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Changes In Theological Perspective Among PC(USA) Members

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Warning: This is another one of my posts where the analysis is going to get really geeky really fast.  So be it — just jump to the end for the bottom line if your eyes start to glaze over.

In working on a couple of other current issues I decided that for my own edification I needed to find a metric for the theological viewpoint of the membership, not the leadership, of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and how that might be changing with time.

One motivation for this is the contention that the PC(USA) is preferentially losing conservative members.  I have previously commented that 1) the total membership loss is much higher than what can be attributed to congregation level realignment out of the PC(USA) and that 2) change in presbytery level membership can not be correlated to leadership theological views.  I had been holding the position that membership loss in the PC(USA) is broadly across the theological perspectives.  I may be wrong about that.  Here is an analysis of a different data set…

I looked at the last five Presbyterian Panel surveys: 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008.  These are the initial surveys of each new panel which serves as the “sample population” for the PC(USA) for the next three years.  That is, the 1996 survey was for the 1997-1999 panel.

In those surveys I found five questions that were asked the same way in all five surveys that pertain directly to doctrinal issues giving a direct measure of an individual’s theological viewpoint.  The five questions are:

  1. Which one of the following terms best describes your current stand on theological issues?
  2. All the world’s different religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth
  3. The only absolute truth for humankind is in Jesus Christ
  4. Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved
  5. There is a life beyond death

I really wish the question about the respondent’s view of the Bible had been asked the same way every time because that would also have given a good perspective on the individual’s viewpoint.  And there are a couple other questions that appear in every survey that could be considered theological indicators as well, such as “Have you ever tried to encourage someone to believe in Jesus Christ or to accept Him as a personal savior?” but these are more about spiritual practices and I thought the questions could be answered either way across the theological spectrum so were not as good of indicators..  (For the record, on this question of accepting Jesus Christ as personal savior it is very close to 60% “yes” and 40% “no” in all five surveys with no trend or statistical variation.)

Other technical details I need to mention:  The margin of error is reported as +4%.  I will only be looking at the “members” category but as I opined before 57% of “members” are ordained officers of the church and for elders they are those not currently serving on session.

Now, the first shall be last and the last shall be first so let me deal with the fifth one at the beginning.  This is easy – over the five surveys there is virtually no change with always 84-86% who agree or strongly agree, 12-14% who are not sure, and 1-3% who disagree or strongly disagree.  I would also note that there was a statement on four of the five surveys (missing in 1999) that “Jesus will return to earth some day.” The last three surveys are indistinguishable at 66-69% agree or strongly agree, 24-27% not sure, and 6-7% disagree or strongly disagree.  The first survey was a bit higher for the two agree categories (75%) with equal drops (3-4% each) in the not sure and combined disagree.  For these statements there is no indicator of change with time.

For the statement “all the world’s different religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth” there is an interesting statistically significant variation, but not a trend.  (Note that on all these tables I have added the “combined agrees” and “combined disagrees” categories to simplify graphing and they show up as “all agrees” and “all disagrees” on the chart.)
 

 All the world’s different religions are
equally good ways of helping a person
find ultimate truth.		 1996 1999  2002 2005 2008
Strongly Agree  9  7  8  9  11
 Agree  31  28  27  23  26
 Combined Agrees  40  35  35  32  37
 Not Sure  18  18  19  25  19
 Disagree  25  29  28  24  24
 Strongly Disagree  18  18  18  20  19
 Combined Disagree
  43  47  46  44  43


It is not clear what happened here in the 2005 survey where the “agree” dropped and the “not sure” jumped up. Except for that point the responses to this question in the other surverys are all statistically indistinguishable with no clear suggestion of a trend.

When it comes to the statements about the significance of Jesus Christ, and that is not the significance in the statistical sense, there are clear trends of the sample populations moving away from the orthodox or conservative position.  The two statements are 1) “The only absolute truth for humankind is in Jesus Christ” and 2) “Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.”  And yes, I am taking the two agree categories as reflecting the conservative position.  Here are the numbers…

 The only absolute truth for humankind
is in Jesus Christ.		 1996 1999  2002 2005 2008
Strongly Agree  43  46  41  39  38
 Agree  29  27  28  24  21
 Combined Agrees  72  73  69  63  59
 Not Sure  1
7		  15  17  20  20
 Disagree  8  9  10  12  13
 Strongly Disagree  3  2  3  5  7
 Combined Disagree
  11  11  13  17  20


 Only followers of Jesus Christ
can be saved.		 1996 1999  2002 2005 2008
Strongly Agree  27  26  23  26  25
 Agree  19  20  20  15  14
 Combined Agrees  46  46  43  41  39
 Not Sure  25  25  23  25  25
 Disagree  20  20  23  21  19
 Strongly Disagree  8  10  11  14  17
 Combined Disagree
  28  30  34  35  36


In graphical form (and yes, the first graph is the “absolute truth” question not the “ultimate truth” question above)

In each of these there is an apparent trend with the number of those in some agreement with the statement decreasing with time, the number disagreeing increasing, and those not sure mostly to very constant.

Finally, we have the survey question asking each respondent to self-identify their theological viewpoint.  I am not a big fan of the “conservative” and “liberal” labels but I have used it throughout this post because those were the options given in the survey for this question:

 Which term best describes your
current stand on theological issues?		 1996 1999  2002 2005 2008
 Very Conservative  8  5  5  6  6
 Conservative  31  33  33  35  28
 Combined Conservatives  39  38  38  41  34
 Moderate  48  47  43  40  41
 Liberal  11  12  14  14  18
 Very Liberal  3  3  4  5  7
 Combined Liberals
  14  15  18  19  25

And graphically

It is interesting that in the first four surveys the shift seems to be from the moderates to the liberals with the conservatives fairly constant and then in the last survey group the liberals increase and the conservatives drop.  While interesting, I am hesitant to put too much weight on that last point because we saw the 2005 “bump” on the different religions question was a one-survey event.  In three years we will see if it is a new trend.

Now having laid the data out there, what does all this mean?  First, and to my surprise, there was more of a shift than I expected in these indicators from conservative to liberal.  The view of the denomination that it is growing more liberal may hold up. But what is actually changing?

One interpretation is to say that the changes in the panels represents the changes in the members of the denomination as a whole and the changes in attitudes in the survey group is explained by those joining and leaving the PC(USA).  This is still a wildly under-determined problem (that is mathematical jargon) so many different distributions of those joining and those leaving would produce this result.  For instance, you could say that those leaving broadly represent the membership but those joining are more liberal.  Or you could explain it the other way, that those joining are broadly representative and those leaving are more conservative.  And of course many different combinations in between.

The other explanation of course is that people’s minds are changing about these statements.  Rather than members with fixed opinions moving in and out of the denomination we could say that there are people remaining in the denomination that are changing their viewpoint over time.

