Greetings,

It has been a hectic 24 hours but I have gotten the bulk of the blog migrated to a new platform. Plenty of little details to be cleaned up and still working on migrating all eight years of past posts.

But the basics are there. Hopefully the RSS feed came across without interruption and the ability to subscribe to the blog by email should be working.

Thanks for your patience and hoping that it will be another eight years and 1000 posts before I have to do that again.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

It has been a very interesting couple of days with the release of some new data sets from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Research Services office. I don’t think I had seen the 2011 Comparative Statistics on the web site before today and in the last couple of days a new Presbyterian Panel report was issued on Current Issues in Church and Society. (For the record the summary report was issued and I am interested to see the full report when it is made available.)

There are a number of interesting items in that summary report but the one that got a lot of play yesterday was the attitude of members towards same-sex marriage. This was highlighted by a Christian Post article about one of the findings headlined “Poll: PCUSA Members Increasingly Favoring Same-Sex Marriage.” This article has been tweeted about a number of times in the last day or two.

Here are the details of the findings from the second paragraph of the article:

In research conducted by Presbyterian Research Services and published in
October, the number of PC(USA) members and pastors supporting the denomination
redefining marriage grew. In 2005, 23 percent of PC(USA) members
supported same-sex marriage; in 2012, the number had increased to 34
percent. Among pastors, support for same-sex marriage in 2005 was at 35
percent; in 2012, it is at 49 percent.

The article then presents two interpretations.

From the author of the original research article, Mr. Jack Marcum, coordinator of Research Services the news article has the quote:

This
result indicates a broad-based shift in opinions across the church in
only a few years. Longer term, the effect of generational change will be
felt: 75 percent of young adult advisory delegates at the General
Assembly supported the redefinition of marriage.

The article also quotes Dr. Paul E. Detterman, executive director for Presbyterians for Renewal, with a different perspective:

There
is a substantial number of conservative individuals and congregations …
who have disengaged from these debates within the PC(USA) or who are
now in the process of departure.

This survey is
probably quite accurate in reflecting the views of people responding in
the PC(USA) in 2005 and people responding in the PC(USA) in 2012. As
different from the U.S. demographic analysis, however, these are not
people who have changed their views – these are simply not the same
people.

Without a longer baseline on the study it is difficult to distinguish between these two interpretations since, along the lines of what Dr. Detterman points out, the study group for the Presbyterian Panel is refreshed every three years. But in thinking about this I figured it was possible to put some constraints on these possibilities with a few end-member models. While these do not definitively answer the question I think they point to the interpretation that the answer is somewhere in between these two viewpoints. Probably no surprise there.

OK, now things are going to get geeky – you have been warned.

And what follows comes with this caveat: As you will see these are back of the envelope calculations. I could do more detailed modeling, and someday I might, but for now I think these ballpark models give good enough results to constrain the viewpoints further. And being back of the envelope calculations I am going to assert things in a couple of places that I am not going to chase down the citations for. Also, the survey divides between members, ruling elders, teaching elders in parish ministry and teaching elders in specialized ministry. Since this deals with membership changes I am only going to consider the members.

So here are the data: The statement is “same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.” In the current survey 51% of members answered disagree or strongly disagree. There were 34% of members who said agree or strongly agree and 15% who were neutral or not sure. This compares with the 2005 report where 61% answered disagree of strongly disagree, 17% were neutral or not sure and 23% answered agree or strongly agree. And from here on I will use “agree” to mean agree or strongly agree, “neutral” to mean both neutral and not sure and “disagree” to mean the combined disagree and strongly disagree. (And note that in the summary report they are not further broken down either.)

Since these are membership models we need to state that in 2005 the PC(USA) membership was 2,313,662 and in 2011 it was 1,952,287.

