A Little Levity — Humor Delivered Via Twitter

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In celebration of my transition point in the Summer from part-time teaching back to my regular gig, and because I can use it, I thought I would share with you a few of my favorite places to have Twitter bring you some humor.  To the twitter-intelligentsia out there these are probably already familiar to you, but maybe someone out there will find these new and entertaining.

The first is simply an acknowledgement of some very sharp and refined Presbyterian humor from PCAPresbyter during GA season.  While he does have amusing tweets during the off-season, how can you match such great lines as he had during the PCA GA.

The PCA has a strong theology of penal substitutionary amendments.

GA: God’s plan for cultivating perseverance in Presbyterians.

OK, so maybe only the other polity wonks are ROTFL with stuff like that but I always enjoy when we can take a moment to step back and not take ourselves too seriously.  Well done PCAPresbyter!

Now, for religious humor that is not quite as refined, but that can also be a very funny insight into our foibles and idiosyncracies, I would point to the well know religious humor outlet XIANITY.  While this source puts out several satirical posts a day, a few of my favorites aimed at the Reformed folks include:

ROME: Reformer gored during the Running of the Papal Bulls.

MIRACLES: Report of entire Presbyterian congregation being raised from dead turns out to be everyone standing to sing hymn #78

FOOD: Calvinists pressure General Mills to change name of popular cereal to Providential Charms®

And of a more general theme:

CHURCH: Shabbat riot ensues as Messianic Jew replaces shofar with vuvuzela. #worldcup

LOCAL: Sunday service delayed after Pastor loses keys to “Church of the Open Door”

BREAKING NEWS: Bizarre kindergartner responds with something other than “Jesus” to Sunday School teacher’s questions.

Moving on to the refined, but secular, the writers and journalists out there probably already know about FakeAPStylebook, a twitter feed that satirizes that bastion of journalistic and literary advice, the venerable AP Stylebook.  Recent gems include:

there/their/they’re – What,seriously? This confuses you?

Sprinkle the word “quantum” throughout science articles, particularly if you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Never say anything about a colleague in a private e-mail that you wouldn’t put in print, since it’s going to end up there anyway.

Real estate listings should not describe a building as a “murder house.” Be specific: ax murder house, chainsaw murder house.

And finally, moving from twitter accounts to hashtags and the satirical to the ridiculous, in a play on the Wikileaks drama, there is now a Star Wars send-up called #wookieleaks:

DiscordianStooj: Empire covering up evidence that bombing of asteroids damages the habitat of endangered space slugs. #wookieleaks

FireLifeSafety #Wookieleaks Investigators claim sprinkler systems would have prevented Death Star explosions.

peterhau RT @KendalCole: Skywalker rumored to have spoiled Christmas for Vader, “I felt his presents.” #wookieleaks <- now that’s a good twitter joke!

Some Twitter humor that I follow that I pass along for your reading enjoyment.  Your mileage may vary.

So, having gotten that little bit of ardor out of my system we return to our regularly scheduled order here on this blog. Have fun!

Thoughts On Modeling The Future Of The Mainline Churches

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It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.  — Alfred North Whitehead

In a couple of weeks I will be taking my annual vacation and this year I will have to pack light.  No thick volumes on the ecumenical movement or church history this year.  After looking around and thinking about this I decided to take along for reading several of the articles in a collection on the Patheos web site on The Future of Mainline Protestantism.  This is an interesting collection of opinions coming almost completely from progressive authors.  I know several of the authors, have heard several more speak, and have read other works by most of the rest.  And based on the skimming I have done so far, they all see a positive future for the mainline.  So check back at the end of the month when I’ll post my thoughts on what I have read from there.

But in preparation for that I have started going through a series of purely mathematical thought exercises about possible numerical futures for the mainline, and specifically the PC(USA).  For the most part these are intended to be disconnected from theological, institutional or political specifics, although the more detailed model at the end does use some of that.  They are also intended to be general concept models that represent particular cases, not specific predictions of the size of the church in fifty years.  On the one hand, I will be making specific calculations based on the numbers for the PC(USA).  On the other hand, these cases apply to more than one of the mainline churches and can probably be applied to other denominations as well. So here is what I have thought about.

Case 1 – Status quo
At the present time the mainline denominations are all declining in membership at the rate of a few percent per year.  Clearly if this continues into the future each will reach a point where that church will not be viable.

For example, for 2009 the PC(USA) reported a total membership of 2,077,138, a net loss of 63,027 from the year before.  A quick calculation shows that with a constant loss of this many members the denomination would reach zero in 33 years in 2042.

As you can probably figure out this is not realistic for a number of reasons, some of which I’ll talk about in the last, and most complex, model.  A better way to look at the status quo is to consider a constant rate of loss.  In 2008 the rate was 3% and in 2009 it was 2.9% so if we look at three different constant rates – 2.5%, 3.0% and 3.5% – this is what we get for the PC(USA).

