Category Archives: PC(USA)

Follow-up To The Oakfield Sale — The Going Price Of An Historic Church Building In Upstate NY

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Just a very quick note as a follow-up to my previous post “An Interesting Tale of Stewardship, Property, and the PC(USA) Trust Clause.”

In that post I described the sale of an historic church building at auction back to a new congregation made up of many members of the old congregation, First Presbyterian Church of Oakfield, NY.  In that sale Genesee Valley Presbytery got $50,000 which seems to about cover their legal fees in this whole incident.  The various reports placed the value of the building at greater than $200,000, and probably closer to $400,000.  An anomaly?

It turns out it is not.  VitureOnline reported yesterday, and I don’t think it is a hoax appropriate to the day, that a vacant historic church building in Binghamton, NY, acquired by the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York through trust clause litigation when the congregation that was there departed the Episcopal Church for the Anglican Communion in North America, was sold back in February to the local Islamic Awareness Center for $50,000.  Again, the assessed value of the property was $386,400.  The Diocese saw about the same return on the property as the Presbytery — cash payment of roughly 1/8th the value and no longer having to worry about and care for a vacant building.

For reference, sale of church property below assessment is not unusual.  The Episcopal Diocese of Rochester in June 2007 sold off the All Saints church building, now assessed on the tax rolls at just over a million dollars, for $475,000.  So that sale was at roughly half the value of the property.

So, $50,000 seems to be the going rate for a $350,000 – $400,000 valued unoccupied church building in Central/Western New York.  The macro-economic supply and demand implications are left as an exercise for the reader.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — A Survey Of The Landscape

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Over the last few days I have become refocused on the upcoming General Assemblies and trying to map out my strategy for blogging in advance of each one.  Needless to say, if I am going to blog about every overture submitted to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) it will take some time.  Or maybe not…

At the present time there are 102 overtures, two committee reports, and 52 recommendations from standing committees of GA entities.  But of those 102 overtures, well over half fall into six predictable categories.  Here is the landscape we are looking at:

Ordination Standards:  It should be no surprise to anyone following the PC(USA) these days that the hottest topic for this GA, as measured by the number of overtures, is ordination standards.  There are seventeen overtures that directly address G-6.0106b or other sections of the Book of Order that deal with ordination standards.  In addition, there are a few more that address the way that the General Assembly does it’s business that could influence the ordination standards status as well.  And there is one, Overture 56, that proposes to change the Book of Order to require future changes to the Book of Order to have the concurrence of two-thirds of the presbyteries making it significantly harder to change the Constitution.  (For reference, there are other Presbyterian branches, such as the PCA, which do require a 2/3 vote.)

Marriage:  Second in the number of related overtures is the topic of Marriage.  Not counting the report of the Special Committee on Civil Unions and Christian Marriage and the minority report, which have not appeared on PC-Biz yet, there are eleven overtures asking for Book of Order changes or Interpretations related to this.

General Assembly operations and procedures:  This is the most “jello” category, a little hard to nail down, but I count about 15 overtures that address how the General Assembly does it’s business.  While a few ask for constitutional changes, like Overture 54 to reduce the number of commissioners that I mentioned yesterday, most are changes to the Standing Rules.  This assortment of overtures deals with who can speak, who can vote, what and when business can be transacted.  There are some interesting and attractive items in here, like Overture 38 to give priority to controversial items or Overture 74 which would have the standing rules require committee reports and votes on business items to all be placed ahead of dinner before commissioners get too tired.

But what is interesting about this category is that there are several additional items in the recommendations category.  One of these is Recommendation 38 from the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly which would add the requirement that when the Moderator is empowered to appoint a task force or special committee the Moderator consults with the Nominating Committee.  (Maybe Bruce was a bit too free wheeling and independent in his appointments and they don’t want that to happen again.  We just want to make sure it is done decently and in order.)

New Form of Government (nFOG): The three remaining categories are all close but this weighs in at number four with seven overtures.  Some try to perfect it while two, Overtures 44 and 95, ask for more time to consider it and one, Overture 98, wants to dismiss the task force and ask the presbyteries to roll back all the resent changes including the undoing of the Chapter 14 change made a couple of years ago.  And then Overture 95 invites more suggested changes from the church on the nFOG.  We could take one step beyond their suggestion, post it on a Wiki, and let the whole church work away at it for two years.  (And no, I am not being sarcastic but am seriously considering if it would be a worthwhile exercise.)  Overture 53 seems to say that the nFOG is only a starting point and after we approve it further revisions are still necessary to make it a manual of operations.

Middle East:  Again, this category is tied to both an ongoing discussion in the church and a just released task force report that is not on PC-Biz yet.  This is the area that seems to be receiving the most outside publicity and criticism from Jewish groups and the mainstream media.  There are six overtures in this area, most of which do not directly address the report since the report was so recently released.  In addition, there are three recommendations from GA permanent committees on this topic.

Middle Governing Bodies: Finally, there are five overtures and one recommendation to study or change the middle governing body structure.  These include two overtures to increase flexibility, one in presbytery membership (45) and one in synod membership (36), and the rest to decide if we need to cut some of them back.

Finally, across all the categories there are two overtures and four recommendations that request a task force, special commission, and even an Administrative Commission to get something done.  I am still trying to decide if the fact that twice as many of these recommendations come from the permanent committees means something significant, positive or negative, about the way the PC(USA) does business.