And these are two possible end-members and the best interpretation is probably some combination of the two and the precise balance between them would require tracking over time or questions specifically designed to test for time-variability of viewpoint.

We can narrow the possible range a little bit by looking at how this breaks down for the self-identified categories for each panel year.  I do realize that the total membership number includes Ministers of Word and Sacrament as well but they represent about 1% of the total membership and so I am going to consider the effect too minor to worry about correcting for this back of the envelope calculation.  Here is how the membership numbers would be split out based on the declared theological viewpoint of the sample population:

 Year Total
Membership 		 Conservative
Members		  Moderate
Members		 Liberal
Members
 1996  2,631,466  1,026,272  1,263,104  368,405
 1999  2,560,201  972,876  1,203,294  384,030
 2002  2,451,969  931,748  1,054,347  441,354
 2005  2,313,662  948,601  925,465  439,596
 2008  2,140,165  727,656  877,468  535,041

Looking at the numbers we can see that the conservative and moderate declines can, with one exception (con
servative 2005), be explained within the denominational membership loss.  The reverse is true for the liberal component — with the exception of 2005 all the other changes show an increase in the absolute, not just the relative, numbers.   But none of these changes can be attributed to just those leaving or joining the church.  The volume of the turnover is significantly larger than the actual net loss so each group must have members added and members lost and what is listed here is the net.  (For specifics consider the 2008 membership numbers – the church had 103,488 members join, and 138,768 leave (not counting deaths).  That represents a 5% annual turnover, or to put it another way, every 20 years the PC(USA) is a whole new church.  More on that another time.)

Finally, you could speculate that the results reflect the way the respondents thought they should answer, either because of what they think the research group wants or because of how they see themselves even if their basic theological perspective has not changed.

So whether by membership turnover or change in opinion there is evidence that over the last 14 years the PC(USA) is indeed becoming a more liberal denomination at the level of the total membership. 

Finally, a note about a paradox in this data:  “Conventional wisdom” says that younger generations are more liberal, more questioning, more tolerant of other viewpoints like those the “truth” and “only way to salvation” questions ask.  Does that mean that the changing viewpoints seen in the survey questions is due to an influx of younger members?  Unfortunately not — In the 12 years between the 1996 panel to the 2008 panel the median age of the panel members has crept up from 55 to 60 years old.  The interpretation is left as an exercise for the reader.

Reflection On The Training Of Leaders

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This is a brief sidebar on church leadership between the two posts I am doing on the training of Teaching Elders for the PC(USA).  A story on NPR this morning had an interesting quote about what makes a church:

“Is there public worship?” said the leader of the ministers group,Pastor Eric Williams, of the North Congregational United Church of Christ, in Columbus, Ohio. “Is it open to the public? Are there trained leaders who serve the church? C Street really has none of those marks that make it a church.”

This story is about the C Street Center in Washington, D.C., and a challenge by the Rev. Williams and 12 other clergy as to whether it meets the 15 requirements set by the IRS for classification as a religious institution for tax purposes.  That specific topic, or the center itself, is not what I wanted to discuss.  And no, I’m not going to run with that reference to the “marks that make it a church.”

What caught my attention were the two questions in that quote as to whether it is open to the public and has “trained leaders.”  Depending on what you mean by trained leaders, based on these two criteria the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints would not meet this criteria (and therefore not eligible for tax exempt status).  Admission to the temples and to the temple ordinances are open only to members of the church by recommendation of their local bishop.

As for the training of leaders, the LDS church does not have specific individuals who take a graduate degree in theology and then are called by a church to be their pastor.  Does that mean they do not have “trained leaders?”  Rather, they have a model that a Presbyterian has to be impressed with that takes very seriously the idea of the priesthood of all believers and through their regular meetings from youth through adult they train all of the men in the church in the doctrine and theology of the faith so that, in theory, any of them are prepared to lead a congregation as the bishop.  For the LDS church, “seminary” is an early morning, before school, program to train the youth in their religion.

While the Presbyterian church is very attentive to the training and examination of our Teaching Elders do we put the necessary effort into the training of our Ruling Elders?  If we view the kirk session as a board of directors we look for Ruling Elders that have secular experience and leadership.  Leadership skills are always good and I don’t mean to discount those by any means.  But do we as a church also have regular ways of educating our Ruling Elders and future elders in the theology, doctrine and polity of the church?  In the PC(USA) elders vow to accept the Scriptures as authoritative — do we continually remind ourselves what the Scriptures say?  We “sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions” and agree to be “instructed and led” by the confessions — but how often do we read the confessions for their instruction?  We assent to be governed by the church’s polity — but how well do we understand that polity and the theological basis for it?

If a church is to have “trained leaders” to be a church we need to be intentional about training the leaders, Teaching and Ruling Elders alike.

Rant done; commentary over; soapbox put away. Now back to the training of the Teaching Elders…

What Is Distinctive About Our Worship?

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On my commute home from work today there was an interesting story on NPR about one faith tradition revitalizing the church and renewing their worship for the next generation.  Some of you probably heard it too.  What really caught my attention was the part towards the end of the piece where they were talking about the changes made to the worship service:

On a recent Sunday morning, 1,200 [worshipers] fill the cavernous ballroom at the Manhattan Center in New York City. They leap to their feet and wave their arms as a rock band plays a mix of Fleetwood Mac and worship music with a thumping beat. They fall silent as the lights dim, and burst into applause when, theatrically, a single light comes up to reveal a woman behind a podium.

…

She speaks without notes for 40 minutes, weaving personal anecdotes with references to the Bible, Aristotle and Christian leaders. She is the 44-year-old daughter of [the founding pastor], and a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. When her father appointed her to head the U.S. church 18 months ago, she focused on one simple goal: to win back young people.

…

[She] replaced the old holy songs with rock ‘n’ roll, and florescent lighting with concert lighting and a giant video screen.

…

She… faced a problem that plagues even established churches: How do you transmit the passion of a convert to a child who merely inherits the faith?

…

So [she] did what the evangelicals do: She used music and technology to spark spiritual experiences. She says it is working.

“Some have called it ‘electricity running through my body, feeling of warmth — just feeling as if they’re engulfed in love,'” she says. “For those kids who come and have that conversion experience, then their belief system becomes theirs.”

Since [she] took over, weekly attendance has nearly doubled.

Yes, this is one of my set-ups.  For those that heard this piece you know that it is not about some generic evangelical church, but rather the Unification Church and “the leader” is In Jin Moon, daughter of the founder and church messiah, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Check it out.  I eliminated a bunch of identifying information and talk about the church establishment’s response to her leadership and change in worship style.  But I think I give you all the relevant quotes regarding the worship service.

Obviously what struck me was that beyond the identifying information about the church this discussion could have been describing a great number of contemporary Christian worship services.  In style, at least as described, there are no obvious differences.