PC(USA) Membership for Constant Decline Model

 Year  Constant
Number 		Constant
Rate 		   
   63,027/yr  2.5%/yr 3.0%/yr 3.5%/yr
 2010  2,014,011 2,025,210 2,014,824 2,004,438
 2020  1,383,841 1,572,230 1,485,780 1,403,673
 2030  753,571 1,220,569 1,095,650 982,967
 2040  123,301 947,564 807,959 688,354
 2042  0  900,778 760,208 641,013
 2050   735,622  595,808 482,042
 2060   571,085 439,363 337,566


Case 2 – Renewed Growth
I saw you roll your eyes at this one.  Yes, there is a case to be made that the mainline represents an out-dated model that will not survive but rather decay into oblivion as outlined in Case 1.

But remember that this is only a thought experiment.  Furthermore, while there is a denomination-wide decline in church membership, on a congregation-by-congregation level this is not necessarily so.  Several congregations in my presbytery have shown stable membership over the last ten years (example 1, example 2, example 3 ). (And I will note that this crosses theological lines.)  In addition, every so often a national entity issues a list of growing PC(USA) churches and there is a general document abut the characteristics of the fastest growing churches.  I could not quickly find that list (I’ll update here if I do) but checking three high-profile congregations I found recent (5-10 year) growth rates of 11.0%, 3.5%, and 2.6%.  This is not a scientific sample of growing churches, only a few that I checked.  The point is that the decline is not uniform across all the congregations in the PC(USA) and that is probably true of other mainline churches as well.  In fact, there is a book out there (that I have not read) that looks at 15 growing Presbyterian churches and why they are growing.

Now, without my actually saying what needs to be done to reverse the decline and begin growing, let me present the model for this case that would propose that a mainline church can get itself organized and take steps to help enough congregations reverse their decline and begin growing in the next decade so that beginning in 2020 the denomination as a whole can begin growing at 1% per year.

(The disclaimers: I am not advocating anything specific at this time, and especially not advocating a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all franchise scheme for the mainline denominations that would produce a business plan for homogenous churches that are all the same. And I do know that the PC(USA) has been working on doing this one way or another, with out a reversal of the membership decline, for years now. I am also well aware of some of the other complexities of church growth these days, such as the argument that when churches grow all they are really doing is attracting members that are leaving other churches so church growth in many cases is competition for a limited, and declining, resource.  Remember, this is just a thought experiment.)

So here is what the reversal model looks like:

PC(USA) Membership For The Reversal Model

Year Annual
Growth
Rate		 Membership
 2009    2,077,138
 2010  -3.0%  2,014,824
 2011  -2.6%  1,962,438
 2012  -2.2%  1,919,265
 2013  -1.8%  1,884,718
 2014  -1.4%  1,858,332
 2015  -1.0%  1,839,749
 2016  -0.6%  1,828,710
 2017  -0.2%  1,825,053
 2018  0.2%  1,828,703
 2019  0.6%  1,839,675
 2020  1.0%  1,858,072
 2030  1.0%  2,052,467
 2040  1.0%  2,267,201
 2050  1.0%  2,504,400
 2060  1.0%  2,766,416

Case 3 – Partitioning or Pruning Model
What if, to use the cliche, we are “right-sizing” the mainline.  Consider that the decline in the churches will continue until the target size is reached and then the membership will reach a stable equilibrium.

Well, that is the idea in the abstract but to actually crank out some numbers here I will have to propose certain conditions that I can model.  Taking the conventional wisdom that the mainline is becoming more liberal or progressive, why don’t we set as a target size the number of liberals in the church suggesting that all the conservatives will eventually be departing one way or another.

For the PC(USA) I have previously commented on the changes seen in the Presbyterian Panel surveys. (Sorry with the change in the PC(USA) web site links in that post to some of those data sources are now broken and I am trying to restore them.)  By one measure, in 2008 34% of the PC(USA) considered itself theologically conservative, 41% moderate, and 25% liberal.  Another measure is the question of whether “Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved” where 39% agreed, 25% were not sure, and 36% disagreed.

Now, as a simple first-order model what if we say the evangelicals leave, the progressives say and the moderates split.  There is some symmetry in the survey results so for the sake of argument let’s say that the denomination’s target size is 50% of the 2009 membership and that the total membership loss rate of 3% per year comes completely from the half that is experiencing the departures so we reduce the size of those in the group that remain by 6% per year.  This is then constant rate of decline for part of the church and no decline for the other with the total size slowly approaching the target size.  Numerically this wold look like:

PC(USA) Membership for Partition Model

Year Membership
 2009  2,077,138
 2010  2,014,824
 2020  1,564,395
 2030  1,321,787
 2040  1,191,114
 2050  1,120,732
 2060  1,082,823
 Target  1,038,569

Case 3a – Complex Partitioning or Multiple Effect
OK, as a final model let us leave the realm of first-order models and consider something with two levels of complexity. As those that have looked at membership statistics know, there are many different factors involved in the mainline decline.  For this model let us take the 3% decline of the Partition Model and say that 2.5% of that is theology-based departures and it gets applied fully to the declining group.  Let us also say that there is a 0.5% decrease for other reasons – cultural, political, social – all lumped into that one decline.  This decline is applied uniformly to both groups.  (I arrived at this 0.5% number from looking at general rates of decline of Protestant denominations in the American Religious Identification Survey.)  So now, instead of “right-sizing” the denomination to a fixed target size we have a model where the membership is rapidly declining towards a target size that is declining itself, but at a much slower rate.

