Category Archives: commentary

The PC(USA) General Assembly — Monday Committee Meetings and Some Polity Musings

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I can’t remember if I said that I’ll resume live blogging when the plenary reconvenes on Wednesday afternoon.  Today, and probably tomorrow, I spent moving between committee meetings.  I did not see very much through from start to finish but did spend larger chunks of time in Committee 8 – Mission Coordination and Budget and Committee 5 – Church Orders.  I’ll talk about Committee 8, and a couple of others, in briefer detail in a following post, but let me make some comments on Church Orders here.

First, Church Orders is our polity wonk name that is mainly ordination standards so they are dealing with, among other things, PUP report issues and G-6.0106b “fidelity and chastity” issues.

I came in during the overture advocates presentations on 05-03 and 05-18 which were linked together.  Both of these deal with examinations under PUP, commending presbyteries for working on their examination procedures and asking the stated clerk to compile best practices.  And both overtures cite that acknowledgment of sexual orientation must be self acknowledged and the examining body must be consistent in questioning.  And interestingly, in the Standing Rules each overture gets three minutes to speak to the overture, but for 05-03 there were nine concurring presbyteries who also get time.  Lumped together that was eleven speakers total so they had 33 minutes.  The pooled their presentations, it was scripted, choreographed, and with a great PowerPoint presentation.  And it was loaded with scriptural and polity arguments.

Of those polity arguments, two struck me as “interesting.”

The first was their take on the GAPJC “Bush v. Pittsburgh Presbytery” decision last February.  Their claim was that in the Bush decision the GAPJC lifted “fidelity and chastity” to a higher standard since an exception could not be declared for it.

Specifically the Bush decision says:

The church has decided to single out this particular manner of life standard and require church wide conformity to it for all ordained church officers.

So in a technical sense the GAPJC did set this higher, but as they say it was not really themselves that set it higher, but rather “The church has decided…”, it is the whole church by including it in the constitution.  A little later they generalize this with:

Although G-1.0301 permits broad freedom of conscience for members of the church, “in becoming a candidate or officer of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) one chooses to exercise freedom of conscience within certain bounds” (G-6.0108b). G-6.0108a defines the limits of this freedom of conscience for ordained church officers.

One of the interesting arguments made by the overture advocates was that we don’t need to over legislate this but to trust the presbyteries and correct this in the review process inherent in our connectional system.  This is almost exactly the same argument made, and exhibited, at the Presbyterian Church in America General Assembly just concluded when they decided that they did not need a study committee to consider the ordination of women to the diaconate since changes to polity should come from the presbyteries and then later the same day in the review of presbytery records considered an “unsatisfactory exception” when a presbytery’s examination of a teaching elder for membership did not fully examine and classify his views in favor of women elders.  For more on this check out the comment by Scott to my discussion of the debate at the PCA GA.

The other polity item that struck me was the reference to the previous GAPJC decisions and the commissioners’ comments about not being able to ask but that the sexual orientation must be self-acknowledged.  For the most part that is correct, but I would like to clarify from the headnotes of Weir v. Second Presbyterian Church, case 214-5:

Self-acknowledgment: The plain language of the Constitution clearly states that disqualified persons must have self-acknowledged the proscribed sin. Self-acknowledgment may come in many forms. In whatever form it may take, self-acknowledgment must be plain, palpable, and obvious and details of this must be alleged in the complaint.

Examination of Candidates for Ordination and/or Installation: The ordaining and installing governing body is in the best position to determine whether self-acknowledgment is plain, palpable, and obvious, based on its knowledge of the life and character of the candidate. If the governing body has reasonable cause for inquiry based on its knowledge of the life and character of the candidate, it has the positive obligation to make due inquiry and uphold all the standards for ordination and installation.

While the self-acknowledgment need not be verbal, reasonable cause is necessary to investigate further.

As I noted, the overture advocates for these overtures received a significant amount of time due to the number of concurring presbyteries.  After a question from a commissioner, a short conversation with the Stated Clerk, and then praying about it over dinner, the chair of the committee agreed that in fairness the overture advocates for overtures recinding the PUP report should have additional time.

The nature of all these presentations up to this point, filled with scriptural and polity arguments, differed markedly from the presentations that followed regarding the removal or modification of G-6.0106b, the fidelity and chastity section.  These appealed to love, justice, fairness, gifts, call, and pain with very little discussion of scripture or polity.  Needless to say, the theme passage for the General Assembly, Micah 6:8, was regularly cited.

Well, that was the most polity intensive and nuanced discussion I heard today.  Not even the Revised form of Government comments were that good.  So that wraps up Church Orders.  Next I’ll prepare some discussion of the other committees I checked in on.

The 218th General Assembly of the PC(USA) — Reflections on the Moderator Election

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The election of the Moderator of the General Assembly is the highest in “high-drama” that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has.  The room was comfortably full.  A row of seats near me held the past Moderators in attendance. And the webcast was followed by people around the country, in spite of the time differences.

First, my sincere thanks to all four candidates for standing for Moderator.  This is an awkward position in our polity: campaigning for an office when the office is supposed to seek the candidate.  But all did it well, respectfully, and decently and in order.  There is an important value in having choices because in the discussion, debate, and thought about the selection we not only chose who will lead us, we air the topics that are on our hearts and help focus our thinking about these issues.  In this respect alone these four men have done a profound service to the denomination.

Second, my highest respect for Elder Roger Shoemaker and his stand for Moderator.  As the only elder in the group, including the Vice-moderator candidates, he made an important statement by being willing to take the time and commit himself to being willing to be elected to the office.  As I now see our biennial GA’s play out I am becoming more concerned that with a two year term of office we are pricing elders out of the market.  The first question that was asked last night was very profound.  The question, as reframed, was about how each candidate would balance the role of Moderator with their other professional and family responsibilities.  Bill and Bruce pretty much said that their churches have the depth that they could take time away from them for the term.  Carl had an interesting twist that in his specialized ministry his role as Moderator could actually enhance that ministry to allow him to work on it at a higher level.  Roger flatly replied “I don’t have a church.”  This reveals two things: the bias of our thoughts about Moderators being ministers, and the near necessity of elders needing to be retired to take on the position.  (Note: I am not saying that there was this bias in the question since the question was actually asked of Bruce and is very legitimate considering his church and family circumstances.  However, the question needed to be reframed because all candidate get to answer each question.)

