Category Archives: Blogging

Presbyterians Amid Web 2.0 — The Institution And The Web

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As I put the list of resources together earlier today and then followed the progress of the Church of Scotland GA on the webcast and on twitter (#ga2009) it struck me that different Presbyterian branches seem to follow very different paths in putting together their web presence.

While the Church of Scotland has been delivering the GA materials over the web for a number of years, has had their audio updates available on-line, and was an early adopter of webcasting the assembly, the official presence is still very much web 1.0.  There is one web site, and although they have a great extranet area with a lot of publicly available documents, everything is in a fairly typical web format.  And while the Moderator’s “blog” is nice, from a technical standpoint it is still one-dimensional being just a web page without RSS feed or comments.  Got to give them credit for the new twitter feed this year though, but at last fall’s National Youth Assembly the twitter feed was one of the top trending feeds.

The Presbyterian branch that really thought this through is the Presbyterian Church in Canada.  They have “branded” the denomination with PCConnect which contains various blogs, podcast, and PCConnect-TV weekly segment, all with a unified look and feel.

You have to give the PC(USA) credit for trying Web 2.0 out.  There are multiple official blogs from various leaders in the denomination, great on-line video segments about important issues, and Facebook pages.  But while all of this is great I have trouble finding a unified strategy, message, or feel in it.

Having said that it is only fair to say that the Church of Scotland and the PC(USA) are revising their web sites.  It will be interesting to see how much they integrate, unify, or at least brand the content, and introduce new Web 2.0 content.

(I probably should define Web 2.0.  There is not a completely agreed upon definition that I am aware of, but it is a web presence that is interactive in the sense that there are RSS feeds, comment sections, and individual publishing like blogs, twitter or Facebook.  The traditional static, or at least slowly changing, web pages are thought of as Web 1.0.)

But while following the CofS GA today I was reading an older post by Chris Hoskins on his blog “What is Freedom?”  In that post, Church of Scotland and Social Media, he muses about what more the CofS could be doing on-line.  There is a nice comment on the post from CofS leader and techie Stewart Cutler who says:

At present the CofS doesn’t allow Councils to have their own sites. No
‘brands’ allowed. NYA isn’t allowed its own site. COSY isn’t allowed
it’s own site. That limits the ways in which people can interact
because the CofS doesn’t understand that people don’t want to interact
with static, out of date websites. They want to discuss, share, link,
download, upload and all that web2.0 stuff.

So how do you solve the tension between central oversight to maintain uniformity in appearance, presentation and message, versus a more independent approach where lots of stuff gets out there and you need to figure out what is official and what is individual.  The PC Canada does the former well, the PC(USA) does the latter well.  It seems the CofS is trying to figure it out.

Debate Preceding The Church Of Scotland General Assembly — Focus Shifts To Web 2.0

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When I last posted on the current controversy headed to this year’s General Assembly of the Church of Scotland I did not realize that I was writing at a point in time when the discussion was shifting from the Mainstream Media reports driving the Web, to the Web driving the media.  I’ll not fully rehearse the specifics of the case again.  You can check out my previous posts or some of the other links I’ll cite today for that.  Let me give the essential information for this discussion that Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen called the Rev. Scott Rennie, a partnered gay pastor, to its vacant charge.  Aberdeen Presbytery concurred but a protest was filed and that protest will be heard at the General Assembly that begins in just over two weeks.

In that previous post what I did not realize was that I had found the web site for the Fellowship of Confessing Churches on the day of its launch.  Thanks to the Rev. Ian Watson for that information.  You can check out his announcement on his blog Kirkmuirhillrev.  Anyway, as I mentioned last time, on the Confessing Churches web site there is a petition supporting the dissenters and asking the GA to support the protest.  Well this petition has gone “viral,” or at least as viral as something Presbyterian can go, and there are currently 2530 individuals from the Church of Scotland who have signed, 1404 from other Scottish churches, 1104 from other UK churches, and another 1193 from other churches worldwide for a grand total of 6233 as of this writing, and increasing by the minute.

