The process continues as we move towards the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) which begins on June 21, 2008, in San Jose, California. This week the big event was the release of the Moderator Booklet with the statements by each candidate and responses to questions from the four Moderator candidates. Just to remind you, the four candidates are (in order of their inclusion in the booklet) Rev. Carl Mazza, Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, Elder Roger Shoemaker, and Rev. William “Bill” Teng.
I will have to take some more time to review the answers and see if I want to make any comments on the answers, but it is interesting to note which questions the candidates chose to answer. The Office of the General Assembly provided a list of ten questions and the candidates were to chose five questions to answer in 500 words or less for each question. What I found interesting was which questions the candidates answered and which they did not. For example, all four candidates chose to answer the first question:
1. Our church’s Ecumenical Vision Statement reminds us that, “The unity of the Church is both God’s real gift and God’s effective calling.” How would you work for unity within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and how would this contribute to the unity we seek with other churches and Christian communities?
Three of the four answered thee questions:
5. What suggestions do you have for identifying new directions for partnership between congregations, presbyteries, seminaries, and the General Assembly in preparation for ordained ministry?
6. In what new ways can the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its congregations place a focus on ministry to and with youth and young adults to ensure a church for future generations?
7. What is your sense of where God is leading the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) at this time in its history?
Carl and Bruce answered all three of these, Roger answered 5 and 7, and Bill answered number 6.
Three questions were answered by two of the candidates. Roger and Bill answered both
2. The 208th General Assembly (1996) affirmed the goal of increasing racial ethnic membership to 10 percent by the year 2005, and to 20 percent by the year 2010. How do you assess the Presbyterian Church’s progress toward the fulfillment of this goal and what would you do during your moderatorial term to move the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) closer to realizing or exceeding this goal?
8. What should be the role of the Moderator during times of deep disagreements in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) about matters of faith and practice?
While Bruce and Bill answered the Form of Government question:
10. The Form of Government Task Force was created by the 217th General Assembly (2006) to propose a revised polity that would be more flexible, more foundational, and more appropriate for a missional Reformed Church in the 21st century. What do you think about these proposals?
There was only one solo answer and that was for Carl for
9. We are living in a war-torn world. What might the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its congregations do to strengthen its ministry of peacemaking at this time?
Finally two questions went unanswered:
3. The General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical Relations held a Consultation on the Ecumenical Stance of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and identified ten priorities for our ecumenical commitment in the next ten years. What do you understand to be the greatest ecumenical challenge and ecumenical resource before the church in the next decade?
4. The General Assembly will be asked to act on a proposal to take the first step toward adding the Belhar Confession to The Book of Confessions. How do you think this addition to The Book of Confessions would impact the confessional and spiritual life of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)?
So, a quick conclusion is that all the candidates place a high priority on Christian Unity (question 1) and lower priority on ecumenical relations (question 3) and adding to the Book of Confessions (question 4). As I have talked with commissioners and delegates to the GA these are themes that I have been hearing from them. Also, the interest in partnerships between governing bodies and institutions as well as reaching out to youth and young adults is a pretty strong theme. So it is not surprising that these four individuals have matched their priorities to the major themes in the PC(USA) today. (Quick and dirty probability says that there is one chance in sixteen of all four choosing the same question and of nobody choosing a question if the choices are random so it appears that their selections are not random.) I would also point out that Bruce was the only candidate to not answer the questions in the same order they are numbered. And Bruce and Carl used one page per question, pretty much filling up the page, while Roger and Bill’s answers to any single question generally did not fill up a page.