In fact, what information the story gives about the substance of worship could easily be contemporary Christian worship:  Preaching using “personal anecdotes with references to the Bible, Aristotle and Christian leaders.”  Music with rock replacing “holy songs.” (OK, so I would hope not to hear Fleetwood Mac songs in worship, but I know that Beetles music has been used in contemporary Christian worship.)

And what are they looking for?  The experience — “electricity running through my body, feeling of warmth — just feeling as if they’re engulfed in love.”

But it gets results — if you count the doubling of attendance as a measure of success.

It does bother me when the description of contemporary Unificationist worship is practically indistinguishable from contemporary Christian worship.  I will admit that we don’t have the words of the songs and the text of the message, but the substance and focus of the worship should make them distinctive from one another.  Yes, Ms. Moon admits to borrowing from evangelical services, but when a style is so generic that it is “platform independent” I do have to wonder what we are doing.

I will admit that I am painting with a broad brush here.  And I know that I don’t have all the details about the content of the worship music and message.  But in a way, that is the point.  What is catching the media attention and what is drawing people in sure is presented as the style and not the substance.

Yes, I am a broken record about this, but without apology I say again that the marks of the substance of our worship should be:

[F]irst, the true preaching of the word of God, in which God has revealed himself to us, as the writings of the prophets and apostles declare; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, to which must be joined the word and promise of God to seal and confirm them in our hearts; [Scots Confession, 1560]

Presbyterian Statistics Going Viral

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I have found it interesting that more than a month after the release of statistics about the viewpoints of members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) one particular statistic out of that report has “gone viral” on Twitter and in the blogosphere.

The report is the latest Presbyterian Panel profile that I mentioned last month when I commented not on the numbers themselves but on the use of terminology in the introductory material.

The 54 page report is full of interesting stuff that I am still digesting but the numbers that caught someone’s attention, and has now been retweeted a million times, is this one as listed in the narrative section of the report:

Members are divided about the necessity of belief in Christ for salvation… Two in five members (39%) “agree” or “strongly agree” and 36% “disagree” or “strongly disagree” that “only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.” More elders “agree” or “strongly agree” (45%) than “disagree” or “strongly disagree” (31%) with the statement. More pastors disagree (45%) than agree (35%). A majority of specialized clergy (60%) disagree.

Let’s take this apart.  First, it is important to know the question that was asked (see page A-14 of the report):

Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with…the following statement: only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.

Now, in looking at the responses it is important to realize that there is the terminology problem with their categories that I noted in the previous posts: When the survey uses the term “elders” it means those in the church who are ruling elders currently serving on session.  When the report uses the term “member” it means all the rest, that is everyone else who is not a teaching elder or ruling elder serving on session.  In other words, when the term “member” is used it means a mix of ruling elders not currently on session, deacons, and church members not ordained to a church office.  It is interesting to note that according to the report 21% of “members” have been ordained as elders only, 19% as deacons only, and 16% have been ordained as both an elder and deacon.  That means that there is a category for “elder” and then 37% of the “members” category are also ruling elders.  (And while the numbers would probably be fairly small, I would also be curious how many of the “members” have been released from the exercise of ordained office or had given up their ordinations all together.)  It also means that a minority (43%) of the “members” are not officers of the church.  And it is interesting to note that “elders” were the best at returning the survey (79%), “ministers” next at 70%, and “members” only returned 59%.  So within the mixed category of “member” were any of the different components (ruling elders, deacons, non-ordained) more or less likely to return the survey?

(Three quick points of commentary on these numbers:  1) I won’t discuss it further now, but there seem to be some important implications for a church when a majority of the members are ordained officers in the church.  2) Does breaking out the opinions of only the ruling elders currently serving on session reinforce the too common belief that our ordination as an elder only really matters when we are serving on session?  3) What I would really like to see is the panel profile break out the opinions of the non-ordained members, or am I missing that in the report?)

So getting back to the question asked in the survey, here is how respondents agreed with “only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.”

Response Members  Members
(non-elders)		  Elders Pastors Specialized
Clergy
 strongly agree  25%  24%  27%  21%  12%
 agree  14%  12%  18%  14%  10%
 neutral or not sure  25%  26%  23%  20%  18%
 disagree  19%  19%  19%  24%  24%
 strongly disagree  17%  20%  12%  21%  36%

 
A couple of notes: 1) The “Members (non-elders)” category is my adjustment of the members number based on the (possibly risky) assumption that the ruling elders mixed in with the members have the same opinions as the “elders” category.  While tempting to extrapolate that deacons think like ruling elders, I won’t take the correction that far. 2) In the survey of the 1453 “ministers” that responded there were 982 pastors (67.6%) and 471 in specialized ministry (32.4%). This is a very close match to the 31.9% of “Active Ministers” that are not in parish ministry according to the 2008 Membership Statistics.  3) Finally, the margin of error is reported as +4% so that differences of less than 8% are not statistically significant.

What does all this mean?  First, with one exception, members, members (non-elders), elders and pastors all responded the same within the margin of error.  The one exception is that the 21% of pastors that strongly disagreed was statistically meaningfully above the 12% of elders with that response.  The other important difference is that on the extremes the specialized clergy were statistically different from every other category with less strongly agreeing (9 to 15% less) and more strongly disagreeing (15 to 24% more).

If we now consider the “orthodox” answer to this question to be that there is “salvation in Christ alone” (cf. Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 60) the most interesting thing is that the most orthodox category is the ruling elders with 45% of respondents either agreeing or strongly agreeing.  To be fair, combining boxes like that raises the uncertainty of the combined values to +5.6% so now an 11% spread between results is necessary making the only statistically distinct difference between the specialized ministry category and all the other ones.  On the other end, the first four groups disagree or strongly disagree with the statement from about 31% to 45% so pastors are distinguishable from elders.  Those in specialized ministry expressed 60% disagreement.

Clearly, if subscription to the Westminster Standards were still a requirement for ordination in the mainline American Presbyterian church a sizable group would be declaring a departure.  Here is where I would be interested in what the non-ordained members believe because all that is required for membership is affirmation of Jesus Christ as savior.  It is when we become ordained that we agree to be “instructed and led” by the confessions.

Looking at the preceding question in the survey does raise some questions about how the respondents interpreted the statement “only followers of Jesus can be saved.”  The question before it was “the only absolute truth for humankind is in Jesus Christ.”  For this statement there was significantly more agreement with that statemen
t.