Those six categories cover 61 of the 102 overtures posted on PC-Biz.  So the landscape is dominated by these controversial issues.  But in between we find some interesting individual items.  There is Overture 12 “On designating May 1 every year as a Day of Prayer for Healing.”  (Interesting idea although I would have liked to hear the rational for that particular date since there are other things on May 1 as well.)  And Overture 48 which would add language about the Covenant Community to the section on membership.

At this point we are well past the 120 day deadline so no more overtures proposing changes to the Book of Order would be expected.  But there is plenty of time for other overtures before the 60 day (those with financial implications) and 45 day (all others) deadlines so the number should continue to grow.  At this point before the 218th GA there were only 75 overtures posted so we are well ahead of that pace this year and we can probably expect more than the 128 overtures there were for that meeting.  We shall see where it finally ends up.

Meetings Of A Presbyterian General Assembly — How Often?

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How often should a Presbyterian General Assembly or General Synod meet?  For a couple of centuries now the answer has generally been annually, but in recent times that pattern has been up for discussion.  It is interesting to note that in the list of Moderators of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on Wikipedia in the early years there are multiple Moderators listed in a given year indicating not just multiple meetings, but multiple Assemblies per year.

The importance of the “how often” question is raised again today as the highlights of the meeting of the Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church in Canada are released.  The Assembly action on an overture to the 133rd General Assembly (2007) asked the Council to consider biennial Assemblies and the Assembly created a task group to study the issue and consult with the other governing bodies.  The Council considered the report which included the responses to a model for biennial Assemblies that was sent to the church for comment.  In general, the church was narrowly in favor of biennial Assemblies with sessions favoring it 54 to 37, presbyteries opposed 11 to 13, and synods and committees were each 2 to 1 in favor.  But it is most interesting to see the commentary on this voting:

It was noted, for example, that there appeared to be a regional divide where courts in Quebec and the Maritimes were overwhelmingly opposed while support strengthened to west. It was also noted that those courts supporting the notion tended to not include reasons for their support while those opposed offered lengthy explanations for their decision.

The report recommended moving to biennial Assemblies but a motion to move that direction in principle failed in the Council vote.  The report tells us  “A new motion recommending that General Assembly ‘affirm the practice of annual assemblies’ was proposed and approved.”

So while the recommendation in response to this overture has been made, as the comment in the Minutes of the 133rd GA (p. 214) tells us, this matter has been before the church “many times in the past.”  As would be expected, the overture itself (p. 519-520) appeals to the time, effort and finances expended on annual Assemblies and the best use of those resources.

(A side note on a topic that I will be considering further in the future:  It is interesting to see that this matter was sent to the lower governing bodies for an advisory vote.  From what I have seen this is a practice that the PCC seems to do on a fairly regular basis but is much rarer in other Presbyterian branches.  One other place in the PCC history that this formal advisory vote is seen is in the early 20th century as the Presbyterians were considering their place in the Union movement and the presbyteries and sessions were consulted on multiple occasions about uniting with other Christian bodies.  In light of this, I find an overture to this year’s  General Assembly of the PC(USA) to require the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy to send proposed statements out to the presbyteries for “study, discussion, and comment” prior to the report to the General Assembly to be in a very similar spirit.)

There is another overture to a General Assembly to consider biennial Assemblies.  This one is to the 38th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America.  Overture 6, from Evangel Presbytery, asks the Assembly “to direct the Administrative Committee to conduct a study for the feasibility of conducting General Assemblies on a bi-annual basis.”

The Whereases do include the usual argument about the amount of time and financial resources it takes to make the Assemblies happen, but that is not the primary argument in this overture.  The principle argument is that with modern communications the Assembly no longer serves the purpose of getting reports out to the Assembly commissioners to take back to the lower governing bodies.  In that task the Assembly is now irrelevant.  But the overture goes on to say that efficient electronic communications has another impact:

Whereas, denominational issues that once were debated on the floor of GA are now resolved and presented in a refined and reasoned manner causing the floor process to lose much energy and interest with commissioners spending considerable time away from the meeting to visit the exhibitions during the presentations of Committees and Agencies; and

Whereas, in addition to declining interest in the conduct of business, travel and lodging expenses have affected GA and attendance during the last five years has declined annually while the ratio of Teaching Elders in attendance has increased and the number of Ruling Elders has declined;

Interesting rational — On the one hand very true but on the other hand this cuts right to the very essence of Presbyterianism.

Functionally, Presbyterian and Reformed polity is distinctive in two regards — joint rule of teaching elders and ruling elders and connectionalism of governing bodies.  This overture essentially says that modern electronic communication is at least changing, if not eroding, the way that both of these principles operate.  It has moved the governing of the church from face-to-face interaction to virtual interaction, reducing the importance of the meetings for the joint deliberations of elders in decision making and eliminating the need for meetings to facilitate the connectional flow of information.

The overture does request regional meetings in years that the Assembly does not meet that would involve…

…contiguous presbyteries to cooperate on an alternate years to join two or three day meetings that can be conducted in churches and smaller venues where travel and lodging are less expensive. During such regional meetings Committees and Agencies can participate with reports and ministries can present displays if so requested and approved by the Administrative Committee.

It will be interesting to see where this goes and the discussion it begins.

