Notes on African Presbyterian Churches

Leave a reply

Over the last couple of weeks there have been some interesting reports about Presbyterian activities and politics in parts of Africa, but the reports of governing body actions have been too short to warrant a full post.  So here is a post bundling news from Sudan, Ghana, and Malawi.

Sudan
There were two brief reports by Anyuak Media from the General Assembly of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) a couple of weeks ago.  The first article is about the Rev. Philip Akway Obang being elected as the General Secretary of the SPEC.  Rev. Philip (as the article refers to him) has a degree in business administration as well as theological training.  The article says that he has been a church worker for 18 years doing evangelism and parish ministry, probably in a capacity like a Commissioned Lay Pastor.  He completed his theological training four years ago and was ordained a pastor two years ago.  One of the reasons for the article from Anyuak Media is because Pastor Philip is the only Anyuak pastor in the SPEC so there is cultural pride here.

The second article about the GA talks about establishing the first Synod in the SPEC.  The article reports that the new Synod will have two presbyteries, the North and West, and have about 70 pastors.  This is pretty much the extent of details on the new Synod and from a polity and connectionalism perspective it is not clear the role of the new governing body.  The article almost makes it sound like it is the highest governing body and that it might be operating in parallel with the GA.  Part of the confusion might be related to the church structure necessitated by the civil war in that country.  According to Reformed Online the SPEC maintains separate administrative units in government held areas and rebel-controlled areas so this might be related to that division.

The Anyuak Media article also provides a brief overview of the Presbyterian church in Sudan and the Reformed Online site expands on that.  The SPEC is the northern church while the Presbyterian Church of Sudan (PCOS) works mainly in the south.  Unlike northern and southern US Presbyterians, this is not a result of the civil war but due to the history of their development.  The SPEC began as a presbytery of the Egyptian reformed church while the PCOS was established by American missionaries.  Both have parallel administrations due to the civil war and both have churches in the other’s regions, apparently without problems.  The World Council of Churches web site says that they cooperatively run a seminary.  The half-century history of civil war has kept the two churches from uniting.

Ghana
The Presbyterian Church of Ghana is one of the more active African branches and it enjoys a good working relationship with the civil government.  A couple of news articles have appeared recently.  One covers the installation of the new national executive committee of the Bible Study and Prayer Group of the Presbyterian Church in Kumasi.  The featured speaker was the Right-Reverend Dr Yaw Frimpong-Manso, the current Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ghana.  He reminded the new officers to live exemplary lives and to be agents of change.  Another article covers the first graduation from a new campus at Okwahu of the Presbyterian University College.  The ceremonies included a message from Ghana’s President John Agyekum Kufuor read by Ms Elizabeth Ohene, Minister of State in Charge of Tertiary Education.  The message said “the Presbyterian Church had been a faithful ally of government in
providing the manpower needs of the country since it established a
primary school in 1843 and a training college in 1948.”  The article does note that the GA Moderator was present at this ceremony as well.  And finally, regional Presbyterian leaders have condemned violence in Bawku that destroyed property belonging to workers at the local Presbyterian hospital and is causing some of the workers to leave.  The church is actively providing supplies to workers who lost property in the violence.

Malawi
This not so much news, but blog posts about visiting Malawian churches on the blog Swords into Plowshares, the Peacemaking Blog of the PC(USA).  These blog entries record the visits, meetings, adventures, and worship services of a PC(USA) affiliated group as they traveled through this part of Africa.  The visit included the Presbyteries of Blantyre and Dwangwa, and the Livingstonia Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP).  One major focus of the trip was the programs to combat HIV/AIDS in the country and caring for those with and affected by the disease.  The PC(USA) has a significant presence in partnership work in the country.  While the blog entries make no mention of the internal controversy in the CCAP, and I have heard no updates for a while, several of these governing bodies are involved in territorial disputes over church planting I have mentioned before.

Upcoming PC(USA) General Assembly — Mid-March Update

Leave a reply

As the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) gets closer the overture process is winding down, but lots of other things are winding up.

On the official web pages, my observation in my last post was correct and the GA Business page has been generalized, the overtures removed, and all information shifted over to PC-biz.  Also, the two previously unlisted overtures, 62 and 68 have appeared in the list now.

One can understand why overture 68 was being worked on for so long.  Foothills Presbytery has put together an extensive overture, both in recommendation and rational, that does some major word-smithing of the Form of Government Task Force (FOG) proposed text for the new Foundations of Presbyterian Polity and Form of Government sections of the Book of Order.  I should note right up front that the task force might have rearranged the first four chapters into three new chapters of Foundations, but this overture rewrites a lot of text in both sections to change the theological focus.  The overture runs almost 16,000 words in length and if pasted into a word processor comes to 38 pages.  Just some more light reading for the commissioners.

To quote the overture the intent of this theological redirection is:

1. Ensure that any revised Form of Government (and Foundations) approved by the General Assembly shall give pre-eminence to the Reformation marks of the true Church, with due consideration of their inner dynamics.