PC(USA) Membership for Multiple Effect Model

Year Membership
 2009  2,077,138
 2010  2,014,824
 2020  1,540,278
 2030  1,251,397
 2040  1,068,914
 2050  947,759
 2060  862,294


Putting it all together
Here is a chart showing the five different models for direct comparison.


Closing words and Commentary
As I wrap this up I should probably repeat again that these are mostly first-order models that use constant or smooth variations in the constants.  Other cases could be developed for the rapid departure of particular groups or for the outright division of the church.  And while I have modeled the partitioning into two groups you could also imagine the case where it is best modeled as three groups – conservatives, moderates and liberals each in their own partition, or maybe conservatives, emergents, and everyone else.

Having put all of these forward I will state that my own leaning at the present time is to view the future of the PC(USA), and probably some other mainline churches, as following a hybrid model where the church experiences a partition decline coupled with a general decline model.  But I think at some time, and maybe not in the next 50 years, the church will reach a “right-size” or equilibrium state where membership will hold fairly steady.  But based on these models I will say that the current PC(USA), and similar churches, will not look anything like the present church in size or structure.  Time will tell if this is right and what the church will actually look like.

But having said what I expect to happen, let me also say that I am praying for the reversal model.  I look to God to find a way for the PC(USA) and other churches to move beyond the current divisions and find a way to bring the Gospel to the world in such a way that people are attracted to the church and the numbers grow again.  It does occur to me that maybe this would require partition in order for the witness to begin again and the churches to grow.  I don’t know what the answer is but I pray we are attentive to God’s leading as we honestly and prayerfully discern together where we are going.

Now on to another general look at this sort of thing from a different angle, coming up in two or three days.

Past Meets The Present In Scotland — Rome Amidst The Reformed

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It has been interesting to observe the dances, sometimes delicate and sometimes not, that have been going on in Scotland, and to a lesser degree all across the British Isles, this summer.  We have the conjunction of two important events that each has implications for the other.  One is the 450th anniversary of the Scottish Reformation and the other the visit of the Pope in September.

A little while back I commented on this visit and the fortuitus timing that will find the British Monarch in Scotland to welcome the Pope so that she will only be acting as head of state.  If the Queen were to meet the Pope in England she would also be acting as the head of the Established Church.

There have also been rumblings about how the Scottish Parliament has been playing down the 450th anniversary.  Speculation as to reasons includes sensitivity to the Pope’s visit, but also mentions the secularization of the nation, consideration for other faith traditions, and just apathy to the anniversary.  Or, as one writer says about the Scottish Reformation and the anniversary “…a trail of violence, vandalism and destruction, from which Scotland’s heritage has never recovered, and  which is the possibly the real reason authorities can not touch the 450th anniversary of the Reformation with a rather long barge-pole.”

But in the last few days the plans for the Pope’s arrival have been announced and the spectacle is to include a parade in Edinburgh which will include actors portraying historical figures.  Amongst those characters will be John Knox, and that seems to be drawing all the attention.

Please note the irony, or down-right discordance, here.  It was not just that John Knox lead the reform that separated Scotland from Rome.  In the process he did not have a lot of nice things to say about the pontiff, specifically equating him with the antichrist.  He is quoted in one instance as saying “the papal religion is but an abomination before God” and “flee out of Babylon, that you perish not with her.” (source ).  Another quote from Knox says “The Papacy is the very Antichrist, the Pope being the son of perdition of whom Paul speaks.” (source )  Finally, the Scots Confession, of which Knox was a principle author, says this in Chapter 18:

So it is essential that the true kirk be distinguished from the filthy synagogues by clear and perfect notes lest we, being deceived, receive and embrace, to our own condemnation, the one for the other. The notes, signs, and assured tokens whereby the spotless bride of Christ is known from the horrible harlot, the malignant kirk, we state, are neither antiquity, usurped title, lineal succession, appointed place, nor the numbers of men approving an error.

Now, having gone through that background let me also add a few important points.  First, while the Church of Scotland is today the National Church, the Catholic Church is the second largest faith tradition in the country.  It is also important to know that the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland are involved in ecumenical discussions and their Joint Committee is talking and producing reports seeking to have the different faith traditions better understand each other and find points of commonality.  And while the Scots Confession is part of the Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Book of Confessions also contains in the Preface this disavowal:

Specific statements in 16th and 17th century confessions and catechisms in The Book of Confessions contain condemnations or derogatory characterizations of the Roman Catholic Church: Chapters XVIII and XXII of the Scots Confession; Questions and Answer 80 of the Heidelberg Catechism; and Chapters II, III, XVII, and XX, of the Second Helvetic Confession. (Chapters XXII, XXV, and XXIX of the Westminster Confession of Faith have been amended to remove anachronous and offensive language. Chapter XXVIII of the French Confession does not have constitutional standing.) While these statements emerged from substantial doctrinal disputes, they reflect 16th and 17th century polemics. Their condemnations and characterizations of the Catholic Church are not the position of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and are not applicable to current relationships between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Catholic Church.