Finally, there are a couple of items related to biennial Assemblies coming to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  The first is the fact that when biennial Assemblies were instituted it was specified that after this year’s Assembly meeting there would be a review of this practice.  The Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy has sent an overture (Overture 49) that would expand the review of the GA from not just the timing but to include…

…considering the form and function of our General Assembly meetings by expanding the action of the 214th General Assembly (2002)… instructing this study committee to consider the whole of the General Assembly meeting in its form and function.

This review is to include, but is not limited to, matters of financial stewardship, the use of alternative forms of discernment, the number of commissioners and advisory delegates as well as the role of advisory delegates, the schedule for moderatorial elections, the environmental impact of assemblies, the frequency of meetings, and models for governance for future generations.

Got all that?  The request is for a complete review, to put anything and everything about how General Assemblies operate on the table.

Another approach is taken by Overture 9 from Presbytery of Foothills.  I discussed this in more detail a while back, but this overture essentially states that the way the PC(USA) does business in the GA hinders our connectionalism and to promote our connectional nature the church should hold a General Convocation “for the purposes of worship, mission celebration, and building up relationships within the Body of Christ” for five years.  In the sixth year the General Assembly would meet to do business.

And in a final related overture, the Presbytery of San Diego notes that one reason for going to biennial Assemblies was to save money, but in changing the meeting pattern the number of commissioners to the Assembly was roughly doubled, not really saving that much money.  They have sent Overture 54 to the 219th General Assembly asking for a change to the Book of Order to restore the number of commissioners to their previous levels.

We are all well aware that in this age of Web 2.0 the technology and pressure is present to make face-to-face meetings unnecessary.  As we balance the use of technology and the stewardship of resources with the questions of how often and in what ways to meet, we also need to be mindful of the implications for our understanding of call, connectionalism, and discerning together in the Covenant Community brought together with Jesus Christ as its Head.

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.

An Interesting Tale Of Stewardship, Property, And The PC(USA) Trust Clause

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A news item on Friday caught my attention and got me thinking.  This is a brief recounting and reflection on that news item.

The news, from the DailyNewsonline.com, is that Oakfield Community Bible Church (OCBC), a congregation that can be traced back to the First Presbyterian Church, Oakfield, NY, of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), purchased back its property from Genesee Valley Presbytery at public auction for $50,000.  This property contains both the 11,740 sq. ft. church structure and the manse.

This history is, with a twist or two, simple and predictable: First Presbyterian wanted to leave PC(USA) over doctrinal differences, the Presbytery would not let them just take the property with them, after a brief attempt at negotiations the congregation filed a lawsuit for the property, and at trial the property was awarded to the Presbytery under the trust clause.  Apparently the Presbytery decided not to continue using the property themselves and so auctioned it off.  The successor church, now the OCBC was the successful bidder for $50,000.  (There was a bit of bidding drama, check out the news story for more details.)

The one twist in here is that upon separating from the PC(USA) the congregation of First Pres. became the Oakfield Independent Presbyterian Church (OIPC) and a bit later the church split and the majority of the congregation followed the pastor to form OCBC. So, while no longer Presbyterian, OCBC in its membership represents the successor to First Pres.  The remaining members of OIPC decided it was not worth appealing the trial court’s ruling. (Layman article)

So what questions does this raise?

First, for $50,000 did the Presbytery get anywhere near what they should have for the property?  In scanning articles I have not seen the figures for what each side was talking in the brief negotiations.  However, an article in The
Layman a week ago values the property at $398,000 and a comment in the minutes of a special meeting of Presbytery says “No appraisal has been done, but the worth may be greater than $200,000. The property is a valuable asset in the middle of the village.”  The property
does not appear on the town’s 2005
tax rolls, but a residential property very close by had an assessed
valuation of $83,000.  Even if the number in the Layman is a bit high
and we consider the minimum number the Presbytery listed, clearly the selling price at auction was no more than 25% of the
property’s value.  It appears that other bidders at the auction were
only interested in the manse and were willing to bid $45,000-55,000 for
the whole property to get the house.

So, on the one hand the Presbytery appears happy to get the empty building off their hands so they don’t have to put money into maintaining a vacant property.  In a depressed real estate market in a small western New York town they were able to unload a unique parcel of property.  (And I am well aware of the current challenges related to selling a unique parcel.  As chair of the trustees of the Synod right now I have a couple of “interesting” properties that we would like to find buyers for, especially if the offer reflects the value of the property.  One city has offered us naming rights if we donate the property to them for a park.)

But on the other hand, we have to ask the question whether with some patience and work the Presbytery could have gotten more value out of the property.  Yes, it probably would have required carrying it on the books longer and if not used for religious purposes carries the risk of losing tax exempt status.  And I am sure that the Presbytery considered this.  In addition, in defending the litigation they incurred expenses, some of which may have been offset by higher governing bodies or insurance.

On the other side of the equation the congregation is now back in the facility they were using before for what is probably a good deal.  It has been vacant for a while and that carries concerns about the condition but basic upkeep seems to have been preformed.  The flip side of this is that the church has been unsettled with some uncertainty and other arrangements for a couple of years.  And in the auction process they did not have assurance that they would be the successful bidders.

So is this a win-win situation, at least as far as the property is concerned today?  Presbytery gets vacant property off their hands, church gets to use their old facility again for a price that is 25% of the property value.

One does have to wonder if the Presbytery could have gotten more of the value out of the property.  One also has to wonder if a negotiated settlement right at the very beginning may have gotten everyone a reasonable outcome without the expense, frustration and polarization of litigation.

