usual theological and polity discussions into my area of professional work.  Yesterday’s Mw=7.0 earthquake in Haiti has prompted me to now digress to the natural world for this discussion.

I am sure that most of you are aware of the major earthquake on the west end of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean.  The epicenter of the earthquake was about 10 miles west of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti which is on the western part of the island.

I should begin by saying that while the occurrence of the earthquake was not a surprise I was a bit surprised by the size.  While magnitude 5 and 6 earthquakes occur regularly around the Caribbean we don’t see magnitude 7 earthquakes that often – this is one of six in the last 10 years around the Caribbean basin.  In this area there was another magnitude 6.5 to 7 earthquake off the northeast side of the island in 2003.  Of these Caribbean earthquakes this one was a bit unique in that it occurred on land and not in the ocean.  And there was a Mw=8 earthquake centered on the east end of the island in 1946.

One of the big questions when an earthquake gets this large is where the fault broke.  Up to magnitude 5 the length of fault that breaks is relatively small so the epicenter does a good job of describing the location of the earthquake.  For larger earthquakes the epicenter is nothing more than the point it starts at and major fault slip can occur some distance away.  In this case the good news, if you want to call it that, is that all the major aftershocks are to the west of the epicenter giving strong evidence that the fault broke to the west away from Port-au-Prince.  So not only was the strongest shaking not in the capital but the energy was directed away from it.  Yes, little consolation considering the scale of the damage that we are seeing.

The presence of this earthquake, and in fact the presence of the island of Hispaniola itself, can be attributed to this area being on a sliver being pushed up on the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates.  There is a major fault zone just off the north shore of the island and then this one that cuts across and through the south side.


Having knowledge of the tectonic setting of Haiti and the presence of these faults it is not surprising that there is a moderate seismic hazard for the region.  However, don’t let the colors fool you – the highest hazard areas in this region are still an order of magnitude lower than most of the “low hazard” areas here in Southern California.  (And no, I’m not even going to attempt to explain what the numbers mean other than to say that it is related to the probably of experiencing damaging shaking in 50 years.)

There is one more very interesting (at least to me) behavior we see in earthquakes and that is a ten-to-one ratio of number of earthquakes as the magnitude increases.  This holds for the whole world, regions of the world, and aftershock sequences like this one.  So far the numbers are right on as demonstrated by the fact that as of now there are reported 35 earthquakes greater than, or equal to, magnitude 4.5.  If we increase one magnitude point to earthquakes greater than or equal to 5.5 there are four, including the main shock.  The magnitude-frequency ratio is holding.  (For the real geeks and seismologists I come up with a b-value of 1.05 currently but that presumes completeness of the IRIS catalog down to 4.5.)

If you want more maps and technical details on this earthquake you can check out the USGS information page for it.

Let me return to Presbyterianism to conclude.  I know that mission boards are trying to get information and status reports from workers in the country — my brother-in-law has not been able to reach his contacts there yet.  From the reports there is extensive damage to an already weak infrastructure so news may be slow getting out.  There were mission trips from New Jersey and Wisconsin churches in the country and news just appeared that the both groups are safe.  And disaster aid is being collected by PWS&D (PC Canada), PDA (PC(USA)). (I’ll add others as I see them.)  UPDATES: The PC(USA) now has a press release about mission workers, mission teams, and disaster assistance.  There is now an update from the OPC.  The PCA Mission to North America is evaluating the situation and taking contributions.  And there is an announcement that the Canadian Government will match donations to PWS&D. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church has made a donation, and encourages more, through Church World Service.

Finally, a couple of years ago I wrote about a “theology of earthquakes,” if you will.  If you want more on how I fit my professional work into my theological framework check that out.

And keep praying, not just for the devastation in Haiti but in areas all around the world that need help recovering from whatever disasters have struck them.

