Category Archives: commentary

The Discussion of PC(USA) Identity And Musings On An “Ecclesiastical Hackathon”

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About a month ago the Moderator of the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Heath Rada, issued a “Call to the Church” to rethink what the PC(USA) should look like and in doing so build trust within the church.  This started the wheels in motion for a discussion in the denomination about what the identity of the PC(USA) is now and what it should be. Specifically he said in his remarks:

It became apparent [within a small task force on mission funding] that we all believed a painful situation existed [in the PC(USA)] and for anything significant to be accomplished we must find ways for that trust to be restored. It was felt that our denomination needed to explore these matters in depth and that I should announce a CALL TO THE CHURCH to help in addressing them.

The statement goes on to list five areas of importance, from the church’s changing place in the wider culture to the theological institutions to the urgent need for action. And with that the statement outlines five steps to take but at multiple points emphasizing the need to involve all levels of the church.

In a follow-up article in the Presbyterian Outlook he updates us on the response he has gotten and what next steps might be. While some are a bit further off – specifically part of the preparation for the 222nd General Assembly – other steps were being implemented quickly. This past week we saw the first of those and that is a survey opened up by Research Services to gather input from the full breadth of the PC(USA). You are encouraged to “Join the Conversation” and you have until November 13 to respond on that survey.

Another step is the announcement of two Twitter chats with the Vice-Moderator of the 221st General Assembly, Larissa Kwong Abazia (@LarissaLKA). The first chat begins this afternoon at 6 PM EDT (3 PM PDT) and will use the hashtag #pcusaidentity. The second chat is on Thursday November 12 at 9 PM EST (7 PM MST).

In reading that follow-up article a few things jump out at me. One is that the responses include “groups…wanting to be part of the conversation.” So must a group come forward to be included? Another is that Office of the General Assembly and Research Services will be the ones surveying the church and figuring out how to initiate discussions. It struck me that groups and offices in the national church seem to be headlining what looks like an institutional response. This is no surprise since at one point in the initial Call Moderator Rada wrote:

Again let me state the obvious. Someone has to take a lead. I am asking that the denomination affirm and actively participate in the COGA process which is getting ready to be unveiled and which will undertake the massive task of assessing the church’s will (in accordance with God’s will) concerning who and what we need to be as a denomination.

An interesting article three weeks ago takes a very different approach…

The Presbyterian Outlook published an op-ed piece by Deborah Wright and Jim Kitchens titled “An Open Letter to Moderator Heath Rada: What if . . . we held an ecclesiastical hackathon?”

As Presbyterians you have to love the idea, but more on that in a moment.

Their idea is an open call and competition where people form teams of six individuals and come up with their ideas about what the PC(USA) should look like or be doing. As they say:

Game theorists radically believe that the solutions to tough social problems reside in the players. Adaptive Change theorists believe deep challenges of uncharted territories must find solutions in unknown corners. Positive Deviance theorists act on the notion that the village has the answers, if one only looks to the fringes. What if this once – instead of committees and task forces and hired expert consultants – what if . . . we bucked up our Reformed theology and went looking for our unheralded prophets out there, trusting God to provide!

The idea is that a set of “rules and tools” would be issued by the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board (PMAB) and any group of six members of the PC(USA) would have a few months to assemble a team and present a plan, solution, strategy, what ever was being asked for.

A number of theological and polity positives jump out at me here. As the authors emphasize, we are a priesthood of all believers. Why should we let the brains at OGA and PMAB have all the fun with this. The Reformed community should be the specialists at crowd sourcing as we believe decision making and the corresponding mission are to be done at the lowest applicable level and our structure is supposed to allow the most people and those with particular gifts for the situation to be involved.

It is arguable whether groups of six are theologically supported here – seven is a more spiritual number or we could just think of two groups of six making twelve. But in our church history it was the group of the “Six Johns“, led by John Knox, that over four days wrote the Scottish Confession of Faith of 1560. Not exactly a hackathon since they were the only group working on it but still a model of a group of six that worked quickly to produce a product that changed history.

Now looking at this proposal I do cringe a little bit to see that the process is directed by the agencies at the top. They are the existing coordinating bodies after all and in a position to be able to do this so there is a solid rational for this. But let’s think a bit outside the box here.

What if we thought about this a bit more as a crowd sourced or grassroots project and tried to find another point to run this from. What if the responsibility were devolved to someplace in the church that is actively doing something like this, such as the 1001 New Worshiping Communities group? Or maybe an existing recognized affiliated body like the NEXT Church group or the Presbyterian Outlook board. Or maybe something completely different like a joint steering group made up of members of the Covenant Network and the Fellowship Community? Or a really radical thought: Just go for it!

The idea would be for groups that wanted to get involved to brainstorm changes and then send it to the next General Assembly from the bottom up. Get your group together and then take the idea to your two or three nearest presbyteries for endorsement as ascending overtures so they will be considered as business in Portland. If this hackathon concept is taken seriously maybe one of the commissioner committees at GA could have the responsibility for reviewing these and helping the Assembly to think in new ways. And remember, the deadline for proposed Book of Order changes is February 19, 2016, and for overtures with financial implications it is April 19, 2016.

So there you have my riff on the hackathon idea. I don’t think this is too far off from the ideas Landon Whitsitt discussed in his book Open Source Church. And remember, the hackathon – or whatever you want to call it – concept has two purposes: One is discussed above as a model for drawing more fully from the wisdom and knowledge of the whole group. The other is to involve more people in seriously visioning and thinking about the problem and empowering them to do something about it so they have ownership of situation. This is not answer a survey or participate in a guided discussion sort of thing. The idea is to empower any interested member to dive into the details, inner working and think about the problem at the deepest levels. Where it may go we don’t know so this certainly could be a “stay tuned” moment for the PC(USA).

The Latest US Religion Demographic Data

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Ah, the Siren Song of new data…

In case you were not on social media yesterday the Pew Research Center released their new report on American’s Changing Religious Landscape and it is all over the interwebs from national mainstream media, to local news outlets, to the religious news sources to bloggers to the people in the pew. And don’t worry if you have missed it because it probably only quantifies what you already know. I like the way Derek Rishmanwy put it on Twitter:

The cool thing about Pew numbers is how versatile they are; bloggers can wear them with triumph, grief, & multiple shades of schadenfreude!