Model 1: The simplist model is just to say that all those that left the PC(USA) in this time period were those that disagreed with the statement. This would mean that if we extrapolate the sample population to the total membership 532,142 members agreed with the statement, 393,323 were neutral and 1,179,167 disagreed. Since 2005 the PC(USA) has lost 361,375 members so if all of those come out of the disagree population that leaves 818,593 members in that group.  That means that out of the new total population the group that agrees is now 27%.

On a number of levels this model is a bit of a stretch, not the least of which is the fact that losses include three categories – transfers, deaths and other – and it is tough to make an argument that those that have gone on to the Church Triumphant all disagreed with that statement. (I personally know several that strongly agreed.) But what this model does do with this particular stretch is to demonstrate that just with departures attaining the 34% is not likely.

Model 2: Let’s try something similar but introduce another factor. This end-member says that every individual that leaves (even those that die) disagrees with the statement and every individual that joins is in favor. We can add up those that joined from the Comparative Statistics and find that is 605,063 members. For the record 966,438 left in that same time period. That means that our group that agrees has grown to 1,137,205 or 58% of the denomination.

So if you want to argue that the shift in the PC(USA) is due to change in people and not attitudes this is clearly your starting point for a more refined model.  The model is underdetermined so you can move a lot of variables around to figure out ways to make the replacement population grow to 34% agree.

But one observation regarding this – the PC(USA) does not have well defined patterns of church growth and decline along the lines of theological viewpoint. (Something else I am working on but that is for another day.) If this replacement model is workable then the replacement is happening across large numbers of churches in the denomination and not in concentrated pockets of congregations.

On a side note, one of the things that always amazes me when I crunch these numbers is seeing that the denominational turnover is about 100,000 a year and so we become a new church every 20 years. Whether this is truly enough replacement with individuals with differing opinions from those they replace is an open question.

Model 3: OK, let’s look at this a little differently and, in my mind, maybe a bit more realistically.  I have a model I have used elsewhere that breaks the PC(USA)’s 3-ish percent decline into a “mainline” component of about 1.5% and a “controversy” component of about 1.5%. So what if the mainline component is across the board and the controversy component is only for those that disagree?

Well, it turns out that it only results in a 2% increase in the number that agree. So this does not get us very far by itself and replacement and changing individual opinions are still necessary.

Discussion: Since these are only back of the envelope calculations I am not going to draw hard conclusions from these numbers.  But I will say that as I look at these models the answer is probably somewhere in between. Sure, you can find a combination of variables that will give you the results of the survey based on turnover alone, and maybe that is Dr. Detterman’s point. I can’t disprove it at the moment but as I look at the model it would seem to require not just some significant turnover in the PC(USA) but significant turnover with one fairly homogeneous group being replaced by another.

On the other hand I think Dr. Detterman is correct that departure of those that disagree needs to be considered in the conclusion. My point is that this is a complex system and that both the departures from the denomination and the change in attitudes of those in the denomination are probably involved.  If I had to guess, and this is purely a guess, I would think it would be in roughly equal parts.

(And it is worth noting that I may be placing too much emphasis on the two different views and maybe the news article just quoted them in a way that makes their explanations look mutually exclusive.)

So maybe I’ll add some more variables into Model 2 and see how realistic the numbers are to make the current number of 34%.

In case you are still with me I thought I would throw in a couple more interesting tidbits from the Panel report.

• When asked if they were familiar with various groups and initiatives in the PC(USA) 17% said they were familiar or very familiar with the Fellowship of Presbyterians, 7% said the same for ECO, 3% for 1001 New Worshiping Communities and 1% for NEXT church.
• Regarding the 1001 New Worshiping communities 32% of members and 40% of pastors said it was a realistic or very realistic goal. (And those are the numbers in the narrative because the quantities shown in Figure 2 look different to me.)
• For members, 17% recall any discussion in the past year about their congregation leaving the PC(USA).
• There is a big difference between members and pastors regarding whether a split is inevitable – only 20% of members think it is while 53% of pastors do.

Well, hopefully that gives you something to think about. I hope to revisit a couple of those with more data.