2. Ensure that any revised Form of Government (and Foundations) approved by the General Assembly shall give preference to the church participating in the mission of the triune God in contrast to the church as the delegated/ instrumental bearer (or provisional
demonstration) of God’s mission to the world.

To put it another way, from the Rational, “the marks of the true Church are participatory—where Christ is, there is the Church (ubi christus, ibi ecclesia). The marks are not instrumentalist—where the church is, there is Christ (ubi ecclesia, ibi christus).”  So this is about making the constitutional language reflect the initiative of God and that the church participates in the mission of God.  Much of the language in the General Rational section of this overture closely parallels the Missional Polity document the task force worked with and this overture appears to be proposing changes to the FOG that would more closely align the two in theological perspective.

As I read through the proposed language I find no changes in church operations, although the argument can be made that the FOG Task Force has removed operations from the new Form of Government anyway.  In some cases the word-smithing does not really change any language but places things into more readable forms, like creating bulleted lists, or splitting items in a list into more exclusive bullet points.  But there are a lot of changes in language placing new emphasis on the Triune God and the mission of God (missio Dei).  Some of the changes are linguistically subtle.  Some of these strike me as just some “clean-up” editing.  For example (added text in italics)

G-1.02 A congregation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) can be organized and dissolved only by the authority of a presbytery and shall function under the provisions of this Constitution.

Some, while subtle word-wise, are theologically more important.  An example of this:  A line in G-1.0301 would change from

One becomes a member of the church through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and acceptance of Christ’s Lordship in all of life.

to

Believing that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord over all of life makes one a member of the church.

This is a good example of one consistent change in the overture where the language of “faith” in Jesus Christ seems to be uniformly replaced with “believing.”  Change like this are intended to place a greater emphasis on participating, as opposed to call and response.

As I read through this overture it strikes me that this seems to be somebody or some group’s idea of what the task force report should be if it is to be truly missional.  Looking at the members of the task force there is no one from Foothills so it did not come directly from a member who wanted to see more.  The overture is so complete and so extensive there has to be a “rest of the story” on this one.  It would be interesting to know how long the presbytery commissioners wrestled with this overture since it is so extensive.  And being this extensive, it will give the commissioners on the GA Form of Government Revision Committee even more to do.  I look forward to listening to, and maybe talking with, the GA overture advocate for this one.

Well, what else is new?  Maybe the most high-profile of the remaining overtures is 80 from Peace River Presbytery which complains about the Evangelical Presbyterian Church “actively pursuing a strategy to persuade Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) churches to disaffiliate.”  One interesting twist on this overture is that it asks for an investigation by the Executive Office of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) into the EPC’s actions.   Remember that the current president of WARC and presumably the head of the Executive Committee is the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick.  (Have I heard that name before?)  If it were to go to WARC he would obviously recuse himself from any investigation.  A similar overture that complained about the EPC was proposed, but not approved, by Mississippi Presbytery.

The remaining overtures are directed at social witness policy, or closely related topics.  Some that impact PC(USA) entities: 76 on Directing GAC to produce Adolescent Human Development Resources since the 217th General Assembly discontinued the human sexuality resources; 78 on Directing PDA (Presbyterian Disaster Assistance) to continue nurturing relationships with presbyteries affected by the storms of 2005; 79 is another request to reinstate the Office for Environmental Justice, similar to overture 24; and finally 77 is a request that this GA celebrate “Living Waters for the World.”  The remaining new overtures are 73 – “On the use of non-disposable food service items,” 74 – On addressing the violence and suffering inflicted on Iraqi women…, and 75 – On temporary suspension of military aid to the State of Israel.

That does it for the major new business that I have seen published.  I would note that there will be a meet and greet with all four Moderator candidates at the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, NJ, on April 25.  And the Witherspoon Society has gotten their GA web site started.

Sin Is Not Just Present, It Is Pervasive

Leave a reply
The doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith. — Reinhold Niebuhr

I won’t say that yesterday was a “good” day for sin, but it was clearly a day that it was prominent.  On the serious side a crime fighting and “squeaky clean” politician was caught in scandal.  And as the Reformed community we shake our heads in disappointment but not in surprise, for “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

And while in this news event several of the traditional “deadly” or “mortal” sins were transgressed, the Vatican comes out with their list of seven new “social” sins.  (Technically, as this Toronto Star article says, a Vatican official discussed modern problems with a Rome newspaper and it was the news media that distilled and spun them down to the more attention-getting “seven modern sins.”)

Update:  There is a good story over on GetReligion called “Seven Sensationalist Sins.”  But for us geeks, the diagram of the combinatorics of the original seven deadly sins, chose two is priceless.

Modern Parable of the Banquet

4 Replies

This is a true incident that happened in my university department last week:

There was a university department that had an “Important Visitor” that was to meet with as many of the graduate students as possible for lunch.  When the appointed time came the “Student Leader” met the Important Visitor but they waited and nobody else showed up.  So the Student Leader made some frantic phone calls but found only one other student to join them for lunch.