What concerns me is that while this is a major commitment for any servant of the church to take on, as Bill and Bruce demonstrate, it is easier for a minister to go to their session and figure out a way to make it happen.  If I were to go to my employer and try to work something out it would have to involve a big chunk of vacation time.  I’m pushing the boundaries enough right now as Vice-moderator of a synod.  For most elders, serving as Moderator of the General Assembly is something that can only be reasonably considered in retirement, especially with a two year term.

And during the Q&A each candidate showed their style.  Bill was the master at answering questions and addressing it back to the person asking the question.  Carl was ever ready with one of his profound and moving experiences.  Roger was true to his straightforward and “down home” approach.  And Bruce was lively and humerous when appropriate and serious and profound when he needed to be.

The other thing that struck me last night was that Carl’s late wife Marsha was mentioned only once, briefly in his nominating speech.  I do owe everyone an apology because in retrospect I should have mentioned her passing last month in this blog but I never got to it.  While I was not expecting any significant mention to be made, none the less I was both impressed and intreagued that so little was said.  I will leave it at that, but belated condolances to you Carl, you have been in my prayers.

When last we met…
I signed off last night just after the election results were announced and Bruce declared the new Moderator.  Following that Bruce and all the members of his family were escorted on stage for the installation service.  One of the moving parts of the service was the prayer of installation that was lead by Bruce’s mother and his oldest daughter.  The cross and stole were passed and Bruce began following the script. (Yes folks, for all these formal occasions, and in fact any thing that can be scripted, there is a script.)  Then the outgoing Moderator and Vice-moderator were thanked and all the former Moderators in attendance came on stage to be recognized.

The one additional comment that I would make is that when Bruce came back into the room and at one other point the stage crew turned on all these wild disco or light show lights.  While the event should be celebrated, Bruce was installed in a worship service, I guess I feel the light show trivializes it, or at least makes it more like the person is seeking the office.  That’s my $0.02.

And in closing on this topic, Bruce has cited me as “painfully fair.”  Don’t expect that to change brother.



Now, on to some analysis.
In a previous post when I referred to Bruce as a “YAD magnet” I was half joking.  I did not realize how prophetic that was.  On the first vote Bruce got 61% of the YAD vote (107 out of 163 votes) with the remainder somewhat evenly spread across the other three candidates.  I did not get the exact numbers from the second ballot, but they were pretty much the same.  Yes, once again the YAD’s called it on the first ballot.

Talking with my son this was no surprise to him.  He said that the buzz among the YAD’s had been so much about Bruce that this outcome with them was totally expected.  Get ready for Moderator 2.0.

But the commissioners are what really count.  On the first ballot it was Mazza 102, Reyes-Chow 341, Shoemaker 14, and Teng 250.

One the second ballot it was Mazza 52, Reyes-Chow 390, Shoemaker 7, and Teng 255.

While I usually think that these things are complex, in this case I am fairly comfortable figuring the very similar numbers do reflect the actual shifts:  Mazza lost 50, Reyes-Chow gained 49; Shoemaker lost 7, Teng gained 5.  In the Q&A, particularly the questions on inclusivity, we saw that Mazza and Reyes-Chow favor ordination and Teng and Shoemaker do not.  Shifts between these candidates in these positions would be logical.

But does this mean we have 262 conservatives and 442 liberals with us this week?  No, there are so many factors in play here that I don’t think we can make that call.  I know that among the YADs there were multiple evangelicals who were comfortable enough with Bruce to vote for him.  I would expect the same among the commissioners.  Bruce brought a freshness, vitality, and humor to the Q&A, as well as an honestness, that I think there were many “slightly right” commissioners who were led to him.  And please don’t read this as a purely political statement.  I do believe that the Holy Spirit was working in the Assembly last night and Bruce is the man for this time.

Having just denied purely political thinking I will take the risk and look ahead to the Stated Clerk election.  From what I saw last night I’m thinking Gradye Parsons will be the sucessful candidate.  While I do know Gradye the best of the four, he does strike me as the one with the most freshness and vitality like Bruce showed.  If the same dynamic plays out that would favor Gradye on top of his experience in the system.  But I’ve been wrong before.  Stay tuned.

The Future of the Mainline Church — An Update

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In just about a week we can expect the membership statistics from the Presbyterian Church (USA) for the close of 2007.  In years that General Assembly meets the numbers are usually officially released as part of the GA.  It seems that there are rumors circulating that the membership loss, primarily due to churches disaffiliating and transferring, will be two to three times larger than last year.  One friend has seen an advanced copy of the new statistics and thinks they are in line with the preceding year.  When the official numbers and category break-downs are released we can see who is correct and what other interesting features we see in the data.  But this past week the Southern Baptist Convention at their annual meeting had to confront their stagnation in growth (16.30 million last year versus 16.27 million this year) and graying of their flock.  (Atlanta Journal Constitution article)

Over the last few months since the previous discussion back in March, and the release of the Pew Foundation report that was part of it, there have been a couple of other interesting items that have come up.

The first of these is a post at the end of May by Michael Kruse over at Kruse Kronicle titled “The Decline of Mainline Denominations… for 150 years?”  The data comes from the book The Churching of American, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark.  The point of that analysis is that while the number of members in mainline denominations began declining in the 1960’s, the growth of those denominations fell behind U.S. population growth about a century earlier.  And the graphs Michael posts are for denominational groups not individual branches.  But if you are looking at Presbyterians over the last century and a half you need to look at them in a way that deals with all the splitting and reuniting.

