Monthly Archives: June 2009

Greetings On Trinity Sunday

Leave a reply

For those of you who use the liturgical calendar, I wish you a happy Trinity Sunday.

Some of you may have seen “If God text messaged the 10 Commandments.” (h/t Being Presbyterian)

Well, in case you did not see it the Liturgical Comic Strip Agnus Day for Trinity Sunday has the Athanasian Creed down to a tweet:

The Dad, Son & Spirit are God; God is Dad, Son & Spirit; Dad≠Son, Son≠Dad, Dad≠Spirit, Son≠Spirit, Spirit≠Dad, Spirit≠Son. Done.

Yes, less than 140 characters.  Even room for a hashtag.  As the straight man in the strip says to the maverick – “You scare me.”

Have a blessed Lord’s Day.

Communications And Connectionalism — Implications Of A “Real-Time Church”

2 Replies

I am easily distracted…  I intended to spend my lunch hour working on one of my saved drafts but that will have to wait.

In reading through some blogs over my morning coffee (I’m still trying to figure out why the Reformers didn’t make “coffee prayerfully consumed” or something like that the fourth note of the True Church) I came across a very interesting article that got me thinking about a whole host of things, but for my purposes here the “real-time governing body.”

The article is an essay from the Armed Forces Journal by P.W. Singer titled “The Rise of the Tactical General.”  The essay is about robotic warfare and how modern electronic communications brings the battlefield back to the commanders behind the front line.  It touches on the implications of robotic warfare:

But like any major change in war, the robot revolution is not turning
out to be the frictionless triumph of technology that some would
describe it. Unmanned systems are raising all sorts of questions about
not only what is possible but also what is proper in politics, ethics,
law and other fields.

It touches on leadership development:

Even more, we have to ponder the long-term consequences. What happens
when the young officers now being cut out of the chain, or micromanaged
in the midst of battle, advance up the ranks, but without the
experience of making the tough calls?

And there was a quote that really gave me pause that talked about the units controlling UAV’s (unmanned aerial vehicles) in Iraq from here in the States having a higher incidence of combat stress and post-traumatic stress disorder than some units deployed to Iraq.

If you are interested in either of these issues from a religious context you might want to have a look at the full article.  It is a quick read but might start you thinking.

Now, what got my attention, especially after watching GA webcasts and following tweets for the last couple of weeks, was this paragraph:

The ripple effects of robotics on leadership even affect the strategic
level. Many have discussed the idea of “strategic corporals,” younger
and younger troops who are being given greater and greater power and
responsibility. But the rise of robots has created an opposite
phenomenon — a dirty little secret that people in the service are
somewhat afraid to talk about for risk of their own careers. I call it
the rise of the tactical generals. Our technologies are making it easy,
perhaps too easy, for leaders at the highest level of command not only
to peer into, but even to take control of, the lowest-level operations.
One four-star general, for example, talked about how he once spent a
full two hours watching drone footage of an enemy target. He then
personally decided what size bomb to drop on it. Similarly, a special
operations forces captain talked about how a one-star, watching a raid
on a terrorist hideout via a Predator, radioed in to tell him where to
move not merely his unit in the midst of battle, but where to position
an individual soldier.

OK, follow me here through a hyper-space jump back to the church.  Read this line again from the context of the church institution:

Our technologies are making it easy,
perhaps too easy, for leaders at the highest level of command not only
to peer into, but even to take control of, the lowest-level operations.

Now I know that the Church here on earth is sometimes referred to as the Church Militant.  And one denomination has even organized themselves into an “army.”  But even though some would argue that there are those at the “highest level” who are trying to control the lowest-level operations that is not quite my focus today.  Heaven knows that as a synod moderator I only have the power the body gives me to run the meeting.

Instead I ask what are the ways that simply viewing the operations of the church in real-time help and hurt our connectionalism and polity?

There must be something because both the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Church of Scotland turned off their webcast and Twitter updates when they went into judicial session.  (Yes, the primary reason is that judicial proceedings in the UK are not broadcast and the church judicial sessions follow that pattern as well.)

Clearly I am one for real-time observations as I try to catch as many webcasts as my schedule allows, follow the GA’s that have Twitter tweets, have been know to live-blog GA sessions, and have a Google alert for “General Assembly.”  (The Google alert produces mostly political news articles and not Presbyterian ones in case you are wondering.)