And this petition is now being advertised and debated in the blogosphere.  Over on the Reformation 21 blog, Carl Trueman announced the petition but indicated he would not sign.  However, other writers on the blog, like Phil Ryken and Rick Phillips did sign and post their comments about why they did.  Carl Trueman posted a second, much more extended comment on his view of the situation in response to Rev. Ryken’s post.

But the first post from Carl Trueman found responses from elsewhere in the blogosphere, some supporting his position (e.g. Thomas Goodwin, Joshua Judges Ruth and Knoxville) and some who argue for signing (e.g. Michael Bird at Euangelion).  And there is Darryl Hart on Old Life Theological Society who finds positives in both positions.  I find it interesting that many of the respondents are associated with the Presbyterian Church in America which will be dealing with ordination standards as they again address the issue of ordaining or commissioning women as deaconesses at their GA this year.  In fact the Rev. Dave Sarafolean makes this connection directly in his post at Joshua Judges Ruth (and his quote from Carl Trueman comes from Trueman’s second post):

Having just come back from presbytery
and preparing for General Assembly in a few weeks I found this quote
from Carl Trueman very helpful. I say this because of the on-going
debate in the PCA about the topic of ‘deaconesses’ (which are not
prescribed by our constitution):

“The policy of
ceding church courts to the liberals has proved disastrous. I feel for
friends caught in the crossfire in Aberdeen but, as I said earlier, a
petition is too little too late. These battles are not won by petitions
which have no ecclesiastical status; nor are they won by preaching to
the converted at large Reformed conferences or to congregations of the
faithful in the big C of S churches. They are won by the nasty,
brutish, hard labour of fighting in the church courts, face to face,
toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball, with those who would seek to take over
session, presbyteries, synods, and General Assemblies for evil”

There are a number of other facets to this debate that have developed over the past week.  The one that hit the mainstream media was a correction and apology that the conservative group Forward Together issued after they said that the Rev. Rennie had left his wife while it was actually the opposite.  This correction was widely covered by the press, such as these articles in Scotsman and The Herald.  However, the Rev. Louis Kinsey at Coffee with Louis takes issue with the tone of some of the press coverage and the bias he perceives in the reporting of the correction.  Similarly, he comments on bias in the headline of another news story about the petition.

From a different perspective Mr. Stewart Cutler has a blog post titled “Not In My Name” where he says why he will not sign the petition and he concludes with

So, no.  I won’t be signing your petition.  And I hope no-one else does
either.  Not because I don’t believe in your right to have one.  Not
that because I don’t think you have the right to hold your opinion. 
But because I believe that we are called to love one another and to
conduct our discusions with love and respect.

In another blog entry Mr. Cutler points us to the latest OneKirk Journal which has an extended interview with Rev. Rennie.  From all the reading that I have done on this story I think these are the most extensive comments by Mr. Rennie since the controversy broke.  The comments are serious, heartfelt and honest.  When the interviewer ask about the affect on his faith this controversy has had Mr. Rennie says:

Interestingly, it has greatly strengthened my faith. It has heightened my sense of call, opened my eyes to a wealth of kindness and Christian love from other people; some of whom I know, and some of whom I have never met. It is always easy in these kinds of circumstances to focus on the negative, but the reality is that most people are kind, compassionate and good at heart. Through them, God reveals himself to us all. I keep hearing in my mind the verse of that children’s hymn we all grew up with: ‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so’.

This article and this quote have also been picked up by the print media including an article in The Times Online today with the very attention-getting headline “Gay Church of Scotland Minister Hits Back at Evangelical Critics.”  I’m wondering if the Rev. Rennie would consider the OneKirk interview “hitting back” or just “telling his side”?