Also from the end of May, The Lead on the Episcopal Cafe web site pointed to a significant USA Today commentary about the study and the trends.  The commentary points out that the dominant trends of stable and growing “traditional” churches is either high birth rates or immigrants that keep the number up.  Mainline churches are in decline because they don’t benefit from either of these effects.  This was noted in the Pew report, but the point of the commentary was that the solution may be “Mainline Megachurches.”  Not a far-fetched idea from my experience since in my presbytery over 10% of the members are in one larger church which probably is not even large enough qualify as a megachurch.  And in the surrounding areas I can point to a few larger Presbyterian churches that seem to dominate the landscape.  However, I would also point out that in a quick evaluation of what I know about these churches they do strike me as tending to the evangelical side and a few are part of the New Wineskins movement and are considering departure.  I would not be surprised if the churches moving from Episcopal to Anglican would also fit into the same description.  But in line with the article from Michael Kruse these shifts are between denominational branches not across denominations.

While this may be a significant approach, as I have said previously my anecdotal evidence suggests that two out of three of my kids prefer the style, fellowship, and teaching they get at more evangelical non-mainline church youth groups.

But the last word on this for today comes from the six-year-old daughter of a friend of ours at church.  Now before I tell the story I would say that our church is a stable, multi-generational, 250-ish member PC(USA) congregation.  So, on the way to church today the child asks her dad why there are “so many old people” at our church.  The dad said that he gave an answer about the denomination being a “mature church” and tending to have more older people.  The girl responded “Then we need some new members because they are almost 100.”  While that may not be as much of a problem for our particular church, she pretty much nailed it for the denomination at large.

Evangelicals and Evangelism

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Once again it is the time of year when my family events and teaching duties squeeze out the little time I do have for blogging.  I’ve got a bunch of half-written posts in the wings waiting for me to find serious time to finish them. A couple more that are “waiting for the other shoe to drop” running around in my head and will be put down on electronic paper when an anticipated event happens.  Similarly, I’ve got a few more that I’m turning over in my mind and sort of waiting for any one of them to reach “critical mass.” (What follows is one of those.)  Finally, there are a whole bunch that are just in the idea stage and 90% of them will never see the Publish button.  Well, this one finally reached critical mass in my mind…

When the “Evangelical Manifesto” came out on May 7 it was heralded by numerous media articles and blog postings.  Now, about a month later, I wanted to add a few comments of my own as well as reflect on a couple other things that have come out.

The Evangelical Manifesto itself is a 20 page document that is sub-titled “A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment.”  If you want a summary there is a six page executive summary available.  In the third paragraph of the Manifesto they state their purpose:

The two-fold purpose of this declaration is first to address the confusions and corruptions that attend the term Evangelical in the United States and much of the Western world today, and second to clarify where we stand on issues that have caused consternation over Evangelicals in public life.

The italics on “Evangelical” are theirs and the point is made in a footnote that they use this as a proper noun, not as an adjective like in “evangelical Christian.”  More on that later.

The Manifesto’s definition of an Evangelical has seven points and covers much of what would be considered the traditional standards of Christian theology, often in general terms.  These include the fully dual nature of Jesus and the uniqueness of salvation through Jesus. Salvation by Jesus’ death and resurrection covering our human sinful nature and the saving power being “faith through grace.” New life through spiritual regeneration via the power of the Holy Spirit.  The authority of the Bible as “God’s inspired word.”  The lordship of Jesus means serving him in every aspect of our lives, including reaching out to those less fortunate.  The hope of the “personal return of Jesus” at the end of time.  And that followers are called to worship Jesus.  In the terms stated it is pretty general, but still basic Christian doctrine a lot of followers could affirm.

From these seven points come seven “defining features.” Among these are  the value of creeds and historic Christian faith from the “great ecumenical councils.”  But faith is also expressed in worship and deeds as much as in creeds.  Third, Evangelicals are not limited to certain churches or movements but can be found across the denominational spectrum.  Next, “Evangelicalism must be defined theologically and not politically; confessionally and not culturally.”  Also, the good news is “overwhelmingly positive and always positive before it is negative.”  The sixth feature is “Evangelicalism should be distinguished from two opposite tendencies to which Protestantism has been prone: liberal revisionism and conservative fundamentalism.”  And finally, Evangelicalism looks equally to both to the past and the future.  In these defining features there are concepts that more Christians might disagree about.

The Manifesto then goes on to sections on how these points and features force us to “Reform our Own Behavior,” “Rethink our Place in Public Life,” be neither “Privatized Nor Politicized,” be a “Civil rather than Sacred or a Naked public square,” and to look to “The way of Jesus, not Constantine.”

This gives you a flavor for the document which tries to claim public and political life as a response to the call to follow Jesus.  It is interesting that the authors have tied each of the seven definitional points to Jesus Christ in their statement of the point.  And reading through the Manifesto it is clear certain “typical elements” usually associated with evangelical Christians are missing.  Jargon, like “Born Again” is definitely not found in the definition section and it appears that it is nowhere to be found in the whole document.  And what is not said is probably telling:  The shortest of the definition sections is the one on Scripture.  Besides lifting it up as authoritative and the final rule since it is “God’s inspired Word,” it goes no further in discussing the nature of Scripture and avoids any of the inerrancy/infallibility questions.  Similarly for the part on the end times, there is no real detailing of the end times and Jesus’ return and in fact makes no mention, either by name or reference, to Heaven, Hell, Satan or the other characters you might expect. And  the Manifesto only mentions “an undying kingdom,” but not even a scripturally based description like “new heaven and new earth.”  In a similar manner the creation account and the fall of humans to a sinful state is not mentioned.  While this may disappoint some people, there is clearly a sense in the document of focusing on life in the here and now and only saying as much as necessary about other features.  If you want to go into the document in more detail the group has put together a study guide which is longer than the Manifesto and executive summary combined.

The driving force was a steering committee of nine members including Os Guinness, John Huffman, Rich Mouw, David Neff and Dallas Willard.  The comments seem to suggest lead authorship by Mr. Guinness with support by this team.

There were 72 other “Charter Signatories” of the Manifesto and the list of additional signatories now appears to be as much as ten times that.  While I will not reprint all 72 names, many did jump out at me for either their celebrity or their Presbyterian connections.  These include Kay Arthur, Mark Bailey, Leighton Ford, Jack Hayford, Roberta Hestenes, Max Lucado, Gordon MacDonald, Sam Moffett, John Ortberg, Vic Pentz, Mark Roberts, Marguerite Shuster, Ronald Sider, and Jim Wallis.  There are reports that Rick Warren helped draft it but chose not to sign the final product.

