What is a Presbyterian? 

Pop quiz, multiple choice, chose the best answer, you have five minutes:

1.  As a Presbyterian I believe that my, and my church’s primary responsibility is to:

1. Glorify God and enjoy Him forever
2. Proclaim the gospel for the salvation of human kind
3. Provide shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship for the children of God
4. Provide for the maintenance of divine worship
5. Preserve the truth
6. Promote social righteousness
7. Exhibit the Kingdom of Heaven to the World
8. Maintain an ecclesiastical government of teaching and ruling elders governing jointly in community

OK, time’s up.  Pencils down.

Yes, I am being a bit facetious here, but in reflecting more on Carol Howard Merritt’s great post about young evangelicals, especially the first point she made (“Well, they obviously don’t know what it means to be Presbyterian.”), I think I realized why it touched a nerve with me.  Over the years I have come to realize, or at least quantify, that what people think a Presbyterian is depends on how much emphasis they put on each of the eight possible answers above.  I think that in most cases people are not even aware they prioritize these things.  But I have found that as I talk with someone about their Presbyterian viewpoint, it does not take long before I can identify one or two of these categories that is more important to them and that they associate with “being Presbyterian.”

So from what I have seen, in many cases where we fail to understand, or at least we disagree with, our Presbyterian sisters and brothers it is because one person or group places a higher value on one category, say #1 or #2, and the other side can not understand why they don’t appear to value another priority, maybe #6 or #8.  And these can be applied to specific circumstances:  For example, when we talk about doing mission do we think of doing #2 as a first priority and #6 while we are there, or doing #3, #6, or #7 as a primary mission figuring #2 will happen in the process.

Now, for the diversity of Presbyterians reading this who might not get all the references, #1 is of course from the Westminster Standards, specifically the first question of the Shorter Catechism.  Numbers 2-7 are “The Six Great Ends of the Church” found in the PC(USA) Book of Order at G-1.02 with a footnote that they date from the very early 1900’s and were incorporated in the Presbyterian Constitution in 1910.  And #8 is the only unique point of Presbyterian polity in the list and can be found in some similar form in most Presbyterian Constitutions, such as 4-3 in the PCA Book of Church Order, 1.4(5) in the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, or G-4.0301b in the PC(USA) Book of Order.  (More on #8 next week in Part 2)

You may or may not think there is one right answer, or at least best answer, on this list.  You may think there are some clearly wrong answers among the possible choices.  All the Presbyterian branches I have studied recognize the Westminster Standards as a confessional standard, although they may place differing values on it from subscription to “one among many.”  And as I said, I regularly see something like #8 in Presbyterian constitutions.  At this point the PC(USA) may be the only branch to incorporate the Great Ends of the Church.  (Please let me know if another branch uses it.)

Back in 1997 the 209th General Assembly kicked off a two-year celebration of the Great Ends of the Church, although I’m not sure how much happened after GA adjourned.  At the GA one of the questions the Moderator candidates responded to in writing was something like “which is the most important of the Great Ends.”  It was interesting reading the responses as the candidates seemed to fall all over themselves to say that the Great Ends were all important and then some of the responses would single out one of them as a little bit more important.  That was my introduction to specifying and observing the diversity of Presbyterian though and viewpoint using the Great Ends.

So I encourage you to think about this yourself.  First, how do each of these points, or maybe other I don’t list, shape your view of what it means to “be Presbyterian.”  And secondly, how do you project this upon others when you try to decide if they know the meaning of “being Presbyterian.”

In Part 2, I’ll rant about words having meanings, particularly the word “Presbyterian.”