Looking Ahead: 219th General Assembly Of The PC(USA) – The Second Moderator Candidate

With thanks to the Presbyterian Outlook for confirming the news, we now know that the Rev. Jin S. Kim has been unanimously endorsed by the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area as a candidate to stand for election to be the Moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The Rev. Kim is the founding and senior pastor of the Church of All Nations in Columbia Heights, Minnesota.  Much as we joked about Bruce being the hometown boy with a home-field advantage at the 218th, it looks like Jin will have that distinction at the 219th.  Yet to see if that is an actual advantage.

At the present time the Rev. Kim has a single Moderator web page as a part of his personal blog New Church Rising.  On that Moderator page, in addition to his stock bio (it is essentially the same as the church bio, except he dropped the ice fishing reference, and his bio for the Belhar Special Committee is a condensed version) the page has his “Reflections on our life together as a Presbyterian family…”  That reflection begins with:

In a post-modern, post-ideological, post-denominational, multicultural age often marked by uprootedness and loss of meaning, how do we “do church” in a way that testifies to the reconciling gospel of Jesus Christ?  In an individualistic culture that tends toward alienation and isolation, how do we lead our congregations, ministries and presbyteries to become high-risk, low-anxiety places, to lead God’s people to confess who they are, to experience healing in intimate community, and to be a witness to the liberating power of the Spirit?

He goes on to talk about how this age requires a new “conceptualizing” of leadership, how we need to transition from the institutional model to something daring, prophetic and countercultural.

The Rev. Kim is widely known in the PC(USA), speaking regularly at conferences and according to his blog he is a speaker at the Institute for Multicultural Ministries going on right now at Princeton Theological Seminary.  He preached for worship services for the 216th (2004) and 218th (2008) General Assemblies, and as I mentioned above he is a member of the Special Committee to study the adoption of the Belhar Confession.  I look forward to his future writings on his blog and his view of the present situation in the PC(USA) and where the church should be headed.  (And you have to respect someone who gives their kids middle names based on ancient creeds – check the last sentence of his bio.)

I can not conclude this post without mentioning that in doing the research for this story I came across the blogs of two pastors that discussed some confusion in the process on Saturday when the presbytery elected their GA commissioners.  While the specific details are not fully covered there seems to be some misunderstanding and disagreement about voting on the slate of alternate commissioners the Nominating Committee put forward and the presbytery voting to do it differently.  Pastor Paul Moore titled his post “That didn’t go well” and draws two conclusions: 1- “We need to learn how to disagree better.” 2- “We have to value the process less.”  The second blog, by Pastor Stephanie Anthony, pretty much sums up her point in the title “Where’s the trust?”  This is a follow-on to Rev. Moore’s writing and makes the point that we have the process for a reason, but within the process the presbytery needs to put some trust in the committees, in this case the Nominating Committee, that they elect to do the work.

UPDATE:  1. The Presbyterian News Service released their article about Rev. Kim this afternoon. 2. Blogger Viola Larson has read through Rev. Kim’s blog and weighs in with some criticism and concern about what she reads there.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — Re-envisioning The Process

As I continue my exploration and commentary on the overtures being sent up to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I want to focus today on three that deal with the operations of the Assembly.

But before I get down to the nitty-gritty of the overtures let me make some observations about the business and operations of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

If ask anyone who has been a commissioner to the General Assembly about the experience they will probably tell you that it was generally good and interesting but also an intense and tiring experience.  You begin on Saturday with some preliminaries and the election of the Moderator. You worship Sunday morning, socialize (or network) Sunday afternoon.  There might be a brief plenary business meeting and then the committees begin meeting.  The committee work begins in earnest on Monday morning and goes until whatever hour on Tuesday the committee gets it done — it might be at noon, it might be the wee hours of Wednesday morning.  The first part of Wednesday is devoted to reading committee reports, and then the marathon begins as the full Assembly starts working through the 15 or so committee reports.  On Friday night the Assembly goes until it is done because on Saturday everyone just shows up to formally adopt the budgets that resulted from their work over the last week, gets a pep talk about what a nice place the next Assembly will be held at, and then they are dismissed with a prayer.  They then get on their planes and collapse in exhaustion and it really doesn’t matter where the next Assembly will be held because the commissioners seldom see the light of day for that week.