Response Members  Members
(non-elders)		  Elders Pastors Specialized
Clergy
 strongly agree  38%  34%  44%  42%  25%
 agree  21%  19%  24%  24%  19%
 neutral or not sure  20%  22%  17%  12%  15%
 disagree  13%  14%  11%  17%  25%
 strongly disagree  7%  9%  4%  5%  15%


So there is a significant shift to agreement with the statement that Jesus is absolute truth.  In fact, now 20%, 23%, 15%, 22%, and 40% disagree or strongly disagree with the statement.  The drop is 15% to 20% in all categories.  This is more reassuring about the strength of the orthodox viewpoints in the PC(USA) and seems to point to a natural human reaction that it is more comfortable to talk about the relatively impersonal idea of Jesus as absolute truth but being less comfortable when it gets to the personal by saying that my neighbor is not saved if they don’t believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  Or, I could be over-explaining this because the responses to the statement “all the world’s different religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth” look more like the responses, actually the reversed responses, to “only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.”

Besides the tweets there has been response on blogs as well — I will highlight two of those.  First, the blog that has probably been the most heavily linked to is the comment on all this by the Rev. Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.  He looks at the results of the survey in the context of the overall decline and his perceived liberalization of the PC(USA).  There is also an interesting article on Stand Firm that takes issue with the design and reporting of the survey which in their opinion was poor on both counts and hides some of the results.

That is enough drilling into these statistics for today, but I want to turn to another set of statistics that was just released, the denominational membership statistics in the National Council of Churches yearbook.  (For one take on the relationship of information in the panel survey to the NCC membership changes see my search for a correlation last year.)

First, a quick review of the source of the NCC data:  The data is self-reported by the denominations.  Some are not as into statistics as the PC(USA) so their data should be viewed as round numbers.  For example, the National Baptist Convention reports an even 5 million members with no update reported.  In fact 12 of the 25 largest churches did not report updates.  Additionally, the number of members reported here is not necessarily the same category of members reported elsewhere.  The PC(USA) reports 2,844,952 in the NCC report but only 2,140,165 in the statistical report.  Clearly the NCC number is a broader measure of membership including baptized children and maybe inactive members while the in-house statistical report is only active communicant members on which per capita is collected.

So what did the NCC say?  Five of the 25 largest denominations reported gains: Jehovah’s Witnesses (+2.00%), Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), (+1.76%), Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (+1.71%), Roman Catholic (+1.49%), and the Assemblies of God (+1.27%).  As mentioned, twelve did not report and the remaining eight declined: Southern Baptist Convention (-0.24%), United Methodist Church (-0.98%), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (-1.62), Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (-1.92%), American Baptist Churches (-2.00%), The Episcopal Church (-2.81%), United Church of Christ (-2.93%), Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (-3.28%).

While some numbers look close to last year (e.g. SBC, ELCA) some have changed a bit (e.g. AOG from 0.96% to 1.27%, PC(USA) from -2.79% to -3.28%) and the UCC has significantly changed (from -6.01% to -2.93%).  I won’t redo the correlation chart from last year and instead leave any interpretation of the numbers as an exercise for the reader.  Have fun.

Historical Realignments In The Scottish Presbyterian Church And Parallels In Other Branches

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I ran across an article today that had some interesting historical details about the Presbyterian churches in Scotland, details that seem to mesh with what I have previously commented on for North American Branches.

The article is on the blog Holdfast and is titled “the Free Church in its current form is finished.”  The article looks ahead to the Free Church of Scotland General Assembly, something which would be of interest to a GA Junkie from the start.  Related to the focus of the piece is the editorial in the July ’09 issue of the Monthly Record, the Free Church’s official publication, something I had commented on at the time.  The point of the editorial was what the controversy in the Church of Scotland over ordination standards means for the Free Church — Including possibly making worship standards more flexible to allow CofS churches to comfortably realign with the Free Church. 

What the author mentions, which I am interested to find out, is that was not the first time the editor, Mr. David Robertson, had made comments about worship style.  The blog post informs us that he made a statement a year before at the 2008 General Assembly:

The current editor of the Monthly Record told the Assembly in 2008 that he could no longer ‘assert, maintain and defend’ the current practice on worship. That is that he desires hymns, instrumental music and women deacons too. He has said ‘the Free Church is going to change’, ‘the Free Church in its current form is finished’.

The 2008 General Assembly comments are covered in the July 08 issue of the Monthly Record (p. 27) and were preceded by editorial comments on “Worship Wars” in the May 08 issue (p. 4-5).

The specifics of the current debate I will hold for a while and try to return to them before the Assembly meets in May.  The information indicates that the Trustees will be bringing a recommendation to the Assembly concerning the current “Worship Wars.”

But all that is introduction to what really caught my attention in this article.  In my contemplation of the complexity of American Presbyterianism I have seen that Scottish Presbyterians are not far behind in their splits and unions.  But some of the parallels in dates are intriguing, such as a major Scottish split in 1732 and an American mainline split in 1741.  While the Americans reunited shortly after the Scottish branches did not.  The big Scottish split was the “Disruption of 1843” which produced the Free Church, while the American mainline suffered its Old School/New School split in 1837.  Maybe something related in all of this, maybe not.

Last week I mentioned the 1906 reunion of a majority of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church with the mainline American Presbyterians and how that was immediately preceded by revision of the Westminster Standards and occurred during the Ecumenical Movement of the early 20th Century.  Note what the author of the Holdfast piece says about the Free Church in that same time period:

The interesting thing for those who have a knowledge of the history of the Free Church is that the proponents of change are appealing to the historical precedent of the late-victorian Free Church where hymns and organs were permitted in order to make way for union with the United Presbyterian Church. Union with Church of Scotland evangelicals unable to accept psalms without organs is the great rallying cry now behind the movement for change. History is evidently repeating itself, it has to because few are really listening. An astute article looks at the historical arguments used by contemporary proponents of change. It notes that the changes in Victorian times came hand in hand with theological declension. The attempts to form a superchurch in those times culminated in the United Free Church declining further until it merged into the Church of Scotland in 1929. Only a very basic theological standard is going to suit most evangelicals in the Church of Scotland.

To clarify the timing here, in 1900 some from the Free Church joined with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland to form the United Free Church.  Then a majority from that body joined the Church of Scotland in 1929.  Like the CPC/mainline American union, this is in the same time period and, as the article states, involves a modernizing/modification/compromise/weakening of standards (depending on your viewpoint) to accommodate the merger between two bodies with a vision of greater ecumenical unity through organic union.  Similarly, the United Church of Canada effected its union in exactly the same time period, joining in 1925 after 20 years of discussion.  The central argument among the Presbyterians was whether to have organic union to unite three denominational bodies as one, with the necessary compromises in doctrine and polity, or whether to have federation to more closely work together in locations where three separate church bodies were duplicating their efforts but preserving denominational identity.  The unionists formed the United Church but the large minority of Presbyterians who opposed union, and mostly supported federation, continued as the Presbyterian Church in Canada.  (It is also an interesting parallel that one of the figures in that debate, but on the anti-union side, was the editor of the official Presbyterian publication.)