From these contributors and Charter Signatories it is clear that there was a presence of members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the development and initial endorsement of this document.  And in the additional signatures many more PC(USA) individuals can be found and there are a few who self identify as Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Church in America, and one Reformed Presbyterian.  And it should be no surprise that with Rich Mouw on the steering committee there seems to be significant acceptance by individuals from Fuller Seminary and Princeton Seminary faculty and students are also evident.

So, while this is primarily marketed as a document for the American culture at large it might also be seen as a message to the Presbyterian, at least PC(USA), community.

A lot has also been made of the fact that many individuals who are closely associated with the title “Evangelical,” including James Dobson, Charles Colson, and Tony Perkins, were not invited to give input on the docum
ent and have not signed it.  And for the most part those in this category have not volunteered opinions or comments and have only issued terse statements when asked for comment.  But for a more interesting take on the document you can check out those that Deepak Chopra made on the Washington Post/Newsweek On Faith web site.  As you might expect his point-by-point discussion of the seven definitional points moved between new age universalism and references to points now being discounted by liberal Protestantism.  He apparently had not read the next section on defining features where this is discussed at length.  Well, if the document was too general for some it was too specific for him.

While I discussed the definitions for evangelicals before, and the Barna Group has their own nine-point definition that only a small percentage of Christians actually fulfill, with documents like this the attempt to pin down the term becomes even harder.  Among the signers, Rich Mouw, Mark Roberts, and Jim Wallis have talked about the Manifesto in their blogs, and Albert Mohler talks about why he did not sign it.  And I would note that a Google search turns up the fact that this was not the first Evangelical Manifesto, there being at least one other by the National Association of Evangelicals in 1996 discussed in a Christianity Today article. While I can not find reference to it on the NAE web site, it has been preserved on the Cephas Library web site. (I should note that the current president of the NAE was one of the charter signatories.)

One interesting tie-in is a recent post on the blog GetReligion.  (If you are not familiar with this blog it does a great job analyzing media reporting of religion and how those in the media often do not “Get Religion.”  It is a good read.)  Anyway, in a recent post they were analyzing an L.A. Times article about a zoning issue for a Chabad Jewish preschool.  What the author of the GetReligion article pointed out was that this Jewish Lubavitch sect is know for outreach, often viewed as “evangelizing.”

If the outreach is to bring people back into the church that is probably one thing, but the problem is related to recruiting people to the Jewish religion with its membership usually determined by birth.  Also, evangelizing has a bad connotation because of Christian groups trying to convert Jews.  And so the author says that the label of “evangelizing” is a “slur” in Jewish culture.

Now, I have made a jump here from “Evangelical” to “evangelizing.”  But in our American cultural mindset we so often associate the action of evangelizing with those who are evangelical Christians.  Maybe it is just because the words come from the same root.  In Europe this association is not necessarily so as demonstrated by the fact that in Germany and some other countries what we call the Lutheran Church is just know as the Evangelical or Evangelical Reformed Church.  This is a point that the writers of the Manifesto point out in a general sense.

Returning to the concept of Jews evangelizing, it should also be remembered that frequently in the early church “christian,” that is “little christ,” was used as a pejorative by those outside the church.  In the early church the term “Christian” was not a way the believers referred to themselves.  (I could not find which book of mine has this in but I’ll post the citation here as soon as I can locate it.)

Finally, there is a parallel mindset here about evangelizing between some of these Jews and some Christians in their view of Calvinism.  Just as some Jews believe that membership in God’s chosen people is decided by birth, for some Christians if in election or predestination God has already decided who will be saved why is there a need for evangelizing those outside the church.

Anyway, there is plenty out there on the Evangelical Manifesto, both in the media and in the blogosphere.  I decided not to try to pick and chose between the various takes on this that are available but rather just to look at it from my particular blogging niche.

More from the Stewardship Conference: Stewardship as a Spiritual Discipline

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If you read my post discussing the first news article about the Stewardship Conference you know that I found those speaker’s comments to reflect a fairly narrow, “follow the money,” understanding of stewardship.  We now have a news story with the comments of the Rev. Karl Travis, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth, TX, that reflect a much richer understanding of stewardship as a spiritual discipline. This new story, also by Evan Silverstein from the Presbyterian News Service, is titled “Transforming the Understanding of Stewardship.”

The idea is not that the institution needs us to give, but that we need to give for our own spiritual well being.  As the article says early on:

Now the time has come for the emphasis to shift from preserving and promoting the institution to furthering the well-being of its parishioners, especially when it comes to worshipers growing personally and spiritually through disciplined financial giving to their church.

In other words stewardship is not about the church’s need to receive. Stewardship is first about the individual’s need to give.

Just to remind you, Paul considers giving a spiritual gift:

6. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8.if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.  [Romans 12:6-8, NIV]

Rev. Travis talked about stewardship as a lifestyle choice.  He is quoted as saying “Stewardship is about the joyous discipline of thanking God with the
way we live our lives and spend our money and share our money.”  This gets closer to the stewardship of “time, talents, gifts, and service” that I am used to.

The article has a couple of other good quotes from Rev. Travis about stewardship:

If you’ve come to this conference because your church is in rough financial waters and you’re wondering how to increase its budget to pay the light bill, fair enough. But take note: If that’s your initial theological pitch, you’re going to remain in the dark.

and

I have grown tired of the stewardship pitch beginning with the church hat-in-hand. People want now to speak first of joy, grace, the individual benefits of disciplined generosity.

In his presentation Rev. Travis, like Mr. Easley, made reference to Dr. Walter Brueggemann’s “Liturgy of Abundance, Myth of Scarcity” article.

So stewardship is not about perpetuating a particular church as an institution or preserving a denomination.  It is about our relationship to God as a member of a covenant community that is the Body of Christ.

One final closing quote from the article:

Stewardship is an exuberant conversation within which we step
toe-to-toe with the idolatries of this age and declare with a loud and
clear and resonant voice, ‘I am not your slave! I am a child of God,
sealed by the Holy Spirit, marked as Christ’s forever, and nothing you
can ever say or do can ever make that not true.’