Well, maybe I exaggerate a little bit because there is sunlight when you walk between the hotel and the convention center in the morning and again out to the restaurants for lunch.  Sunday usually provides an opportunity to see some of the neighborhood. And of course the YADs (now YAADs) need a nice place for their mid-week get-together.

But if you think I am being too sarcastic here I would argue that I am not.  If you have been a commissioner, or have had a long talk with someone who was, you will probably think or hear something like “Is this any way to run a church?”  When it gets to plenary there are just over two days to deal with the business from 15 committees, some of these items having great significance.  “Back in the day” when the material was all printed the business easily filled two three-inch binders.  And the reports you got before the Assembly convened were all in small print.  Any wonder the full Assembly usually trusts the work of the business committees.

Let me finish my commentary, more like a rant, with some hard numbers:  For the 218th GA of the PC(USA) there were 109 overtures from presbyteries and synods, not counting concurring overtures that got folded in, that the Assembly had to deal with.  On top of that there was business from the committees and entities of the national office.  For comparison, last year the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which also meets for one week, had two overtures and one ascending complaint.  The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, again a one week meeting, last year had nine overtures.  The Bible Presbyterian Church had seven overtures and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church last year had four.  The Presbyterian branch with the next closest number of overtures that I am aware of, and please let me know if you know of another with more, is the Presbyterian Church in America with 22 overtures, and eight of those were related to creating new presbyteries and redrawing presbytery borders — the remaining 14 dealt with polity, doctrine and discipline.  This is not to say that other GA’s have no controversy — far from it.  But from what I have seen most GA’s have no more than one or two spirited debates in the course of the whole GA.  The PC(USA) seems to have one or two per day.

All this to say that as I observe other GA’s around the globe and see how they operate it strikes me that something is significantly different about the way the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) operates.  And based on some of the overtures that are being submitted to the 219th General Assembly I am apparently not the only one who thinks so.

Let me begin with Overture 9 from Foothills Presbytery which proposes that the church get together annually in a convocation but only do business at the meeting every sixth year.  (Had to smile at the thought that this is almost a “reversed sabbatical year” – rest for six and work for one.)  With this overture they provide an extensive rational which includes:

  1. We believe the following:
    • The vast majority of Presbyterians are happy with their congregations, their presbyteries, their synods, and the ongoing work of General Assembly staff to ensure the smooth day-by-day running of the mission of the denomination.
    • On the other hand, we believe that Presbyterians of all theological perspectives find themselves frustrated with the manner in which discussions occur and decisions are made by the General Assembly, and that General Assembly in its present functioning, presents a significant threat in our beloved church and to its peace, unity, and purity.
  2. Further, based on our experience, and reports of General Assembly commissioners, we believe that
    • the volume of information presented to commissioners at the assembly, including, but not limited to annual reports, denominational positions on particular issues, repeated actions to amend the constitution, etc.,
    • the committee structure and process employed to introduce business to the floor of the assembly,
    • the lack of relationships between commissioners,
    • the lack of time to process issues that are often enormously complicated and multifaceted,
    • the consequent pressure to give in to the emotion of the moment,
    • the disparity of knowledge about specific subjects between commissioners, General Assembly staff, special interest groups;
  3. all often
    • lead to confrontation without reconciliation, (2 Cor. 5:18–19),
    • contribute to a heightened emphasis on winners and losers, rather than winners and winners (see 1 Cor. 6:7–8),
    • lead to a tendency for our national body to act legislatively rather than pastorally (see Paul’s approach to meat offered to idols in 1 Cor. 10:23–33),
    • promote stagnation rather than growth in our common life together (Eph. 4:15–16),
    • lead to the predominance of single-issue thinking (party-spirit, see Gal. 5:20)
    • reinforce a growing sense of anxiety in a significant number of our congregations every time assembly meets, (see John 14:27)
    • and erode denominational pride, loyalty, and commitment.