Upon returning from the meeting the Student Leader sent out a “heated” e-mail that elicited the usual responses:  One student said “nobody is required to attend.”  Another replied “why should I care about this if others don’t care about me.”  Others excused themselves with “I had a class,” “I had another meeting,” or “I had to TA.”  One of the students even commented that if the lack of attendance bothered the Student Leader so much, maybe they should not be the Student Leader.  This caused a third student to rush to the Student Leader’s defense saying that the Student Leader has “put in a lot of time and you can ignore them if you want, but don’t insult them.”

Here endith the parable.

I tell this story because while there are some character shifts from the original in Luke 14:16-24, and while the Gospel version has eschatological overtones that this does not, I still saw echoes of the original that give a modern tone to the “I can not come” and the ecclesiology of the version Jesus told.  I think what surprised me the most in this department incident was that there were greater implications for “professionalism” and “networking” that the students either were not aware of or ignored.  While for many there were legitimate conflicts with classes, for many others the concern was for “here” and “now,” not for taking the long view of their career.  And it is tempting to look for a “parable of the vineyard” ending where the Department Chair comes on in and “destroys” them all.  But that is mixing parables.

So I make the jump to the contemporary church.  These graduate students are one of the most under-represented groups in the Christian church today in the U.S.  What holds their attention?  They want to know how this relates, affects, and benefits them right now!  A time line of a year or more is not much of a concern and eternity is not even on the radar.  And their connection to the church may be tenuous at best if they did not grow up in a faith tradition.

How do we work with the Holy Spirit to get them into church?  Is it the energy, vitality, and uniqueness of contemporary worship?  Do we need to be ready when they have hit rock bottom? (And believe me, many of them will.) Do we need to be in relationship with them so we are ready when they ask “what makes you different?”  Do they need to see a faith community that looks like them, not like me and their parents?  It is tough, but from where I sit these are the question I keep asking myself.

Decision in the PCA SJC Louisiana Presbytery Case

1 Reply

On March 6 trial was held by the Standing Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church in America in the case of Louisiana Presbytery and their examination of TE Steven Wilkins.  In a moment the results of that trial…

But to cover the bases I want to get caught up on the prosecutor situation since my last post on February 11.  As I mentioned at the end of that post, RE Sam Duncan had announced his intention to resign as the prosecutor in the case.  Upon his resignation TE Dewey Roberts was named as the prosecutor.  Our thanks to Rev. Lane Keister at Green Baggins for posting RE Duncan’s resignation letter.

Well, after trial on Thursday and deliberations that evening, the SJC returned their verdict on Friday morning.  In count 1, a technical count about classifying declared departures that Louisiana Presbytery pleaded “not guilty” to, the charge was dismissed.  In count 2, that the presbytery did not conduct the examination of TE Wilkins to properly find a “presumption of guilt,” to which the presbytery pleaded “guilty,” the SJC “admonished” the presbytery, the lowest form of correction.

Now, I am not going to try to reinvent the wheel here because there is a good summary post at Reformed Musings about the proceedings, and if you want the details from a ruling elder close to the situation in Louisiana Presbytery you must check out HaigLaw’s post about the decision.

Looking forward it is tempting to say that the PCA has sent a message that Federal Vision Theology is not compatible with their doctrinal standards and that remaining leaders and churches who hold to the Federal Vision will flee or quickly be chased away to the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).  But it is important to point out that this whole case was more about examinations regarding the theology than about the theology itself.  And there is not one unified Federal Vision Theology but several varying approaches leaving some aspects doctrinally untested.  So the controversy may continue until a clear declaration regrading doctrinal standards is made by the SJC.  Or, the PCA might take this as a good point to take a break and get distracted by its next controversy.

But it will be interesting to see what sort of “legs” this topic has because it has clearly “got the attention,” “struck a nerve,” “rattled the cages,” (fill in your favorite cliché here) of the various proponents and opponents to this theological controversy.  And, with out going into details here, note that it deals with the nature of the covenant community, a topic at the core of Reformed theology.  But one post on Green Baggins currently has 707 comments to it and there is a thread on Puritan Board that has developed quite a discussion as well (4239 posts to date). So at least at the moment the topic has momentum in the blogosphere.  We will see what happens next and what happens to the momentum.

The Future of the Mainline Church

Leave a reply

This is one of those “convergence of thoughts” posts were several things coalesce in your thinking and you realize the significant common thread running through them.  What was probably the catalyst for this was the report that the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released last week titled “ U.S. Religions Landscape Survey.”  I’ll return to specifics of that survey in a minute, but in that report I saw nothing that I did not already know from my experience and anecdotal evidence; it just quantifies the observations.

The bottom line is that the report says, among other things, what we already know about mainline Protestant denominations:  the members are getting older and the denominations are getting smaller.  Not a surprise to anyone following the PC(USA) membership trends which saw a 1.4% decrease in the number of churches between 2003 and 2006 and a 5.7% decrease in membership in the same time period.  The one year decline for 2005-2006 was 2.0% for the PC(USA).  Over the same three-year time period the PCA reported a 5.7% growth in the number of churches and a 4.2% increase in membership. (Note that I chose the PCA and not the EPC so there is not an argument to be made that those gains are mostly departing PC(USA) members and churches.)  Similarly for the United Methodists, the title of a Christian Post article yesterday pretty much says it all: No Future for Methodists Unless Change Occurs, Say Leaders.

