Pittsburgh PJC Decision Appears To Be Based on Spahr v Redwoods

1 Reply

(See the evening update at the end of the post)

Word is being relayed on the internet that in the Pittsburgh Presbytery PJC case, where the Rev. Janet Edwards was being tried for conducting a same-sex wedding, the PJC unanimously acquitted her.  (More Light Presbyterians, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) While the full decision is not available yet the early indications are that this decision was based upon the confusing decision in the Spahr v. Redwoods case and I have trouble seeing how anyone can claim a real victory in this case.  (If you want the background check out my post from August on the topic.)

To quote the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s early report:

The court, meeting on the North Side in the second day of a trial for
the Rev. Janet Edwards, ruled that the constitutions of the church and
the state of Pennsylvania define marriage as an act between a man and a
woman. Therefore, judges said, the minister could not have done what
she was accused of doing.

This appears to be based on the decision rendered in the GA PJC Spahr v. Redwoods case that no minister in the Presbyterian Church can be found guilty of conducting a same-sex wedding ceremony because no such thing exists.  A wedding is between a man and a woman so a same-sex wedding is a contradiction in terms.  As you can probably guess this legal reasoning did not really satisfy anyone.

It seems reasonable to me that the lower Presbytery PJC relied on this legal decision, a reasonable thing to do even if it is not a particularly satisfying decision.  Hence, my feeling that there are no real winners in this case.  No new legal territory is broken and the situation is none the clearer.  From a personal perspective, the Rev. Edwards was cleared of the charges.  From a polity/legal point of view, the ceremony she openly admits conducting was not a wedding according to the PJC.  So guess what, we have to wait for another appeal, maybe not in this case though, to make its way to the top.

The Rev. Edwards, in her defense brief, said that she would invoke the Spahr v. Redwoods case, but certain of the other parts of the decision.  Be careful what you ask for because it looks like she got a clear decision that there are no same-sex weddings.

Finally, I see this case in the light of the previous GAPJC decisions.  Clearly the news media has not seen that yet and a lot of the “people in the pews” won’t see the connection either.  Because it lines up so closely with Spahr v. Redwoods I see this as pretty much a “non-decision” in terms of the big picture of resolving this issue.  But most of the Presbyterian world will not see the nuances in here.  Hold on tight for the stormy seas.

UPDATE – 8:30 PM:  The verdict has been posted by More Light Presbyterians and pretty much holds to my inference above with one significant exception:  The verdict makes it clear that the prosecution, with whom the burden of proof lies, did not prove their case.  The verdict does rely heavily on Spahr v. Redwoods and the says, in part:

“The Prosecuting Committee has failed to meet the burden of proof that the accused carried out a marriage ceremony at all.”

Pennsylvania
civil law defines marriage as male-female, so a marriage between two
women cannot be a marriage regardless of what occurred in the ceremony.
Because the Book of Order does not recognize a same-sex marriage, it cannot be an offense to attempt to do the impossible.

Therefore,
the commission does not find that the accused committed an offense by
performing a ceremony between two people of the same gender.

Also,
there is no evidence that the accused held out the ceremony as a
marriage. It could be inferred from the order of service, but it has
not been proved. The accused’s belief about whether the ceremony was a
marriage has not been proved, either.

The decision in Spahr
states that “one cannot construe same-sex ceremonies as marriages for
the purpose of disciplining someone, but not as marriages for ecclesial
purposes.”

It does leave open the question of whether this PJC would have convicted if better evidence had been presented, even though “it cannot be an offense to attempt to do the impossible.”

From reading this over if the evidence is not there I’m not sure that there are procedural grounds to appeal.  We will see if the prosecution thinks otherwise.

Watching the Pittsburgh PJC Trial and Inaccurate Media Headlines

Leave a reply

There is way too much to watch at the moment with the GA of the PCANZ and Presbyfest in the news at the moment, but the Pittsburgh Presbytery trial, or re-trial, of the Rev. Janet Edwards got underway yesterday and it is reasonable to expect a decision today.  (If you want background on this you can check out my previous post on the case.)