What are the benefits of this instantaneous information?  One is that is allows the virtual observers to carry on an educated discussion while the information is still fresh in our minds.  I think that the result is a greater interest in the Assembly and its work.  I also believe that doing it in real time has more people seriously thinking about the issues as they follow the commissioners and in some ways try to think their thoughts.  Getting the information about the Assembly a week or three later would probably result in most reading it and thinking “that is interesting” but not thinking it through as fully and almost certainly not engaging in the online discussion at that time.  And for us bloggers it gives a second set of eyes and helping us get things right when we say one thing on line and someone comes back with “I don’t think so, I understood it this way.”

Another benefit gained from the viewing of the GA is the ability to see the whole meeting.  This allows someone to follow business of interest to them.  Other wise at best they get the news through the filter of another source and at worse may not get any substantial information at all if they are interested in business that would not make it into reporting sources.

So the primary benefit as I think about it is to those outside the body, raising interest and provoking fuller thought about the Assembly business.  And clearly it helps make the process more transparent if anyone can look in on the proceedings.  Let me know if you see other benefits of sharing GA’s over the web.

Is there a downside to the real-time sharing of the Assembly business?

I would argue that if the commissioners to an Assembly are also watching or participating in the real-time virtual discussion it does impinge on a basic premise of Presbyterian polity.  Our governing bodies are deliberative bodies and the members of that body have been chosen by God through the voice of the people to seek together God’s will.  When the body is not in session it seems perfectly appropriate for commissioners to educate themselves on issues from a variety of sources.  But we believe that something special happens when the body gathers as a court of the church and they deliberate together.  It would seem then that, besides the problem of distraction from the discussion, that outside voices would not be appropriate at that time especially if only a few of the commissioners were in on the virtual discussion.  Or from another perspective, the virtual observers are at a disadvantage because they were not able to view the committee meetings for those Assemblies that first break the commissioners up into committees.

And I have not decided if another issue could be a positive as well as a negative, but it is the issue of the “observer effect.”  As a concept in science it considers whether the observation or measurement of something influences that object or field.  In this case, does the observation of a governing body affect the functioning of the body?  Does the fact that you are being webcast as you make a comment at the microphone influence how you make the comment or whether you make the comment?  Does the fact that there are observers and media in the back of the room watching your committee meeting change the dynamic of the functioning of the committee?  As I said, I am a bit undecided on this factor and am still weighing the benefits and drawbacks.

So that is my initial thinking on this.  At the moment I think that the benefits of transparency and real-time interaction outweigh the issues of impairing the functioning of the body.  So as I Twitter this coming week and watch the webcast the next week I’ll keep this in the back of my mind and try to refine my thoughts.  Your mileage may vary.

In The Middle Of General Assembly Season — Hitting Stride

Leave a reply

Well for the first time in a couple of weeks there is no General Assembly of a Presbyterian church going on today.  (If you know of one I have missed pleeeeeeese let me know — this junkie is going through withdraw.   )

Five down:

I’m writing comments on each of these that I hope to have posted in the next few days.  But the break is very brief…

Up next – the 135th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada

Thanks to Colin Carmichael from the Communications Office, most of what you need to know is listed in his blog post this morning.  But I’ll pass it on as well…

In addition, for the last few weeks the weekly PCConnect-TV segment on the web has been building up to the General Assembly.  While focusing more on the churches in the Hamilton area than the issues and workings of GA itself, the series has provided a great insight into some of the things going on in the PCC today.

Having grown up a-ways down the lake shore from Hamilton I though about attending myself, but I’ll drop in on one of their Assemblies another time.

That is all that I am aware of.  I’ll update if I find other things.  And now a couple of additional comments…

For the different sessions of the GA the PCC uses the (I believe Scottish from the Latin) term “sederunt,” meaning “A formal meeting, especially of a judicial or ecclesiastical body.” (from Wiktionary)

I have been impressed with the response to Twitter at GA’s this year.  There are two great examples with very different approaches so far.  For the Church of Scotland GA there was a great Twitter update coming from the Assembly Hall as well as a lively discussion that developed around the #ga2009 hash tag.  For the Presbyterian Church in Ireland GA there was an even more active news update from the Assembly Hall, a very close play-by-play, but I found no sign of a discussion that developed. (For comparison there were 486 official updates for the four-day PCI GA and 231 for the week-long CofS GA.) For the PCC we have the hashtag, now lets see what happens.  One other advantage of the hashtag is that when there is more than one individual posting official updates they can come from different Twitter names.