In line with this stance an article in The Scotsman contains quotes from an unnamed spokesman for the Church of Scotland saying:

“When Pope John Paul II met the Moderator of the General Assembly on his visit to Scotland, it represented a milestone in relations between the two churches, which greatly improved as a result, and we would hope that the Pope’s visit later this year will strengthen the links even further.

“It is a sign of a healthy nation that diversity within the Christian community is something to be celebrated as opposed to a source of division and struggle.

“It is a gift to those of us of a Protestant persuasion that, by including this figure [Knox], the Catholic Church is contributing to the celebrations of the Reformation.”

Along the same lines, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Rev. Dr. Norman Hamilton, approves of the visit and the Queen’s decision to invite him.  Will Crawley of the BBC quotes him:

As someone who is committed to Christ, I have no sense of threat or fear by the visit of any world leader to our country, whether he be a political or a faith leader or a cultural leader. I have to say I don’t feel undermined, I don’t feel diminished, I don’t feel undervalued by any visitor to these shores.

However, the welcoming attitude is not present in all of the Presbyterian branches of the UK.  The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has published a short book with six essays critical of the Pope and his visit.  Similarly, the Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley, a political figure in Northern Ireland and founding member of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ireland , has called the visit a “mistake.”

Finally, it is important to note that there are other reasons besides the anniversary of the Reformation that this visit to the UK may feel a bit awkward.  One is the difficulties involved in resolving a major clergy abuse scandal in Ireland.  Another is the cost of this trip at a time when the economy is struggling to recover.  Finally, there are also the current controversies in the Church of England and the invitation that the Pope has extended for Anglo-Catholics to realign with the Catholic Church, a realignment that will be echoed during the visit in the beatification of Cardinal Newman who switched between these churches in an earlier century.

So, come September it will be interesting to see in what degree history leads to conflict or coexistence, or maybe just confusion.  If nothing else it will be a spectacle that will give us something to watch and ponder.

General Assemblies Of 2010 — A Summary Of Summaries

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With the conclusion of the rapid-fire series of General Assemblies for 2010 I can now turn to reflection and synthesis of the deliberations of the meetings.  For those who are looking for more information, and maybe to do their own reflection on global Presbyterianism, here are links to some official summaries and other sources, including mine, that you might find helpful:

There are still a few more to go this summer and fall but the bulk of them have no concluded.  Have fun catching up.

The 219th General Assembly Of The PC(USA) — Not Business As Usual For One Item

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Please allow me to be cynical about the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for a moment as I reflect on my observation that most of the items before the Assembly and how the Assembly dealt with them were pretty much “business as usual.”  There was of course that unique session where both the Final and Minority reports of the Special Committee on Civil Union and Christian Marriage were commended to the whole church. But for the most part I frequently found myself thinking “been there, done that.”

Part of this was because so many high-profile items were really reports back from committees and task forces the last Assembly created.  Some of the deja vu was because these are items that keep coming back to every Assembly, like the ordination standards. And some is because the business contains a lot of routine items  like approving minutes, transferring churches, and creating presbyteries.  That is, until that last one stops being business as usual…

On the morning of Thursday July 8 the Committee on Middle Governing Body Issues late in their report brought a simple request from the Synod of South Atlantic, item 04-08:

The Synod of South Atlantic overtures the 219th General Assembly (2010) to approve the organization of a new non-geographic Korean language presbytery pursuant to its powers under G-13.0103n.

The Synod had passed this overture on a unanimous vote and the Assembly committee had also approved it by a wide margin, 43-2.  Seemed like a slam-dunk but it was not.

A few commissioners, including two young second-generation Asian-American women pastors, rose to speak against forming the non-geographic Korean language presbytery and their pleas were so persuasive that the Assembly disapproved the item 125-514-7. (If you want to watch yourself check out the Video On Demand, Session 5, Part 9, at 1:09 except the video cuts out before the end)  Every Assembly holds a few surprises and for the 219th this was one of the biggest for me.

There were a couple of arguments against the new presbytery – lack of women leadership and challenges for clergy who serve in English ministry in Korean congregations.  The speakers argued that it is difficult to advocate for women clergy and young leadership in language presbyteries that tend to not favor those in their culture.  In addition, for ministers that speak English and serve second-generation ministries in Korean churches but do not speak Korean, or do not speak it well, participating in the life of the presbytery is difficult to impossible.  It makes it challenging to develop new young second-generation leadership speaking English in a language presbytery.

As you may be aware the GA’s relationship with non-geographic language presbyteries is a bit conflicted.  For example, the 218th GA sent a mixed message.  On the one hand they passed a Book of Order amendment which would provide a bit more flexibility in membership in non-geographic presbyteries but in doing so made sure to include a clause that non-geographic presbyteries should have an end date – they are to be transitional and not permanent.  On the other hand, the Assembly, from the same committee, approved another item that granted the continuation of Hanmi Presbytery without term limit.  So what message is being sent here?