So as we approach the Assembly meeting the Journal article gives us one additional item — An Order of the Day:  This protest will be heard at 1900 on Saturday May 23 and decided in that session.  I appreciate the information so that I can rearrange my schedule and referee an earlier football (soccer) match that day.  I am still looking for the Blue Book or the docket to know when the related overture will be debated.

I Rise To A Point Of Personal Privilege

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OK, I don’t do this very often but I could not let this milestone go unheralded…

Today marks the three-year anniversary of this blog.  Over the last three years I have commented on roughly 25 different Assembly meetings around the world, publishing over a quarter-million words in 495 posts.  And there are still 14 drafts in my queue that are waiting to be finished up and shared with other G.A. Junkies.

While I started out, and continue, writing this just because it interests me, I appreciate all of you who read this blog that fills a unique, and in some ways weird, little niche in the world of religion.  Thank you for being there and for your kind, encouraging, and resource-filled comments.

So now the moderator will rule me out of order for using a point of personal privilege to make an announcement and we can return to our regularly scheduled programming.

New Official Blogging And Blogging Officials

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There have been a couple of notable additions to the world of Presbyterian Blogging in the last month or two that I wanted to pass on to you.

First, it appears that we will have another blogging Moderator:  The Rev. Stafford Carson of First Presbyterian Church of Portadown, Northern Ireland, has begun a pastor’s blog.  (h/t Sean Michael Lucas)  For a G.A. Junkie, this will become more interesting in early June when Rev. Carson will be installed as the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.  We will have to see the balance that he strikes between the parish and the denominational work.  If nothing else, I am curious if the work of the Moderator of the PC Ireland takes as much time as the Moderator of the GA of the PCUSA who has broken his moderatorial blogging out from his personal and parish blogging.

(And we are still waiting for an RSS feed from the Church of Scotland for their Moderator’s Blog.)

Second, for a while now we have had the entertaining and enlightening blog Being Presbyterian by Colin Carmichael from the main office of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.  Now, while more of a news feed than a blog, there is PC-Connect Daily to which you can subscribe by either e-mail or RSS.  Interesting stuff from a Presbyterian branch that is taking new technology seriously.

Finally, a blog that is not new itself but is new to me…  I have been doing some research to try to get myself up to speed on the Presbyterian Church in Australia.  I’ll get that packaged up at some point, but in looking through the various sites I have found very little in the way of RSS feeds and e-mail updates available.  To some extent this may be due to an interesting de-centralization of that branch to the state level.  But one interesting RSS feed I did find was for Presbyterian Youth in Victoria.  It is pretty much a news feed with upcoming events but some are interesting, like the Fuelled Training Day and the Short Course on Youth Ministry.  My youngest was interested in their summer camp since that is our winter, such as winter is in Southern California anyway.

Speaking of Youth, I see that the announcement for the 2009 National Youth Assembly of the Church of Scotland has been posted.  Since this event is Web 2.0 intensive I would expect an official blog for it like the NYA 2008 blog, but I can’t locate it yet. But keep watching because I am sure it will appear soon.

Blog Tricks

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I am sure most bloggers and blog readers are familiar with a series of on-line tools for characterizing a blog.  I’ve done them but have not shared them before since they are a bit off-topic and it seemed, at least to me, not particularly revealing.  As  Alfred North Whitehead said “It takes a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.”  Anyway, today I came across one of these on-line tests that really was interesting, so here are several of these measurements and I have saved the new and different one for last.

Wordle
Maybe one of the most interesting metrics of a blog, or any writing, is the pictorial representation of the word usage in the writing at www.wordle.net.  The current, before this post, representation is shown.


Any surprise that “Presbyterian” is the dominant word?  And where else would you find G-6.0106b as a listed word?  Anyway, I find it interesting but no new revelations here.

Typealyzer
The Typealyzer site will give you the “personality” of a blog.  In the case of my blog it comes out INTP, and is described as “The Thinkers.”  Their description reads:

The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to
difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for
something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle
connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and
imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing
and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as
arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to
understand what they are talking about.