For me one of the take-aways is that I may not be focusing as much on the ecumenical movement as I should, instead focusing on the fundamentalist/modernist debate that followed, and was probably influenced if not precipitated by the ecumenical movement.  And I will have to look more closely at the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and the merger in 1901 that formed the present denomination.  I am curious if any of these dynamics seen elsewhere were a part of that merger.

And we will see how this specific issue develops both before and during the General Assembly of the Free Church which will convene on May 17, if my calendar is correct.

Missing The Big Game On The Lord’s Day

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I guess there is a big sporting match tomorrow.  And according to the news one of the players will be missing it because it falls on the Lord’s Day.

No, not that big game.  Heck, if any of those players didn’t play on Sunday they would never collect a pay check.  But I digress…

A major news item this week in Scotland is that Euan Murray, the tighthead prop on the Scottish National Rugby team, will not play in their opening match tomorrow in the Six Nations Championship.

The interview in The Guardian is a worthwhile read and really conveys Mr. Murray’s sense of the importance of this and his frustration with having to explain himself one more time.  And it is also worth sharing that he does not participate in any non-religious activities on Sunday, including watching the game and giving interviews.

Some excerpts from the interview:

Tired of explaining himself, he recently informed his club that he would no longer discuss the decision, and so as we approach the subject Murray sighs. He rearranges his feet on the coffee table in front of him, and sinks deeper into his coat, visibly retreating. “What do you want me to say about it? I don’t think I need to say much about it. It’s a decision, a difficult decision I had to make. And I’m happy with my decision.”

…

Does he sometimes wonder if he’s made the right decision? There is a very long pause. “I believe that biblically I’ve made the right decision.” And emotionally? Murray blows out his cheeks. “Well, when you really become a Christian, life’s a battle. You’re going against the tide. The crowd are going one way and you’re going another. It’s always going to be a battle to be different. The easy thing is to go along with the crowd, everybody’s doing it. You know? Try going the opposite direction to a crowd. It’s hard. You won’t get very far.”

…

And so, when his team-mates run out against France on Sunday, what will he be doing? “I’ll do the same thing I do every Sunday,” he says. “Relax, rest, and enjoy the day. I won’t watch the game. It’s a day where I can enjoy the Lord.” Will it be hard to not think about rugby? He laughs. “Yeah! I’ll pray for the team. We’ll see what happens. It’s challenging. But ultimately rugby’s not what fuels my happiness in life.”

He stops, and then smiles. “I just wish that games of rugby weren’t played on Sundays. Christ doesn’t want them to be played on Sundays.”

…

…now at Northampton he seems to have found his spiritual home, in more senses than one. “Have you ever been here for a match?” he asks, before embarking on a breathlessly excited description of matchday at Franklin’s Gardens. “These supporters have such respect for the game. Either team could be kicking and there is dead silence – you can hear a pin drop. If somebody shouts out to distract the kicker he gets told to shut up. You can hear them going, ‘Shh! Shut up!’ There’s nowhere else that happens. They’ve got manners, you know? It’s amazing.”

…

But at the first hurdle his side will be without him. Does that not conflict with the team ethos of the sport? Murray is philosophical. “You bring your individual assets to benefit the team,” he says, “and hopefully you’ll get synergy when you put all these different components together. I’m a Christian, I try to be hard working, honest and fair. That’s what I bring to the team.”

And there is an interesting symbolism, in a couple of ways, about his club team’s nickname being… wait for it… The Saints.

My compliments to Anna Kessel for the interview, the depth it brought to Euan’s faith and life, and for letting Euan tell the story.  For another take on Euan’s decision, particularly the support from those around him, check out the article in the Independent.

So best wishes to Euan Murray tomorrow and the best of luck to Scotland in their match against France without him on the pitch.

OK, back to that other game of American Football tomorrow.  First, my friend David Gambrell (and probably a bunch of others) beat me to the punch about all us Calvinists knowing that New Orleans will win tomorrow because of, yes you guessed it, the “perseverance of the saints.”  But all you Indianapolis fans don’t worry because David also has a confessional reference that the Colts could win it.

Second, you have to admire Darryl Hart’s Sixteen reasons not to watch the game.

So tomorrow…

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. [Col. 3:17]

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

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

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

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

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

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

For comparison the 2005 report read:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lectionary – Border, Bastion, Or Barrier?

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Happy New Year – kind-a, sort of, maybe…

Yes, a week ago last Sunday was the first Sunday of the Advent Season and the churches that follow the liturgical calendar moved from Year B to Year C of the lectionary.

Now, I will simply recognize that liturgical calendars and seasons, particularly Advent and Christmas, are not unanimously accepted by those of us in the Reformed and Presbyterian stream.  In fact, the Directory for the Publick Worship of God adopted by the Kirk and Parliament of Scotland in 1645 says in the Appendix “Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued.” (For more you can check out an interesting article on Christmas , a detailed piece on Holy days in American Presbyterianism, a current series of pieces at Building Old School Churches, or the Wikipedia entry for Christmas. There is also a current piece by Mark Horne making the case that there is Reformed support for celebrating Christmas.)

On a personal note, I appreciate the application of the regulative principle and the fact that there are non-Christian influences and origins of the celebrations of Advent, Christmas and Easter that argue against the celebration of specific Holy days.  However, I also find spiritual focus in the seasons and feasts of the old covenant as applied to the Christian liturgical year and the celebration of special days.  Back to this in a moment.

As I mentioned at the beginning, we have begun a new year in the lectionary which provides weekly scripture passages for worship on the Lord’s Day.  I was reflecting on this because there does seem to be an association between the use of the lectionary and the “DNA” of a particular Presbyterian branch.  But as I reflected on it more and how it impacts our worship it seemed to me that the lectionary has certain benefits, but also certain limitations, in its use.  It seems important to understand each of these and how they impact our community life.  And it should go without saying that it impacts the “true preaching of the word of God.”

In most mainline congregations it seems that the Revised Common Lectionary is the default position.  In a couple of respects this is the “bastion” or “safe” approach.  In one respect it is safe because it guides a congregation through the three-year cycle of scripture readings providing broad, though hardly complete, coverage of the Bible appropriate to the liturgical season. (My friend David Gambrell over at Linen Ephod has a nice summary of each lectionary year.)  It also provides a ready defense for a preacher when a congregant did not like text for that day — all you have to say is “that is the lectionary text for today.”   

The lectionary also provides a “paring” of scripture passages from the three sections and these selections are supposed to relate to each other.  (Sometimes it is tough to see the relationship, other times you can probably think of a better pairing.) Some preachers will include two or more readings and then expound on all of them in the sermon, some will only chose one to preach on.  In the lectionary there is also the annual rhythm in the reading that takes us through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and “tells us the story” repeated every year.  And I am told that by having congregations use a common lectionary it gives pastors something to talk about when they get together.