I’ll keep watching for a decision, but while watching I noticed that several news outlets have gotten good stories out, such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and KDKA, among others.  But I must take issue with the news story, particularly the headline, in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.  The headline is:

State Court Backs Presbyterian Minister

If you read the article you find that this is not even close to the truth.  The real story is that a former State Superior Court judge, Justin M. Johnson, testified in the Rev. Edwards’ defense that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Constitution does not prohibit same-sex weddings.  That, to me, is a far cry from a state court intervening in a church trial.  To the article’s credit it does quote PC(USA) Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons as saying that the constitution does prohibit ministers from preforming same-sex weddings.

Anyway, just watching and waiting to see how the Presbytery PJC rules.

Connectedness in the Covenant Community: Part 1 — The Big Picture

7 Replies

This is a two-parter where I will ask and reflect on a couple of uncomfortable questions related to the Covenant Community of the church.  (And with a little luck I’ll get both parts written in the next 36 hours.)

In this part I want to ask a question that might just get me labeled a heretic; there is a bit of that going around at the moment.

Part of what got me thinking about this is that “PresbyFest,” as Michael Kruse has labeled it, is going on in Snowbird, Utah, with back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings of the “PC(USA) Establishment” including the annual polity conference, Association of Executive Presbyters Meeting, joint Middle Governing Body and General Assembly Council meeting, and GAC alone.  That is a lot of meetings for relatively few people for a denomination of about 2.2 million people.

This in part got me wondering…

Is the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) too big?

Let me ask this question another way: How can we be effectively connected in a denomination this large?

The “Presbyterian” answer of course is that

the congregation’s connected to the session,
the session’s connected to the presbytery,
the presbytery’s connected to the synod,
the synod’s connected to the General Assembly…

But how does this play out in reality?  In the past I have commented on what I saw as the disconnect between the “people in the pews” and “the folks in Louisville.”  And this past General Assembly has raised a lot of questions and uncertainty based on what I hear when I talk with churches and groups about what the General Assembly did, or did not do.  Is the PC(USA) too big to be a truly connectional church?

And when I use the term “big,” I do mean our size both in terms of total numbers and in terms of the institution and its many branches, offices, and agencies.  Most of the people in the pews have never heard of ACSWP or MRTI, to say nothing of being able to tell you where the scope of one group’s work ends and the other’s begins.

In his 1994 book, The Body, Charles Colson tells the story of a church, a story that has stuck in my mind for almost 15 years now.  He tells of talking to a pastor who, with some reticence, admitted that he and his board of elders were trying to shrink the church.  This was not for physical or logistical reasons, but they felt God was calling them to reduce their congregational membership to those individuals who were committed to the church’s vision for mission.  The elders faithfully prayed and membership dropped.  But once the core group was left the church started growing again and with their unity of vision the mission of the church was strengthened.  Do we take our Book of Order seriously when we say “The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its own life.”

Another way that our size may get in the way of our connectedness is the small sampling represented at General Assembly.  With about 750 commissioners for 10,000 churches that is less than one commissioner per ten churches.  For medium and small Presbyterian branches every pastor is a commissioner to GA and every church gets to send a ruling elder.  It seems that this would improve the knowledge of GA actions and increase the “buy-in” of congregations in denominational actions.  I am not sure we could fund or organize a 20,000+ person GA, but there may be a lesson in it.  (And yes, I am aware that doing this does not eliminate the doctrinal disagreements, but it does seem to have them handled more smoothly.)

Please do not take this as an argument strictly in favor of the continued decline in the PC(USA) and the realignment of churches with other Presbyterian branches, but  I will admit that an interpretation like that is within what I have said here.

But, what I am mostly thinking about is how the large denomination can “feel” better connected, can feel smaller to the membership.  Sending four commissioners to GA or the Executive to Snowbird is a start, but only represents a small sample of the churches in the denomination.  Lines of communication need to be opened in new ways and the blogging by officials is a start.  But does even Bruce have 10,000 readers, one from each church?  The PC(USA) fan site on Facebook only has around 2,500 fans.

How can we better connect?  Should we consider regional gatherings that each church is required, or highly encouraged, to send representatives to.  It would need to be worthwhile for it to get the audience that would connect each congregation to the wider church and to the other churches in a region larger than a presbytery.  Do we have events that blur presbytery borders, where neighboring churches get together irregardless of the presbyteries they are in?  In a dense area like Southern California could neighboring presbyteries hold joint meetings once a year?  Or are we meetinged out and want to stick with the status quo?

In this case size is not just a membership or institutional measurement but a “people” measurement as well.  We are too big if we lose sight of each other across the table.  We need to find ways and be intentional about our connectionalism so we are truly connected on many different scales.