So the basic intent is to be relational and missional five years and based on that common foundation to address the detailed work of the denomination in the sixth year.  I have to commend them for identifying issues and providing a possible restructuring.  The overture does not give specific recommendations f
or the restructuring — Clearly a system such as they propose would shift a lot more authority and responsibility for operational details like budget and ministry to the GAMC and the OGA.  It would also be interesting to know if the Big Tent event this past summer would be a possible model for the convocations or if they are thinking about a more focused meeting.  This overture will definitely give this year’s commissioners something to think about and discuss.

The other operational overtures to date are not nearly as sweeping and only address specific operational points.

Overture 7 from New Harmony Presbytery asks for a specific change to the Standing Rules of the Assembly, a change that does not need presbytery approval but could be undone or suspended by a subsequent Assembly.  The proposal is to reduce the recurrence of similar Book of Order changes being sent to the presbyteries for vote by adding operational language that says:

b. Should an overture require an amendment to the Constitution that proposes substantially the same action as that which was approved by one of the two previous sessions of the General Assembly and subsequently failed to receive the necessary number of affirmative votes for enactment when transmitted to the presbyteries, it shall not be considered as an item of business unless and until 75 percent of the commissioners present and voting vote to do so,

The parliamentary point on this is that under the standing rules amending or suspending the rules (Section L) requires only a two-thirds vote, so if this is adopted it would be easier to suspend this rule than affirm a constitutional amendment under it.  In terms of how business would be dealt with under this rule, would an overture subject to this rule be automatically sent to the business committee for recommendation and then come back at the end of the week for the full Assembly vote to proceed, or would the rule be taken up at the beginning of the week so if the request is denied the business committee has one less item to deal with?  Probably just put on the consent agenda of the first Bills and Overtures Committee report.

It is worth noting however that this overture does address a comment/complaint that is regularly heard in some presbyteries about the fact that similar amendments keep getting sent down from the Assembly and keep getting defeated by the presbyteries.

(And a very picky polity wonk comment on the wording:  It speaks of the previous “sessions of the General Assembly.”  In Presbyterian polity the General Assembly is both a meeting and a group of people forming a governing body.  A given General Assembly, such as the 218th, has a stated meeting and may have called meetings. (I won’t go near that at this time.) Technically, the 218th General Assembly is still in existence but simply in adjournment and then will dissolve upon convening the 219th GA.  So more appropriate wording would be “one of the two previous General Assemblies.”  As I said, picky, wonkish, and I even catch myself not being strict using these terms.  But this is a difference with Reformed Church polity where their higher governing bodies, such as the class (=presbytery), do not “exist” between meetings.)

Finally, Overture 6 from Mid-South Presbytery sort of falls into this general theme of overtures because it would amend the Book of Order regarding the Assembly’s ability to make Authoritative Interpretations.  The overture asks that the Assembly send to the presbyteries a constitutional amendment that would add to the end of G-13.0103r the line:

No authoritative interpretation shall be issued by a General Assembly which amends or alters a clear mandate contained in any provision of the Book of Order.

While this seems pretty straight-forward, as we have seen in the Southard Decision from the Boston Presbytery PJC even the majority and dissenting members of the PJC differed on what the minority would consider “a clear mandate” in the Directory for Worship.

Well, that takes care of these three overtures.  At the present time there are 13 overtures posted on PC-Biz and I have now commented on eight of them.  It looks like the next batch to talk about are related to peacemaking and social witness polity.  For reference, looking back at my notes from two years ago there were 23 overtures posted by this time so if business processing by the OGA is running at the same pace there appears to be noticeably fewer overtures submitted so far.  (As a technical note, overture processing has gone from a dedicated web page to the PC-Biz system and so I could imagine that the efficiency of processing could be either higher or lower than last time depending on the complexity of the back-end technology involved.)  The number posted could also be lower because of the staff reductions we have seen or because the 120 day deadline is later this year.  We will just wait and see what the total comes to. Stay tuned.