Better Mission Funding Through On-Line Social Networking?

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You may have seen yesterday’s article from the Presbyterian News Service of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) by Evan Silverstein titled “Fresh approaches to stewardship needed, Easley says.”  The Easley is General Assembly Council Vice-chair Charles F. Easley and he was speaking to the Presbyterian Stewardship Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

The article, while associated with the conference, mainly covered Mr. Easley’s plenary speech.  He is quoted as saying that “We have got to devise new ways to tap into the passions of people.”  And the goal?  He pointed out that in the next two years $50 to $60 trillion dollars will change hands from one generation to the next which will “give rise to a new generation of wealthy donors — ages 40 to 50 — who will demand to see ‘measurable results’ for their money before agreeing to contribute to the mission of their churches or other charities.”  In addition, Elder Easley reminded the audience that the pattern in the church today is designated  giving and that the church can not depend on the average person attending church because they have stopped coming.

Mr. Easley outlined programs the PC(USA) might implement to raise awareness and interest in mission giving and a final report will be made to the upcoming General Assembly.  The objective is to “bring resources into the church” once you learn about the passion of its members.  One of the tools proposed in the new mission funding system will be a “season of interpretation.”  This sounds like the mission worker visit we had last fall which was interesting but penetration into the churches in our presbytery was weak.  No further details are given except that the goal is to make this an annual event and that members could chose what they have a passion for.  Another component to the report is encouraging not just the transfer of wealth, but the transfer of stories and knowledge about mission from older to younger generations.  Finally, there are ideas about using on-line social networking sites to promote mission giving through relationship building.

The article concludes with Mr. Easley discussing the ideas of Walter Brueggemann about the “Liturgy of Abundance, Myth of Scarcity” and how much abundance Americans have.

Commentary Mode:  Based on these comments it appears that Mr. Easley is sending the message that “people are not coming to the PC(USA) therefore we need to pursue, court, and build relationships with high net worth individuals to support our world-wide mission because the few left in the pews can’t or won’t do it.”  Sorry if I got that wrong, but that is a major attitude I got from this article.  And I hate to say it but if this is the message that we are sending to the “average person in the pews” they will once again wonder what is up in Louisville and where is my money going?

[In case you want to argue with me here is the quote copied from the article:  “And he said forget about bringing in enough money by depending on those
coming to church. ‘It’s just not going to happen because they don’t
come,’ Easley said.”  Yes, I’m pulling one line out, but there is a strong message sent in that line.  Don’t believe me?  I read it to my wife and her response was “That’s kind of scary.”]

Apart from the emphasis on the “high net wealth” individuals in preference to the “average person in the pews” I think that Mr. Easley is starting down the right track.  Storytelling, interpretation, relationship building are all important aspects of responsible (I will avoid the word “increased”) mission giving.  My congregation is a prime example:  While we do still contribute some money each year to “undesignated” mission giving at all levels of the denomination, far more goes into specific mission projects, several not PC(USA) or of any denomination, that we have a specific relationship with.  And for most of these missions our church usually sends people on mission trips to supply some sweat as well as money and to bring back stories and experience.

This brings me to one of my major concerns about Mr. Easley’s comments and what I can tell about this conference.  (Note: I have come to respect the reporting of Mr. Silverstein so I am going to attribute these to the speaker and not the reporting or editing.)  From his comments, and the list of workshops at the conference, it is pretty clear that this conference was about Stewardship of Money.  In and of itself that is not necessarily a bad thing.  But I believe that Jesus calls us to Stewardship of Our Whole Lives, so that means we need to be responsible about our “time, talents, gifts, and service.”  If giving is down is it because we are only asking for their money?  And with the proposed new Form of Government, how does this approach to stewardship fit into the new Missional Polity.

So, I would encourage the approach of relationship building.  Go the Facebook and MySpace route because one paragraph or one sentence in the Mission Yearbook for Study and Prayer is not enough to build the relationship, and barely enough to give us something to pray over.  I hope the season of interpretation catches on, because we do need to feel connected with those we support.  While the Mission Yearbook is nice it often feels like drinking from a fire hose; find ways for congregations and individuals to effectively connect one-on-one with mission workers.  And figure out more ways that we can also use our “time, talents, and service” as will as “gifts.”  Look at the enthusiasm and participation that the PC(USA) has had in the Gulf Coast through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the impact it has had on both the area and those who have gone there to work.  And maybe if the average person in the PC(USA) does learn about and own the mission program you won’t have to emphasize high net wealth individuals for mission funding.

Happy Feast of Saint Patrick Today

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Today I wish you a Happy feast of Saint Patrick, Bishop and Confessor.

But wait, that’s on Monday.

Well, for the vast majority of the world it is, but in an interesting application of “The Rules” that a GA Junkie would appreciate, if you are “observant,” then today is the day to celebrate.

You may have heard that in predominantly Roman Catholic areas there is a problem because Holy Week starts tomorrow and nothing trumps Holy Week in the church calendar.  To be specific, this is all laid out in a set of rules known as the General Rubrics (GR).  On the Roman calendar this Monday, March 17, would be the feast of St. Patrick except that is a third class feast day and since Monday of Holy Week falls on the same day this year and it is a movable feast of the first class with very high precedence [GR 91] then St. Patrick’s day is “commemorated or omitted altogether” [GR 95].  It gets a bit more complicated on the church calendar since there is an allowance for saints that are patrons of a particular city or nation making the feast day one of the first class in those places [GR 57(a)].  However, this is still not good enough to trump Holy Week since the patron’s day comes out twelfth in the order of precedence and Monday to Wednesday of Holy Week are in seventh place.  (For reference, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost are highest precedence and Ash Wednesday is also in the group that is seventh.)  In this whole precedence and rules thing, the rule would be to celebrate the feast of Saint Patrick on April 1. (Quick version: Rescheduled feasts are to be pushed after the day that displaces them but both Holy Week and the week following Easter Sunday have higher precedence (the week following Easter just barely) and then there is another displaced feast of higher rank to be celebrated first on March 31.)  There are a couple of variants floating around which would move it earlier, but technically it should go later.