Returning to the 219th GA, I should note that later in the day on Thursday there was a report on Twitter, but I have not verified it from a second source, that one of the women who spoke against the motion was physically assaulted for taking that position against the non-geographic presbytery.

Related to this is the rough time the PC(USA) has, and maybe American Presbyterians in general have, with being a racially diverse church.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I was a bit surprised that the Rev. Jin S. Kim, a minister with extensive service to the denomination and high name recognition, would have polled the lowest in the voting for Moderator of the GA.  A friend suggested that maybe this was not in spite of his name recognition, but because of it.  This could be very true — He directly speaks of the lack of racial diversity in the PC(USA) and what that means in terms of the changing demographics of the U.S.  In his candidating speech to the GA I heard him say what he has said before about this.  Here are excerpts from that speech (Video on demand, Session 3, Part 1, 53:40)

Those of you who know me know that I have no shortage of critiques of our denomination.  I quarrel with this church every day… I quarrel with our sense of entitlement to the prestige of a bygone era.
…
I quarrel with a racism that makes us even now a 92% white Eurocentric denomination in the 21st century, unable to embody the sovereignty of God and the priesthood of all believers in our local congregations.
…
The U.S. Census estimates that whites will be a minority by 2042 — are you making the connection? While the liberals blame the close-mindedness and homophobia of conservatives for our decline, and the conservatives blame the lack of commitment to biblical orthodoxy of the liberals, both seem to miss the massive demographic shift that really is the critical reason for our decline… The basic problem in my view is that we remain a Eurocentric, white, middle-class church wedded to a way of doing faith as deeply dependent on enlightenment rationalism.  But since the sixties the U.S. has become a post-modern nation in which the rational is only one of many competing ways of interpreting God.

This is his concern for the church and the starting point for where he sees that the denomination needs to go.  You will see similar themes in the news article about his sermon to the 218th GA.

And finally, American Presbyterianism has a segregationist past as well.  While there are a number of resources related to this, let me just mention that a bit of a fuss has recently arisen over a new book that looks at some of this history.  Yes, the focus is on institutions that are now affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America, but the history is longer than either the PCA or the PC(USA) and extends back to our common ancestor, the Presbyterian Church in the United States.  In the extensive comments on the post I would point you to one in particular by TE Ligon Duncan, the current pastor of one of the churches prominant in the book talking about how the church has moved on.

So somewhere between our past history and being the Body of Jesus Christ in the future where there is no majority ethnic group in the U.S., the church finds itself today.  What can we learn from the past to help us move into the future?  Are non-geographic presbyteries a useful tool for transition or a structure that allows congregations to isolate themselves – a form of modern segregation – that is holding us back?  While I don’t know if this GA made the right decision, it was refreshing to hear the arguments and see them faithfully wrestling with the question.  Prayers that they did faithfully discern the will of God.

UPDATE: The Rev. Theresa Cho, the first commissioner to speak against the new presbytery, has posted on her blog about this item and her perspective on it.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — Summaries Of The Assembly

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With the conclusion of the meeting of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) earlier today the reports of what the Assembly did are beginning to appear.

For many years I have produced a summary sheet for my congregation and the last few years I have had requests from others asking if they can to use it.  So here is my Brief Summary. Feel free to use it if you find it helpful.

There are already a series of official responses from the PC(USA) including:

In addition Robert Austell has put up on his GAhelp.net site a collection of Post-GA information including an index of the business, Post-GA commentaries, and the News/Opinion feed.

While it is tempting to start commenting on the inaccuricies in the reporting of the popular media I will leave that for another day.  However, one of my favorite blogs, GetReligion, has posted their first piece.

So, the 219th is in the books. Lots for the presbyteries to vote on.  I’m still working on my summary thoughts, but for the moment we are on to the General Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church in a couple of weeks.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — The Clock Is Ticking

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While I am working on a longer post about some of the racial-ethnic issues that have surfaced in the PC(USA) and the wider Presbyterian family in the last few days I wanted to break away for a moment to make a brief comment about what happened in the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Thursday night and Friday morning.

To summarize the actions: Thursday night the Assembly took the recommendation of the Commissioner Committee on Civil Union and Marriage Issues and amended their recommendation commending the Final Report of the Special Committee so that it now commends both the Final Report and the Minority Report from the Special Committee to the denomination.  Only a short while later the Assembly voted 348 to 324 to have the rest of the items from the Assembly Committee answered by the action on the Special Committee’s reports.  This effectively said that changes to the definition of marriage in the Book of Order, which was outside the charge to the Special Committee, would not be considered this year.  Friday morning, as probably anticipated by every polity wonk tracking this, the motion was made to reconsider the previous night’s action and after some debate the Assembly voted 275 to 407 not to reconsider.  I am guessing that result was also anticipated by most polity wonks, although I must admit I was surprised by the large margin of the vote.