The New Presbyterian Panel Survey From The PC(USA) — An Interesting Editorial Addition

Thanks to Michael Kruse we know that the new Presbyterian Panel survey of the Religious and Demographic Profile of Presbyterians, 2008, has been released.  (And of course, technically their sample set is not all Presbyterians but only the largest American Presbyterian body, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).) If you don’t want to wade through all 54 pages of the full report a three page “Snapshot” is available.

Now at the moment I am swamped with research and writing on a couple of other projects, and as we ramp up to GA season crunching these numbers is not the first place I want to spend my time. So, what I will do over the next few weeks is look at parts of this report in smaller, bite-size pieces.  (I heard that collective sigh that I won’t be inundating all of you with a massive statistical dissection and reanalysis.)

But in the first paragraph of the text an item of polity, not population or probability, caught my attention that I would like to comment on first.

The first section of the text, titled “Overview” is mostly boiler plate that describes the report and methodology and shows only minor changes from one report to the next.  You can compare it to the 2005 report if you want.  In this report the second sentence reads:

Using scientific sampling, small but representative numbers of elders (lay leaders) currently serving on session, other members, and ordained ministers were contacted by mail and asked to respond to a set of questions about themselves and their congregations.

For comparison the 2005 report read:

Using scientific sampling, small but representative numbers of members, elders, and ordained ministers were contacted by mail and asked to answer a set of questions about themselves and their congregations.

You probably guessed that what caught my attention was the added parenthetical comment describing elders as “lay leaders.”

This raises the question of whether Presbyterian ruling elders are properly described as laity.  There is usage in the Book of Order, such as the term Commissioned Lay Pastor, that does suggest the most traditional and strictest usage of “laity” as other members of the church besides the clergy.  There are however definitions floating around the web that seem to be more appropriate to Presbyterian government such as one that describes the laity as “not members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.”  And of course we have an organization called the “Presbyterian Lay Committee” whose Objectives and Mission regularly talks about how they “inform and equip congregations and leaders,” implying that ruling elders are included in the lay members.

In my experience and research there is no clear consensus in the use of the term, but I do have a couple of friends who are more than ready at presbytery meetings when someone says “I am only a layman/laywoman/layperson” to let them know that “no, you are an elder, an ordained officer of the church and you help govern in parity and equality with the clergy.”

I personally do not consider an elder a member of the laity for two reasons.  First, we talk about the shared leadership of the church between teaching elders and ruling elders, each holding equal weight in higher governing bodies.  To distinguish between the different elders as “clergy” and “lay” in the governance of the church strikes me as setting up a false dichotomy.

The second reason gets back to the usage of the original Greek in the Bible and the distinction between elder, presbyteros, and people, laos.  I am not aware of an instance of their use in close proximity in the text regarding the early church, but in one of my favorite passages about ecclesiastical leadership, Acts 20:17-38, the text tells us that Paul is talking to the elders, presbyteros, of Ephesus.  In this conversation he refers to them as “overseers” of the “flock.”  No, Paul does not say that the elders take care of the people, laos, but rather they oversee the flock, poimnion.  If “people” and “flock” are interchangeable here, than the elders are distinct from the laity and therefore if the teaching elders, that is the clergy, are not laity then ruling elders are not either.  (Now, I’m sure someone would have problems with my exegesis here, but I’ve got some other, parallel examples I can point to as well.  As a counter example I am aware that in reference to the Jewish authorities the Gospel of Matthew uses the term “elders of the people” which can be read that the elders are part of the laos while still being their leaders.  But is that as much a secular leadership as a religious leadership in a theocracy?)