I don’t know what the best answer is here but these are questions that come to mind as I read about the outcome of this property auction.

Indiana Court Awards Property To Particular Church And Not PC(USA) Presbytery And Synod

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This past week Judge Carl Heldt of the Vanderburgh Circuit Court, Indiana, issued his ruling in the case of Presbytery of Ohio Valley and Synod of Lincoln Trails, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) v. Olivet Presbyterian Church.  This lawsuit was regarding the Olivet property which the higher governing bodies argued Olivet could not take with it as it disaffiliated from the PC(USA) and realigned with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  The court ruled that after examining all the incorporation and real estate documents there was no evidence of a higher governing body ever having a legal interest in the property and so the congregation held clear title to it.  Along with this the court ruled that under “neutral principles” the PC(USA) can not have an “implied trust” on the property since the ownership of the property is to be judged only by the documents applicable under civil law and not the Book of Order or other documents related to ecclesiastical law.

Thanks to The Layman you can read a scanned copy of the court decision.  There is also reaction from The Layman.

Now, I would not normally devote so much time to reading and analyzing a trial court decision — I expect this decision to be appealed and I would rather devote the time to looking at the legal reasoning after it has had “peer review.”  However, two things caught my attention in this decision…

First, after following the California Episcopal Churches case very closely a couple of years ago I found it interesting how essentially the same arguments played differently in the two courts.  Now I do realize that the California cases hinged on a point of California corporate law that permits hierarchical churches to place an implied trust on property, and that getting to the California Supreme Court different lower courts and trial courts ruled in opposite ways on the issue.

But in this case the judge goes to great lengths to set the foundation for his ruling based on neutral principles.  The decision is 29 pages long of which the Finding of Fact is roughly half at 13 pages.  The Conclusions of Law takes up almost 14 pages (the balance is the preferatory material and the judgment order) and of those pages five and a half are a detailed analysis of case law and precedent, both in Indiana State Courts and U.S. Federal Courts, to set the foundation for his decision based on neutral principles.  The bottom line here is that if the larger church has no presence in the civil documents (incorporation and real estate) the ecclesiastical documents are irrelevant.  This decision quotes a U.S. Appeals court decision (Merryman v. Price, 1971) that relied on a U.S. Supreme Court Decision (PCUS v. Blue Hull, 1969) where it says:

It is clear that the civil courts can not rely upon ecclesiastical law of the church to impose an implied trust upon real estate.

and, regarding neutral principles, goes on to say:

This approach has the advantage of almost never involving a civil court with the vexing problem of whether preferred evidence is admissible under the First Amendment.  Further adjudicating church property disputes by relying on formal title will ensure an almost evenhanded administration of justice since the necessary evidence will almost always be admissible.  The formal title approach will seldom involve a civil court in deciding what the polity of a given church is, a determination which will almost inevitably involve ecclesiastical considerations.  One final advantage inherent in this approach is that it invites and encourages religious organizations to title their property as clearly and unambiguously as possible.

I would add that in considering the formal title to the property this congregation has taken a slightly different path than many to their current affiliation.  As the facts of the case detail, this was a mission plant of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1891 but became part of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in the partial merger of 1906.  It has now realigned from the PC(USA) to the EPC.

The second thing that caught my attention was the court’s attention to the polity of the PC(USA) as expressed in the Book of Order.  Or maybe it is better to say the conflicts in the polity that make sorting out ecclesiastical disputes in civil courts difficult.

In point 8 of the Findings of Fact the decision says “Even the PC(USA) Constitution and Book of Order permits and acknowledges the possibility of movement away from its denomination.”

In point 18 of the Findings of Fact, “[T]here are no specific set of By-laws prescribed by the Book of Order or other authority of Plaintiffs.” (And I would add that the flexibility of nFOG will enhance this point.)

Point 20 presents the PC(USA) argument that as a congregation of the PC(USA) they recognize church governance while they voluntarily chose to be affiliated with the denomination.  The church counters with the facts above, that there is provision for disaffiliating and that there is no set By-laws.

In the Conclusions of Law the court writes in point 7 “The Book of Order is cited by both parties and contains contradictory terms as it relates to property disputes.”  It then goes on to cite G-9.0102 about church courts having only ecclesiastical jurisdiction and not civil authority.

And point 20 notes the discrepancy between the PC(USA) argument that this is a “dissolution” of the congregation while at the same time a paragraph in the stipulated facts that both parties are in agreement on states that “The Olivet congregation has consistently made it clear its intention to continue it affiliation and worship under the EPC…” and never expressed plans or interest in abandoning its property.

But the major piece of analysis of PC(USA) polity is point 19 which covers more than one page double-spaced (I figure my interested readers can figure out the Book of Order references so I have edited those for length):

19. Both parties cite various portions of the PC(USA) Book of Order in support of their respective positions.

Plaintiffs’ case significantly relies upon G-8.0201, added to the Book of Order in 1981, which states:

All property…is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Plaintiffs rely heavily on this and other provisions of Chapter 8 in the Book of Order in asserting its trust interests.