For the PC(USA) (and, while I did not dig up the statistics, the “mainline” Presbyterian branches in other countries as well), one observation is that we do not retain our young people.  That is supported by the Pew Forum study.

First, another academic survey which again quantifies in today’s college students what I saw happen among my peers at a state university 25 years ago.  The Pew Forum has a Q&A on their site with Alexander W. Astin, the director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA on “ Spirituality in Higher Education: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose“.  As they define it, college students become less “religious” (they stop going to church) and more “spiritual” (things like “attaining inner harmony”) between their freshman and junior years.  There is also a measure of their political thinking and the students tend to become more “liberal” in their thinking.  (Note that the Pew Forum Q&A does not include confidence intervals but if it is like most national surveys it is about +/-4% which actually renders some of the statistical differences for politics on the Pew page as indistinguishable.) (Digression: If you want an interesting discussion of differing impacts of “progressive” and “conservative” faculty on college campuses check out an article by Harrison Scott Key from World on the Web.)  I’m still doing some thinking about the UCLA study’s categories and classifications, but they support what many of us recognized over the last couple of decades, if not longer. [I will note that my day job is in academania so I have a front row seat to this. I was in a group recently where two students were having a discussion over whose form of yoga was better.]

If I had to summarize the Pew Forum study in one line it would be that today American churches, religion, and spirituality have become a commodity with individuals looking for consumer satisfaction and not brand loyalty.  And no, I’m not the first to say that.

As background, for the total population they found that 78.4% of Americans self-identified as Christians breaking down to 51.3% Protestant, 23.8% Catholic, and the balance of 3.3% other Christian including Eastern Orthodox and two groups not everyone would group with the Christians, Latter Day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses.  The next largest group was “Unaffiliated” comprising 16.1% of the population but within that group, in addition to the atheists and the agnostics there is what you might call the “apathetic,” although the study calls them “nothing in particular.”  Now apathetic is not quite right because part of the “nothing in particular” are “secular unaffiliated” who would be the apathetic, but there is also a “religious unaffiliated” who do say religion plays a significant part in their lives, but apparently not organized religions groups.  If you care about particular states, regions, ethnic groups, or other demographics the report is extensive and the web site easy to drill down through to get some very detailed information.

One other interesting detail is that among the Evangelical Protestants the second largest group is Nondenominational.  Baptists are the largest group among Evangelical Protestants with 41% of the group and then Nondenominational and Pentecostals are tied for second with 13% of the group for each.  For the record, Evangelical Presbyterians, led by the PCA, are 3% of the group.

I should mention that in the survey there is a third Protestant tradition tracked, that being the “Historically Black Protestant Church.”  However, since Presbyterianism comes in at 0% in this tradition I won’t be regularly referring to it.

One more little detail:  Since the individuals in the survey self-identify their religious affiliation I am curious about the “Mainline Presbyterian” breakdown.  While 1.1% of respondents were PC(USA), <0.3% identified themselves as “Other Presbyterian in the Mainline Tradition” and 0.7% as “Presbyterian in the Mainline Tradition, not further specified.”  So if you are Presbyterian in the Mainline Tradition, but not PC(USA), what are you?  Ex patriot Church of Scotland, PC Ireland or some other global Presbyterian branch?  Another American Presbyterian who thinks they are mainline? Someone who has left the PC(USA) but still identifies with the mainline church, whether or not attending elsewhere, or someone who won’t admit to being in the PC(USA)? According to the narrative of the study these were individuals who identified themselves as Presbyterian but no further, and who said they were not “born-again or evangelical.”  And what about PC(USA) members who identified themselves as “Evangelical?”

With that overview, let me turn to one small piece of the Pew study, specifically the religious landscape with young adults and migration patterns away from the denomination of their upbringing.  The study finds that 62% of Americans over age 70 identify themselves as Protestant while only 43% of those in the 18-29 age bracket do.   As for Unaffiliated, it is claimed by 25% of the 18-29 age group while claimed by only 8% of the over 70 group.  And in each of these groups the age distribution, while not strictly linear, does increase or decrease consistently. The survey also looked at shifting religious affiliations by comparing the tradition an individual was raised in versus where they are now.  (Note that multiple changes or changes back to the original are not seen.)  The biggest changes are seen in the Unaffiliated group with 7.3% of the population being raised unaffiliated but 16.1% claiming it now.  And most of that gain was in the “Nothing in particular” cat
egory.  The second largest gains were seen in the Nondenominational Protestant category with 1.5% raised in that tradition but 4.5% currently identifying with it.  Within those currently self-identifying as Protestants, 18% of Evangelical Protestants were raised outside Protestantism and 31% switched from another Protestant family while for those in Mainline Protestantism it is similar with 16% from outside and 30% from another Protestant family.  That leave 51% and 54% respectively who are currently in the tradition they were raised in.