Earlier today (yesterday in their part of the globe) the final General Assembly that I know of for this year convened. General Assembly 2012 of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand is meeting October 4-7 at the Rotorua Boys High School in Rotorua towards the middle of the North Island. (And in the middle of a volcanic caldera.)

The incoming Moderator, the Rev. Ray Coster, has chosen for the theme of GA12 “Reviving the Flame.” As is traditional, he has put together a four-part Bible study based on this theme for the whole church to participate in. In choosing this theme he writes:

I love the word revive. It speaks to me about God never giving up on God’s people. In some ways I feel as though our Presbyterian Church has been in a wilderness for many years. We are all now aware of our Church’s downward statistics. We have moved from a denomination of about 130,000 people at weekly worship in the early 1960s to around 30,000 today. It could be very easy to become despondent about this, give up and feel like we are failing. But the desert or wilderness is a place of meeting and restoration. That’s where revival, refreshment and restoration begin.

It appears that the White Book with a docket and reports is not available online but supplemental reports are posted. (Have to admit that I am a little uncertain here because the web site says they are “not for distribution and publication outside of our Church.”) However, for those interested in the multi-ethnic nature of the church in general the PCANZ is an interesting branch to pay attention to because they probably have the best integration of indigenous peoples into the structure and polity of the denomination. In particular, Discussion Paper 2: The self-understanding of a multi-ethnic Church looks interesting (I have only had a chance to briefly review it) and it contains comparisons to the Uniting Church of Australia, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the United Reformed Church.

During the Assembly the commissioners will be hearing from the Rev. Tim Keel of Jacob’s Well church in Kansas City. The information says that he will be speaking on “how we understand and embody the Gospel in our communities.”

That information, and more general background, can be found in the media pack.

If you are interested in following along relevant information and documents are being posted each day on pages linked to the General Assembly 2012 page. The only page there at the moment is for Thursday and it contains the order of worship for the opening worship service and the Moderator’s sermon, among other things. (Note: Many of the documents are in Word format so I am not directly linking to them but giving you the page with the link.)

The General Assembly 2012 page also has a widget where you can sign up for email updates from the Assembly. Finally, their is the Facebook Page but I have not seen anything fresh posted there yet.

There does not appear to be any live streaming but a small Twitter stream is present on the hashtag #GA2012. So far Margaret Mayman ( @mmayman ) and Jason Goroncy ( @jasongoroncy ) look to be the tweeps to follow. As always, I will update as appropriate.

So our prayers and best wishes for the deliberations and discernment of the commissioners at General Assembly 2012. May you have a great Assembly.

Dear Members of the Mid Councils Commission;
     I would like to thank you for the time, effort and sacrifice in your service on this important Commission. Having served on a GA special committee myself I know that the task is not easy. I appreciate the long hours you have all put in, the time away from friends and family, the time of prayer and reflection in your discernment process and the testing of the values and beliefs you brought to this work – all the while working under the pressure of an unforgiving deadline. And maybe the greatest pressure is that once you complete your report it no longer belongs to you – rather it is a gift to the greater church and to the General Assembly in particular. As I previously wrote in this space, I considered the business around your work to be the most important business the Assembly would have to deal with this year.

    And what is more, it is all this while sitting in a fishbowl with media watching your every move and the denomination expectantly waiting for your decisions that will help save us from our division and decline.

   Having served on a similar committee I know some of what you have gone through and having watched your report at General Assembly, both in committee and plenary, I am concerned that your gift to the church could have been better utilized. I was hoping that the Assembly would be more open to change – maybe not specifically what you were suggesting but at least that the issues you pointed out in your report would be thoughtfully discussed and that your recommendations would provide at least a catalyst if not a framework. Walking away from the Assembly I really felt like your fellow commission member John Vest did when he wrote:

But in committee and on the plenary floor, what I heard most was what I
feared the most: passionate pleas based on predetermined opinions about
synods and non-geographic presbyteries. I don’t think I ever heard a
commissioner talk about the post-Christendom realities we find ourselves
in and how our recommendations might or might not address them.