And a nod to Andrew Wilson and his tweeted observation:

Ironic, a few days after the UK discovered just how inaccurate polls can be, to see so much excitement / distress in the US over … a poll.

All that to say, I initially thought I would just look at it and say “Nothing to see here. Move along folks.”

But remember that my mantra is “I never met a data set I didn’t like,” so casting caution to the wind I jumped into the fray. Now join me as I drill down into a very small piece of the data released with this report.

First, in the event you have not taken a look, let me give you the bullet points everyone else is focusing on. Between the last survey in 2007 and this one in 2014:

  • The proportion of the population identified as part of mainline denominations has dropped 3.4% from 18.1% to 14.7% of the population
  • At the same time those classified as part of evangelical Protestant churches has dropped 0.9% from 26.3% to 25.4%
  • There was a 1.2% gain in non-Christian faiths (now 5.9% of the total population) and a 6.7% gain in what they identify as Unaffiliated which has grown to 22.8% of the population.

Now, Pew favors reporting in percentages since they are most interested in the proportional interplay of groups. But it is instructive in this case to convert this into absolute numbers. So in 2007 the estimated population of the U.S. was about 301.6 million. By 2014 it had grown to 318.9 million. Using the above numbers that means that the mainline decreased from 54.6 million to 46.9 million. However, in an absolute sense the number of evangelical Protestants grew from 79.3 million to 81.0 million.

OK, now my two biggest pet peeves about this data set. (Yes, this data set pushes the limits of meeting data sets I didn’t like).

  • The basic categories for Protestants are mainline, evangelical and historically black. In other words, if you are not the first or the last you must be evangelical – that mushy category that is tough to define. So, for example, you are combining into a single group those that subscribe to the Westminster Standards with those that have “No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible, no name but the name Christian.” I think this classification could be a bit more granular.
  • The category Unaffiliated is similarly a catch-all, at least at least as I look at it. The category includes Atheists (3.1% of the population), Agnostics (4.0%) and Nothing In Particular (15.8%). Furthermore, the Nothing In Particular are further divided into Religion Not Important (8.8%) and Religion Important (6.9%). Jack Jenkins over at Think Progress dissects this corner of the classification a bit more.

Specific to that first bullet point though, Appendix B says:

Protestant respondents who gave a vague answer to denominational questions (e.g., “I am just a Baptist” or “I know I am Methodist but don’t know which specific Methodist denomination I belong to”) were placed into one of the three Protestant traditions based on their race and/or their response to a question that asked if they would describe themselves as a “born-again or evangelical Christian.”

OK, so if I am PC(USA), but don’t know or admit that I am PC(USA) and acknowledge to being born again, I get placed in the Evangelical Presbyterian category. Likewise, someone in another Presbyterian tradition that does not identify which one but does not consider regeneration to be technically the same as being born again, they would be placed in the mainline. To this point the report goes on:

Overall, 38% of Protestants (including 36% of evangelical Protestants, 35% of mainline Protestants and 53% of those in the historically black Protestant tradition) gave a vague denominational identity, necessitating the use of their race or their born-again status (or sometimes both) to categorize them into one of the three major Protestant traditions.

That appendix does list 16 different Evangelical Presbyterian categories that were reported, some of which were specific (exempli gratia: Presbyterian Church in America, Cumberland Presbyterian, Bible Presbyterian), some of which are ambiguous (does Reformed Presbyterian refer to the RPCNA or to the Hanover Presbytery?) and some are general catch-all categories like Ethnic Presbyterian and “Presbyterian, ambiguous affiliation.”

[I will note that the main report does have a two page section (beginning on page 30) on identifying evangelicals and they discuss how it can be by denomination (so Presbyterians are never evangelical), by the born-again test, or by a more detailed analysis of their beliefs. The latter is outside the scope of this report but they expect another report on that later.]

So in the report of data they group Presbyterians into three categories: the mainline PC(USA) and two Evangelical categories: PCA and everyone else. I found it interesting that in the population numbers reported in that appendix the size of the PC(USA) and the size of the Evangelical everyone else was the same with each being 1.1% of the population in 2007 and 0.9% in 2014. The PCA held steady at 0.4% of the population. For comparison purposes, if the PC(USA) had about 1.7 million members in 2014 and the US population was 318.9 million that means that only 0.5% of the population of the US was a member of the PC(USA). So based on the Pew results the adherents, or those who identify with the PC(USA), almost doubles when you consider how people self-identify or the survey classifies ambiguous answers.

Moving on to the detailed data, I will focus only on Presbyterians and refer only to the breakout pages for Presbyterians. There is one for Mainline Presbyterians generally and a subset for the PC(USA). Similarly, there is one for Evangelical Presbyterians and the subset for the PCA. So keep in mind that for the the general evangelical numbers, about half are the PCA. In addition, since I am not sure what a mainline Presbyterian who is not in the PC(USA) is I will simply focus on the PC(USA) data. But there is another 0.5% of the population that they classify as being mainline without being PC(USA).

And as I start this drill-down let me add this warning: I will be looking at small changes in some of the categories but my interest must be tempered with caution, or even skepticism, because the table of Margins of Error shows that for these sample sizes the margin is between +/-7% and +/-5.5%. That means that while many of the differences between the numbers below are interesting, very few of them are statistically significant.

So let’s start with Age.

I find it interesting that differences between all the Presbyterian categories were so similar in the 2007 survey. In general, they all had about 10% in the 18-29 age group, and 30% in each of the other age groups – 30-49, 50-64 and 65+. Yes, there are some slight differences but the pattern looks solid and there are uncertainty ranges (and the ambiguous classifications) to consider so I don’t get too concerned about that range.

Between 2007 and 2014 the PC(USA) and the PCA show very similar patterns of change in the age ranges. The youngest range stays the same, the 30-49 range decreases markedly ( -11% for the PCA and -9% for the PC(USA) ), the 50-64 range also remains the same and the 65+ range increases markedly ( +12% for the PCA and +6% for the PC(USA) ). The general evangelical as a whole shows less change in each category except that there is a marked increase in the 50-64 range ( +6%).

Gender composition

In terms of gender composition the PC(USA) remained steady at 45%/55% men to women. The PCA and the overall general evangelical both had a 5% shift from men to women.

Racial composition

Each of the groups became more diverse over the last five years with the PC(USA) dropping from 91% to 88% white, the PCA from 86% to 80% white and the general group from 88% to 81%.

