A few weeks ago the Form of Government task force (FOG) completed its work and released their final report for the consideration of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in June.  This is not light reading and it took some time to digest the report and the accompanying documents.  While all the documents listed on the FOG web site are useful, I found that I relied on the “ Side-by-side comparison of the current to proposed form of government” the most since it best shows what has been removed in addition to the changes in wording.

It is important to keep in mind the charge to the task force from the 217th GA:  The Task Force was to rewrite the Form of Government section of the Book of Order to provide more leadership to congregations as “missional communities” and allow for flexibility for governing bodies to best work with congregations in our modern world.  However, the basic fundamental polity was not to be changed, the presbytery was to remain as the central governmental unit, and controversial sections G-6.0106b and G-8.0201 were not to be touched in wording but could be renumbered.

The changes to the Form of Government that are proposed are of two types:  There are organizational changes that move sections around, consolidate chapters, and even create a new part to the Book of Order.  Then there is editing to make the Book of Order a “Constitutional document, not a manual of operations.”  To achieve this aim all procedural sections are edited out.

The organizational change that has gotten the most coverage has been the division of the current Form of Government into two sections.  The first four chapters with the foundational polity has been put into a new section now called “Foundations of Presbyterian Polity” (Foundations) and the remaining material kept in a smaller “Form of Government” (Government).  In addition, the Form of Government has been shortened further by moving some supporting material out of the constitution and into handbooks for the Committee on Ministry and the Committee on Preparation for Ministry.  In the reorganization of chapters the first four chapters of the current Form of Government are now three chapters in the Foundations section while the remaining fourteen chapters of Government have been reorganized down to six.

With the removal of the procedural sections how much has the Form of Government been shortened?  While page sizes and formatting make it challenging to get exact counts, the current Form of Government chapters 5 to 18 covers 112 pages in the published Book of Order and roughly 75 pages in the side-by-side comparison.  The new Form of Government is 64 pages as formatted in the report and roughly 43 pages in the side-by-side comparison.  These two measures are pretty consistent so without doing a word count the general appearance is that the reduction in size is by almost one half.

For comparison, the comparable document for the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, The Code, is divided into two parts with Part I having about 40 pages of structure and Part II containing almost 100 pages of “Rules.”  In the Presbyterian Church in America, the Book of Church Order is 346 pages long with 84 pages in their Form of Government section and something like the PC(USA) chapter 1 in a Preface.  The PCA BCO is sized and typeset very much like the PC(USA) Book of Order so this is a close comparison.  Finally, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church Book of Order has a Book of Government section of about 76 pages.

In reviewing all of the material from the Form of Government Task Force (FOG) the rational for the structural reorganization makes sense to me.  One of the reasons for splitting out the Foundations part on its own is to make it clear that those principles apply to Directory for Worship and the Rules of Discipline parts in addition to the Form of Government.  This is something that I have always accepted implicitly so I don’t have a problem making it explicit.  Likewise, I am not opposed to the consolidation of chapters in the Government sections.  Anyone who has flipped between current chapters 6 and 14 trying to figure out some point of pastoral search or ordination, or who has searched chapters 9, 10 and 11 trying to locate a specific section on governing bodies, can probably appreciate this reorganization.

However, in reviewing the details of the editing there are proposed changes which open up questions and concerns for me.

For purposes of length and readability I have decided to split this blog post and so will discuss the proposed new part, the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity in this post and in my next one will pick up with the revised Form of Government part.  So…

Looking first at the Foundations part, the FOG claims:

The new Foundations preserves the vast majority of the text of the current first four chapters. There are sixty-seven paragraphs in the current G-1.0000 through G-4.0000. Of those sixty-seven paragraphs, sixty-three of them have been brought over into The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity. In thirty-five of the preserved paragraphs, the new text presents verbatim the contents of the current text. Twenty-eight of the paragraphs preserved have undergone some revision or modification, such as the combination of several smaller paragraphs into one larger one or the revision of content.

The Task Force, and its members individually, make a big deal about the continuity between the current and proposed versions.  But some of the changes, while subtle are not insignificant.  The red flag here should be the 28 paragraphs that have been “preserved” but modified.  These include subtle changes, like old G-1.0100a that refers to “Almighty God” but is replaced in new F-1.0201 with just “God.”  Or in the next paragraph where “his Kingdom” is replaced with “God’s new reality.”  I am in favor of using gender-neutral language where possible, but this change shifts the theological meaning.

There are points where the editing does improve the text in my opinion.  One example is the Great Ends of the Church where the current G-1.0200 lists them in a narrative paragraph but the new F-1.0304 splits them out as a bulleted list.  Likewise, the current G-3.0200 is supposed to be about “The Church as the Body of Christ” but the section starts with the church being the “provisional demonstration of what God intends for all humanity” and the “Body of Christ” language is down in G-3.0200c.  In the proposed F-1.0301 that Body of Christ section is moved to the top and the Provisional Demonstration immediately follows.  Personally I like that better.

It is interesting to note what has been deleted from Foundations.  In particular, I would point to the current G-2.0500b which was not carried over to Foundations.  This section begins “Thus, the creeds and confessions of the church reflect a particular stance within the history of God’s people.”  I’m not sure why this was eliminated since I think it helps us as Reformed Christians to recognize and understand that many of our confessional documents were written to address theological issues at a
particular point in history.

I have two other stylistic comments about the new Foundations:

First, there are a lot less numbered sections.  While most of the words are still there the citation system no longer gets you some of the detailed sections as it used to.  For example, in the current G-2.0500 Faith of the Reformed Tradition there are six paragraphs, each numbered down to trailing letters and numbers (such as G-2.0500a.(1), a citation length that a GA Junkie would love).  In the proposed revision the only citation, covering the same six paragraphs is F-2.05.

Second, I don’t like the opening.  Now here I may be getting picky but sometimes the first line of a book sets the tone for the whole thing.  Here are the choices to open the Book of Order:

For me, the current opening section is favored.  The main reason I favor it is that it contains many recognizable references to scripture, including the very first phrase which is taken from the Great Commission in Matt. 28, which if we are truly interested in missional polity would not be a bad thing to start with.  Yes I know that the proposed actually mentions mission as the second word, but somehow the identification with specific scripture passages really strengthens the current opening.  As a second reason, and this may be tied to the first, I am just struck by the more forceful and poetic nature of the current version.  Now this is subjective and your opinion may be different, but that is how it affects me.

If I had to vote at this point on the Foundations part I would probably vote no, but only weakly.  As a consensus document I could live with it.  None of our documents are perfect and while I do have objections I consider them minor in the grand scheme of things.  In any of our polity documents there are places I would love to make changes.  And there are places that I consider the new document an improvement.

Having gotten through the changes to the Form of Government as a whole, and the new Foundations of Presbyterian Polity part I will finish up the new Government section and some concluding comments that I will post separately tomorrow.  Have fun and stay tuned.