    Let me be clear at this point that I appreciate the hard work and dedication of each and every member of the Commission. But there are four of your number I do wish to specifically thank for being the public face of the Commission to me.

   The first has to be the Commission Moderator Tod Bolsinger. Tod, from the very start, and I really mean from the very start, you have been a tireless cheerleader for this work. From your appearances at events in our synod to your blogging, videos, Twitter and Facebook, I don’t know how you could have made the work of the Commission more transparent and accessible. And in your work guiding the Commission and presenting at GA you presented with clarity, honesty and integrity. For the multitude of hours that this consumed I deeply thank you.

   The second face of the Commission for me was John Vest. I can not say enough good things about the honesty and unreserved nature with which you spoke on your blog. In particular, you earned a lot of respect from me for your great discussion about changing your mind about provisional experimental non-geographic presbyteries. John, my deepest thanks for putting so much on-line, and on the line, in working with this Commission.

    The other two members of the Commission might be surprised to see their names here, but they were no less important to me in helping me understand the Commission’s work.  So to Jane Smith, thanks for being there at so many of our Synod events to give us updates, insights and interpretations of the Commission’s work. And to Miriam Dolin, thank you for doing much the same thing on Twitter. I like to hear a multitude of voices and yours was a particularly clear and insightful one in the whole Commission process. (exempli gratia: So…just for the record, I actually am not a fan of non-geo
presbyteries, but I am a fan of conversation, creativity and progress. ‪)

    And to all the other members of the Commission, I am sure all of you were similar friendly and helpful faces to your various constituencies and I thank you for that work.

    So to all the Commission members, I thank you for your time and dedication. Committees and commissions may seem like a crazy way to do our ecclesiastical work, but we have to trust that it is though the discernment of groups of us actively seeking God’s will and direction that we make the best possible decisions.

   Having just said that it is with a certain amount of irony that I again point out that in my reading of the situation I find it hard to believe that the General Assembly made the best possible use of the gift you gave to them. But the Assembly has done their work and has spoken on this subject — the report now belongs to them.  They too were seeking discernment for the whole church in their deliberations and discussions. We trust in God’s Providence and the work of the Holy Spirit in these matters.  Some of your recommendations continue to move forward in modified form, and your full report with your great volume of collected data is available for us to pour over and drill down into. I hope that others make good use of what you have given us. (And to the web spirits at PC(USA) – please make sure it is available and easy to find for some time to come.)
  
   It is with great respect and sincere appreciation that I thank all of you for your hard work. May you know the depths of our thanks and may God’s blessings be upon you all.

Sincerely
Steve Salyards

Live blogging the Saturday morning concluding session. If you are following along live you will want to hit refresh periodically to reload the post. (And please excuse the typos as my fingers fly – even more so with the fatigue at the end of the week.) The business for the morning is to finish all unfinished business, worship and adjourn the Assembly

[As a courtesy to my family members I am staying with I departed around midnight last night so I am still piecing together the business that happened after I left. I have not found a definite time that the Assembly adjourned but it was around 1:30 AM.]

The Assembly is dragging itself back and as the house band gets started they being with an instrumental version of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” Got to think they had the “I am tired, I am weak, I am worn” line in mind, if not the rest of the verse “Through the storm, through the night/ Lead me on to the light/ Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.”

[Yes, I just got confirmation that the Assembly recessed at 1:30 AM due to a combination of factors, but mostly because the buses would stop running at 2 AM. Thanks Andy]

So, all the usual – The band warms us up, the Moderator calls us to order at 9:00 AM and a ruling elder commissioner leads us through the prayer cycle.

The Moderator thanks the band and the Assembly gives them a standing ovation.