Anyway, as I said earlier, there are opinions about usage on both sides here so this is not a settled issue.  There is the usage of laity as an ecclesiastical term that may not fit the Presbyterian model too well but is understood to have a specific meaning in other traditions.  Welcome to the complexities of language.

I’ve got more in the works on elders but that will have to wait a couple of weeks.  I may have a chance to crunch a few numbers on elders this weekend and have something to say about the numbers in the new report then. And as for the usage in this sentence from the report that only distinguishes ministers as “ordained,” I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to ponder the why and wherefore of that one.

Hope For Presbyterian Mutual Society Investors In Ireland?

Yes, the collapse of the Presbyterian Mutual Society in Ireland is still an on-going issue, and no, there is still no definite word of a more favorable outcome… But there is some news to provide hope of a possible positive resolution.

As a reminder, the Presbyterian Mutual Society was a free-standing financial institution in which individuals and congregations in Northern Ireland could deposit funds and the Society used them for loans to churches to help with building and renovation.  While not a part of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland there were very strong ties.  (e.g. It was open only to Presbyterian investors and the original web site was within the PCI web site.) Well, it turns out that the Society also invested in some commercial real estate and when the global economy turned down their balance sheet turned negative, there was a “run on the bank,” and the Society was unable to cover their deposits.  The Society is now “In Administration” and the Administrator is trying to “wind down” the Society in an orderly manner such that as they liquidate real estate they can recover as much of the property value as possible as the economy recovers. For more of the background I wrote about this in November 2008, January 2009, February 2009, another February 2009, and March 2009.  Over the last nine months the issue has not gone away but firm developments have been hard to come by.

One of the things which has drawn a lot of criticism from church leaders, Society investors, and Northern Ireland politicians is that in the financial crisis the British government bailed out virtually every financial institution… except mutual societies.  Over the last nine months there has been work by many people to try to restore the investments in the Society either with government help or with a “white knight.” 

The former has not been too successful yet. The Moderator of the General Assembly of the PCI, the Rt. Rev. Stafford Carson mentions in his blog last June about setting up a working group with the British government on this matter – As of 10 December this Working Group has still not reported, the report being expected last September.  And politicians, some in their end of year messages, are saying that they want to see some progress in 2010.  (The PMS/PCI blog run by investors has been quiet for over a year now.)  UPDATE: Thanks to the comment below for the pointer to the on-going discussion board thread about the situation with the Society.  And thanks for the link back here – but from reading through the board they are way ahead of me.  That seems to be the place for the most up-to-date information.

But the Christmas season did bring hope for a financial resolution and while nothing has been announced, there is recent word that one may be at hand.  Back in November, officials in the PCI offices did confirm that there were three financial institutions that had shown an interest in taking over the Society.  Just before Christmas it was announced by MP Jeffrey Donaldson that talks with one bank were at an “advanced stage.”  He also says that coming to terms for the take-over would depend in part on “the level of government support.”

It is no surprise that this drawn-out resolution has tried the patience of many investors – As one headline says “PMS ‘taking longer than Falklands War.'”  This impatience is not helped by the fact that the Administrator did not get an interim payment out to investors before Christmas as he had hoped (Irish Times), and in fact the payment may be further delayed if High Court approval is necessary.  This results from the manner in which the Society structured deposits with depositors having less than £20,000 being shareholders and those over that amount formally loaning that money to the Society.  While the Society’s rules and the investor adopted wind-down plan would treat everyone equally, under the insolvency laws those who loaned the money would get preferential treatment.  The Administrator has suggested that some loan holders now might try to invoke this preferential repayment.

Finally, possible financial mismanagement that got the Society to this point is still being looked at as well.  The Financial Services Authority looked at their operations last Spring and concluded the Society was “conducting regulated activities without the necessary authorisation or exemption” but they decided they did not have enough information for a successful prosecution.  The Belfast News Letter now reports that “The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Industry (DETI) is stillconsidering action regarding the conduct of directors of thePresbyterian Mutual Society after five months, it has confirmed.”