But one of the biggest practical benefits of the lectionary is that it keeps a preacher from falling into the pattern or habit of preaching on what they want to preach on.  In this way the lectionary acts as a “border,” “fence,” or “hedge” around the preaching.  It works as a tool to keep from always hearing a message based on the pastor’s favorite scripture passage or selecting texts that simply provide another avenue for the pastor to once again advocate their favorite theme or message.  In fact, by using the lectionary a conscientious preacher can work the three weekly readings (Old Testament, New Testament and Gospel) into nine years of distinctly different sermons.  (Twelve years worth if you include the weekly Psalm as a unique sermon, but from what I have seen most pastors use the Psalm as a supporting text to the primary text that they preach on.)

Now, to be clear, I don’t have a fundamental objection to a well planned and executed sermon series that is outside the lectionary.  My own church has done a couple of very effective ones including the series last year of preaching through the Lord’s Prayer one phrase at a time.  When properly done this style does have the elements of the “true preaching of the word of God” in my understanding.

Where the “free-form” approach is dangerous is when it is not implemented with any long-term plan or accountability – especially when a pastor just spends the week deciding what to preach on and choosing relevant passages to base it on as they go.  That is, they let the sermon drive the texts that will be used.  One of the best sermons I have ever heard preached at a General Assembly was delivered by the Rev. James Costen titled “The problem of deferred maintenance” and addressed the Great End of the Church of The Maintenance of Divine Worship.  In that sermon he spoke of a variety of sermon that he called “Saturday Night Specials” that he said could be just as deadly as the street firearm variety.  An interim pastor I once had took this to the extreme when we would regularly find him in his office Sunday morning writing out the sermon.  Again, I know of cases where the Holy Spirit has led preachers to completely rewrite their messages at the last moment and I have no problem with that.  But to regularly write the sermon like that I believe does a disservice to the preaching of the word.

So on the one hand the lectionary provides a framework to help pastors preach through scripture in an organized and systematic manner while letting scripture have its way with us rather than the other way around.  But there are limitations on the other side as well.  If you and you preacher have both been there over nine years you might begin hearing the same things again.  Or if the pastor is not systematic you could hear them again in three.  And even with good planning, there will come a point where the cycle begins repeating itself.  You young’uns may not have been through too many cycles but I’ll admit to being old enough to have been through over 15 lectionary cycles (although the Revised Common Lectionary is not as old as I am having a first version in 1983 and the Revised version in 1992).

So the lectionary will still lead to repetition given enough time.  Some may argue that the repetition is good, that it reinforces important passages of scripture.  But instead
of repeating, what if you were to cover passages of scripture that have not been preached on yet – passages that are not included in the lectionary?

I have not found detailed statistics for the Revised Common Lectionary, but there is a great page that gives the statistics for the Roman Lectionary, which the RCL is based upon, concerning how much of the Bible is covered.  It turns out that of the Roman Lectionary covers only 3.7% of the Old Testament of the Catholic Bible and 40.8% of the New Testament.  If you consider the Scripture to Lectionary cross-index for the RCL is quickly becomes apparent that of the 66 books in the Protestant Bible, several (17 by my count) are used only once or twice and 8 are never used — there will be no lectionary reading from I or II Chronicles, Ezra, Nahum, Obadiah, II or III John or Jude.

Now, I’m sure some of you are saying “of course not everything can be covered on Sunday morning, that is what personal Scripture reading is for.”  I do not dispute the importance of regular Bible reading for personal study and I recommend that every Christian have a plan to read or hear the complete Bible in a one or two year cycle.  But my focus is “the true preaching of the word of God.”  Is it a problem that some of the word is never preached if you use the lectionary?  Has the lectionary become a “barrier” to hearing some sections of scripture preached?

It is here that I am beginning to have a appreciation for congregations that instead of using the lectionary make it their practice to systematically preach through individual books of the Bible.  The congregation hears large sections, at least chapter length, read through in sequence from week to week.  And while every single verse is not necessarily touched on in the preaching, a regular, sequential set of sermons allow for the development of the word in the order recorded.

I don’t know how many preachers would consider the lack of coverage of the RCL a problem and that a solution is necessary.  But if you do, here are a couple of different approaches to this.

One is of course multiple services per week.  If the word is preached three times a week (Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening) a preacher, or preaching team, could cover three times as much territory.

Another approach is to make the lectionary cycle longer and include everything.  For the 1189 chapters in the Bible that could be covered in 22.8 years if one chapter is covered every Sunday morning.  Preaching multiple chapters per week – either multiple services, larger pieces (two chapters say), or pairing OT and NT passages in a sermon would shorten the cycle.

But here is my modest proposal for an “extended lectionary.”  This would not necessarily be tied to a liturgical year and therefore precise order would not be important.  However, since the Gospels are the heart of the Bible for Christians, I would suggest that one is Gospel is preached in its entirety each calendar year.  That would set up a four year cycle with between 16 and 28 weeks each year in a contiguous block being taken up for the Gospel reading and direct preaching.  Considering the Psalms the worship book of the Bible, I would suggest they be included each week as a second scripture passage that is read or sung by the congregation.  That leaves 941 chapters of Scripture that when preached at one chapter per week, and working around the regular reading and preaching of the Gospels, would take about 34 years to cover.  That is about one generation to cover the preaching of the whole Bible, and then a congregation would start over again.

Well, its an idea anyway.  Do you have a better one to systematically cover the whole Bible?  (And yes, systematic preaching 3 times per week would pull that down to less than a decade to complete the cycle.)

But getting back to the central idea of this commentary, as we start a new lectionary year I simply wanted to review the benefits and the draw-backs of the use of the lectionary.  There is a tension between the order and fence provided by the use of the lectionary that helps to keep us from having our way with the holy word.  On the other hand, this border is narrow and only covers a small part of the Scriptures possibly presenting a barrier to preaching more of God’s word. It raises the question “if we only cover 12.6% of the volume of Scripture in three years cycles and then start over again, is that the ‘true preaching of the word of God’?”

The Value Of A Contrary Opinion

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I have wondered aloud, or at least in print, in the past about what I see as a fundamentally Presbyterian and Reformed trait when it comes to our polity — The tendency for us Reformed folk to hold, accept (or at least tolerate), and act upon divergent views on issues major and minor.  We seem to do this “better” than other religious branches that I have looked at.  In fact the PC(USA) enshrines it in our polity:

G-1.030(1) (a) That “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his Word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship.”

(b) Therefore we consider the rights of private judgment, in all matters that respect religion, as universal and unalienable: We do not even wish to see any religious constitution aided by the civil power, further than may be necessary for protection and security, and at the same time, be equal and common to all others.

(2) That, in perfect consistency with the above principle of common right, every Christian Church, or union or association of particular churches, is entitled to declare the terms of admission into its communion, and the qualifications of its ministers and members, as well as the whole system of its internal government which Christ hath appointed; that in the exercise of this right they may, notwithstanding, err, in making the terms of communion either too lax or too narrow; yet, even in this case, they do not infringe upon the liberty or the rights of others, but only make an improper use of their own.