For the PC(USA) the change was distributed over all the other categories with Black respondents increasing from 4% to 5%, Asian from 2% to 3% and Latino from 2% to 4%.

In the PCA it was a similar pattern for Black adherents with an increase of 5% to 6%. Asian members decreased from 4% to 3%. The biggest increase was in the Other/Mixed category jumping from 1% to 5% and a noticeable increase in the Latino category from 4% to 6%.

For the combined general evangelical category the Black percentage increased from 4% to 6%, the Asian from 3% to 5%, Other/Mixed from 1% to 4% and Latino was constant at 4%.

Income and Education

These two demographic measures appear to have some correlation as you might expect. For the PC(USA) the peak in annual household income shifted from the $50,000-$99,999 group in 2007 (37%) to the $100,000+ group in 2014. Actually, considering the margin of error the two bins are pretty close in 2014 with that lower bin having 29%. For education, the distribution is pretty flat in 2014 with just about 25% in each of the categories – High School or less, Some College, College, Post-graduate.

The interesting thing across all three classifications of Presbyterians for income is that it is bi-modal as they have binned it. In all the cases there is a lower peak in the <$30,000 bin. For 2014 the PC(USA) it is 24%, for the PC it is 27% and for the general evangelical it is 28%.

For the PCA and general evangelical the income distributions have their primary peak in the $50,000-$99,999 range with 31% in the PCA and 21% in the general. Likewise, the education peak for both groups is in the Some College bracket with 37% of the PCA and 35% of the general.

I suggested the income/education correlation, but another one comes to mind. Is the apparent correlation age reflecting the higher incomes in the PC(USA) does an older demographic with higher earning power or with more two-wage earner households account for that result.

Switching and Retention

The last set of data I want to look at is the information on individuals switching denominations and the retention of members. For this we need to turn to the section in the full report beginning on page 32. Overall, 19.0% of the country grew up in the mainline Protestant church. In the survey the measurement is that 10.4% of the population has left, 6.1% have switch into the mainline giving 14.7% now in the mainline. For evangelical Protestants the numbers are 23.9% that grew up in it, 8.4% left, 9.8% joined and now 25.4% are in that category.

Looking at all Presbyterians, 3.0% of the population grew up in a Presbyterian church of some flavor. Those who have left make up 2.0% of the US population and those that have joined make up 1.1% for a current total of 2.2% of the population.

Now, returning back to that margin of error stuff – in compiling all this data is struck me that there are some interesting differences between these three groups, but based on the demographic data in the report these three groups of Presbyterians are not that different after all.

So where do we go from here?

One thing that struck me was the “the sky is falling” response. As I said in the early discussion there is nothing new about these demographic changes. A lot of attention is being paid to the Unaffiliated growth but this group comes in a number of flavors and I am not sure combining them gives much insight. Looking at the data my interpretation is that the Nothing in Particular category has now become the point for loosely or barely affiliated individuals to now identify with. As Ed Stetzer puts it in his helpful analysis

One of the primary reasons it appears as though “American Christianity” is experiencing a sharp decline is because the nominals that once made up (disproportionately) Mainline Protestantism and Catholicism are now checking “none” on religious affiliation surveys.

In the long view what is happening now is more of a pruning or consolidation. A vital core is still there for the church to move forward.

However, this consolidation does not seem to favor the mainline. There are enough theories as to why that is the case that I won’t go there now. But I think the same principle applies — there is pruning and consolidation going on with that branch. The key will be finding a central core and shared vision to organize around in the years ahead.

Can the mainline do that? It will be interesting to see. There is certainly a lot of pruning going on in the PC(USA) although you will get significant discussion as to whether there the mainline is the core that needs to be pruned or the part that is being shed in the consolidation. But with the Split-P’s the divisions come and reunion later comes as well. We will have to see which groups can develop strong cores or whether the declines will overtake them before they can.

I also wanted to add that for purposes of forecasting future trends grouping and reporting the data a bit differently would be useful. The primary example is the age data where the ranges are large enough that having a report with shifted age ranges so that individuals in the 2007 report are in the same group in the 2014 report would be useful. Even better, maybe a report with the age ranges reflecting the customary demographic groups – Builders, Boomers, Gen X and Millennials – could be considered. The purpose of course is to isolate the groups to see if they fit the oft-reported trends. Similarly, when dealing with something like household income it would be helpful to not just see it in the bins but also report the quartiles of the data.

So there are a few of the things I was chasing here. A couple other items jump out at me but this close to the opening of the Church of Scotland General Assembly convening that I want to chase those any further. Lots to think about here so something to return to later if times get slow. And there is always that report on Evangelical Protestants. But for now…

… On to Edinburgh

Division and Reunion: a Reflection on American Presbyterianism – A New Documentary

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Union Presbyterian Seminary has produced and released a new documentary, Division and Reunion: a Reflection on American Presbyterianism. It can be viewed online or a DVD ordered through that page.

The brief description on the page talks about the documentary like this:

We are pleased to present Division and Reunion: a Reflection on American Presbyterianism, a documentary narrated by lifelong Presbyterian Dr. Condoleezza Rice. We at Union Presbyterian Seminary hope this film will be a learning tool and a way to build faith, showing how God works through reconciliation. Special thanks to the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and the Anne Carter Robins and Walter R. Robins, Jr. Foundation for their support.

There are a couple of points in this description that struck me as I watched the video. The first is the use of the term reflection in the title. This is not a comprehensive documentary on American Presbyterianism, far from it. But it is a reflection on history of division and reunion in the mainstream branch. And since that is the focus you can understand why another word in that description – reconciliation – is emphasized throughout the piece.

An additional important point to be aware of at the onset is that between filming and the final title and description a bit of the focus seems to have shifted. While the title refers to American Presbyterianism, In their concluding comments both Dr. Rice and Dr. Brian Blount, President of Union Presbyterian Seminary, refer to this as a look at the Southern Presbyterian Church. Watching the documentary again, it clearly is that with an emphasis on events and groups related to the old southern church. For example, when the Second Great Awakening and the Restoration Movement is discussed the focus is on Barton Stone and the Cane Ridge movement in Kentucky but no mention is made of the Campbells of Pennsylvania. Similarly, of the groups that split off from the mainstream in the 20th Century only the split in the southern church forming the PCA is mentioned, and northern divisions forming the OPC, BPC and EPC are not mentioned and the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy is only alluded to.