Now that is a bunch of numbers, but breaking that last one down by denominations the Baptists have the best retention rate at 60% with no change while Presbyterians have one of the worst with only a 40% retention rate.  Of those that were raised Presbyterian and changed roughly equal numbers, about 15% went to each of other Evangelical Protestant denominations, other Mainline Protestant denominations, and No Religion.

I will point out that some of these numbers about migration apply to individuals across the age spectrum.  But considering the UCLA study, the fact that Unaffiliated is strongest among the 18-29 age group, and my qualitative observation of college and college age being the time that young people now lose touch with the church, I would argue that while these trends are not specific, they are at least representative if not dominant in the college age group.

With each of my three children, there is a clear attraction to the energy, vitality, and relationships that certain other churches in town have.  All three, while growing up at home and faithfully attending and serving at our Presbyterian church, also regularly attend the youth group at another church.  (And there are two different “other” churches between the three of them.)  These other churches have thriving youth programs that attract, hold, and educate the kids.  They are not attracted by the theology, they are attracted by the energy and the relationships.  These two other churches are not Presbyterian, but I have seen nothing that a Presbyterian church could not do.  In fact from reading his blog, I think Mark Smith’s church does do things like this with their youth.  But from what I have seen it takes work.  Not just work by the Youth Director, not just work by the Youth Team, but work by the whole church.  The whole church?  Yes, because some of us “frozen chosen” have to be ready to sometimes have worship music that might include a drum set and electric guitars.  Yes, because some of us need to get off our duffs and be ready to help out with youth events like Mark does.  Not only can a small youth team not do it alone, but if we want to empower the younger generation of our members (note, not the “future of the church” or the “next generation”, they are with us today) we need to show them that they are valued by the broad community and have a place in our worship and the life of the community.  And I think we can do that without compromising our Reformed faith and traditions (I’ll have to think more about how some of this might interact with the “ regulative principle of worship“).  [I think I just outlined an upcoming moderatorial sermon.]

[Please forgive me if I seem hypocritical by making these suggestions and yet my own kids also attend other church youth groups.  I would point out that 1) they are still engaged in our church and its youth group and 2) My wife, and I to a lesser degree, have been active with youth events and the youth team.  But we are not above looking at what makes other youth programs successful and it takes the time and the efforts of a lot of people to change the climate and educate the faith community.]

A final piece of anecdotal evidence:  Over the last week I have been part of two interesting conversations with two young men.  The first had just finished high school and was starting at a local community college.  He grew up in the Baptist church and from what we adults could piece together he was now in rebellion against a strict upbringing.  He could clearly and succinctly exposit his religious views and they were clearly theistic and non-Christian.  Here, I thought, was a college student headed for the Unaffiliated, but I hope that in the near future he is able to work out some of his uncertainties with the help of an understanding and non-judgmental faith community.  The second conversation was with our son who requested that we have him excused from the last few minutes of his school day so he could attend the memorial service for a member of our church.  While it was a wonderful and faithful gentleman who had gone to be with the Lord, he was not a close friend so my wife and I were initially skeptical that all our son wanted was an excuse to get out of one of his least-favorite classes.  But as we talked with him we realized that he was serious about wanting to be part of the faith community that gathered to remember this saint and so we pulled him from school for the worship service.  It demonstrated for me that something had clicked for my son about being community in the church.

Within the PC(USA) this spring it will be interesting to see if the denomination can get and hold the attention of young adults.  One driving force is the Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow and his standing for election as Moderator of the General Assembly with a Web 2.0 campaign.  Yes, the other three candidates, Rev. Bill Teng, Rev. Carl Mazza, Elder Roger Shoemaker, all have web sites and Mr. Mazza is blogging.  But Bruce’s web site is updated frequently and has the Web 2.0 bells and whistles like DOPPLR, Facebook, yelp.  From one of his posts it is apparent that questions are being raised about this modern style and whether that is an appropriate way to run a campaign.  For the Moderator election I’m not sure how much of that will help him; it is my experience that few commissioners are in the demographic that appreciates Web 2.0 or that it would influence their vote.  But taking a long view, it should be the hope of those who care about the future of the PC(USA) that Bruce simply doing that will attract and hold the attention of the younger generation of PC(USA) members and leaders.  Or maybe wake some of the rest of us up to what we need to be thinking about.

As I work through my GA 101 series I am thinking about how Reformed Theology, Presbyterian polity and Web 2.0 intersect, inform each other, and maybe conflict.  From a traditional Reformed approach, does an on-line community gathered together in the “virtual” world differ from the covenant community gathered together in the “real” world?  Can you have a true Reformed “Second Life” church?  (That is not Second Life as in The Church Triumphant but as in “The Church Virtual.”)  So I plan to revisit this piece of Reformed theology in detail in my concluding installment of the GA 101 series: Reformed theology and Presbyterian polity for the future — The Church Virtual?

But for now I have written enough and probably glazed over a bunch of eyes with all the statistics.  The take-away is that the numbers continue to not look good for the PC(USA) in the long run and we need to think about how our community, within the bounds of our Reformed faith, needs to adjust.