Next time, connectedness in the congregation: Are we too small?

Reflections On The Church Virtual #2 — The True Preaching Of The Word Of God

Leave a reply

In the Scots Confession the first of the “notes of the true kirk” is:

the true preaching of the word of God, in which God has
revealed himself to us, as the writings of the prophets and apostles
declare;

In the last few days preaching has made the news at a level seldom seen here in the U.S. with the direct challenge to portions of the tax code governing religious organizations.  While I have some pretty strong opinions about that, I’m leaving those for another time and probably a different venue.  I’ve got plenty of other things to talk about in this space and there are going to be plenty of other people talking about them, including the Rev. Mark D. Roberts according to a “coming attractions” note.

But an article on the Christianity Today web site by Craig Brian Larson about the spiritual discipline of listening to sermons, as well as the sermon at my church yesterday, got me thinking about the Word preached in the context of the virtual covenant community.  Having started to write this post I can see that the topic is getting away from me and I will be putting a lot of my thoughts into one or more subsequent posts.

In my congregation we have been posting some of the sermons preached on Sunday mornings on our web site for almost three years now.  Doing this is a team effort between the audio crew that records and digitizes the service and I as the internet geek who cuts out the sermon, screens it, possibly edits, resamples and compresses it in multiple forms, and posts it while updating the web page and the RSS feed.  Please note that in the flow process I do screen the sermons.  I don’t screen for “quality” so that only our best messages go up.  In some respects we are an “all the news that fits in print” outlet; in fact you can even find one of mine up there.  What I screen for is the long list of technical issues, including recording quality, copyright issues, and “personal revelations.”  This last issue gets at the heart of one of the major points of discussion among the techies.

The technical crew is constantly discussing the on-line presence and at one end we say we would love to stream our services live every week.  While we are not technically ready to do that, there is the concern of what the preacher might say that would be sent out in real time.  This is not as much concern about controversial statements, like the endorsement of political candidates, but concern for personal examples and family illustrations that a pastor might feel comfortable sharing with a congregation that knows their family, but may not want to share with a virtual community that only knows their voice.  The discussion is whether we need to allow the pastor to preach their sermon, or whether we need to remind them that this is going out over to the big, wide, wonderful virtual world and they need to consider what they share.

While the vast majority of sermons need no content management, yesterday’s was the exception:  our pastor shared, as a wonderful part of the sermon, some extended family details that probably are best not distributed to the world at large.  It was a “you had to be there moment.”  The last time this specific issue came up the screening committee (my wife and I in conversation with the pastor) decided that it would be best not to post the sermon at all.  My initial notes from yesterday are that this sermon can be edited so the personal information is not included since it is a small enough piece of it that the sermon will hold together just fine without it.

So this gets to the tension of what gets put out over the internet.  Do we ask the pastors to self-censor and whatever they say will go on-line, or do we let the pastors deliver the sermon for those who are “in the house” and the words may or may not get to the virtual community?  Which is more appropriate to the “true preaching of the Word of God?”

For those who are in the PC(USA) remember this is what our Directory for Worship says:

W-1.4005a. The minister as pastor has certain responsibilities which are not subject to the authority of the session. In a particular service of worship the pastor is responsible for

(1) the selection of Scripture lessons to be read,
(2) the preparation and preaching of the sermon or exposition of the Word,
(3) the prayers offered on behalf of the people and those prepared for the use of the people in worship,
(4) the music to be sung,
(5) the use of drama, dance, and other art forms.

The pastor may confer with a worship committee in planning particular services of worship.

By forcing a preacher to adapt a sermon for the internet how much do we infringe on this right and responsibility?

To some degree this seems to get down to the “audience”: which covenant community, local or virtual, gets to be the primary one and which gets to “listen in?”  More on that in the next post.

Listening In The Covenant Community

Leave a reply

A couple of weeks ago the session of my church came to the congregation and basically said that the church is at a “crossroads,” (a good one in this case) and that the session wanted the input of the congregation in deciding which way to turn at this crossroads.  Starting this week they have begun a process of “listening” to the congregation, including taking the time last Sunday morning to meet with the youth of the church during their education hour class.  According to my sons the session members clearly got input from the youth.