But with that context and recognizing the focus I will say that I very much enjoyed watching this almost 45 minute reflection. For much of the first half it struck me as an enlightening history lesson by Dr. Sean Michael Lucas with thoughtful commentary by a variety of informed and diverse voices adding their historical perspective to the narrative. But, as I said above, it was not a history lesson per se but a collection of reflections around a few important moments. The second half picks up with the formation of the PCUS, or more precisely the PCCSA which would become the PCUS, and that branch remains the primary focus for the rest of the video. In that half we see much less of Dr. Lucas and the story is told more through the collective individual remembrances and the commentary. It is a story that is cast in such a way that the arc of the narrative necessarily brings you to the PCUS/UPCUSA reunion in Atlanta in 1983.

Within the tight focus I have already mentioned, I will say that I appreciated how Barton Stone and the Cane Ridge Revival was included. The origins of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) from the Presbyterians is frequently overlooked in these historical pieces and charts. On the other hand, mention is also made of the split of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in that same era, it is held on the running branch diagram for a bit and then disappears. Since this is about division and reunion I am surprised that the reunion with the CPC in 1906 was not included. Was it because it was a reunion with the northern church or because there was a minority who still have a continuing Cumberland church? Maybe even more intriguing is the history of the Cumberland Church and the closely associated African American branch, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, with the two branches currently on track for their own reunion shortly.

Finally, if this is about Southern Presbyterianism, it is worth noting that the Covenanter and Secession branch is not mentioned at all in the video. While its American expression began in the northern states this branch now finds it’s main concentration in the southern states with the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church headquartered in South Carolina.

In conclusion, let me confirm what many of you probably suspect and that is the fact that throughout the video there are subtle, and some not so subtle, references to where the PC(USA) finds itself today. If anything, this is a piece that looks at where the church has been and the fact that in many ways the present does not look too different from the past.

If you are looking for a comprehensive history of American Presbyterianism, this is not the video you are looking for. If you are interested in a thoughtful, interesting and at some points very honest reflection on a few pivotal points in the history of southern Presbyterians, you will probably find this time well spent.

A Brief Comment On Presbyterian History Regarding The Princetons

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The political news of the day is the upset primary victory of Dave Brat over Eric Cantor, the US House of Representatives majority Leader, i.e. the second highest leadership position for the Republicans in the House.

I am not going to wade into the politics of that race, but something else, something Presbyterian caught my eye.

Professor Dave Brat has an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. Yup, it looks like another alum of that venerable institution might be going into government service. You can check out his academic credentials on his faculty web page at Randolph-Macon College.

Looking at his faculty web page it would suggest that he has a Reformed background, having also attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan.

Now, I am not saying that Dr. Brat was ever Presbyterian, let alone PC(USA), but there is a connection. And his campaign bio lists him and his family attending a local Roman Catholic parish.

It is interesting that his campaign bio has gotten a few people worked up because in it, and elsewhere, he talks about getting an M.Div. from “Princeton.” without being any more specific. This apparently has most people thinking PU, leading that institution to need to clarify when asked by the media.

OK, enough about politics and on to what really got my attention.

What I found most interesting is that the Princeton University spokesperson, Martin Mbugua, made this comment (as quoted on the Washington Post live blog):

Mbugua said people occasionally “make an association between the
institutions here in Princeton, an incorrect association.” The two
independent institutions simply “happen to be in the same town,” Mbugua
said.

May I take exception to his comment? I will grant you they are two independent institutions but it is not by pure chance they are in the same town. At least to me, to say that there is no association between them ignores the fact that they were both established by early American Presbyterians, that the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) was founded to train ministers and most of its early presidents were Presbyterian ministers. Further, Princeton Theological Seminary was founded as a spin-off from the College to provide a more extensive theological training and the first Principal of the Seminary, Archibald Alexander, came over from the College to head up the seminary. While the college and the seminary may not have always had similar viewpoints, I think it is fair to say that the seminary is a younger sibling of the college.

If you want to take it a step further up to the present day the University’s Wikipedia page notes that “Today, Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary maintain
separate institutions with ties that include services such as
cross-registration and mutual library access.”

While the two schools grew apart during the Civil War and the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy, it is worthwhile to note that at their root they come from the same stock.

OK, history distraction over – back to the GA’s.

P.S. Waiting to see if David Brat does win the fall election if that might get him distinguished alumni recognition at the seminary. His name has already been added to the Notable Alumni section of the Wikipedia page.

Some Thoughts On Fossil Fuel Divestment Overture At The 221st General Assembly, PC(USA)

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Let me begin this post with full disclosure that this piece probably falls more into the category of commentary than analysis or reporting.

Second, why the heck would I be writing commentary on this? If you are not aware I am a geologist by profession so I do have some background in this even though my primary specialty is earthquakes. But I did work for an oil company one summer during college.

Third, this is business that is before the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) next week so it is of concern to many of us.

The main overture that I want to speak to is item 15-01 from the Presbytery of Boston with concurrences from 11 other presbyteries. It will be reviewed by the Assembly Committee on Immigration and Environmental Issues. This committee only has three other items of business to consider besides this one, one regarding immigration, one about sustainable development and one about coal export projects.

The overture calls for the 221st GA to recognize the “moral mandate for humanity to shift to sustainable energy.” As part of this it asks for no new PC(USA) investments in fossil fuel companies, divestment from current holdings over the next five years, report on the progress and tell the fossil fuel companies why they are doing this.

In considering fossil fuel divestment let me discuss two particular aspects of this topic that I don’t think are getting aired in the materials I have read.

First, go with me on a thought exercise. Don’t worry, this won’t take long…

Name the materials in your home that are extracted from the earth.

I do this exercise with students all the time and it is quicker to name the materials that are not earth-related. The obvious one is wood if you live in a wood frame house, have wood shingles and probably have wooden furniture. The other is fabric that comes from animals (such as wool or leather) or plants (cotton and hemp for example). In my experience that is it.

Someone usually asks about the carpets and if you have common polyester carpets guess what, they come from petrochemicals. In fact, you may be surprised to find the amount of material in your home or car that are petrochemicals.

My point is that saying companies are just about fossil fuels ignores other uses of the materials extracted, whether it be the petroleum that goes into plastics or the coal that goes to make coke for iron/steel production. Yes, according to the ExxonMobil Annual Report only 11.7% of their annual revenues were from the chemical side, but neither the overture nor the Carbon Tracker report they reference make any mention of secondary uses of the material.