Well, you can’t just omit St. Patrick’s day in some parts, and April 1 was too long to wait, so a compromise was reached by the Irish bishops with the approval of the Vatican to celebrate it today.  See, the PC(USA) is not the only ones with “creative polity.”  And of course, secular celebrations will go on virtually unaffected.

I personally find feast days helpful as a spiritual exercise, but not in a veneration or patron saint sense.  As regular readers know, I welcome All Saints Day (November 1) as an opportunity to remember those that I have know who have been a spiritual inspiration to me and are now part of the Church Triumphant.  In the same way, I appreciate the historical saints, beatified by a particular church or not, who are a witness to the faith and can encourage us in our “running the race” and “fighting the good fight.”  May we be found faithful as well.  Sola Dei Gloria

Sin Is Not Just Present, It Is Pervasive

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The doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith. — Reinhold Niebuhr

I won’t say that yesterday was a “good” day for sin, but it was clearly a day that it was prominent.  On the serious side a crime fighting and “squeaky clean” politician was caught in scandal.  And as the Reformed community we shake our heads in disappointment but not in surprise, for “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

And while in this news event several of the traditional “deadly” or “mortal” sins were transgressed, the Vatican comes out with their list of seven new “social” sins.  (Technically, as this Toronto Star article says, a Vatican official discussed modern problems with a Rome newspaper and it was the news media that distilled and spun them down to the more attention-getting “seven modern sins.”)

Update:  There is a good story over on GetReligion called “Seven Sensationalist Sins.”  But for us geeks, the diagram of the combinatorics of the original seven deadly sins, chose two is priceless.

The Future of the Mainline Church

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This is one of those “convergence of thoughts” posts were several things coalesce in your thinking and you realize the significant common thread running through them.  What was probably the catalyst for this was the report that the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released last week titled “ U.S. Religions Landscape Survey.”  I’ll return to specifics of that survey in a minute, but in that report I saw nothing that I did not already know from my experience and anecdotal evidence; it just quantifies the observations.

The bottom line is that the report says, among other things, what we already know about mainline Protestant denominations:  the members are getting older and the denominations are getting smaller.  Not a surprise to anyone following the PC(USA) membership trends which saw a 1.4% decrease in the number of churches between 2003 and 2006 and a 5.7% decrease in membership in the same time period.  The one year decline for 2005-2006 was 2.0% for the PC(USA).  Over the same three-year time period the PCA reported a 5.7% growth in the number of churches and a 4.2% increase in membership. (Note that I chose the PCA and not the EPC so there is not an argument to be made that those gains are mostly departing PC(USA) members and churches.)  Similarly for the United Methodists, the title of a Christian Post article yesterday pretty much says it all: No Future for Methodists Unless Change Occurs, Say Leaders.

For the PC(USA) (and, while I did not dig up the statistics, the “mainline” Presbyterian branches in other countries as well), one observation is that we do not retain our young people.  That is supported by the Pew Forum study.

First, another academic survey which again quantifies in today’s college students what I saw happen among my peers at a state university 25 years ago.  The Pew Forum has a Q&A on their site with Alexander W. Astin, the director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA on “ Spirituality in Higher Education: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose“.  As they define it, college students become less “religious” (they stop going to church) and more “spiritual” (things like “attaining inner harmony”) between their freshman and junior years.  There is also a measure of their political thinking and the students tend to become more “liberal” in their thinking.  (Note that the Pew Forum Q&A does not include confidence intervals but if it is like most national surveys it is about +/-4% which actually renders some of the statistical differences for politics on the Pew page as indistinguishable.) (Digression: If you want an interesting discussion of differing impacts of “progressive” and “conservative” faculty on college campuses check out an article by Harrison Scott Key from World on the Web.)  I’m still doing some thinking about the UCLA study’s categories and classifications, but they support what many of us recognized over the last couple of decades, if not longer. [I will note that my day job is in academania so I have a front row seat to this. I was in a group recently where two students were having a discussion over whose form of yoga was better.]

If I had to summarize the Pew Forum study in one line it would be that today American churches, religion, and spirituality have become a commodity with individuals looking for consumer satisfaction and not brand loyalty.  And no, I’m not the first to say that.

As background, for the total population they found that 78.4% of Americans self-identified as Christians breaking down to 51.3% Protestant, 23.8% Catholic, and the balance of 3.3% other Christian including Eastern Orthodox and two groups not everyone would group with the Christians, Latter Day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses.  The next largest group was “Unaffiliated” comprising 16.1% of the population but within that group, in addition to the atheists and the agnostics there is what you might call the “apathetic,” although the study calls them “nothing in particular.”  Now apathetic is not quite right because part of the “nothing in particular” are “secular unaffiliated” who would be the apathetic, but there is also a “religious unaffiliated” who do say religion plays a significant part in their lives, but apparently not organized religions groups.  If you care about particular states, regions, ethnic groups, or other demographics the report is extensive and the web site easy to drill down through to get some very detailed information.

One other interesting detail is that among the Evangelical Protestants the second largest group is Nondenominational.  Baptists are the largest group among Evangelical Protestants with 41% of the group and then Nondenominational and Pentecostals are tied for second with 13% of the group for each.  For the record, Evangelical Presbyterians, led by the PCA, are 3% of the group.

I should mention that in the survey there is a third Protestant tradition tracked, that being the “Historically Black Protestant Church.”  However, since Presbyterianism comes in at 0% in this tradition I won’t be regularly referring to it.

One more little detail:  Since the individuals in the survey self-identify their religious affiliation I am curious about the “Mainline Presbyterian” breakdown.  While 1.1% of respondents were PC(USA), <0.3% identified themselves as “Other Presbyterian in the Mainline Tradition” and 0.7% as “Presbyterian in the Mainline Tradition, not further specified.”  So if you are Presbyterian in the Mainline Tradition, but not PC(USA), what are you?  Ex patriot Church of Scotland, PC Ireland or some other global Presbyterian branch?  Another American Presbyterian who thinks they are mainline? Someone who has left the PC(USA) but still identifies with the mainline church, whether or not attending elsewhere, or someone who won’t admit to being in the PC(USA)? According to the narrative of the study these were individuals who identified themselves as Presbyterian but no further, and who said they were not “born-again or evangelical.”  And what about PC(USA) members who identified themselves as “Evangelical?”