This made the piece that Carol Howard Merritt posted today on Tribal Church even more significant for me.  I have to think that most of you are already regular readers of Tribal Church, but if you have not read The quick fix you need to, especially if you are concerned or interested in the direction of the church with the younger generation.  Actually, she really says nothing new but in a profound way reminds us what the Covenant Community is supposed to be about in the first place and how we build that community.

Getting back to my church, I can say that the session took the time to listen, and in doing so established a great deal of good will and relationship with the youth.  (The rest of the church is giving their input as well through the listening process.) The session has also promised to report back quickly.  But as Carol points out, what happens next will be critical to the relationship with the youth.  Based on what the session hears will the concerns the youth expressed be at least acknowledged if not acted upon?  And just as important, will there be continued efforts to listen to them and make them feel valued in the church community?

Fortunately my particular church is not in need of a quick fix.  But we must be conscious of the long-term direction of the church and what we need to do to keep the younger generation engaged.  While my congregation is active and vital today, the comments that session got from the youth indicate that we do not connect as well as we could.  That is something to consider so that we don’t find ourselves in need of the quick fix.

Words Have Meaning — Until They Have Too Many Meanings

3 Replies

My feed reader today brought me an interesting coincidence of two widely (overused?) terms that have effectively lost their technical definitions because they have become “generic” terms and the original meaning has become blurred.

The first is the term “evangelical,” a term that I have regularly mused upon what it truly means.  (January 2007, June 2008)  Today one of my regular reads, GetReligion, has a post “Who’s calling who an evangelical?”  The article is an analysis of a news article from the Associated Press about the overnight raid on the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries headquarters in Arkansas.  In the AP article the organization is referred to as “evangelical” to which Danial Pulliam, the author of the GetReligion article comments:

There are many more effective and accurate ways to define this group
and “evangelical” is probably not near the top of anyone’s list.
However, considering that the term evangelical can mean pretty much
anything these days, it is hard to say that the article is in error.
Rather, it just continues the unfortunate abuse and use of the term
destroying any meaning that used to be attached to it.

You may have heard that the Bible Society (the full name is The British and Foreign Bible Society) has recently released a Bible Style Guide to give journalists in our increasingly Bible illiterate society more background when they cover religious, particularly Christian, news stories.  I find it interesting that the Style Guide stays clear of defining “evangelical” but rather under “evangelist” (and the associated term evangelism) simply clarifies that “These terms are often confused with being ‘Evangelical’, which means belonging to a particular form of Christianity.” What that “form of Christianity” is the Style Guide appears to avoid.  The approach seems to be to use these categories of Christians like “evangelical” and “fundamentalist” in the guide without defining them.

(In defense of the Style Guide (sort of) it is put forward as a Bible style guide and so concepts not directly related to the Bible would not be expected to be covered.  However, the term “denomination” is in the dictionary section and the term “Pentecostal” is defined in the context of “Pentecost.”)

The second term which is getting coverage today is “emergent.”  (A term that, as far as I can tell, never appears in the Style Guide.)  The current buzz around the use of emergent is occasioned by an article on the blog Out of Ur titled R.I.P. Emerging Church.  The article says “Now comes word from recognized leaders and voices within the emerging
church movement that the term has become so polluted that it is being
dropped.”

The article cites two of the prominent voices, Dan Kimball and Andrew Jones.  The Out of Ur article points to a post on Dan Kimball’s blog Vintage Faith where he talks about the history of the term.  In particular he says:

I suppose by the very nature of the word “emerging” it naturally would
be expected grow, morph, develop and change. But what it has grown into
(in my perspective), is different in its focus than what it was when I
first was drawn into it all. Although I will still be talking about
“the emerging church” and still using the terms when I speak at
conferences (if it is the topic of discussion), I will be using it more
retrospectively than futuristically.

It is interesting that he also says “I am using “missional” more these days, although that term has
different meanings too and knowing human tendencies that will prpbably
[sic] go through definition changes.” (In my watching the term it seems to be almost at the point now where there are as many different ideas and nuances associated with “missional” as “evangelical” and “emergent.”)

The Out of Ur article also talks about Andrew Jones and a poll and article he has on his Tall Skinny Kiwi blog titled “Emerging Church: You Say Dump It.”  Andrew’s readers that responded favored dumping the “emerging church” terminology by a 60/40 ratio.  He gives several personal examples of why the term should be dumped because of differences in understanding, to put it mildly, about the meaning of the term.  He also cites some examples where it may be too deeply entrenched.  Going forward, he says that it will disappear from his direct ministries, but he will continue to support the concept and others that are still using the term.