The second thing that strikes me is the method being employed. I always wonder when companies or industries are singled out for boycotts or divestment when we are trying to make societal changes. I think it is generally better to change things either through the demand side, not the supply side of the equation or to promote better alternatives on the supply side. Before Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial oil well in the United States lamp oil came from whaling. While whaling is still an active, but controversial industry, the whale oil portion did not drop off because of government regulation or environmental concerns. Rather, the rise of the petroleum industry produced a less-expensive alternative.

Similarly, I would argue that the same thing would be more effective here. Time and resources should be put into alternate and more environmentally friendly sources of energy and helping develop conservation attitudes.

To this end, I appreciate the advice provided by the Assembly Committee on Social Witness Policy which instead suggests a balance approached typified by the amendment they suggest that says “To this end,
the church shall work to shift its energy investments increasingly into
renewable sources as it undertakes parallel actions to reduce its
nonrenewable energy consumption and that of its members.”

Let me ask if more can be done internally by the PC(USA). Can the national office be heated, cooled and lit with more alternative energy? Can trips to the offices be reduced by telecommuting or car pooling? Can the General Assembly reduce its carbon footprint? Can incentives be given to employees of the PC(USA), its middle governing bodies or its churches to conserve, use alternate energy and reduce their carbon footprint. We ask others to be environmentally responsible, how can we set the example and promote that within our denomination?

There are also a number of pragmatic considerations in all this. Yes, this is a social witness statement and that alone is sometimes good enough. But remember that the General Assembly speaks only for itself and while there are obviously at least 12 presbyteries that agree with this action the only investments it directly controls are its own. Furthermore, that is not always the case as I remember hearing representatives from the Board of Pensions and the Foundation at the last GA talking about the investment process and what influence they did, or did not have, on the outside investment advisers they contracted with. Finally, I do not want to diminish the fact that this is making a social witness statement and any actual effects are just part of the equation, but it is interesting reading about how Stanford made the decision to divest from only coal when a full fossil fuel divestment was asked for by a student group. The change was both for financial reasons as well as moral as this article discusses:

Beyond the hit to Stanford’s pocketbook, the university figured that
divesting from all fossil-fuel stocks would be seen, justifiably, as too
ivory-tower. “It would have been viewed as hypocritical to say, `You
should divest from fossil fuels,’ when everyone on this campus consumes
fossil fuels,” [Stanford President John] Hennessy said. “There’s a hypocritical issue to it.” And
what’s true for Stanford, he noted, is true for the globe. “You try to
replace all fossil fuels? We are so far from that happening.”

But
divesting just from coal-mining stocks should, financially, have “little
or no endowment impact,” Hennessy said. The university, he said, can
put the dollars it was investing into coal-mining companies into other
energy sources—perhaps other fossil fuels—which,
like coal stocks, help guard the endowment against the threat of
inflation. Moreover, Stanford will remain invested in coal consumption.
The divestment doesn’t apply to stocks of power companies that burn
coal. And it doesn’t apply to shares in steel makers, Hennessy noted,
for whom a fuel source other than coal isn’t readily apparent.

Finally, the argument can be made that keeping the stock and using it as the entry into stockholder meetings and resolutions is a more effective method to promote a social witness policy.

So there are some of my thoughts on the matter. Your mileage may vary. But this overture has plenty of advice attached to it and based on how Assemblies operate I am pretty confident it will be in a much different form when it reaches the plenary and then my undergo another revision, possibly major. Or maybe it will fly through and get put on the shelf with all those other social witness statements. Stay tuned…

[Addendum: Full Disclosure: First, I own stock in energy companies
because when I started investing the advice I received from my
Presbyterian minister – a former stock broker – was “invest in what you
know” and I knew geology. Second, a notable portion of my undergraduate education was provided by scholarships from energy companies and even some money that come from Edwin L. Drake a long time ago.]

Where Are The Ruling Elders?

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Fair warning – this probably qualifies as another one of my rants on one of the topics I rant about from time to time – Where are the ruling elders?

In the last few days two documents have come out of agencies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that seem to overlook the fact that according to our Book of Order “This church shall be governed by presbyters, that is, ruling elders and teaching elders.” (F-3.0202 first part) and the last part of G-2.0301:

Ruling elders, together with teaching elders, exercise leadership, government, spiritual discernment, and discipline and have responsibilities for the life of a congregation as well as the whole church, including ecumenical relationships. When elected by the congregation, they shall serve faithfully as members of the session. When elected as commissioners to higher councils, ruling elders participate and vote with the same authority as teaching elders, and they are eligible for any office.

And your point is…?

The first document to come out was a press release from the Presbyterian Publishing Company (PPC) – one of the six agencies of the PC(USA) – concerning their decision to stop using Cokesbury for distribution to brick and mortar locations and that they would now distribute their products almost exclusively online through their own system. Now that is an interesting development in and of itself and I may return to it. But within the press release was the line:

PPC encourages all PC(USA) clergy, church educational and office
professionals, religious academics, and lay members to support the
denominational publisher by purchasing books and resources through these
websites.

And where are the ruling elders? For those not familiar with Presbyterian polity they do not fall into the category of “lay members.” And this from the publishing house that operates the The Presbyterian Leader imprint. Maybe it is just that the ruling elders are not encouraged to support the denominational publisher.

OK, I was going to let this go as a one-off, an oversight, a press release put together in a hurry. After all, one point does not define a trend. But then we got another point…

In the meeting this morning of another PC(USA) agency board, the Presbyterian Mission Agency, a proposed revision to the Directory for Worship was revealed. The Board agreed to send it to the 221st General Assembly with the recommendation to forward it on to the whole denomination for study. I will have more to say on this document at a later time. For now I will say that there are a number of typos in the document that need to be cleaned up.

But reading through the Rational section I was intreagued and concerned to read about the focus group they put together to get reaction to the document:

A diverse group of scholars, pastors, and mid council leaders provided feedback on the proposed revision…

And where are the ruling elders? Yes, within the scholars and mid-council leaders there probably were ruling elders. But if pastors were invited were ruling elders from churches invited to give feedback on the document and not just ecclesiastical professionals?