With that overview, let me turn to one small piece of the Pew study, specifically the religious landscape with young adults and migration patterns away from the denomination of their upbringing.  The study finds that 62% of Americans over age 70 identify themselves as Protestant while only 43% of those in the 18-29 age bracket do.   As for Unaffiliated, it is claimed by 25% of the 18-29 age group while claimed by only 8% of the over 70 group.  And in each of these groups the age distribution, while not strictly linear, does increase or decrease consistently. The survey also looked at shifting religious affiliations by comparing the tradition an individual was raised in versus where they are now.  (Note that multiple changes or changes back to the original are not seen.)  The biggest changes are seen in the Unaffiliated group with 7.3% of the population being raised unaffiliated but 16.1% claiming it now.  And most of that gain was in the “Nothing in particular” cat
egory.  The second largest gains were seen in the Nondenominational Protestant category with 1.5% raised in that tradition but 4.5% currently identifying with it.  Within those currently self-identifying as Protestants, 18% of Evangelical Protestants were raised outside Protestantism and 31% switched from another Protestant family while for those in Mainline Protestantism it is similar with 16% from outside and 30% from another Protestant family.  That leave 51% and 54% respectively who are currently in the tradition they were raised in.

Now that is a bunch of numbers, but breaking that last one down by denominations the Baptists have the best retention rate at 60% with no change while Presbyterians have one of the worst with only a 40% retention rate.  Of those that were raised Presbyterian and changed roughly equal numbers, about 15% went to each of other Evangelical Protestant denominations, other Mainline Protestant denominations, and No Religion.

I will point out that some of these numbers about migration apply to individuals across the age spectrum.  But considering the UCLA study, the fact that Unaffiliated is strongest among the 18-29 age group, and my qualitative observation of college and college age being the time that young people now lose touch with the church, I would argue that while these trends are not specific, they are at least representative if not dominant in the college age group.

With each of my three children, there is a clear attraction to the energy, vitality, and relationships that certain other churches in town have.  All three, while growing up at home and faithfully attending and serving at our Presbyterian church, also regularly attend the youth group at another church.  (And there are two different “other” churches between the three of them.)  These other churches have thriving youth programs that attract, hold, and educate the kids.  They are not attracted by the theology, they are attracted by the energy and the relationships.  These two other churches are not Presbyterian, but I have seen nothing that a Presbyterian church could not do.  In fact from reading his blog, I think Mark Smith’s church does do things like this with their youth.  But from what I have seen it takes work.  Not just work by the Youth Director, not just work by the Youth Team, but work by the whole church.  The whole church?  Yes, because some of us “frozen chosen” have to be ready to sometimes have worship music that might include a drum set and electric guitars.  Yes, because some of us need to get off our duffs and be ready to help out with youth events like Mark does.  Not only can a small youth team not do it alone, but if we want to empower the younger generation of our members (note, not the “future of the church” or the “next generation”, they are with us today) we need to show them that they are valued by the broad community and have a place in our worship and the life of the community.  And I think we can do that without compromising our Reformed faith and traditions (I’ll have to think more about how some of this might interact with the “ regulative principle of worship“).  [I think I just outlined an upcoming moderatorial sermon.]

[Please forgive me if I seem hypocritical by making these suggestions and yet my own kids also attend other church youth groups.  I would point out that 1) they are still engaged in our church and its youth group and 2) My wife, and I to a lesser degree, have been active with youth events and the youth team.  But we are not above looking at what makes other youth programs successful and it takes the time and the efforts of a lot of people to change the climate and educate the faith community.]

A final piece of anecdotal evidence:  Over the last week I have been part of two interesting conversations with two young men.  The first had just finished high school and was starting at a local community college.  He grew up in the Baptist church and from what we adults could piece together he was now in rebellion against a strict upbringing.  He could clearly and succinctly exposit his religious views and they were clearly theistic and non-Christian.  Here, I thought, was a college student headed for the Unaffiliated, but I hope that in the near future he is able to work out some of his uncertainties with the help of an understanding and non-judgmental faith community.  The second conversation was with our son who requested that we have him excused from the last few minutes of his school day so he could attend the memorial service for a member of our church.  While it was a wonderful and faithful gentleman who had gone to be with the Lord, he was not a close friend so my wife and I were initially skeptical that all our son wanted was an excuse to get out of one of his least-favorite classes.  But as we talked with him we realized that he was serious about wanting to be part of the faith community that gathered to remember this saint and so we pulled him from school for the worship service.  It demonstrated for me that something had clicked for my son about being community in the church.

Within the PC(USA) this spring it will be interesting to see if the denomination can get and hold the attention of young adults.  One driving force is the Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow and his standing for election as Moderator of the General Assembly with a Web 2.0 campaign.  Yes, the other three candidates, Rev. Bill Teng, Rev. Carl Mazza, Elder Roger Shoemaker, all have web sites and Mr. Mazza is blogging.  But Bruce’s web site is updated frequently and has the Web 2.0 bells and whistles like DOPPLR, Facebook, yelp.  From one of his posts it is apparent that questions are being raised about this modern style and whether that is an appropriate way to run a campaign.  For the Moderator election I’m not sure how much of that will help him; it is my experience that few commissioners are in the demographic that appreciates Web 2.0 or that it would influence their vote.  But taking a long view, it should be the hope of those who care about the future of the PC(USA) that Bruce simply doing that will attract and hold the attention of the younger generation of PC(USA) members and leaders.  Or maybe wake some of the rest of us up to what we need to be thinking about.

As I work through my GA 101 series I am thinking about how Reformed Theology, Presbyterian polity and Web 2.0 intersect, inform each other, and maybe conflict.  From a traditional Reformed approach, does an on-line community gathered together in the “virtual” world differ from the covenant community gathered together in the “real” world?  Can you have a true Reformed “Second Life” church?  (That is not Second Life as in The Church Triumphant but as in “The Church Virtual.”)  So I plan to revisit this piece of Reformed theology in detail in my concluding installment of the GA 101 series: Reformed theology and Presbyterian polity for the future — The Church Virtual?