Live blogging the Thursday afternoon session… If you are following along live you will want to hit refresh periodically to reload the post. (And please excuse the typos as my fingers fly.) The proposed docket for the rest of the Assembly is posted at Bills and Overtures. This afternoon’s scheduled committees are Social Justice Issues (Committee 11), Board of Pensions, Foundation and Presbyterian Publishing Corp. (Committee 20) and Middle East Peacemaking Issues (Committee 15).

I returned from my lunch during the Speak-out. Almost all respectful and few political.

1001 Worshiping Communities video

Bills and Overtures – Recommend to begin with Church Polity (not reporting in the morning)

Committee on Church Polity – Committee 6

First group – modification to F-1.0403
Recommendation to disapprove 06-08
No discussion
Approved on voice vote

Recommendation to answer 06-13 and 06-17 with the action on 06-08
Motion to create a consent agenda for unopposed items in committee
[Doesn’t this require a suspension of the Standing Rules so 2/3 vote]

As General Assembly Season tapers off and the voting on the amendments to the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) finishes up, I have finally found time to start crunching the final numbers on amendment voting.  While I have several different analyses planned, let me begin with the summary statistics related to the passage of Amendment 10-A and we will see how many of the other ones I would like to do actually get finished.

As of today it appears that the voting on 10-A has finished with a vote by the Presbytery of Kiskiminentas against the amendment 33 to 58.  However, the passage of the amendment was secured back on May 10 when the 87th presbytery voted in favor of it.  For the purposes of this analysis I am going to use the data at about the time of the passage, including a few presbyteries that voted shortly after the unofficial passage.  My intent is to eliminate any change in voting patterns that may have occurred after the concurrence was a foregone conclusion.

As usual, my data comes from an aggregation of the usual sources: Covenant Network, Reclaim Biblical Teaching, Yes on Amendment A, and The Layman Online.  I have posted my spreadsheet with the data and the analysis.

While the unofficial vote count currently stands at 97 yes to 74 recorded no and two not voting, my “freeze-frame” was from the point the count was 92 yes and 68 no. (Not much of a difference I will admit.) The objective of this analysis is to look at the change in voting from 08-B to 10-A. Accordingly, there were 86 presbyteries voting yes this time and 62 presbyteries voting no on 10-A that have recorded votes on both amendments. I will focus my analysis on those 148 presbyteries.

In this population there were 19,607 total votes cast on 08-B and 18,705 on 10-A, a decrease of 4.6%.  For comparison, the membership of the PC(USA) decreased by 3.0% between 2008 and 2009, so the voting decline over two years is a bit less than the projected total decrease if you double the 08-09 decline.  The number of yes votes increased from 9711 to 10,301, an increase of 6.1%.  The no votes decreased from 9896 to 8404, a 15.1% drop.

If the number of yes and no votes decreased in proportion with the total decrease we would have expected 9264 yes votes and 9441 no votes. The discrepancy is 1037 votes more for yes and less that for no.  So, in the simplest analysis, the change in voting can be viewed at a uniform decline of 902 votes (447 yes and 455 no) and a shift of 1037 votes from no to yes. If you wish to attribute all decline to the no votes, it could also be modeled as a decline of 902 no votes and a shift of 590 votes from no to yes. The best answer probably lies somewhere between these two end-members.

Let us now break this down on a presbytery level.  This gets a bit trickier because presbyteries that have small numbers of yes or no votes can have extreme values for ratios when these quantities change by even a few votes.  I have not gone into the data on this analysis to eliminate extreme values but will take this into account by comparison of the mean and the median statistical measures. As it turns out, while the extreme values do stretch out the maximum and minimum values as well as the standard deviations, the differences between the means and medians are generally not exceptional.

On the spreadsheet you will find that I calculated summary statistics for the whole population and for a series of subsets.  There are also some frequency distributions listed.  I will only touch on the measures of the center of the data, the mean and median, for some of those categories in the discussion that follows.  The data are there if you want to see all the numbers.