As regular readers of my blog know the equal governance of teaching and ruling elders together is an area that I am hyper-sensitive about and when I read documents with that filter things like this jump out at me. I am sure that some of you are thinking that I am blowing this out of proportion. But to me the situation is something to pay attention to. If we are serious about our government structure then we need to be intentional about including ruling elders in the mix the same way we are intentional about including the wide diversity of our membership in the decision making process. Furthermore, the joint decision making by teaching and ruling elders is the genius of our system and provides the means for better decision making (see Landon Whitsitt’s Open Source Church – sorry, could not find it on The Presbyterian Leader to link to) and it is the means to engage a greater cross-section of the church in ministry. Both of these quotes, to me at least, place more emphasis on the institutional side of the church and not it’s wide diversity.

OK, my coffee break is over. Just a few thoughts for now. But I leave you with the famous words of Cynthia Bolbach, the Moderator of the 219th General Assembly…

“Elders Rule!”

To every action… (A Reformation Day Reflection)

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…there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

That is Newton’s third law of motion as translated from the Latin of his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, often noted by the shorthand Principia.

That is the rule in Physics, so on this Reformation Day I wanted to consider the ecclesiastical reaction to the Reformation. Whether it was “equal and opposite” is left as an exercise for the reader.

The personal consequences of Martin Luther’s questioning of the Roman church that is commemorated on this day are fairly well known: The papal bull, his excommunication, his stand before the Diet of Worms, the protection by political authorities who may have had motives more or less theological versus political, and the resulting split with Rome in parts of Germany have been regularly chronicled in the popular media.

But what about broader and longer-term reactions to the Protestant Reformation?

There was a reaction in the Roman church which goes by a few different names but is commonly called the Counter-Reformation. And as I began researching this I found that the Roman church laid claim to Martin Luther in this, at least to a point…

[T]he name [Counter-Reformation] suggests that the Catholic movement came after the Protestant; whereas in truth the reform originally began in the Catholic Church, and Luther was a Catholic Reformer before he became a Protestant. By becoming a Protestant Reformer, he did indeed hinder the progress of the Catholic reformation, but he did not stop it. It continued to gain headway in the Catholic South until it was strong enough to meet and roll back the movement from the North. [from Catholic Encyclopedia]

They go on to argue that it was not a reaction but continuing process, even talking about how the movement continues today since the heresies from the time of Luther still continue. (I guess they figure that there are still Lutherans running around.)

This idea is echoed in a scholarly article from The Catholic History Review (Vol. 75, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), pp. 383-404 ) by Wolfgang Reinhard titled “Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and the Early Modern State a Reassessment.” He writes:

Traditionally, German, and to a certain extent European early modern
history as well, is divided into three periods: the “Reformation” 1517-
1555, the “Counter-Reformation” 1555-1648, and the “Age of Absolutism” 1648-1789. This division has become almost indestructible
because of the simple and convincing dialectical pattern it is based
upon: a progressive movement, the “Reformation,” as thesis, evokes a
reaction, the reactionary “Counter-Reformation,” as antithesis; their contradiction leads to extremely destructive armed conflicts, until Europe
is saved by the strong hand of the absolutist early modern state, which because of its neutrality in the religious conflict is considered the synthesis, a synthesis which opens the way to that culmination point of
world history the modern national power state. This view of history is
wonderfully convincing, but quite incorrect. If only we were able to free
ourselves from its grip, we might easily learn from recent research that
“Counter-Reformation,” if a reaction, was still not simply reactionary.
But we would also recognize that the relation between “Reformation”
and “Counter-Reformation” was not just that of action and reaction, but
much more that of slightly dislocated parallel processes.

The article goes on to talk about the modern state making this a mildly interesting article. But that is not the point today.

Returning to the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, I am willing to grant that on one level these were movements in much broader developments across Europe at this point in time and that there were reform movements clearly working within the Roman church (such as the Society of Jesus). But there are two historical developments that I am not sure would have developed as they did were it not for the Protestant Reformation, leading me to see the Counter-Reformation as truly “counter” to the Reformation.

The first event occurred on 21 July 1542 when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was founded under the original name of the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition. According to that web site it has the “duty… to defend the Church from heresy.” (It should be noted that Inquisitions had existed before in local or regional settings but now it was, and its successor is still, based in Rome for the whole church.)

The second event followed a couple of years later when on 13 December 1545 the Council of Trent was opened. According to the abstract of the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia the Council is described thus:

Its main object was the definitive determination of the doctrines of the Church in answer to the heresies of the Protestants; a further object was the execution of a thorough reform of the inner life of the Church by removing the numerous abuses that had developed in it.

My point is not to call the Roman church to task for defending its doctrine and correcting abuses – it has every right to do that although the methods were sometimes extreme to our modern sensibilities. The point is that even if there were certain internal reform movements already in place, the unprecedented success of Martin Luther’s challenge to the Roman church certainly got the church’s attention and the Roman church decided that a response in the form of some major and targeted action was necessary.

Equal? Maybe or maybe not. Opposite? Not entirely as it did address some of the same internal abuses that got Luther going.

But a response to the action? From my reading of history there clearly was. But you can be the judge for yourself.

Happy Reformation Day. May we always be Reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God.

Another Different Sort Of July 4th

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Last year on July 4th I reflected on the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War, the three day battle at Gettysburg from the first to the third of July 1863. This year, appropriately, much is being made of that battle in recognition of its sesquicentennial anniversary.

But there is another important sesquicentennial anniversary today which Mr. Mac McCarty reminded us of last year: today is also the anniversary of the end of a very different battle — the battle for Vicksburg, Mississippi.

While maybe not as well known as Gettysburg, it’s importance in the war could be just as great, some think even greater. Vicksburg held a commanding position on the heights over the Mississippi River and was referred to as the “Gibraltar of the South.” Of its position and importance it was said by Jefferson Davis:

“Vicksburg is the nail head that holds the South’s two halves together.”

And by Abraham Lincoln:

“Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until the key is in our pocket.”

It was the one point that kept the Union from controlling the whole length of the Mississippi. (To be fair, there was another small garrison at Port Hudson that surrendered when they heard of Vicksburg’s fall.)