Finally, a personal and public congratulations to Colin Carmichael, Associate Secretary for Communications for the Presbyterian Church in Canada, who will be following this GA from a distance owing to the recent birth of his twins.  Congratulations to the whole family and I can think of no better reason to miss a GA.  And the Twitter picture of him holding the kids is great.  But he may be on leave from the office but not from the web as you can tell from his blogging today and twitter updates.  God Bless!

Presbyterians Do Things Differently

2 Replies

Love it or hate it Presbyterians are big on committees.  That is how we do things as a Covenant Community.  That is how we hold ourselves accountable.  And it allows the church to discern together God’s will as we listen to each other and are guided by the Holy Spirit.  And the PC(USA) has an open meetings policy.

And you probably know that back in February the Moderator of the General Assembly of the PC(USA) named a Special Committee to study civil unions and Christian marriage.  It met back in March and will meet again in two weeks.

Being on that Special Committee myself I had to laugh when I read this news about the Episcopal Church today:

The House of Bishops Theology Committee is refusing to release the
names of members of a sub-committee it has appointed to study same-sex
relationships. The existence of the panel was first reported in the Blue Book,
which contains information relevant to General Convention, 2009.
However, the Rt. Rev. Henry Parsley of Alabama, chair of the Theology
Committee has refused several requests to disclose the names of its
members.

Thanks to The Lead for this information.  It seems that since it is a sub-committee of the Theology Committee the possible members of the sub-committee are known.  Still, an interesting way to do business.  The LGBT advocacy group Integrity responded, in part, with this:

“If this isn’t the height of absurdity and insult I don’t know what
is,” said the Reverend Susan Russell, President of Integrity USA, the
LGBT advocacy group within the Episcopal Church. “It sends a horrific
message to gay and lesbian people – both inside and outside the church.
The very concept of “secret studies” elicits painful memories of secret
studies done on other minority groups in the past and is utterly
contrary to our baptismal promise to respect the dignity of every human
being. There is absolutely nothing dignified about a secret study of a
group already being discriminated against. It is suspect, disingenuous
and dishonest.”

This has “gone viral” on the Episcopal and Anglican blogs:  The Friends of Jake, Preludium, Telling Secrets, Thinking Anglicans, are ones I have seen so far and I am sure there are many more to come.

I will update as news develops.

Update – 6/4/09:
There has been a response from the chair of the Theology Committee, the Rt. Rev. Henry N. Parsley, Jr. The official statement says, in part:

…I wish to assure those concerned that the panel very intentionally
represents a robust range of views on the subject and includes gay and
lesbian persons.

and

This project has been designed in full communication with the House of
Bishops. It has always been the committee’s intention to publish the
names of the panel when the work has reached the appropriate stage. We
believe that for a season the work can best be accomplished by allowing
the panel to work in confidence. This supports the full collegiality
and academic freedom of the theologians and provides the space they
need for the deep dialogue and reflection that is taking place among
them.

And the church has issued a press release referring to this statement.

The response from within the Episcopal Church continues and outside the Anglican circles a few others, besides myself, who have commented include more media-oriented blogs BibleBeltBlogger, Desert’s Child, and Daily Religious.

Update – 6/6/09
There are now reports that the Episcopal Church web site which previously promised transparency in their operations has removed that claim.  The story from BibleBeltBlogger and a response from Preludium.

And a little humor from The Lead about selecting the members of the secret committee.

75th Anniversary Of The Theological Declaration Of Barmen

Leave a reply

1. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the
Father, but by me.” (Jn 14.6) “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does
not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that
man is a thief and a robber… I am the door; if anyone enters by me,
he will be saved.” (Jn 10.1, 9)

Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in holy scripture, is the one
Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey
in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the church
could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation,
apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and
powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation.

This past weekend marked the 75th anniversary of the meeting of the Free Synod of Barmen that produced the 1934 Theological Declaration of Barmen.  This has to stand as one of the great moments of the Church speaking truth to power in the 20th century.