And our parliamentary procedure is based upon certain principles (thanks to Paul McClintock, RPR, for the quote):

There are five great principles underlying the rules of parliamentary law, namely: (1) Order. That is, there must be orderly procedure. (2) Equality. That is, all members are equal before the rule or law. (3) Justice. That is, justice for all. (4) Right of the minority to be heard on questions. (5) Right of the majority to rule the organization. — George Demeter, Demeter’s Manual of Parliamentary Law and Procedure, 1969 Blue Book Edition, p. 5. [emphasis mine]

In a future reflection I will argue that this majority-minority interplay in our governing bodies is in fact what underlies our deliberative process and makes it so powerful — it is the key to our “always being reformed according to the word of God.”

But what has struck me this week is how this process has significant similarities to the way that science progresses with its “multiple working hypotheses” to explain the data and as new data is collected hypotheses are tested and may be revised or discarded in favor of alternate hypotheses which better explain the observations.  It is also a discernment process where dissenting voices must be considered because they bring into focus alternative perspectives on data interpretation.

This has been on my mind this week as I read about the e-mails and documents obtained by hackers from the computers at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and posted on public servers. (news story, CRU response)  Some of the material contained in those e-mails could be interpreted as attempts by climate researchers to suppress the publication of research that does not support the “consensus position.”  (Today NPR had an interesting story about the controversy where one of the scientists they interview is a researcher who feels he was suppressed because his research shows more extreme warming than the “consensus position.” )  I have not yet looked into this controversy in enough detail to have formed a final opinion.  I am suspicious that only the most sensational quotes are being used in the mainstream media reporting.  However, what I have read does concern me.

An interesting thing about this is that one of the central figures is Dr. Michael Mann of the Earth System Science Center of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University.  I bring this specific case up because while a student in the Geosciences Department there at PSU I had a formative experience that reinforced the role that contrary opinion plays in science, a lesson that I regularly remember up to the present day.

I began my undergraduate career at the tail end of the time of the paradigm shift resulting from the wide acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics.  (That in itself is a major century-long story of theory, data, the scientific method and the role that personality cults can play.  If you want to hear that one you’ll have to sit in on the two lectures where I cover that in the earthquakes class I teach.)  I have to admit that I don’t remember many of the speakers or talks I attended while at PSU, but I clearly remember a fascinating presentation given by Prof. MacKenzie “Mac” Keith.  In this presentation he presented alternate ways that certain features attributed to plate tectonics could have been generated.  While I was a bit skeptical at the time, and today am confident his theories don’t do the best job of explaining the data, it was reinforced on my developing scientific mind that alternate explanations must be considered, at least long enough to understand why they are less favorable.

So I don’t know how this climate change controversy will turn out, but I am forever grateful to Dr. Keith for the lesson in science, and life, that he taught in that one evening’s presentation.

Three Decisions From The GA Permanent Judicial Commission Of The PC(USA) — Ordination Standards And More

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The Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) heard appeals in three cases last Friday, October 30, and yesterday published their decisions in the three cases, all of which were unanimous.

While the two decisions dealing with ordination standards were highly anticipated, and one of those does finally clarify a point in the PC(USA) ordination process, it is my assessment that for anyone following the polity closely they would not be surprised by the decisions handed down.  And while this closes the book on two of these cases the third decision does explicitly anticipate the possible continuation of the judicial proceedings.

This first one is unlike the other two…

In remedial case 219-12 Phinisee v. Presbytery of Charleston-Atlantic as you read through the history of the case it begins to sound like a comedy of errors.  Unfortunately, for anyone who has served on a Committee on Ministry for any length of time several of the aspects begin to sound too familiar.

In this case the church that the Rev. Phinisee was pastoring developed a conflict in the congregation which they were trying to work through with a consultant and the COM.  The pastor and session requested an Administrative Commission, the COM wanted to handle the process themselves.  So far fairly standard.

The issues of the case revolve around 1) a request in writing by three elders to the moderator of the session (Rev. Phinisee) to call a session meeting and Rev. Phinisee not calling the meeting and 2) the COM calling a session meeting to call a congregational meeting to dissolve the pastoral relationship with Rev. Phinisee.  This happened in December 2006 and the Rev. Phinisee filed his remedial complaint with the Synod PJC in early January 2007.  The case was further complicated by the Synod PJC failing to act within 90 days and the complainant then asking the GAPJC to assume jurisdiction.  The GAPJC then told the SPJC to get moving.  The SPJC did and basically found that everything was done according to process.

The appeal to the GAPJC had six specifications of error of which the GAPJC did not sustain five of them.  This included the error that the Presbytery should have appointed an Administrative Commission with the GAPJC noting that the appointment of a commission is “a discretionary function that resides solely with the presbytery.”  Where the GAPJC did sustain the error is in the SPJC’s finding that the congregational meetings were properly called.  In brief, they noted that a COM does not, of its own authority, have the power to call a special session meeting (which in this case called the special congregational meeting).  The presbytery may delegate that to the COM but the record is clear in this case that they had not.  The GAPJC also noted that the Rev. Phinisee was at fault as well for not calling the session meeting after receiving the legitimate written request from three elders.  Due to the passage of time no direct relief could be granted in this case but the GAPJC did order the Presbytery to establish an administrative commission to review policies and procedures.

In closing the GAPJC says:

This case demonstrates the consequences of failing to follow the Book of Order for calling meetings and dissolving pastoral relationships. The flaws of the COM procedure were exacerbated by the failure of the Synod to respond in a timely manner to Phinisee’s grievances.  Justice delayed was an impediment to the process and a fair proceeding throughout the course of this matter. Governing bodies are reminded that “all participants are to be accorded procedural safeguards and due process” (D-1.0101).

Case 219-08 – Bierschwale, Lenz and Shanholtzer v. Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area is a remedial case related to the process for restoring the Rev. Paul Capetz to the exercise of ordained ministry.  Without covering the full history, Mr. Capetz had, at his request, been released from the exercise of ordained ministry because of his conscientious objection to the “fidelity and chastity” section G-6.0106b.  With the 2006 GA Authoritative Interpretation allowing the declaration of an exception he requested, and was granted by the presbytery, his restoration to the exercise of ordained office.

The complainants filed their case with the SPJC on the grounds that in granting Mr. Capetz’ declared exception the presbytery failed to “adhere to the essentials of the Reformed faith and polity under G-6.0108.”  The SPJC initially dismissed the case on the failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted but an earlier GAPJC decision sent it back to the SPJC for trial on one of the three points, the specifics of declaring an exception.  In their decision in the trial the SPJC found that the presbytery had properly carried out the process in G-6.0108 and were correct in their decision to grant the exception.  However, in conducting the trial the SPJC took the unusual step of excluding the public from the proceedings.