OK – impartial observer mode off and commentary mode on.  Beware of snark…

1) As a member of the Special Committee on Civil Unions and Christian Marriage I would like to personally thank the Assembly for the confidence you placed in our report to make it, the whole thing with Final and Minority combined, the final word on marriage from this Assembly and for the PC(USA) for the next two years.  I truly appreciate the word to the church to have them study what we wrote — I know that I learned a lot about the topic from researching the report.  But aside from the definition of Christian marriage, the church finds itself in an interesting situation right now where we have in W-4.9001 an inaccurate definition for civil marriage in certain jurisdictions, still saying civil marriage is between a man and woman while some states have moved away from that.  Hopefully the church will use this time the Assembly has given it to contemplate how to better define Christian marriage while acknowledging that the definition of civil marriage is changing in some places.

2) While acknowledging that a lot of people are frustrated, to say the least, by the Assembly deferring the issue all together, this whole sequence points to a much larger issue related to the Assembly — the Assembly has far too little time to do way too much business.  Both the move to quickly answer all the other business with the report as well as the strong response not to reconsider it today are, in my observation, an indication that the commissioners are setting priorities for what items they are willing to engage in lengthy debates about and they essentially said that this was not one of them.  Back at the 209th GA when I was a commissioner we reached 1 AM on Friday night (i.e. Saturday morning) and just started referring business to the 210th GA to finish off the docket.

Please be clear that I am not saying that the commissioners were looking to ignore the issue, wanted a quick fix, or needed an easy out, especially because of the late hour.  What I am saying is that in the multitude of factors that the commissioners were weighing, consciously and subconsciously, the fact that they had a limited amount of time to deal with an overwhelming amount of work was a factor that influenced some and, I believe, the original resolution passed at that hour when it probably would not have passed at an earlier hour of the day.

After tracking GA’s for a number of years I have come to understand that an Assembly has one good debate per day in them.  It appears that Thursday’s debate was on the issue of ordination standards.  The commissioners saved their energy for that and when finished they then had enough of hot topics for the day.  Again, this is not a reflection on the inherent importance of the topic itself, only the tendency of the Assembly to prioritize the use of their time and energy.

If you are wondering about the energy level of the Assembly, it was clear from the commissioners at the microphone that by Friday morning the energy was starting to fade — There was one commissioner that had lost track of which day it was and another that had lost track of which vote they were taking.

Now, my comments here are not a conservative’s plea of “Let not deal with it and keep the status quo.” This is a realist’s plea to say “Let’s find a better way to deal with it.”  That is also part of the message of our Special Committee report.  The Assembly has a limited amount of time to deal with a whole lot of business.  For the most part the commissioner committee process is successful and the full Assembly tends to trust the intense discernment and study each committee puts in on the topic.  But there are still enough major issues to eat up more time than the GA has to faithfully deal with them.

So, can we step back for a moment and ask if the PC(USA) is trying to do too much business with too little time?  Are we giving ourselves space to be the body of Christ together in real discernment listening to each other.  That is what the Special Committee did and our conclusion was that we were brothers and sisters in Christ around that table and while we could not come to agreement on that topic, we were still around the table together.

I don’t know the answer.  I ask myself if we need to limit the business to an Assembly.  Do we need to restructure the way business gets done.  Do we need more Assemblies, each more specifically focused.  I’m still thinking and have not decided yet.  But it is my conclusion that at the present time the General Assembly feels the constraint of the clock too much with too much to do in too little time to properly work through it.

My thoughts for today — your milage may vary.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — But Will The Presbyteries Concur?

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Yesterday at the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) two high-profile business items were approved that will now require the concurrence of the presbyteries.  As a change to the Book of Order, or maybe better expressed as a revision of a major portion of the Book of Order, the new revised Form of Government and new Foundations of Presbyterian Polity sections will require a majority vote of the presbyteries to be adopted.  On the other hand, the Belhar Confession will require two-thirds of the presbyteries to agree to be included in the Book of Confessions.  After these were approved by the Assembly plenary I was musing on my commute home from work on the basic question – “Will the presbyteries concur?”

Well, if I ponder something long enough I usually head in an analytical direction and this was no different.  So in the spirit of the alternate hashtag for GA – #presbynerdfest10 – this post is about to get really geeky really fast.

Let me begin with the data:  The nFOG passed the plenary by a vote of 468 yes to 204 no, a 69.6% yes vote.  The Belhar Confession was endorsed by the plenary with a 525 to 150 vote, a 77.8% yes vote.  Clearly, if the presbyteries mirror the Assembly in their voting than both will be approved.  However, we know from past experience that this is not the case.  In the most recent example the 218th General Assembly approved the change to G-6.0106b by a 380 to 325 margin, a 53.9% yes vote but the presbyteries voted 78 to 94 on 08-B with only a 45.3% yes vote.  The ratio of presbytery “yes” to assembly “yes” is 0.840.  If we apply that to the nFOG vote we get 58.5% yes in the presbyteries and for Belhar 65.4%.  nFOG passes and Belhar is very close.