For the yes votes in presbyteries, overall there was an increase with the ratio of 10-A to 08-B votes having a mean of 1.14 and a median of 1.08. Interestingly, for presbyteries that voted yes on both amendments, the number of votes was on average unchanged with the mean being a ratio of 1.00 and the median 0.99. In an interesting match, presbyteries that voted no both times and presbyteries that flipped from no to yes had means of their yes vote ratios around 1.27 and identical medians of 1.20.  The presbyteries that flipped from yes to no, not surprisingly, is the category that showed a decrease  in the ration with a mean of 0.93 and a median of 0.91.

Overall, presbyteries had a decrease in the number of no votes with the overall mean a ratio of 0.89 and the median a ration of 0.86.  Presbyteries voting yes saw a bit larger of a decrease, presbyteries voting no a slightly smaller one.  Again, the category that was the exception was the presbyteries that flipped from yes to no where on average more votes were seen with an increase shown in a mean of the ratio of 1.21 and a median of 1.26.

Probably the most telling is the total number of votes for each presbytery.  For the total and all of the sub-categories, the ratios are pretty constant around 0.96 in both the mean and the median.  The noticeable exceptions to the down side are the presbyteries that voted yes both times with a median of 0.92.  The only categories having increased ratios are the ones for the switched votes — Presbyteries that flipped from no to yes had a mean ratio of 1.03 and a median of 1.07; presbyteries that flipped from yes to no had a mean and median ratio of 1.06.

It would seem that the message is that change came through better commissioner turn-out, whether it be an organized “get out the vote campaign,” or just informal increased interest on a particular side. And I find it striking that this was true for presbyteries that flipped in either direction.

This of course is only on average and when you consider the details for each presbytery individually you find variability.  For example, for the four presbyteries that flipped from yes to no, two had an increase in the number of yes votes, three an increase in the number of no votes, and one had a decrease in both. So three of the four were changed by improved no vote turn-out, but the one with both declining may be attributed to who showed up for a close vote. (That was West Jersey Presbytery which tied.)

Similarly, for the 20 presbyteries that switched from no to yes, 14 showed an increase in the total number of votes, four a decrease, and two a decrease that was small enough I would consider it noise. All but one had an increase in the number of yes votes, some a very marked increase.  And only one showed a clear increase in the number of no votes, the rest remaining stable or decreasing.

I am painting with a bit of a broad bush here by looking only at the group averages while each presbytery has its own story.  This stands out when you look at the voting in these two groups as combined total.  In the four presbyteries that switched from yes to no total votes increased from 431 to 436, an increase of 1.2% that falls into the range I would consider “noise” or “random fluctuation.” Again, for the 20 presbyteries that switched from no to yes the total of vote counts increased from 2698 to 2726, an increase of 1.4%, again not substantial.  It is on the presbytery level where these changes are larger and become more influential statistically.

So there is a bit about the summary statistics for the Amendment 10-A voting. I hope to write about other details including trends over time, cross-issue correlations, more specifics on the presbyteries, and maybe look at some other variables so see if there are correlations.

I will admit here at the onset that I am planning to move on from this discussion and look forward to following it for a while as an interested observer but not a commentator.  I was not planning to post again at this time, but the Fellowship PC(USA) steering committee released a letter yesterday and since I have been a voice in this I felt it appropriate that I should reciprocate.

The new letter titled “Letter of Clarification and Background” which begins:

Regrettably, the initial email we sent out on February 2, in which we shared our concerns and invited people to an August meeting, generated significant misunderstanding (and offense) for some, particularly in regards to a lack of diversity among the signatories. As people who communicate for a living, it saddens us to have created any misunderstanding. We apologize and take full responsibility… In our minds, the letter was intended primarily as an invitation to a gathering in August, and we should have made that clearer.

Likewise, as an early voice of reaction I would like to apologize if my words of critique came across too harshly and caused offense.  I respect and appreciate the Fellowship’s intent of adding another voice and forum to the on-going discussion about the future of the PC(USA). While I was struck by what I saw as a couple specific weaknesses in the proposal and how the proposal was initially presented, I was sincere in my comment that there are important sections of it that I appreciate and can support.