But for now I have written enough and probably glazed over a bunch of eyes with all the statistics.  The take-away is that the numbers continue to not look good for the PC(USA) in the long run and we need to think about how our community, within the bounds of our Reformed faith, needs to adjust.

Nothing Has Changed! Reaction to the PC(USA) GAPJC Decisions

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I quite intentionally used “Nothing has changed!” as a double entendre in the title because watching the reaction to last week’s General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission’s decisions about ordination standards it seems that neither PC(USA) polity nor the various interest groups’ rhetoric has changed.  As far as I can tell, the PC(USA) is pretty close to where it was two years ago on this controversy.

I first want to highlight, acknowledge, and thank two other bloggers for their thoughtful and detailed analyses on the decisions.  Even though Rev. David Fischler at The Reformed Pastor and Mr. Mark Smith over at Mark Time approach these decisions from different theological perspectives they come to basically the same conclusions about these decisions and where it puts us.  And that they both came to a similar conclusion as I did encourages me that I was not off-base on my reading.  Both of these are wonderful blogs in their own right, and part of my regular reading, but you can check out the specific posts from Rev. Fischler and Mr. Smith on the GAPJC decisions.  In a few moments I’ll be turning to the reaction to the decisions of various interest  groups, but you can check through The Reformed Pastor for Rev. Fischler’s reactions to those as well.

There has been little “official” reaction to these decisions.  The Office of the General Assembly Department of Constitutional Services has issued Advisory Opinion 21 which contains only a summary of the GAPJC decisions and nothing new beyond that.  It appears that the Presbyterian News Service is not issuing a news article of their own, but rather they carry the article that Leslie Scanlon of the Presbyterian Outlook wrote for that publication. 

The Outlook also has another article by Scanlon about GA Moderator Joan Gray’s reaction to the decisions that she shared with the General Assembly Council at their just concluded meeting.  Rev. Gray is reported as sharing her theme from her moderator campaign that “I do not think polity is the way to the resolution of our issues in the Presbyterian church.  Polity will not fix our problems.”  The Moderator goes on to encourage three things: 1) Humble ourselves, “get off our high horses.”  2) Ask forgiveness of one another. 3) Accept unconditional love to reach out.  She also called this a kairos moment for the PC(USA).  Are we going to miss it?

Reaction from affinity and interest groups has started rolling in and I guess I would call it “predictable.”  Presbyterians for Renewal had one of the early statements (On their GA2008 web site).  To simplify their statement down to one line:  The rulings promote the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the church by affirming what has been in place and clarifying the confusing Authoritative Interpretation passed by the last GA.

On the other side of things there is reaction on the web sites of the More Light Presbyterians, That All May Freely Serve, Witherspoon Society, and the Covenant Network.  In addition, More Light Presbyterians has issued a more general reaction to the whole PC(USA) situation titled “It’s about time!”  I won’t quote and comment on them one-by-one since they all say about the same thing in varying degrees.  As a whole, they feel the GAPJC at best set things back and at worst made a serious error.  There is concern that the GAPJC is not interpreting the whole of the Confessions and the Book of Order but focusing on one line or section.  And that the GAPJC did not understand what the last GA wanted to accomplish.  They do agree with the GAPJC on one point:  As things stand now the only way to change things is to change the Book of Order.  As That All May Freely Serve puts it: “The decision, however, puts in stark relief the necessity for swiftly and finally removing the homophobic and heterosexist policies from the Presbyterian constitution.”  I think that pretty clearly states their position.

And the two individuals who have declared exceptions have indicated their disappointment in the decisions, Paul Capetz on the Witherspoon Society web site and Lisa Larges in an Alameda Times-Star article.

A couple of my own comments:

First, the three decisions were decided by the GAPJC with out a dissenting opinion.  All the GAPJC members were apparently in agreement.  Whether these were unanimous or consensus decisions, or all adopted the majority position so that they could present a united front in deference to the unity called for in the PUP report I don’t know.  But I find it difficult to say the GAPJC erred in light of this wide agreement.

Second, back in 1996-1997 when the “fidelity and chastity” section was being debated and ultimately adopted there was a report that one of the reasons that the amendment was needed for polity reasons was because the GAPJC was beginning to have concerns about upholding the Definitive Guidance of 1978 and similar interpretive statements without any clear corresponding constitutional language.  These current decisions, now from the situation of having the constitutional language but an additional AI interpreting it, seem compatible with the 1997 reports.  It is consistent that the GAPJC places more weight on the presbytery adopted language of the constitution then the interpretive language adopted by a General Assembly alone.  From a polity point of view that makes sense.

With the apparent return to status quo in the PC(USA) it does raise the question of whether there will be a slowing or suspension of congregations looking to leave.  I personally think that most of the churches looking to depart are trains that have “left the station” and there will be no discernible slow-down in requests for dismissal.  But if you want an interesting imaginary debate on the issue you can check out Toby Brown’s post today (and the real debate in the comments) o
n his blog Classical Presbyterian.

So in the realm of polity it does look like “Nothing has changed.”  From what I can tell in a strict polity sense the PC(USA) is now at almost the same point as about two years ago before the PUP report.  And having been one of the voices to express skepticism that “Nothing has changed” I acknowledge my haste and will try to be better at what I preach, to be patient and trust the system.

But as I thought about this more, I realized that the GAPJC decisions mean something has changed and that threatens That All May Freely Serve and More Light Presbyterians among others.  For a couple of decades churches that are part of these organizations have been effectively scrupling behavior.  There is now an explicit GAPJC ruling that you can not do that so the implicit permission (or lack of explicit prohibition) is gone.  And I suspect that with the 2008 GA approaching progressive advocacy groups are now reformulating strategy.  It seems everyone now agrees that the only way to reliably change the ordination standards is to change the constitution.  Looking at the proposed overtures concerning ordination standards there seems to be some that in the perceived success of the AI last time are proposing new AI’s.  I suspect that a bunch of those are now going to be off the table with this new GAPJC ruling that weakens the reach of AI’s.  We are back to needing to make a change that must be sent down to the presbyteries.  Don’t expect a resolution to this at the conclusion of General Assembly.