Why is there a difference between Assembly and presbytery votes?  As polity wonks know, this is really a comparison of apples to oranges.  In the presbytery voting each presbytery has equal weight regardless of their size.  The smallest presbyteries’ votes count just the same as the largest and as a general rule the smaller presbyteries tend to be more conservative.  The other element in play here is that past voting patterns have shown that commissioners to the General Assembly are, on balance, more progressive than the average elder back home — or at least the elders back home are more resistant to change.  Finally, there is more time before the presbytery votes allowing for more organizing and educating of commissioners that can influence the final vote.

While I won’t go into the details, mathematicians will quickly realize that the ratio is not the only, and probably not the best, way to go in this case and rather we would be better served by having more data.  Much to my surprise, there is none from the 218th GA — Until I went searching I did not realize that every other item from that Assembly that went to the presbyteries for concurrence was approved by the plenary on voice or other non-recorded vote.  (There is something interesting in that alone but I need to do some more thinking about that.)

So, as another measure of the Assembly’s strength of opinion let me turn to the vote in the committee for each item since that is required to be a recorded vote.  Here is what happened in the Assembly committee and the presbyteries.  The link for each item takes you to the PC-Biz page for that item.

Item  Comm. % Yes Presby. % Yes
 08-A  96.1%  64.3%
 08-B  78.8%  45.3%
 08-C  94.7%  88.9%
 08-D  98.3%  93.6%
 08-E  100%  89.5%
 08-F  100%  65.3%
 08-G  100%  88.3%
 08-H  100%  89.1%
 08-I  79.3%  57.6%
 08-J  100%  95.9%
 08-K  100%  98.8%
 08-L  100%  93.6%
 08-M  100%  99.4%
 08-N  100%  98.2%

So looking at 08-B, the only one with counted votes in all three arenas, we have 78.8% yes in committee, 53.9% yes in full Assembly, and 45.3% yes in the presbyteries.

Taking this data and graphing it gives the chart below. It is a bit busy but the primary data are the blue squares.  I’ve included the full Assembly vote on  08-B as a red square for reference.  Statisticians will quickly see that while the left-hand blue data points are nicely clustered together, they are away from the other points and do leverage the best-fit line in blue.  I’ve put on the bounding lines in black.  The two thresholds, 50% and 66.7% are marked in purple.


Now, using this as a predictor, we see that a Book of Order change should get greater than 78% in committee and for Confessions above 87%.  nFOG was 37-5, 88% so probable passage.  Belhar was 43-11, 79.6% so it would fail on the main trend and closer on the upper bound.  Revisions to ordination standards was 69.2% so also a predicted failure by presbyteries to approve.

But is this valid?  This was the correlation for the PC(USA) after the 218th GA, does this correlation still hold for the church today?  I don’t know but we will see what happens in the next year.

Anyway, some speculative geekiness.  I will say that I do think the church has changed enough that the correlation probably won’t hold.  We will see how close it is.  Stay tuned.  Now, out of geek mode and back to polity wonk — next topic: the defeat of a non-geographic presbytery today.

Update:  Between the time I wrote this and when I proofed and posted it the 219th GA voted on item 06-09 to propose a change to G-6.0106b.  As I said above the committee vote would predict not enough presbyteries concurring based on past trends.  With full Assembly approval by 373 to 323, a 53.6% yes vote.  This is almost identical to the vote on the corresponding item for the 218th General Assembly and may suggest little shift in the church since then.  If the ratio from the last Assembly holds this Book of Order change would again fail. Time will tell.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — The GA At The Midway Point

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We have reached Wednesday morning and the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) takes a short break to catch its breath and get some reading done.  The last two-ish days have been committee work and the next three-ish the full Assembly will act on the recommendations of each committee.  Looking at what the nineteen committees have done over the last couple of days there are not too many recommendations that I find surprising, although a number are disappointing to some in the church.  I’ll return to comment on the ones coming up today in a moment, but I’ll just highlight a few and probably the best place to get a better compilation is over at the GAhelp site.  And of course, full results are on PC-Biz.

I did want to highlight some of the twists and turns committees took and not being there in person here are a few of the tweets I found most interesting and informative from those who were in the committee rooms.

cvpotweet Very proud of the YAADs and TSAD on #cmte09 who were the main force behind the creative solution for the 09-20 YAV overture! #ga219

gspcrobert #cmte04 guy just quoted yoda in debate – love it #nerdfest on so many levels #ga219

brc_live Wowza. Motion to reconsider 04-06, MGB Commission. Oh good golly. #cmte4 #ga219

brc_live This #cmte4 is struggling around parliamentary procedures; not sure it is a helpful tension. #ga219

brc_live The word-smithing during committee meetings may be frustrating for those of us that “know better” but it builds ownership. #ga219 #cmte4

gspcrobert ACC guy in #cmte05 trying to quote the BOO – “I’m more familiar with the nFOG than the current one… how embarssing is that!” #ga219

lauraviau Seeing the desire to do rightby people in #cmte6 but also the frustration of not seeing how to do that #ga219

pasta_amy Wondering why there are folks who believe that our book of confessions is all about sex – seems like it #ga219 #cmte6

rugger_lav@HeySonnie What? Presby’s making amendments that are too long for 140 characters! Unheardof! #cmte12 #ga219

HeySonnie CONFUSION REIGNS! Moderator andparliamentarian consulting. #cmte12 #ga219

gspcrobert #cmte12 – commish trying to move neither report, and only approve covenant – how does that work with 2 other motions on floor? #ga219

Thanks to all these folks and the many in the Twitterverse helping me, and others, feel connected with the process.