So while there is clear hope on the horizon for the Society investors it appears that this journey still has several twists and turns to make before they arrive at a clear resolution.  Stay tuned.

Livingstonia Synod CCAP Tries To Make A Statement In Malawi

In the past two weeks news sources have reported plans by the clergy of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian Livingstonia Synod to hold a march to present a petition to the government and the response of police with riot gear and tear gas surrounding the church offices to stop the march.

The first news story discussing what information was known about the petition and planned march came from the Nyasa Times.  This article from December 20 discussed the fact that a petition would be presented to the government but said the final wording was not established yet.  The article says “Officials at the Synod headquarters say there are a number of issues which they are petitioning the government but top of the subject is the education quota system which has seen the northern regions share of form one secondary school selection dropping to less than fifty percent.”  The root of the complaint is an on-again/off-again quota system for students from different regions of the country to get into public schools.  The clergy are advocating for a merit system.  (This article outlines the chronology of the use and dropping of the quota system.  The government has indicated they will use it again in the coming year.)

The second article, from Afrique en ligne, begins with

Heavily-armed police officers Thursday used tear-gas and road blocks in the northern Malawi city of Mzuzu to stop a protest march organised by church and civil society leaders, to protest against the policies of the administration of President Binguwa Mutharika.

It goes on to say

“They used teargas to prevent reverends from getting out of church premises,” said Yeremiah Chihana, a politician and bitter critic of the Mutharika administration. “We are ready to march but police are everywhere in the streets. They are threatening to shoot us.”

This second article adds more details about the perceived problem with the quota system – the charge is that the quota system unfairly limits students from the northern part of the country where Livingstonia Synod is located.  One of the arguments made is that the system should be competitive to keep the education system strong and counter a trend towards laziness.

There is no word on what is next.

One of the most interesting things is the comments on the first article.  One person identified as Khowu says

Livingstonia Synod, please wear your armour and let’s match on! And you people who are calling our clerics names, you mean you do not see that this is more than this stupid quota thing? You cannot see that this is the beginning of ethnic cleansing? We shall fight and you know what, we are going for a federal arrangement…

Livingstomia [sic] Synod, you are the custodians of our faith, our culture, our development, our inheritance, our pride. PLEASE PROTECT US!!

Another, writing under the name Malawian, adds an interesting detail:

To understand the Livingstonia Synod one has also to consider the fact they actually run the best primary school system in the country and in many ways it is this system that accounts for the success of the “North”. The government should try to understand that incredibly successful system and see how it can be “nationalised”.

In this case I read “nationalised” to mean taking the model national, not to have the national government take over the school system.

It will be interesting to see how this develops.  Three of the CCAP’s five synods are in Malawi and each represents not just a region but strong ethnic traditions.  In addition, it has been my impression that the synods have significant autonomy and the central CCAP organization is not particularly strong.  At the present time statements are made on a regional level by the synods – it would be interesting to see some unified, and more influential, action taken by the three synods together.

UPDATE: Victor Kaonga in his blog NDAGHA has posted on “Which way Malawi and the Faith Community?” where he mentions the Livingstonia Synod clergy actions in the larger context of what is happening in the country.  Thanks for the context.

Addendum: On a completely different topic, but related to the church in Malawi, there has been a series of moderate earthquakes including a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in the Karonga area of Malawi on December 19.  The current numbers that I am seeing list three deaths, 256 injured severely enough to be treated at hospitals, and upwards of 6000 in need of relief aid.  There is work within the CCAP to round up relief supplies and among the world-wide appeals include those in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the PWS&D of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (and many individual PCC churches have gotten the word out on their web sites) who are working with the CCAP.  Within the PC(USA) there is a situation report and fund at PDA and Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery has a Malawi Partnership and is soliciting relief aid on their web site.