GA Registration Problems: Site Overload?

Leave a reply

Well today my son got his registration materials for GA this coming June.  But I would guess a bunch of others got their materials today as well because we started following the directions for him to register and the PC(USA) web site is timing out.  Reached maximum connections?  System overloaded and it crashed?  It’s now 9 PM on the left (west) coast.  We will try again tomorrow evening.  I hope PC-biz can handle the strain of having 1000+ people logged in at the same time.

Upcoming PC(USA) General Assembly — End of February Update

Leave a reply

As the month closes out there are a couple of significant updates in the business for the upcoming General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

First, there is a fourth and probably final nominee for the Moderator of the General Assembly.  The Presbyterian News Service is reporting today the Elder Roger Shoemaker, a member of Southern Heights Presbyterian Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the Homestead Presbytery, was endorsed at the February 16 Presbytery meeting to stand for election as Moderator.  The news article lists his past service to the denomination as including vice-moderator and moderator of Homestead Presbytery and vice-moderator of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies.  His work with a partner church in East Germany led to his current service as Co-convener of the PC(USA) Czech Mission Network. On his web site he emphasizes both his distinctive and perspective as the only Elder in the group of nominees as well as his international experience.  (I will say that while the web site looks nice and has good information, there are some bugs and formatting issues to be worked out so it looks like it was thrown together quickly.)  On the site he talks about mission being a long-term commitment and partnership, and about building a strong spiritual foundation in the membership of the PC(USA), not a weak foundation made of sand.

I should also note that the first candidate to be endorsed for Moderator, the Rev. Bill Teng, has also gotten his web site up, running, and publicized.  I like the simplicity of it with the “Why Bill?”, “About Bill”, and “Ask Bill” tabs.  In addition, he talks about “unpacking” his thoughts so I expect we should keep watching the site for more of his thoughts and theology.

As for business, it looks like the GA Business page may be dead because the information keeps accumulating on www.pc-biz.org with no updates to the Business page.  The PC-biz system is now up to 72 overtures with a couple of interesting ones in there.

First, there are now two overtures from Philadelphia Presbytery to amend the new Form of Government in the FOG Report.  Each overture asks that the material in the Additional Recommendations of the report be swapped with the proposed language in the main report and the main report language become the Additional Recommendation.  The first, Overture 71, would make the language that any temporary pastor except an interim could be eligible for the permanent on 3/4 vote of presbytery.  The main proposed language now is that the interim would be eligible in the same way as the others.  The second, Overture 72, makes the language that governing bodies above the session may establish committees to advocate for diversity in leadership the main report language.

There is another recommendation, Overture 67 from Foothills Presbytery, that would send the FOG report to the sessions and presbyteries for a two year study and bring the recommended changes to the next GA.  It would also commend the Task Force for its work and emphasize that the spirit of the report is in line with what the PC(USA) needs.  Interestingly, it neither dismisses the Task Force nor explicitly keeps it active.

In the list Overture 68 is missing, but if you look this one up it is also from Foothills and is on Amending the proposed FOG.  No further details.

The remaining three are polity issues.  Overture 66 from Central Washington Presbytery would have the Office of the General Assembly and the General Assembly Council examine the synod structure with an eye to streamlining.  Overture 69 is very similar to Overture 60 and would replace G-6.0106b with a paragraph that makes the examining body responsible for determining suitability for ordination and removes old Authoritative Interpretations against the ordination of practicing homosexuals.

And Overture 70 may be the most interesting of the bunch.  It is titled “On allowing provisional amendments to the Book of Order.”  It would allow the General Assembly, by a 2/3 vote, to authorize a “field test” of a proposed amendment in up to six presbyteries and to have them report back at the next GA, at which time if the results are positive the GA would send it to the presbyteries for the customary vote.  However, the field test would only be applicable to changes to the organization, structure, or operation of governing bodies.  Because of the flexibility build into the FOG report this is one overture that does not strike me as carrying over to the proposed Form of Government.

So there we have it.  And I can tell you that the information machine is starting to roll at the Office of the General Assembly.  My son, who will be a YAD, has started getting the e-mails and the letters preparing him for it, but no business yet.  The commissioner/delegate training session has been scheduled so that is now on his calendar.  It is getting closer.

Upcoming PC(USA) General Assembly — At the 120 Day Mark

1 Reply

By my count, there are now 120 days until the start of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).  The day is significant since it marks a couple of deadlines for the meeting, maybe the most important of which is the last day to submit constitutional business for the Assembly.