Well, that is enough reading tea leaves for now. I’ll probably have more comments about the individual responses later this weekend. I’m taking my class on a field trip to the San Andreas fault and I’ll have a bus ride home to do some reading. (Happy California Earthquake Day by the way. (102nd anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco quake and fire))
The other item of note in the candidates’ booklet is the announcement that the Rev. Teng has selected the Rev. Tamara Letts as his nominee for Vice-moderator. Rev. Letts is an Associate Pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Anchorage, Alaska and from her bio in the booklet appears to have worked with Rev. Teng on the board of Presbyterians for Renewal. She has also worked with the Network of Presbyterian Women in Leadership (NPWL) and is listed in their speakers bureau.
Tamara joins the Rev. Byron Wade and the Rev. Peter C. deVries as the Vice-moderator nominees. I searched the booklet several times and I hope that I am not missing it, but I don’t see the Vice-moderator nominee for Rev. Mazza. And of these seven individuals, I would point out that Roger Shoemaker remains the only Elder in the group and Tamara Letts is the only women. (Is there a COR in the house?)
With the processing of business on PC-biz following overtures has become a moving target since they get changed to committee items and lose their clear overture label. The last time I addressed overtures we were at 86. The numbering is now up to at least 98.
Since we are beyond the constitutional changes deadline most of the overtures deal with social justice issues. These include Overture 87 from the Denver Presbytery “On Equal Rights for Families of Same-Gender Partners” which appears to be about the same as Overture 83. There are a couple that address the Middle East. These include 88 from National Capital Presbytery on “Being a Voice for the Victims of Violence in Israel and Palestine,” and 93 from Newark Presbytery “On Supporting Israel’s Right to Exist, But Calling for Temporary Suspension of Military Aid to the State of Israel” that address the Israel/Palestine situation. There is also 96 from Heartland Presbytery “On Ending the War in Iraq.” Regarding Iraq overtures, Toby Brown has commented on the Mission Presbytery debate of a similar overture in his Classical Presbyterian blog.
Some of the more local social witness issues include overture 89 from National Capital Presbytery “On Addressing the Tragedy of America’s Gun Violence,” overture 95 “On Peaceful Relations Between the Christian and Muslim Communities” from Chicago Presbytery, and 98 “On Supporting Those Who Feel Called to Seek Status as Conscientious Objectors” from San Francisco Presbytery. And there are a couple of other overtures like 91 from Scioto Valley Presbytery titled “Overture on War, Mercenaries, and Profiteering” and 94 “On Peacemaking in Columbia” from Chicago Presbytery. I will generalize that these all call for some combination of raising awareness in the church, maybe studying the issue, and the Stated Clerk writing letters to politicians advocating on behalf of the church.
The remaining three overtures have more direct implications for the PC(USA). Overture 90, from Beaver-Butler Presbytery, is titled “On Advocating and Funding Either Both Sides of the Abortion Issue or Neither.” The title pretty much says it all and it would direct GA agencies to do one or the other in compliance with the 1992 abortion policy. There are two related and some-what similar overtures from its neighbor Pittsburgh Presbytery (Mister Rodgers pun intended): Overture 55 about the “Relief of Conscience Plan” and Overture 63 also about advocating both sides.
San Francisco Presbytery proposes an added office or agency in Overture 97 “On Creating a Presbyterian Office for the Prevention and Healing of Minister of Word and Sacrament Mis-conduct and Abuse.” The overture asks for an ongoing presence that would be in the Office of the Stated Clerk and the General Assembly Council (GAC). These are two different branches of the national structure and so it would be a rather unique presence if it does indeed cross between the two. In addition, how does this fit into the reorganization of the GAC? The overture specifies that oversight would be by the GAC.
And finally, there is overture 92 which is another call, this time from Newark Presbytery, for a “corrected” translation of the Heidelberg Catechism. This joins overtures 36 from North Kansas Presbytery and 45 from Boston Presbytery which also request “Restoring the Heidelberg Catechism to its Historic Form.”
Well, that is plenty for now and I’m putting in way to many off-topic side comments. This probably should have been two posts but I was on a roll so I just plowed through. And there are a couple things hanging out there so I expect to be posting another update early next week with those items. Have a good weekend.