I have to admit that this anniversary was not really on my mind as I was tracking two simultaneous General Assemblies, the reverberations from one just finished, and the preliminaries to a few more about to start.  But a good friend of mine reminded me of this occasion and over the last 24 hours the Spirit kept nudging me until I realized that I really should comment on this theological statement.

I personally hold the Theological Declaration of Barmen in very high regard both for its words as well as for its context.  There was a great audacity, chutzpah if you will, in these 138 representatives from Lutheran, Reformed and United churches that came together as the Confessing Church.  At their meeting in Barmen from May 29-31, 1934, they produced a statement that clearly, succinctly and forcefully tells the National Socialist government of Germany that the true church belongs to God, and is not an instrument of the state.  There are subtleties that are lost in the Declaration by reading it in English, or probably any language other than the original German.  Note section 4 in the German:

IV. Jesus Christus spricht: Ihr wisst, dass die Herrscher ihre
Völker niederhalten und die Mächtigen ihnen Gewalt antun. So soll es
nicht sein unter euch; sondern wer unter euch groß sein will, der sei
euer Diener. (Mt 20, 25.26)

Die verschiedenen Ämter in der Kirche begründen keine
Herrschaft der einen über die anderen, sondern die Ausübung des der
ganzen Gemeinde anvertrauten und befohlenen Dienstes.

Wir verwerfen die falsche Lehre, als könne und dürfe sich die Kirche
abseits von diesem Dienst besondere, mit Herrschaftsbefugnissen
ausgestattete Führer geben und geben lassen.

The English translation:

4. “You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and
their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among
you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant.” (Mt
20.25,26)

The various offices in the church do not establish a dominion of
some over the others; on the contrary, they are for the exercise of the
ministry entrusted to and enjoined upon the whole congregation.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the church,
apart from this ministry, could and were permitted to give itself, or
allow to be given to it, special leaders vested with ruling powers.

I would call your attention to the fifth word from the end of the German version. What in English is translated “special leaders” is ausgestattete Führer in the original. I understand that there is nothing that of itself that would raise eyebrows in this language. But when the title “leader” or Führer is the title chosen by the head of state, this is a pretty direct confrontation in my opinion.

And standing by this statement was not without consequences.  While Karl Barth was Swiss and left Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed in a prison camp and Martin Niemöller was also imprisoned in concentration camps and narrowly escaped execution himself.  Wikipedia tells us that of the 18,000 Protestant pastors in Germany in 1935, 3000 were strongly adhering to the Confessing Church and of those 700, about one-quarter, were imprisoned at that time.

This is a confessional statement that is very closely tied to its context as much as its content.  It is not a “teaching confession” like the Scots Confession or the Westminster Standards.  And it is not really a snapshot of where the church was at that time like the Confession of 1967 or the Brief Statement of Faith from the PC(USA).  But it’s theological forcefulness at a time of moral crisis has earned it a place in the faith statements of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, the Book of Confessions of the PC(USA), and the Evangelical Church in Germany, among others.

The German Confessing Church and the Theological Declaration of Barmen have also produced a modern concept that some consider their theological descendents (one example).  While the concept of speaking truth to power is Biblical there is also a sense in which the co-opting of the spirit Barmen Declaration for a range of modern controversies does not honor the original imperative and weight of the situation in 1934 Germany.  None the less, there are now several groups that have adopted the “confessing” label and aligned themselves with the tradition of speaking Biblical truth, such as the Confessing Church Movement, The Fellowship of Confessing Churches, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.  Likewise the genre of the “we declare/we reject” confessional statement had a revival a few years ago.  (Although I may not be old enough to know if there truly was a lull in the interim.)  The World Alliance of Reformed Churches’ Accra Confession is written in this form as are a lot of other theological documents you will find if you do a Google search.  (Update:  There is a good article from Associated Baptist Press that looks into the modern implications and how nicely Barman has “aged.”)

But the interesting twist on this is that in the “we declare”/”we reject” structure the exclusiveness that is implicit in most confessions becomes explicit.  The Theological Declaration of Barmen tells us forcefully that if you say “Yes” to something you have to say “No” to something else.  What do we say yes and no to in our lives?