So what happens now.  In a little bit (probably before I actually finish this post) the plenary will begin.  Robert has the docket posted on GAhelp so we know that after all the updates (Bills and Overtures and Financial Implications — we will now see those every plenary session) we will have Committee 15: Church Growth, Christian Education and PILP.  There is then an order of the day for the report of Committee 16: Theological Issues and Institutions at 4:30 pm.

In the evening session we can look forward to Committee 7: Form of Government Revision and Committee 17: Review of Permanent GA Committees.

Committee 15: Church Growth, Christian Education and PILP has one high-profile item and that is the Report of the Youth Task Force.  The committee unanimously recommends the Assembly approve this report.  Other business includes the transfer of churches between presbyteries, approval of union churches, and a commissioner resolution to help plant churches in Triana, Albania.  The committee recommends that the latter be referred to the GAMC.  If you want an indication of the routine nature of this committee’s work, with all due respect to the Youth Task Force report, according to the official tracking twitter this was the first committee to finish, completing all of their work Monday leaving Tuesday for a field trip.

Committee 16: Theological Issues and Institutions warrants our first order of the day (i.e. Drop whatever you are doing to now do this) because they will bring the recommendations regarding changes to the Book of Confessions.  Regarding the Heidelberg Catechism the committee is recommending approval of the Special Committee’s recommendations, including the renewal of the Special Committee to participate in a complete new translation of the Catechism, as opposed to new translations of specific questions as approved by the 218th GA.  Also part of the committee report is the recommendation that the church continue in the process of adopting the Belhar Confession, that is, send the Confession out to the presbyteries for their concurrence. On this the committee vote was 43-11-1 and in response to an overture that requested only commending the Belhar the vote was the same to recommend answering that overture with the approval of the Confession.  There are also a couple of other Book of Order changes from the committee, one to add “prayer” to three questions in the ordination/installation service recommending approval, and two others recommending disapproval.

Committee 7 will be recommending the approval of the revised Form of Government with amendments.  This is coming out of committee on a 37-5-0 vote and I would think additional wordsmithing will happen this evening.

Committee 17 is pretty routine stuff and all that they have is the recommendation to approve the minutes of three GA permanent committees that they reviewed.

So there is the line up for today.  Get your live streaming ready to follow along.  Much of this will probably be coming to the presbyteries so you will likely see this again — now is your chance for the “first reading.”

A Little Fun With The General Assembly

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While the whole idea of using “fun” and “General Assembly” in the same sentence is probably foreign to many Presbyterians, we have a whole genre of humor that revolves around the gatherings of our governing bodies and poking fun at our fascination with parliamentary procedure.

As evidence of that the representative of a group of Presbyterians who are not afraid to have some fun at the expense of our polity recently sent me a drinking game they came up with during one of the Assembly meetings this Spring.  With their permission I will share that in a minute, but it got me thinking about this.  Considering that a game of this nature would probably not work in the observer galleries of our Assemblies and that the near-by hotel lounges are not likely to live stream the meeting I have borrowed from their idea with the inspiration of a cartoon which has become a classic in academic circles.  Just in time for the resumption of plenary sessions at the PC(USA) Assembly, I bring you

General Assembly Bingo

So here is a bingo card for you to play along with your favorite meeting of the highest governing body of a Presbyterian branch.  I have tried to make it as generic as possible so it can be used at all the different meetings.

GA_bingo
(I have also made a downloadable PDF copy.)

So let me know of other things that might be included or if any of these are too rare an occurrence to be worthy of the bingo card.

Now, as I said at the onset, this was inspired by a drinking game that others proposed.  These drinking games are their own genre as well — for example there is a Star Trek game.

But for General Assemblies, here are their suggested rules:

  • Point of Order — 1 drink
  • Moderator takes a drink — 1 drink
  • Moderator reminds someone to identify themselves at the microphone — 1 drink
  • Moderator makes a joke — 1 drink
  • One of the “polity police” rises to speak — 1 shot of stronger stuff
  • Call for Division — stand on one foot and drink
  • A substitute motion is offered — switch to a different drink
  • Substitute motion is defeated — switch back
  • Somebody from the back complains that they can’t hear or haven’t gotten the distributions yet — buy a round for everyone else
  • Reminder of being inside the voting area — trade drinks with your neighbor
  • Move to recess — bathroom break

Of course, this is presented for entertainment purposes only and I must emphasize the responsible consumption of whatever beverage.  As for me, after a enough drinks of coffee and a couple shots of espresso I’ll probably have a hard time standing on one foot to down the next cup of java during a division of the house.  However, the switch to decaf during the substitute motion will help.  🙂

But however you do it enjoy a bit of irreverence and ardor with your order.  Force yourself to not take the parliamentary procedure too seriously.

We now return to our regular being decent and in order.