Again, nothing new (to me) there.  But from a blog, how do they figure I’m an introvert?

Blog Readability
The Blog Readability Test tells you how high of a reading level a blog is written at.  Putting mine through comes back with College (Undergrad).  Fair enough.

You are… 
There are another series of tests about the individual, not the blog really, that are designed to associate you with some individual or character.  These range from theologians (and yes, I do score highest on John Calvin) to Winnie the Pooh characters (Owl, if you care).

Well thanks to Elizabeth Kaeton over at Telling Secrets I now know about The Way of the Fathers and Which Church Father Are You?  Now here is something new, different, and educational.  For me:


You’re St. Melito of Sardis!

You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins.

Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!


Some interesting parallels there, so now I want to learn more about St. Melito of Sardis who I had never heard of before this lunch hour.

And now back to our regularly scheduled Politics of Presbyterianism.

Young Evangelicals And The Presbyterian Church

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I suspect that many of you, like me, are regular readers of the blog Tribal Church by Carol Howard Merritt.  (If you are not, I highly recommend it if you want an honest look at where the church is among young adults today.)  And if you have not carefully read today’s entry I encourage you to have a look.

Carol uses the change in the presidential administration as a vehicle to touch on two important themes — one in the general religious landscape and one in the PC(USA).

The first point Carol mentions is that your typical young “evangelical” probably does not fit the stereotype from a few years ago.  While “social evangelicals” have been around for a while, with organizations such as Evangelicals for Social Action, Carol says that today:

Well, there is a new passion for social justice, for living out the
words of Jesus. And I cannot help but notice the Joshua Generation—the
young Evangelicals who cannot swear allegiance to Christian Right, who
are finding their own way.

and

There are a swarm of young Evangelicals who are wandering right now.
Twenty-six percent of young Evangelicals support same-sex marriage.
They no longer have a spiritual home in the congregations of their
youth.

There is a group that is between the traditional descriptions of the evangelicals and the progressives.  She asks “Can these young evangelicals call the PC(USA) their home?” That is my paraphrase of her question.  What Carol says is:

Often, when I’m around denominational types, things are said that
make our denominations inhospitable for people who grew up Evangelical.
I guess I should just spell it out. Because I love my church, I need
to let you know that if we want to reach out to a new generation, we
will need to learn to accept Evangelicals or ex-Evangelicals. You may
not agree with me, you may not have had the same experience, but still,
personally people communicate to me regularly, “You’re not one of us,
and you never will be.”

Carol points out three places where the younger generation is challenged

  • “Well, they obviously don’t know what it means to be Presbyterian.”
  • “Christianity has not been a force in our society since the sixties.”
  • “Evangelicals are dumb.”

Check out the article for her discussion of each of these.

On the one hand, questions and comments like these are nothing new — American Presbyterians have been debating, and dividing, over what it means to be Presbyterian from pretty much the beginning.  On the other hand, times have changed.  Mainline denominations are now sidelined and American Christians are losing denominational identity and loyalty.  What does that mean for the institution of the PC(USA)?  Clearly these young evangelicals are having trouble seeing themselves in it.  For established conservative churches withholding per capita they are having trouble seeing themselves in it as well.  How big a tent can we be, or to put it another way, can we be all things to all people?  How we, not as an institution but as a community, answer these questions will decide what the PC(USA) will look like in the future.

Moderator of the Church of Scotland Now Blogging

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Well, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has started blogging.  The first, I think, entry is about the visit of six Malawians to Glasgow.

It will be interesting to see how this develops.  At the moment the blog is a page on the Church of Scotland web site and not hosted using the more typical CMS blog software.  When a new post is added we will have to see if it replaces the previous or they are available on the same page or the older one is archived.  And if there is an RSS feed I have not found it yet.  And as you can tell, this is not Web 2.0.  It is more like a weekly update or reflection from the Moderator and without comments it is not interactive.  We will see if this evolves.