The Out of Ur article concludes with this:

They appear to have learned from the emerging church’s mistake—define
purpose and doctrine early so your identity doesn’t get hijacked.

In reading through these posts about the “emerging” church it struck me how much energy and intellectual capital are currently invested in that term that is suddenly being sidelined, if not abandoned.  These efforts include the PresbyMergent group and the soon-to-be-released book by Phyllis Tickle The Great Emergence.  But that is also the way of human language, for words and phrases to evolve and take on different meanings.  Just ask my son who is learning his lines of Shakespeare for the fall play.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose
it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’

[Lewis Carroll – Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6]

Some Odds and Ends – September 2008

Leave a reply

I’ve set a couple of these aside to see if they would go anywhere, and seeing that they did not I decided to consolidate them into one post of Odds and Ends…

Football on Sunday:  No this is not a continuation of the watching the NFL on Sunday discussion, but this is about what we Americans call soccer.  It turns out that for the first time a professional football match was played in Northern Ireland on Sunday.  So, as the home team Glentoran struggled to a one-nil victory over Bangor in East Belfast, there were about fifty members of the Free Presbyterian Church outside the stadium peacefully protesting the match.  According to the BBC article this was not a sectarian dispute but rather found the Protestants on both sides of the turnstile.  The BBC also says that Glentoran striker Michael Halliday is “not comfortable” with the idea of playing on Sunday, but that for this mid-afternoon game he was able to attend worship in the morning.  The article also mentions that at least one fan passing the Free Church members questioned them if protesting was a violation of the Lord’s Day.

You have to believe in something:  Mollie Ziegler Hemingway has a very interesting op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal today available on their web site.  Titled “Look Who’s Irrational Now” she looks at a new study from the Baylor University Institute for the Studies of Religion, What Americans Really Believe by Rodney Stark.  She reports that the study found an inverse relationship between Christian faith and believing in the paranormal.

While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these
things [paranormal events], only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once
a week did.

And they broke it down by denomination:

Even among Christians, there were disparities. While 36% of those
belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama’s former
denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of
those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin’s former
denomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the
respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the
possibility of communicating with people who are dead.

And finally, at least to an academaniac like me, Ms. Hemingway throws in this is particularly interesting tidbit:

Surprisingly, while increased church attendance and membership in a
conservative denomination has a powerful negative effect on paranormal
beliefs, higher education doesn’t. Two years ago two professors
published another study in Skeptical Inquirer showing that, while less
than one-quarter of college freshmen surveyed expressed a general
belief in such superstitions as ghosts, psychic healing, haunted
houses, demonic possession, clairvoyance and witches, the figure jumped
to 31% of college seniors and 34% of graduate students.

(It may be important to note that among the paranormal beliefs listed, demonic possession can be compatible with Christian beliefs.)

So for those who consider “religion is the opiate of the masses” and that atheists are the rational ones, better look a bit more deeply.  People want to believe in something.

The clock is ticking: PC(USA) leaders who have not started fortifying themselves already had better start now — In four to six years a new Presbyterian hymnal is going to be ready and your church will have to figure out 1) if your members can accept it and 2) if you can afford it.  OK, seriously, the Hymnal Project took another step forward this week with the naming of the committee to compile it.  Best wishes to Presbyterian blogger Adam Copeland who landed on the committee.  But I figure this won’t be taking much time if a Presbyterian Seminary President can make room in her schedule to serve on the committee.  (Or maybe that says something about how much time it takes to be a seminary president?)

Congratulations:  Finally, congratulations and best wishes to the Truckee Lutheran Presbyterian Church as they look forward to their chartering celebration service next Sunday, September 28.  While any new church chartering is a cause for celebration, this one caught my attention since the approval of this joint ELCA/PC(USA) union church was one of the items of business at the 218th General Assembly of the PC(USA).  May God richly bless your ministry.

The General Assembly (2008) of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand

Leave a reply

This can’t be happening.  What happened to “decently and in order?”  Where is all that Presbyterian formality?  Hold on to your hat everyone because the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand has gone “user friendly.”