The Olivet Defendants reply asserting the Book of Order is an ecclesiastical document which by its very terms is not supposed to have civil law jurisdiction citing G-9.0102 stating:

Governing bodies of the church are distinct from the government of the state…

Both parties assert many other provisions of the Book of Order all of which are part of the record. Olivet also cites the Affidavits Alex Merwin and William Rasch.  Irrespective of the affidavits, the court concludes that wading into various provisions of the Book of Order which may or may not be conflicting requires this Court to determine ecclesiastical questions in the process of resolving property disputes which is prohibited by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. [cite removed] Plaintiffs ask this court to hold that pursuant to
G-8.0201, the Olivet property is held in trust for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and yet Defendants assert that G-8.0201 is not a settlor’s declaration but an assertion by an entity that does not hold title to any of the property at issue in the instant case and which never held property at issue in the present case.  Plaintiffs assert the actions of its Presbytery consisting of voting members of various churches must be upheld while Defendants cite Chapter G-9.0102, stating governing bodies of the church (i.e., a Presbytery) have only ecclesiastical jurisdiction.  As further example, G-1.0307 of the Book of Order states: “That all church power, whether exercised by the body in general or in the way of representation by delegated authority is only ministerial and declarative…”  At G-1.0308 it states “Any ecclesiastical discipline must be purely moral or spiritual in its object and not intended with any civil effects…”  This conflict and the other potentially conflicting provisions in the Book of Order appear to this Court to force an evaluation or determination or ecclesiastical questions or interpretations in the process of resolving this property dispute.  This Court declines to do so, based upon the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Indiana State Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court precedent and state court precedent.  “Civil courts will be bound to give effect to the result indicated by the parties, provided it is embodied in some legally cognizable form.” Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 606 (1979)

In other words: The Court leaves the sorting out of the Book of Order to church judicatories and polity wonks — it is not their business.  (I wonder if the nFOG would help or hurt the case?)

As I stated before, this could have a long way to go through the appeal process.  And it is clear that state law and precedent have significant implications in all of these property cases.  While there is some hope that one day the U.S. Supreme Court will take one of these cases and use it to set clear legal tests for when neutral principles versus church government theories apply, so far this term the high court has declined to hear two cases that have asked for a hearing so this situation still relies on state law and so varies between the states.

We will see where this particular case may lead us.

Seminaries Supporting The PC(USA) – How Are They Represented In The Congregations

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Yesterday I finished up a look at the numbers of students that attend seminaries associated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and noted that in the wider universe of seminaries there is one that actually has more Presbyterian students than any of the PC(USA) seminaries.

This is an interesting situation that has sometimes led to questions about a student’s preparation for ministry, perspectives on theology, and in some cases their loyalty to the denomination.  I could tell you stories but that is for another time.  The topic for today is how this statistical profile from the seminaries gets reflected in the congregations.

I now return to the Presbyterian Panel and their 2009-2011 Panel Profile. Actually, I am going to look at the last five panel profiles.

One of the questions the Teaching Elders on the Panel (Research Services calls them clergy) are asked is:

From what school and in what year did you receive your M.Div. or B.D. degree?

Before breaking this down by school consider the groupings of PC(USA) seminaries versus non-PC(USA).

   Panel Profile
1997-1999
 		  Panel Profile
2000-2002
 		  Panel Profile
2003-2005
 		  Panel Profile
2006-2008
 		  Panel Profile
2009-2011
 
 Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.
 PC(USA) seminary  69%  66%  70%  68%  68%  65%  69%  70%  66%  65%
 non-PC(USA) seminary  31%  34%  30%  32%  32%  35%  31%  30%  34%  35%

Let me also remind you that the margin of error is +4% and “Spec.” is short for “Specialized Clergy” which are active Teaching Elders serving in a ministry other than in a congregation.

Looking at this table we can say (1) that the percentages of specialized clergy and the percentages of pastors from PC(USA) schools are statistically the same for each panel, and (2) that over the five panels there is no statistically significant variation with time although there might be a suggestion in the most recent panel that more pastors are coming from non-PC(USA) schools.

Now, let’s break it down by the individually seminaries:

   Panel Profile
1997-1999
 		  Panel Profile
2000-2002
 		  Panel Profile
2003-2005
 		  Panel Profile
2006-2008
 		  Panel Profile
2009-2011
 
 Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.
 Austin  4%  3%  5%  4%  4%  4%  5%  4%  6%  3%
 Columbia  8%  8%  10%  8%  9%  5%  8%  8%  10%  7%
 Dubuque  4%  3%  3%  2%  4%  3%  3%  3%  2%  2%
 JCS/ITC  1%  1%  1%  0%  NR  NR  *  1%  1%  1%
 Louisville  8%  6%  7%  6%  8%  8%  8%  7%  7%  7%
 McCormick  5%  8%  5%  7%  6%  7%  5%  6%  4%  5%
 Pittsburgh  7%  7%  6%  10%  6%  6%  8%  5%  5%  5%
 Princeton  18%  17%  19%  17%  16%  18%  19%  20%  20%  20%
 San Fran.  6%  6%  5%  6%  6%  9%  5%  10%  4%  9%
 Union (VA)  8%  7%  9%  8%  9%  5%  8%  6%  7%  5%
 Evangelical  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  *

 *  *  *
 Fuller  7%  5%  9%  4%  7%  6%  10%  6%  9%  5%
 Gordon Conwell  4%  1%  3%  3%  5%  3%  4%  3%  4%  3%
 Union-Auburn  2%  5%  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR
 Yale  1%  4%  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR
 Other  17%  19%  19%  26%  20%  25%  16%  21%  20%  26%

Notes: 1) Evangelical is Evangelical in Puerto Rico, (2) JCS/ITC is Johnson C. Smith at the Interdenominational Theological Center, (3) NR is not reported on that panel so is included in “Other”, (4) * is less than 0.5% and is rounded to zero, (5) the PC(USA) seminaries are the first ten listed.