It was Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s objective to take the city and his efforts occupied over half a year from December 26, 1862 until the final surrender on July 4, 1863. During this time Grant had about a half-dozen failed attempts at attacking the city, a couple of them fairly creative, but finally on April 30 he got his army across the Mississippi unopposed using diversionary tactics. From there they fought their way to the city. By May 18 the city was surrounded but Vicksburg’s fortifications were significant and two direct attacks were repelled. So Grant lay siege to the city, shelling it with the army and the navy day and night. By July 3 no help had come and the conditions were grim. Lt. General John Pemberton, the Confederate garrison commander, asked for terms of surrender. On July Fourth their flags were stuck, the weapons stacked and the city was occupied.

Grant chose not to take the opposing forces as prisoners but to immediately parole the soldiers and release them. This did two things — first, it meant he did not have to deal with the logistics of moving and feeding about 30,000 prisoners of war and second it was a psychological weapon that would return many of these men to their homes defeated.

In reading about this battle one thing that struck me was the respect Grant showed his opponents. In response to the initial note asking to negotiate terms of surrender Grant includes this line [all these following quotes from his memoir]:

Men who have shown so much endurance and courage as those now in
Vicksburg, will always challenge the respect of an adversary, and I can
assure you will be treated with all the respect due to prisoners of war.

Of his meeting with the opposing commander he writes:

Pemberton and I had served in the same division during part of the
Mexican War. I knew him very well therefore, and greeted him as an old
acquaintance.

Although it should be noted that the friendship did not get in the way of Grant rejecting his proposed terms of surrender.

Regarding the respect for the adversary Grant set the tone from the top. He writes of the time of surrender:

Our soldiers were no sooner inside the lines than the two armies began
to fraternize. Our men had had full rations from the time the siege
commenced, to the close. The enemy had been suffering, particularly
towards the last. I myself saw our men taking bread from their
haversacks and giving it to the enemy they had so recently been engaged
in starving out. It was accepted with avidity and with thanks.

Furthermore upon the surrender and evacuation of the city by the paroled soldiers there were to be no Union celebrations. He describes it like this:

 The prisoners were allowed to occupy their old camps behind the
intrenchments. No restraint was put upon them, except by their own
commanders. They were rationed about as our own men, and from our
supplies. The men of the two armies fraternized as if they had been
fighting for the same cause. When they passed out of the works they had
so long and so gallantly defended, between lines of their late
antagonists, not a cheer went up, not a remark was made that would give
pain. Really, I believe there was a feeling of sadness just then in the
breasts of most of the Union soldiers at seeing the dejection of their
late antagonists.

As to the significance of the day Grant writes:

The fate of the Confederacy was sealed when Vicksburg fell. Much hard
fighting was to be done afterwards and many precious lives were to be
sacrificed; but the morale was with the supporters of the Union ever after.

And, as one history site says

The town of Vicksburg would not celebrate the Fourth of July for 81 years

General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church Of Ireland — Youth and Children: A Tale Of The Tweets

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I have been having fun the last couple of days following the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. There is no live streaming so the vast majority of what I can find out in real time is through Twitter.

A few transcripts and audio selections have found their way onto the internet. The church has posted the text of the addresses by the outgoing Moderator and the incoming Moderator. To hear parts of the Assembly you can check out a number of audio clips that Alan in Belfast has posted on his blog as part of his coverage of the Assembly meeting.  In addition, he has posted the report of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland Youth and Children Council (PCIYAC) from earlier today. (part 1, part 2)

And getting down to the subject of the Board of Youth and Children’s Ministries, they were fairly vocal in the debate yesterday concerning the proposal by the Structures Committee to reorganize and consolidate Boards. In particular, they were concerned about their loss of Board status as they would be included with the Council For Congregational Life and Witness. In the end the Structures proposal was not adopted this year by the vote of 190 to 119 so they continue as they are for another year.

This afternoon was the report of the Board of Youth and Children’s Ministries itself. The report went well, as you can hear for yourself on the audio clips above, lasting just over 40 minutes. One of the highlights was a video promoting Messy Church. Another was the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Boys Brigade program and the impact that it has had, including a couple of testimonials from the floor. As for the seven resolutions in the report, nothing controversial that raised any real objections.

What did catch a number of people’s attention was the turnout of Assembly members for the report, at least at the beginning.

When the report began it was preceded by a prayer that included these lines transcribed from the audio clip:

“We thank you for those who serve within this Board, for the work of this past year. And now as they report help them to communicate to us what’s on their hearts and what’s of importance to them and to us.”

Thanks to Twitter we have some comments and pictures of the meeting space at about the time the prayer was being said. Among those tweets are these two:

 
James Currie @JCBelfast

Hall unfortunately nearly empty for the Youth and Children’s Board Report #pciga13 pic.twitter.com/pBrBMJTtD3
 

James McCormick @jamesmcc77

Not much interest in Youth & Children from PCI members. Poor show folks. #pciga13 pic.twitter.com/yUdxIRPj9o
 



As the prayer said “…what’s of importance to them and to us.” Not many of the “us.”

Now to be fair, these pictures were taken at the beginning of the report right after a short 15 minute break and the lines for coffee this week are reported to be very long. And the hall did fill up a bit more after this. Furthermore, this was not the only report with very low attendance at the beginning. But the reports on Twitter still seem to indicate that it never did fill up the way it had for some of the more high-profile reports. And comparisons continued later in the day.

So I am sitting here wondering do I really need to spell this out? Do I really need to point out that when we talk about the younger generation and their importance to the church and then we don’t show up for the report about their ministries it sends a pretty mixed message? Do I need to rant on about the theme of the Assembly being about transformation and then the report about working with the generation we are trying to transform the church for has so few people listening to it?

No I don’t think I need to do any of that. But what struck me about the events of today is that when there is so much concern and discussion about whether the church has a future I must admit that I was very surprised at the apparent lack of attention that was paid to an important Board that has responsibility for the youngest members of the Body of Christ, the ones that have the most riding on the future.

OK, rant over. Commentary mode off.

We now return to our regularly scheduled stream of tweets.

Thoughts On Some Recent News Reports And Connections To The Church

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Over the last couple of weeks I was struck by a few news reports and some of the implications for the church going forward. Here are those stories and some thoughts about each…

Churches big purchasers of music performance gear

From Which Way LA? on KCRW

This brought to my attention something that makes sense but I had not thought about – churches are now the largest market for live music. This story was driven by the recent convention of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) in Anaheim.

The lead quote in the piece:

“In any city today that you go to, there’s now more bands playing live
music on Saturday night and Sunday morning in churches than there are in
any clubs,” said Christian Musician
magazine publisher Bruce Adolph.  “The DJ’s have hit the sector and
taken away some live music.  Karaoke’s hurt live music.  But a lot of
the guys are actually returning to church and playing music.”