At this point is it important to note that the Constitutional standards, the GA Interpretations, and the previous GAPJC cases as they apply to process are nearly unanimous in their application to the ordination process only.  The declaration of an exception is something that is normally considered when an individual is being examined for ordination.  In addition, the application of these standards in the call process of a previously ordained individual is limited by the Sallade v. Genesee Valley decision to a “position that presumes ordination.”  Mr. Capetz was previously ordained and seeking validation of ministry in a position teaching at a seminary. In short, this case does not easily fall under any of the established polity and interpretations.  As has been pointed out in such cases before, if there is a question about Mr. Capetz’ manner of life under G-6.0106 that would be handled as a disciplinary case.

In their decision the GAPJC noted that all parties agree that the presbytery process was unique to this individual.  Consequently, the GAPJC concurred with the SPJC that granting the exception did not “infringe on the views of others and did not obstruct the constitutional governance of the church.”  Further, “There is nothing in the record to show that he [Capetz] has taken any action that could be deemed to be an act in violation of G-6.0106b.” and “This Commission reaffirms what it previously held in Bierschwale I that Capetz’ future conduct is not at issue in this case.”  The GAPJC did sustain the specification of error that the SPJC trial should not have been closed under the PC(USA) open meetings policy.  (The proceedings in a remedial case may be closed only for reasons of maintaining decorum.)

With that background we come to the third decision which revisits much of this under other circumstances…

Remedial case 219-11 – Naegeli, Stryker and Gelini v. Presbytery of San Francisco does deal with a candidate in the ordination process.

In this case Ms. Lisa Larges, who has been in the process for ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament for 20 years, was certified ready to receive a call with a declared exception by San Francisco Presbytery.

A couple of polity notes at this point.  The first is that previous GAPJC decisions have generally held that candidates that can not affirm the standards for ordained of
fice in G-6.0106 should not even be in the process.  With the 2006 Authoritative Interpretation explicitly introducing the declaration of an exception it has been ambiguous at what point the presbytery should act upon the declaration.  The second item to note is that the status of “certified ready” is one usually conferred by the Committee on Preparation for Ministry and need not be voted upon by the presbytery as a whole.  Both of these are noted in the decision.

To briefly summarize the history the CPM voted 12-9 on December 5, 2007 to certify her ready for examination for ordination pending a call.  At the January Presbytery meeting both a majority report for certification and a minority report to remove her from the rolls were presented and by a vote of 167-151 the Presbytery accepted the majority report.  In the remedial case heard by the SPJC that Commission rescinded the status of “certified ready” but did not rule on the declaration because an examination had not taken place.  (Ms. Larges was not present and therefore not examined at the January 2008 Presbytery meeting.)  (And in another side note, if you read the story as currently posted on the More Light Presbyterians web site you will note that they have the timing off — the original AI was from the 2006 GA and it was reaffirmed by the 2008 GA.  The CPM and Presbytery actions took place before the 2008 GA.)

The GAPJC grouped the nine specifications of error into four groups.  For the two related to the actions of the Presbytery, neither were sustained.  The GAPJC agreed that the proper time for declaring an exemption was at the time of examination for ordination.  Part of the reasoning was that the examination was the time when other waivers or exceptions were considered.

The GAPJC partly sustained one of the two specifications of error related to Constitutional Interpretation of G-6.0106b.  While noting that an examination had not formally taken place, they did note that in the action the Presbytery had followed they had not completely fulfilled the requirements of G-6.0108 for the policy and process of declaring an exception.

There were two specifications of error regarding the actions taken by the CPM and one of those was sustained in part.  On one level, actions of a committee of presbytery are not reviewable by a higher governing body since the principle of review applies to governing bodies themselves.  However, as noted in this case, when the action of a committee is the action of the governing body acting through the committee, in this case the CPM, it is reviewable.  However, the GAPJC concurred with the SPJC that while the CPM presentation to presbytery was “not as clear as it could have been,” there was no misrepresentation.

Finally, of the three specified errors related to the Procedures of the SPJC, two were sustained.  One related to the handling and admission of certain confidential documents in what was referred to as “Envelope B.”  The GAPJC decision notes that there are procedures for handling confidential and sensitive material, that the material need not be made public, but that at least the substance of the material (documents or testimony) must be disclosed to all parties even if it is only offered but not admitted to evidence.  If offered but not admitted it still becomes part of the record of the case.  In the point that was not sustained it was agreed that it was acceptable, but not necessarily advisable, to not have a verbatim transcript of pre-trial hearings.

So the result is that the previous action of the Presbytery has been rescinded but the Presbytery is now free to examine Ms. Larges for ordination, including in the examination her Statement of Departure from G-6.0106b.  This is expected to happen next week.

One of the points that the complainants wanted was for the SPJC to instruct the Presbytery that G-6.0106b was a standard of the church and a declared departure from that was not permissible.  Both the SPJC and the GAPJC declined to do so.

However, while emphasizing that each examination must be handled on a case-by-case basis, as part of the decision the GAPJC took pains to reiterate previous decisions about the process and procedures of the ordination process and examination.  They included an extended section from the Bush decision that begins:

It would be an obstruction of constitutional governance to permit examining bodies to ignore or waive a specific standard that has been adopted by the whole church, such as the ‘fidelity and chastity’ portion of G-6.0106b, or any other similarly specific provision. On the other hand, the broad reference in G-6.0106b to ‘any practice which the confessions call sin’ puts the responsibility first on the candidate and then on the examining body to determine whether a departure is a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity and the remainder of G-6.0108a with respect to freedom of conscience.

And the Commission also cited additional cases on this aspect including Buescher v. Olympia, and Wier v. Second Pres.

The Commission also made a point of cautioning against acting too hastily to ordain so as to preclude a judicial challenge to the way the examination was handled.  Again, there was a good length quoted from a previous case, this time McKittrick v. West End Pres., which includes the caution:

[When] an installation occurs immediately following the examination process, there may be no practical opportunity for a protesting or dissenting party to seek a stay of enforcement of the decision to install. The Presbyterian custom of conducting business ‘decently and in order’ should not be converted into a race in which the swift prevail.

On close reading I get the distinct impression that they are trying to send a message.  Whether that message is “be sure you sweat the details because this will be reviewed” or whether it is “we aren’t saying this in as many words but remember G-6.0106b is on the books” will have to be seen.  (And maybe they are saying both.)  But it is important to remember that up to, and including, these decisions the GAPJC has ruled unanimously but really only on technicalities.  The substance and handling of a declaration of departure has not been formally ruled upon.  If the exception is granted in this case, and a new remedial case is filed there is the very real possibility that it would work its way through the church judicial process parallel to the church taking another vote on G-6.0106b that might remove that section and render the judicial cases moot.

Just another day as we strive to be “reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.”