Looking at this table for trends what we can say is that statistically speaking each of the seminaries shows constant representation in the workforce over these twelve years.  There is the suggestion of a decrease in McCormick and maybe also Dubuque and Pittsburgh, and the slight suggestion of an increase in Princeton, Fuller and Other.  Again, while never present in statistically significant amounts, it is interesting to note that it is more likely for graduates of McCormick, San Francisco and Other  to be in the Specialized Clergy, while grads of Union (VA), Fuller, and maybe Austin, Columbia and Gordon Conwell are more likely to be Pastors.

What really surprised me about these tables, and the prime motivator for my quest for numbers yesterday, is the paradox that if Fuller has more Presbyterian students than any other school, why does it always have only half as many Teaching Elders in the workforce than Princeton grads?  One possibility is that while Princeton and Fuller consolidate all their Presbyterian students into the general category Presbyterian, there may be signifigantly different representation from the PC(USA).  It may be that Princeton has more PC(USA) students while Fuller’s Presbyterian students include more from Korean churches.  But I also have to wonder if fewer Fuller students from the PC(USA) enter the workforce as Teaching Elders in the PC(USA).  Do they go to other denominations?  Do they go into the workforce in non-ordained congregational or parachurch ministry?  Is the high number of Fuller students, while pretty constant across these reports, still a more recent development and its impact will be seen in the future?  More numbers and analysis are needed.

OK, next question: How does the pastoral workforce from PC(USA) schools correspond to their enrollment size as reported by the PC(USA)?

   Panel Profile
2009-2011
 		  Panel Profile
Normalized to
PC(USA)
schools
 		  PC(USA)
reported
enrollment
(number)
 		  PC(USA)
reported
enrollment
(percent
of total)
 
 Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.    
 Austin  6%  3%  9%  5%  273  8%
 Columbia  10%  7%  15%  11%  428  13%
 Dubuque  2%  2%  3%  3%  177  5%
 JCS/ITC  1%  1%  2%  2%  21  0.6%
 Louisville  7%  7%  11%  11%  217  6%
 McCormick  4%  5%  6%  8%  340  10%
 Pittsburgh  5%  6%  8%  9%  370  11%
 Princeton  20%  20%  30%  31%  703  21%
 San Fran.  4%  9%  6%  14%  459  14%
 Union (VA)  7%  5%  11%  8%  365  11%


Notes: (1) Due to rounding totals may not add up to exactly 100%.

There is clearly a considerable risk in comparing the numbers from the Panel with the total enrollment in the seminaries.  That is why I went on the unsuccessful quest I wrote about yesterday — to get more specific numbers.  In doing this comparison I assume that each seminary has the same proportions of M.Div. students and the same proportions of PC(USA) students in their total enrollment.  The indication from this table is that this assumption holds pretty well.  Within the confidence limits all that we can conclusively say is that there are more Princeton grads out in congregations than their proportional enrollment would predict.  There is the suggestion that Louisville is also over-represented and that Dubuque, McCormick and Pittsburgh are under-represented.

For comparison purposes, based on these numbers there are 3353 students at PC(USA) seminaries.  The PC(USA) statistical summary for 2008 lists 1164 candidates.  While it is a bit of a rough calculation, candidacy is usually the last of the three years at seminary, suggesting at least 3492 PC(USA) seminary students.  (On the one hand, since the care process is one of exploration of call we would expect candidates, the last stage, to be fewer than the other years so the number may represent a lower limit.  On the other hand, since
an individual would remain a candidate after graduation until they find a call the number might be pulled up by that.  I wonder how much those two effects balance out?)  Anyway, if 2/3 of students are at PC(USA) seminaries, that would give us a rough figure of 2328 PC(USA) students in M.Div. programs at PC(USA) seminaries or 69% of the total enrollment.  Seems a bit high from the numbers I wrote about yesterday so the pool of candidates may include a greater number seeking a call.

Finally, are there any trends seen in the year of graduation?

   Panel Profile
1997-1999
 		  Panel Profile
2000-2002
 		  Panel Profile
2003-2005
 		  Panel Profile
2006-2008
 		  Panel Profile
2009-2011
 
 Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.
 Prior to 1960  5%  19%  2%  8%  1%  2%  *  2%    
 1960-1969  20%  25%  16%  25%  11%  18%  6%  13%  3% #  10% #
 1970-1970  25%  23%  24%  26%  24%  28%  23%  24%  20%  23%
 1980-1989  31%  24%  32%  27%  32%  33%  32%  34%  30%  30%
 1990-1999  17%  7%  25%  13%  27%  19%  27%  23%  24%  26%
 2000-2009          4%  1%  11%  4%  22%  10%
 do not have degree  2%  2%  1%  1%  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR

Notes: * – less than 0.5% and rounds to zero; # – number is for prior to 1970; survey is taken at the beginning of the panel time span.