The next quote, from Holland Davis – pastor of Worship Life Calvary Church – emphasizes this fact:

“There’s over 300,000 churches in America alone. And so
just the sheer volume of churches and they all use audio equipment,
microphones, instruments, lighting.  And we’re in a time where the
number of churches that are being started from scratch is phenomenal.”

And the piece points out that the need for musicians and music equipment has increased at a faster pace than the need for pastors, particularly considering multi-site churches that have bands at every location but one preacher on video. (They do overlook the fact that each remote site usually has a worship leader, but that is sometimes a band member too.)

It is also interesting if that comment “the
number of churches that are being started from scratch is phenomenal” because if that is true it doesn’t seem to include the mainline.

OK, so all of you probably knew that. But it was interesting to hear in the rest of the report how NAMM has recognized that churches are the growing market and is catering to them. We now have a secular organization, that admittedly does include Christians, that is helping to drive what Christian worship looks like.

While this is clearly welcomed by some, like the person in the piece that talked about using rock and contemporary music in worship like preaching in the language of the audience, it is not universally accepted. For another perspective check out Jeff Gissing blog post “Why Contemporary Worship Is Not The Answer.” For an even more critical and extensive analysis there is always T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns.

Model versus Brand

On Monday morning I heard a short radio report on shopping for televisions, brand loyalty and shopping for the model. In his Money 101 segment Bob McCormick talked about how consumers have lost brand loyalty, in part because the brand name is now who sells it not who makes it. Instead consumers look for the model that has the features that they want.

Well, the application to the church, and worship in particular, should be pretty obvious. And it is not just that brand loyalty to denominations has all but disappeared but that church shoppers – yes that is a phrase in our lexicon now – mostly care only about the individual church and mostly its form of worship.

This came up recently in a discussion with a teaching elder who had recently received a call. He had potential connections to ECO and the discussion got around to his interest in the PC(USA). Well, as he talked about it his response struck me as being more about the church that had extended the call and not as much about the PC(USA) itself.

But let’s take this one step further to the idea that the name on the front is not necessarily who made it. You could walk into different Presbyterian churches on a Sunday morning (or Saturday evening) and except for the name on the building not distinguish them as being uniquely Presbyterian. You could probably find a Baptist, Methodist and maybe an Episcopal worship service and not distinguish them from the Presbyterian service. To use one example, do we have “Presbyterian” on the label and “made by North Point” in the fine print. While there is not necessarily anything wrong with this we must realize that this would be a factor in the decline of mainline denominations.

But let me also refer to one other aspect of the modern culture and the lack of brand loyalty. In a 2011 Ernst and Young Survey one of the five important points they found was:

From mass broadcasts to self-selection: consumer communication gets personal

As part of a clear preference toward personalized communication and
service, the survey shows trust has moved from traditional mass channels to
closer “community” vehicles, such as social media and other digital channels.
This move is taking the power of the owned and paid-for channel out of
the hands of brands — and the reach of traditional marketing — and making
bloggers society’s new spokespeople. This trend offers huge opportunities
for organizations that can harness digital consumers to their advantage:
nothing less than a massive new marketing department, that’s not even on
the payroll.

This has a number of implications for the church including the idea that there is nothing that gets people to church better than a personal invitation from someone they trust. There are a number of interesting points to this survey but one of the other applicable ones involves, well, involvement:

These new empowered customers, the survey shows, want to have a greater say in how they experience service. They want products and services to be designed, sold, delivered, serviced and purchased in a way that suits them. They want to be active co-creators, not passive consumers.

The implications for worship and our community life are left as an exercise for the reader.

Interview with Rosaria Butterfield

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled onto a YouTube video of a one-hour interview with Rosaria Butterfield at Patrick Henry College conducted by Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World Magazine.  Mrs. Butterfield was an English professor at Syracuse University who, through extended contact with the members and pastor of a local Reformed Presbyterian Church, moved from a homosexual lifestyle to a heterosexual lifestyle. She has written about this journey in her book The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert and the interview covers much of this ground. (And there are Presbyterians throughout her story.)

Whatever you may think of her journey you can consider the interview a case study in a church drawing someone into the Body of Christ through unconditional love and acceptance of who they are. I found her description of the interaction of her and the church very interesting. For instance, at one point (at 0:33:07 in the video) she talks about her expeience saying:

But I had some really burning questions for people so I would go up to my, you know, homeschool mom friends and I would say “Look, I had to give up the girlfriend what did you have to give up to be here? And I want to hear it. And don’t tell me it was your math curriculum, OK…. I’ll pour my coffee on you – I am really not wanting to hear that.” And I heard some amazing things. And it made me realize that I did not have any more to give up than anybody else.

(Please note that these are my transcriptions of the video so I
apologize for any errors and they are excerpts from much longer answers
to interview questions.)

A minute later in the video she finishes up her comment with this:

I learned that there are other people in my church who struggled with sexual sin. I learned that there are other people in my church who struggled with lust, who struggled with faithlessness. Who, um… and they told me that. They took a risk of no longer looking all cleaned up to me to tell me that. And that was very helpful and so I think a good thing to think about as a Christian is to think about “What did you have to give up to be here?” How would you answer that honestly to someone?

Just before this (0:29:44) she talks about the members of the church and how they had been praying for her:

At first it was hard for them to pray for me because – of course these are now my friends – and then they shared with me that… that it’s easier to simply be disgusted by a person like me than pray for me. Right, because I came to church but then I also brought friends to church. I brought Jay [ a transsexual woman and former Presbyterian minister] to church. And we are an acapella Psalm singing church and Jay has probably one of the best bass voices there.

So, that’s an issue. Right, I mean come on, its OK, it is, it’s an issue. I had a deacon in the church tell me if he had known how, how difficult all this would be he might not have been praying so faithfully.

I could quote numerous other parts of this interview that have interesting points regarding reaching out to the broken and different in the name of Christ. But I recommend it as a good insight from someone who found the Gospel as to what people did to help her on that journey and what the process required of her and the people in the church. (And note that there may be a connection to Jeff Gissing’s piece I mentioned in the first section.)

So, there are a few thoughts on some news reports, mainstream and secular, that caught my attention and had me connecting the dots that last couple of weeks. As always, your mileage may vary.