Presbytery Merger In The Presbyterian Church Of Aotearoa New Zealand And Some Polity Observations

I recently saw a news item on The Southland Times web site about a presbytery merger in the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand that, as written, surprised me a bit.  (Today brings another, more detailed article from the Otago Daily Times.) The fact that there was going to be a merger was not what caught my attention – the PCANZ is in the midst revisioning and restructuring the church with there Press Go program and the Reform of Presbyteries initiative. No, being the polity wonk that I am what I was wondering about was the way the article phrased the approval process.  The article says:

Southern presbyteries will be united in February to better connect with their communities and to try and attract more youthful members.

Five presbyteries, encompassing all Presbyterian parishes within Southland and Otago below the Waitaki River, are joining together to form the Southern Presbytery.

and

The Southern Presbytery will merge on February 13 at the Calvin Church in Gore at 2pm, and will be ratified in October by the Presbytery Church of Aotearoa New Zealand.

The polity wonks out there probably immediately recognized that this is the reverse of what we are used to in these matters.  The structure and shape of presbyteries is usually a matter for the next higher governing body, in most cases the General Assembly.  As the article says the presbyteries “will be united in February” and then it “will be ratified in October” by the General Assembly.

On one level the PCANZ Book of Order is a bit unique in its description of the powers and responsibilities of the GA when it says

General Assembly to establish presbyteries
8.7 Formation, alteration and abolition of presbyteries

(1) The General Assembly may

(a) form a presbytery,
(b) determine the name of a presbytery,
(c) fix the area or region for which a presbytery has responsibility,
(d) on its own initiative or at the request of a presbytery, alter the name of a presbytery, abolish a presbytery, or change the area or region for which a presbytery has responsibility.

I was surprised to see in there that the GA “may” and not “shall” do these things regarding presbyteries.  However, the present news is the result of action taken by the last General Assembly in 2008 when it approved, without debate, the report of the Presbyteries Task Group on The Reform of Presbyteries.  The GA approved in advance the reorganization of all the presbyteries and we can expect more of these mergers to follow with final approval at this year’s Assembly in the fall.

But in researching this and looking at the details of presbytery structuring in other Presbyterian branches I was reminded of an interesting quirk in the polity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Let me begin with the Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America, for a reason you will see in a moment.  The BCO includes in the list of responsibilities of the GA

14-6. The General Assembly shall have power:

e. To erect new Presbyteries, and unite and divide those which were erected with their consent;

A quick check of the history of this section of the BCO shows that the PCA has always had this section as a “shall” and before that the predecessor polity of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. had the GA as the governing body to create and dissolve synods, but not presbyteries.  The polity would then give the synods the responsibility to organize presbyteries.

What is the current situation in another PCUS successor denomination, the PC(USA)?  The current Book of Order says:

G-13.0103  The General Assembly constitutes the bond of union, community, and mission among all its congregations and governing bodies. It therefore has the responsibility and power

m. to organize new synods and to divide, unite, or otherwise combine synods or portions of synods previously existing;
n. to approve the organization, division, uniting, or combining of presbyteries or portions of presbyteries by synods;

Affected synods must concur with presbytery changes, but this GA responsibility for presbytery creation sets up an interesting paradox in that the Assembly creates the presbytery but the synod reviews its records.  Cooperative governance.

The Annotated Book of Order gives no indication of a change to this section shifting responsibility for presbyteries from synods to the GA and no reference to pre-merger citations or documents so this could be inherited from the UPCUSA. or derives from the merger.  More research necessary – but an interesting mix of ecclesiastical responsibility and weaker powers for the synods.

With the significant discussion about the role of synods in the PC(USA) this is only a quirk or minor distraction.  The real question gets back to the restructuring of the church in New Zealand and whether these merged presbyteries with minimal administrative responsibility can fulfill the expressed purpose of attracting more youthful members.  Will the mission drive the polity?