Related to business, in surfing around I found that the PC(USA) rolled out their new business tracking web interface back in December.  Yes, the previous system from 2006, “Les,” has been retired.  When I now go to Les I get an error message. (Yes, I’ll say it “No Les, no more.”) The new system is called “PC-biz” and can be found at www.pc-biz.org.  It is web based, uses ASP and javascript, and has a generally pleasing web interface and a “printer view” function to get rid of all the frames for viewing and printing.  The specs are generous requiring only Windows 2000 or Mac OS 9.1 but a relatively modern browser.  Some components were missing when I test drove it on Mac OS 9.2 with IE 5.5.  If you are using IE it needs 6 or better.  However, on this Linux machine with Firefox it seems to be doing fine with the extensive surfing I’ve been doing and it even worked well in Konqueror.  And it seems to do just fine in the current Firefox on a Windows 98 machine.  The FAQ says that they are migrating the Les data from 2006 to PC-biz.  And when you register and log in there is a nice filter option to view business related to the governing body you specified in your profile. (I have not tried switching back and forth between my Synod and Presbytery yet.)

One of the other things about this tracking system is that you can see the overtures when they hit the system, not just after they have been “perfected” by the Office of the General Assembly and make their way to the GA Business page.  So now, even though the Business page still lists the 30 I have already discussed, PC-biz lists 65 with only the last still listed as in review before going to the full Assembly.

When I found that there are now 35 overtures that I have not discussed my first reaction was that it would be a really long post to get caught up.  However after looking through them it should be no surprise that two topics swamp all the others in these overtures.  All together now:  “FOG and PUP.”

FOG ( Form of Government Task Force):  If you were to judged based upon the overtures you would think the change is moving too fast.  In this group are overtures: 34 (Northumberland Presbytery) – Send Foundations to the presbyteries, Keep the task force, study the rest for two years; 43 (Huntingdon Presbytery) – Send Foundations to the presbyteries but require 2/3 vote, Study Government for two years and then need 2/3 vote to pass whether you send it in two years or now, Keep the task force; 47 (Sacramento Presbytery, Concurrence St. Andrew Presbytery) – Study for two years, Dismiss the task force; 49 (Donegal Presbytery) – Commend to the presbyteries and study for two years; 57 (Southern New England Presbytery) – Dismiss the task force and make it available for presbyteries to edit if they wish and resubmit to a future GA; 58 (Middle Tennessee Presbytery) – Study for two years, Keep the task force to deal with the feedback; 59 (East Tennessee Presbytery) – Send it back to the task force for a detailed plan in six months for other governing bodies to review and a “strike-and-insert” form of the amendments [Editorial comment: OUCH!  Did you read the side-by-side?  There is so much going on in there that a full strike-and-insert might be useful in places but would be chaos in others.]; 61 (Plains and Peaks Presbytery) – Just refer it to next GA, Not in the Recommendation but in the Rational that now is not the time and we need time to study it.  I think all of that speaks for itself.  However, if we wait two years will the church really study it?  I’m not sure our record is all that good at doing that.  Overture 57 is interesting polity-wise since it wants the new Form of Government to be proposed by a Presbytery, not a task force.  So that is about 1/4 of the new overtures.

Heidelberg Catechism:  Before I move on to PUP specifically, there are two overtures that look to revise the Heidelberg Catechism in the Book of Confessions.  While I mentioned the overture request from Pittsburgh Presbytery in a previous post, it turns out that officially Pittsburgh is a concurring request on Overture 36 from the Northern Kansas Presbytery.  New York City Presbytery also concurred on this overture which calls for initiating the process of study for revising that confessional document.  Boston Presbytery, with Winnebago Presbytery concurring, proposed a slightly different approach in Overture 45, to ask permission to print the Christian Reformed Church in North America’s 1988 translation.

PUP, Ordination Standards, G-6.0106b:  This is a little bit wider of a category, but in the end they are all paths to the same issue.  In this group are overtures: 32 (Scioto Valley Presbytery) –  To have the Stated Clerk find ways to collect and share presbyteries’ theological reflection processes as recommended by the PUP report; 40 (Genesee Valley Presbytery) – Remove G-6.0106b and render ineffective all related Authoritative Interpretations (AI); 44 (Huntingdon Presbytery) – Rescind the PUP AI and pass a new one affirming G-6.0108b {Editorial comment: Don’t see the date of Presbytery action, but surely before the recent GAPJC decisions.]; 46 (Boston Presbytery) – Strike the current G-6.0106b and replace there and elsewhere with language affirming the promises made in the ordination vows; 54 (Pittsburgh Presbytery) – To amend G-6.0108b to clarify that standards specified elsewhere in the Book of Order can not be exempted using the conscience clause [Editorial:  Pre-GAPJC but after their policy was overturned by the Synod PJC]; 60 (Cincinnati Presbytery) – Replace G-6.0106b with language that the examining body determines suitability for ordination and asks to nullify old AI’s about standards; 64 (John Knox Presbytery) – An AI regarding G-6.0108 that would require presbyteries to consider exemptions in “faith and practice” except those related to the office they are called to.  Can’t wait to see the advisories on that last one in light of the GAPJC decisions.

Deep breath.  OK, I’ll keep lumping for a bit here but the categories will become a bit more general in a minute.  That is almost exactly half covered.  Nineteen to go.