The year grouping make these numbers a bit harder to track but accounting for that it is interesting to see the general distribution of graduation dates track across the panel surveys with little variation.  I don’t think that it is unexpected to see more recent grads in the pastor category and more older grads in the specialized ministry category where experience and flexibility are to be found.  It is interesting that this variation is in the tails of the distribution while in the center of the two distributions the shape is very similar.

So, looking at all of these number it raises the question of why we should care about them.  Reason number one is that they show a significant stability in the pastoral training in the PC(USA).  Yes, these are percentages of the number of graduates in the work force so it does not say anything about absolute numbers or changes in the quality or content of the education they are receiving.  In some respects this stability shows up in the PC(USA) annual membership numbers where the total membership is steadily declining but the number of Teaching Elders show little or no decline.

Another reason for having an interest in this is the question of PC(USA) seminaries versus non-PC(USA) seminaries.  This is the question that led me to have a closer look because I was trying to understand why Fuller did not appear stronger in the number of graduates.  I still don’t have a good answer for that but it is important to note that within the time range covered by these surveys there is no statistically discernable trend in graduates from Fuller, Gordon Conwell, or non-PC(USA) seminaries as a group.  These grads have been with us in fairly stable numbers so if you worry about how non-PC(USA) graduates impact the denomination we can’t say from this what the impact is but we can say that based upon the flat trend the effect should be constant with neither an increasing nor decreasing impact.

Well, I’m sure that is plenty of numbers for one day.  And hopefully in entering these tables I did not put in too many typos.  I’ll give the panel data a rest for a little bit as there is a bunch of other General Assembly related news to be found circulating right now.  And as always, if you see something in here that I missed I’m sure you’ll let me know.

Seminaries Supporting The PC(USA) – Gathering Numbers

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I spent my lunch hour today surfing seminary web sites.  It was enlightening.  A few of the things I learned were…

  • I don’t have the prerequisite background to pursue a D.Min. (no real surprise there)
  • The quality of seminary web sites varies widely
  • The information available on seminary web sites also varies widely – but it depends on what you are looking for and who they target as their primary audience — and it is probably not me.  (I have a hand in these things in my day job so evaluating that part was a bit of a “busman’s holiday.”)
  • Some detailed facts are easier to find on some sites than on other sites

What I actually started out doing was to gather numbers about various seminaries and their degree programs, specifically the total enrollment in their Masters of Divinity Program.  The ability to find these numbers varied widely between the PC(USA) seminaries.

First, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) lists total enrollment numbers for each of the ten PC(USA) seminaries — You can begin on the list page and navigate through to the specific detail page for each seminary.

To have a look at that size number I started visiting the different web sites and found the availability of that data highly variable — and from my search I can’t tell whether it is not present or just that it can not be reasonably found.  High marks for availability goes to Princeton who has their PTS Statistics clearly linked to the navigation bar on the front page.  For detail, you can not beat Louisville Seminary which under their About Us page you can drill down to a VERY detailed Annual Fact Book – a little harder to find but a statistics freak’s dream.  Austin was a shade harder to find but under their Media Relations they have a nice fact sheet.

On the other end of the spectrum it was difficult to find specific numbers for most of the other seminaries.  For Johnson C. Smith that is very understandable — as a 21 student section of ITC having a robust media unit is probably not a top priority.  But McCormick and Pittsburgh?  In both cases it took some doing to find total number of students and there was no breakdown by program.  And at Pittsburgh I actually found two different numbers — 337 versus “approximately 370.”  (And that is not even counting the fact that McCormick still thinks there are eleven Presbyterian Seminaries.) OK, maybe I’m the only one who really cares about these numbers.

What struck me as I was looking at these was that the PC(USA) web site numbers were consistently higher than the specific numbers reported by the seminary itself:

Seminary Seminary
Reported 		PC(USA)
Reported
 Austin  255  273
 Louisville  210  217
 Pittsburgh  337  370
 Princeton  615  703


So, are they counting different things or are they reporting different years and this is normal fluctuation?

I should say that for Union I could piece together total numbers adding the 300 at the Richmond Campus and the 90 at the Charlotte campus, which is actually higher than the 365 listed by the denomination.

For where I am headed with this what I really wanted was the number of students in the Master of Divinity program.  Searching through the web sites I was able to find the following numbers:

 Seminary Number of
M.Div. Students
 Austin  123
 Columbia  180
 Louisville  103
 McCormick  154 (All masters programs)
 Princeton  411


And as I was looking at these numbers where denominational affiliations were reported PC(USA) students seemed to number about 40-50% of both total students and M.Div. students.

Now looking at all these numbers one fact should stick out — Princeton Theological Seminary is the heavy weight in this system.  Just come to one of our presbytery meetings and that will be apparent.

And now we will let the other shoe drop…

For those who have been involved in preparation for ministry or the call process in the PC(USA) you know that ministers and candidates also come from non-PC(USA) schools, but there is one seminary in particular that trains more Presbyterians than all the other schools… Fuller Seminary.

(Before I go any further I need to put full disclosure in here:  While I have no association with Fuller, it is in my presbytery and I know a lot of people who were or are students, faculty or staff at Fuller.)

For those of you who are not familiar with seminaries in the PC(USA), Fuller Seminary is a multidenominational seminary which is often only half-jokingly referred to as “the largest Presbyterian seminary.”  This school, headed by a Presbyterian president, has a reported “Presbyterian Faculty” of  15 (and I know one that is no
t listed), a Presbyterian student body of around 300 (compared to Princeton’s 259), and Presbyterians are the largest denominational group on campus.