Let me try to clarify each briefly

Regarding the composition of the proposing group, I accept that it came out of a very specific fellowship group of pastors.  But in looking at the implications and impact on the PC(USA) I was concerned by the lack of, shall I say, depth.  At the heart of Presbyterian government is the working of ruling elders and teaching elders together.  To only see teaching elders in the list provoked a strong reaction from this ruling elder who has put in significant time and energy, both on and off line, encouraging ruling elders to be active in the wider church.  Thank you for the clarification that no slight was intended by that.  (But as an editorial comment, can we avoid this “clergy and laity” language which even appears in the clarification letter?)

The other point of concern was how the churches connected to the signatories were a limited subset of the congregations in the PC(USA).  Looking at the big picture, with roughly 10,000 churches and 2 million members, the congregations larger than 1000 members account for about 2% of the churches in the denomination but the churches with 50 or less members make up one quarter of the total churches and about another quarter have between 50 and 100 members. (Research Services Data ) For every mega-church in a large metropolitan area, there are almost ten small faithful ones, like Childwold, Lee Vining, or Spindale.  These churches are inherently small because of their rural location.  Three of our presbyteries each have a total size that is right around 1,000 or less members.  So not just this discussion, but all the discussions about the future of the PC(USA) need to have this in mind.  (And we are not alone since the Church of Scotland, at its last GA, debated the question of whether to remain a national and territorial church and resolved to continue that calling.)  By no means to I intend to say that the Fellowship PC(USA) does not realize this or keep it in mind, but I personally had a hard time getting past the congregation names next to the names of the signatories.  Sorry for that.

Now, as I said, I agree with several points in the white paper, particularly the passions that are listed.  The need to nurture leadership, to share in the larger mission of God’s people, to multiply healthy congregations, and the connectedness in fellowship are things that most would agree with and support.  The red flag probably goes up when we see the “united theological core” as  we all realize that the real discussion and disagreements will come from trying to define that.

It is tempting to just point to the Book of Confessions and say that is our theological core.  I’ll accept that – it should guide us in helping to understand Scripture.  But the @PCUSAResearch factoid today is “Before discussion at GA, 1 in 6 PC(USA) ministers and almost no laity were familiar with the Belhar Confession.”  Let me take that a step further, how many ruling elders know that the Second Helvetic Confession is in the BofC.  When was the last time any of us read the Westminster Longer Catechism or even C67?  I would agree that while we have a theoretical theological core we are not familiar enough with it.  I would suggest that a good place to begin is going back to our Reformed confessions and refreshing our memory.  I look forward to this discussion about what, beyond the Bible, we should be considering our theological core.

OK, I just got cynical and snarky again so I think it is time to wrap this up.  Suffice it to say that in my own analytical and researcher-like way my intent is to point out the places I would disagree and highlight what I see as weaknesses.  Please forgive me if along the way I have caused offense to any of my Christian sisters and brothers.

OK, back to our regularly scheduled polity wonk stuff and I will step back and remain just an observer of the Fellowship PC(USA) developments for a while.

I rise to a point of personal privilege.

In worship this morning we had the privilege and responsibility of ordaining three new ruling elders and a deacon and installing those four, plus three more previously ordained, to our church boards.  As always it was a moving and joyous event.

It is with thanks, praise, joy, and at least a small amount of pride (forgive me), that this GA Junkie and Presbyterian polity wonk shares that my son Phil was ordained as a new ruling elder.  As he begins his service on the session the responsibility of ordained office passes to another generation of our family.  And having served as a Youth Advisory Delegate to the 218th General Assembly he has some experience with higher governing bodies and exposure to what this Presbyterian thing is all about.  My congratulations to him and prayers to God for guidance for all of our new officers.

I thank you for your indulgence as I try to share that the future of the church is in good hands.

I now return you to our regular wonkiness.