6. “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Mt 28.20) “The word of God is not fettered.” (2 Tim 2.9)

The church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists
in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in
Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work
through sermon and sacrament.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the church
in human arrogance could place the word and work of the Lord in the
service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.

General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland — There Is Webcasting

Leave a reply

Thanks to Spud for the comment on the last post letting us know that the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will be webcast at

http://ga.pcinet.org/

I will check it out tomorrow.  Thanks again.

(Update – Tuesday Morning:  I am having trouble getting the Java viewer to work in Firefox but it is doing fine in IE7.)

Also, the Twitter service has been good but I have not seen a search term for discussions yet.

General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland — A Lot To Look Forward Too

2 Replies

As tempting as it is to open this post with the line “In a neat little town they call Belfast…” I will resist that temptation.    But on Monday at 7:00 PM local time the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will convene in that city.

While it does not appear that there will be webcasting, they will be on Twitter and providing tweets from twitter.com/pciassembly.  (I have not yet seen a hash search term yet for twitter.  Maybe we can use #pciga09.) The agenda for the assembly is on line as are the reports.  And the incoming Moderator, the Rev. Stafford Carson, has a personal blog on which he has been providing interesting little vignettes into his days leading up to the Assembly.

Clearly the hot topic on the Assembly agenda (4:00 PM Tuesday to be exact) is the situation with the Presbyterian Mutual Society.  You can check out my earlier post for more details, but this affiliated, but not church controlled, investment society collapsed last fall when requests for withdraws exceeded the cash on hand and the value of the property that had been invested in.  The Society itself got its stakeholders to agree to “wind down” operations in order to eventually get the greatest potential return from the properties it was invested in, but it appears it will still be substantially less than before the global economic collapse and there are now reports of delays.  The church, the Society, and Northern Irish politicians have petitioned the British Government to guarantee the deposits, but without success yet.  In fact, the appeal to the government was noted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland who added the following to their Church and Society Report:

39. Note with concern the impact of the collapse of Presbyterian Mutual and urge the UK Government and devolved executive in Northern Ireland to take urgent action to resolve the situation.

This support was welcomed by the current Moderator, the Rev. Donald Patton, in an official press release.

There is still considerable question about what the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will, or can, do about the situation.  There was even a question whether there would be anything more than a report on the situation as noted in the first agenda:

[Tuesday June 2] 4.00pm MUTUAL SOCIETY COLLAPSE ‘A TREMENDOUS CHALLENGE’ — General Board/Moderators Advisory Committee (p23-32 & p106)

The report describes the PMS going into administration as ‘a tremendous
challenge to many loyal members’ and details how the church has
responded through a chronology of meetings and statements up to the
handing over of a petition to Northern Ireland MPs on 1 April. Attached
resolutions call the Church to continued ‘prayer and concern for all
involved.’

Note that since the main reports go to press in early April the General
Assembly publishes ‘Supplementary Reports’ on the Tuesday morning of
Assembly week with more up to date information. It is expected that
these will contain a more up to date report and additional resolutions.

But Moderator Patton has said in a BBC interview, and published on the web site, that a debate will be held.  He says “There will be a full debate… a speech and questions. It will be an uncomfortable debate because of the anxiety and emotion.”

And many stakeholders in the Society, who feel betrayed by the church, will be protesting outside the opening session Monday evening.  The stakeholders’ concerns are expressed in a Belfast Telegraph article:

Mervyn Redmond, a spokesman for the Shore Street PMS Action Group in
Donaghadee, said: “We feel betrayed — once by the PMS which assured us that
our savings would not be at risk, and even more by the Presbyterian Church
which has failed to provide any meaningful support for us since our savings
were frozen last autumn.”

He added: “We and our families and forebears have always turned to the Church
in times of serious difficulty, but during this desperate situation we are
reduced to confronting the Church leaders and elders because they have
refused to take a compassionate and fruitful initiative.”

A lot of people will be watching to see what the GA figures out to do with this situation.  We will find out at the Order of the Day on Tuesday.  Debate is docketed for 90 minutes.  Keep watching Twitter.

While there are other important pieces of Assembly business involving the voice in state education and a “response to the report of the Eames/Bradley Consultative Group on the Past” so far the Presbyterian Mutual Society situation has dominated the news and blog discussion.  For a bit more on these check out the official Assembly preview.

Stay tuned…  It will be interesting.