Per Capita:  With the other high-profile issues catching the spotlight, this could be the sleeper that comes back to surprise everyone.  There is already Overture 20 that addresses per capita issues ( main page, PC-biz page).  In the latest batch there is also 38 (Grace Presbytery), 48 (Sierra Blanca Presbytery), and 56 (Santa Barbara Presbytery).  All of these call for limitations on what is in the GA per capita budget, Overture 56 by amendment to the Book of Order that would affect middle governing bodies as well.  The concern is to remove “mission” from the per capita and Overtures 20 and 48 specifically single out ecumenical agencies and relations and Overture 56 includes those in the list.  Obviously, passage of any of these would mean that the items shifted to mission would stretch the mission budget even thinner.

Social Witness:  Well, this is a mix but here it goes.  The following overtures address social witness policy, broadly defined, in one way or another:  31 (Susquehanna Valley Presbytery) – To endorse the World Council of Churches “Amman Call” regarding Arab-Israeli peace;  35 (Pacific Presbytery) – Have GAC develop a comprehensive HIV/AIDS policy; 41 (Denver Presbytery) – To support the Presbyterian Church in Zimbabwe in its humanitarian and social work; 51 (Baltimore Presbytery) – To have church governing bodies purchase goods that are from environmentally responsible manufacturing that are not sweatshops; 52 (Baltimore Presbytery) – To support the troops, but call on the government to pull out of Iraq; 53 (Pittsburgh Presbytery) – To annually have the Board of Pensions publish a Relief of Conscience Plan Report with details of BOP money spent on abortions and how members can opt out of paying for them; 55 (Pittsburgh Presbytery) – To direct all PC(USA) entities to present both sides of the abortion issue in balance; 63 (East Iowa Presbytery) – Encourages those visiting Israel and Palestine to visit Christian churches while there and seek balance between Israeli and Palestinian areas and perspectives while there.  Note that Overture 62 (Plains and Peaks Presbytery) on the international trafficking in women is not in the main list and further information is not available on its page to mere mortals.

This leaves six overtures, roughly one sixth, that address other polity areas, other institutional areas, or something else.  These are: 33 (Los Ranchos Presbytery) – To limit, without specifying the limit, the number of multiple filings someone can file in an abuse of the system; 37 (Blackhawk Presbytery) – On celebrating Children’s Day [You know, there is Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, there should be a Children’s Day]; 39 (Eastern Virginia Presbytery) – Adding to GAC a representative from the National Council of Presbyterian Men; 42 (Denver Presbytery) – To modify G-7.0301 to allow for ways that members of a congregation who can not be present at a congregational meeting due to health or work can still vote; 50 (Baltimore Presbytery) – To respond to an invitation from Muslim clerics for interfaith dialog; 65 (San Joaquin Presbytery) – Is a call to seek God through Solemn Assemblies for the renewal of the church.

Well, that wraps it up.  A lot there and I hope my very brief descriptions shed accurate light on these.  It should also be understood that anywhere the overture calls for a Book of Order change the change needs to be sent to the presbyteries for their approval.

Variations on a Theme

Leave a reply

This June’s General Assembly is shaping up to be an interesting one as ordination standards are addressed by the commissioners.  The inconsistency between churches and the variation in ordination practices are raising concerns among conservative congregations that the church’s polity and confessional standards are being stretched and an overture is being sent to GA to look at this.

Sound familiar?  Well this is the Presbyterian Church in America’s General Assembly.  Last month I mentioned that the Presbytery of Philadelphia was wrestling with the role of women in the diaconate and had approved this overture.  Well thanks to David in an article on the BaylyBlog, we now know that the official overture is available and he has filled in a few more of the details.

As I mentioned when this first came up, the questions boils down to the role of women in the diaconate and if they have a role how that should be recognized.  In this situation the women were not “ordained” but “commissioned” by the laying on of hands.  But the PCA has no definition or service of commissioning in this sense and there is an understanding among some that anything that involves laying on of hands and prayer is an ordination.  So, if it looks like an ordination and contains all the elements of an ordination, but you call it something else, is it still an ordination?

Well, the narrative attached to the overture provides us with the details in this case that I was lacking before.  It seems that in the Presbytery of Philadelphia there is a licensee who has taken exception to the office of deacon being open only to men.  Furthermore, the records review of the Presbytery minutes identified an exception regarding the commissioning of deaconesses at this licensee’s church.  To sort this out the Presbytery created a study committee and the church involved submitted to the Presbytery a proposed overture to GA to allow both men and women to be ordained as deacons on equal footing.  (That’s pretty much the “whereas” section of the overture.)  In light of these charges the Presbytery overtured the General Assembly to form an ad interim study committee to sort out the theology and give the PCA clear guidance, and clarify the polity if necessary, about the nature of commissioning and the role of women in the diaconate.

The post on the BaylyBlog also points to the church in question, liberti Church, posting on their photo page the pictures of worship service where the church was chartered which includes three pictures ( Pict 1, Pict 2, Pict 3) of the “commissioning” with the laying on of hands.

So, the PCA has some distinctions to sort out as the PC(USA) is doing.  And while the PCA and PC(USA) may be dealing with similar questions but different issues, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland may be addressing the ordination of women at its GA but from the other side:  women can be ordained, but congregations need not recognize it.