Is this important?  It is a good natured but running argument in our presbytery about whether you pastors are trained at Princeton or Fuller (or both).  But throughout the church we need to be aware that, for good or ill, there is an alternative to PC(USA) seminaries.  In addition, it is interesting to see how this is reflected in the denomination’s statistics.

So now that we have had a look at the seminaries, next time we move on to look at how they are represented “in the real world.”

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.

Leadership In Presbyterian Government — Do We Have A Name For That?

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Those of you who track “Presbyterian” on Twitter know that the twitterverse came alive yesterday afternoon with retweets of a message from @Presbyterian that said:

“Clergy” and “laity” are not Presbyterian terminology: http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2010/10108.htm

The URL links back to a Presbyterian News Service article titled “Collegial leadership: Joe Small says clergy and laity are not Presbyterian terminology“

There is much to like in this article and I agree with nearly all of it and I think anyone in any Presbyterian branch would agree as well.  The article is based on a talk that the Rev. Joseph Small, director of the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship,  gave in Minnesota at a Synod of Lakes and Prairies training event to presbyters serving on the Committees on Ministry and Preparation for Ministry.  I can only say that I am sorry we only got the summary and not the full text.

I would first emphasize that he highlights a problem with words that I commented on about a month ago.  In that case the narrative of the latest Presbyterian Panel report identified “elders” as “lay leaders.”  From the sound of Rev. Small’s comments he was clearly not involved in writing that paragraph.  I came at that issue from the point of view of pastors/clergy and elders sharing equally in the governance of the church and ruling elders, in my understanding, do not equate to laity.  In this article the Rev. Small seems to clearly agree, speaking of ordained officers (teaching elders, ruling elders, and deacons) being “genuine colleagues in ministry.”

This article highlights what should be our appropriate use of certain terms.  At this point I should probably confess my regular use of the term “clergy” in my writing.  I’ll keep pondering this to see if I want a style change.  My intent is not to use the term “clergy” in opposition to “lay” but to have a nice short word for that category.  In the PC(USA) the appropriate phrase is usually “Minister of Word and Sacrament” but both for length and variety I try to switch up the terms.  I try to avoid shortening that phrase to  “minister” since, as Rev. Small points out, all officers are involved in ministry and therefore are ministers.  The preferable shorter phrase is “teaching elder,” a phrase I like and use regularly.  And in other Presbyterian branches the initials TE are regularly used and understood for this making a nice shorthand.  Maybe I should use it more — and it comes endorsed by Rev. Small, the article saying that he favors the use of “ruling elder” and “teaching elder.”  Sometimes the logical term, and one that is used in this article, is “pastor.”  In my usage, I try to not use this term unless I am specifically referring to a teaching elder who is working in a congregational setting.  In the PC(USA) this is an important distinction because according to the 2008 breakdown of the “Active Ministers” [sic] of the 13,462 recorded as active I would count 9176 of them as being in a congregational setting leaving almost one-third (31.9%) in other ministries.  With that large a number not doing traditional pastoral work I tend to avoid using the word “pastor” unless I specifically mean someone working in a congregation.  (It also comes with the complexity of having Commissioned Lay Pastors who are not Ministers of Word and Sacrament but still doing pastoral work in congregations.)

So that is the collection of terms that we can use to refer to teaching elders depending on setting and space.  Now that TE Small has brought this to the attention of the PC(USA) I am looking forward to a standardization of usage across the denominational publications.

One additional comment in this article struck me and I would like to comment on it.  At one point in the article there is the line:

[Small] said, deacons are called to “leading the whole church in the ministry of compassion and justice.”

For those following the current discussions about the role of women in deacon ministry in the PCA you know that the discussion going on right this moment is about just that.  Is the role of deacon a ministry of service only or a ministry of leadership in service?  Specifically, can women served as commissioned assistants to the board of deacons?  On the one hand, the Bayly Blog brings us word of a proposed overture from Metro Atlanta Presbytery to the GA that would add the following line to the section on deacons [9-7] in the Book of Church Order:

These assistants to the deacons, selected by means determined by each Session, may be commissioned, but not ordained.

Within the rational section the writers of the overture say:

WHEREAS, the diaconal ministry is that of sympathy and service, not of spiritual and ecclesiastical governance, and any authority that may be attached to the office of deacon is a derivative authority, with plurality of elders serving as the final authority in a local church(BCO 9-1; 9-2; 9-6);

On the other side is an overture from Central Carolina Presbytery that wants to make it clear that “commissioned” deacons and deaconesses are not acceptable under the BCO by adding at the same place the line:

These assistants to the deacons shall not be referred to as deacons or deaconesses, nor are they to be elected by the congregation nor formally commissioned, ordained, or installed as though they were office bearers in the church.

I will consider the overtures to the GA at a later time but in light of this discussion it seems that TE Small’s comments seem to support the role of deacons as one of leadership as well as service.  You can check out the post on the Bayly Blog for their critique of the Metro Atlanta Presbytery proposed overture.  I have not yet seen a discussion of the Central Carolina overture, but if anyone is going to get to it before I have the time it will probably be the great polity wonks over at A Profitable Word.

It is interesting that while we complain about the mainstream media not understanding our system of polity, frequently we are not as clear and consistent ourselves and among ourselves using some of these terms.  Something to keep in mind.