Well, I may be exaggerating a little bit, but for the GA set to begin on October 2 at St. Patrick’s College, Silverstream, in Wellington, some traditional language has been replaced and high-profile reports and proposals have less formal names.  But first things first.

The Rev. Dr. Graham Redding has been selected as the Moderator for the Assembly.  He recently became the director of one of the denomination’s training centers, the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership in Dunedin.  Previous to that he was a parish minister for 15 years.  He has served the church in a number of capacities and has written a book titled Prayer and the Priesthood of Christ in the Reformed Tradition.  He is married with three teenage children.  He has chosen “Reformed and Reforming” as the Assembly theme.

In reading through the Assembly business one of the major items will be the “Press Go” proposal.  This is an initiative to solicit and fund projects related to church growth.  Recognizing that the PCANZ attendance over the last 40-ish years has dropped from the 90,000 range to the 30,000 range, this project is looking for innovative ways to grow the church and for the money to fund it.  And the associated report comes with the rather informal and un-Presbyterian sounding title “The Great Big Growth Plan.”

This plan is based upon five assertions:

1. Decline is not inevitable.

2. The Church’s money is not ours. The resources we share, the money in the offering plate, our congregation’s bank balance and buildings are not ours. Those present and past have entrusted us with the resources we have for the purposes of glorifying God and fulfilling God’s mission for and in the world.

3. The Presbyterian Church is ruled by Elders. Every Elder makes a commitment to fulfil leadership responsibilities for the whole Church. No Elder can fulfil their role by basing their decisions on the singular interest of any particular congregation or group. When Elders do this they undermine what it means to be part of the Presbyterian Church. An Elder’s primary commitment is to God’s mission and their decisions need to reflect an earnest commitment to seek God’s wisdom and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

4. Growth is possible. It is happening. Experience tells us about the best ways to organise ourselves to support growth.

5. The changes advocated here are radical and costly and can only happen through a broad consensus and willingness by Church leaders. The changes are not for someone else to make- they require an ownership by each one of us.

So based on these assertions where does the report go?

The solutions offered here are on one hand very simple and on the other very complex. The simple idea is the release of church assets to fund growth. This is an idea which receives broad theoretical support. The complexity is that we are very very attached to these assets. They represent a place, a history and a security for us. It may be just too hard a decision to make.

(PC(USA) folk — Sound familiar? G-3.0400 – The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond themselves to the new reality in Christ.)

The project requires money for leadership salaries and property acquisition.  The report also asks for money for a staff position to coordinate all this.  The report calls for the church to provide 10% of the return on their assets (property and investments) for this program as gifts of 2.5% per year for four years.  There are specific suggestions discussed in the report for different asset types, but for declining congregations with uncertain futures this could mean closing the church and selling the property.

So what will this be used for?  The report identifies five characteristics of growing and vital churches:

  • A strong pervasive commitment to focus resources on outreach based on Gospel imperatives. “We are not here first for ourselves but for others.”
  • An administrative structure which supports gifted and skilled Christian leaders to do the things that they are good at doing.
  • A readiness to support and fund innovation and to try new ideas.
  • Worship that reflects the culture and communication medium relevant to the congregation.
  • A resource base which allows for generosity, good hospitality, food and warmth in surroundings that are appropriate for the size and culture of the group.

With this in mind, the report advocates several steps.  For small churches a need to assess viability and appropriately support those that are in settings, particularly rural, where growth potential is minimal, but the ministry is vital.  There is a need to support new church plants in promising areas, particularly those the report considers “emerging” which it defines in a way many emerging church people might not agree with.  For medium sized congregations there is a need to evaluate solo pastorates and decide if a multi-leader team would help grow the church.  But the report really seems to rely on large churches, both for overall numbers growth as well as a resource to support the leadership of smaller churches in the area.  One model that I don’t explicitly see in the report, but derives from this large church idea, that the media has picked up, is a mega-church (my term, not theirs) auditorium style with small chapels associated with it that may accommodate the “traditional” existing congregations.

The report is 14 pages long and an interesting and easy read.  It is thought provoking and other church growth types might want to have a look at it.  It has been boiled down to a tri-fold brochure if you want an executive summary.  This proposal will be presented by the Press Go subgroup of the Council of Assembly.  In this final report there are a couple of changes, most notably the funding formula appears to have changed to having a $2 million contribution from the sale of a national property, a 1% contribution from churches’ investment return (as opposed to the 2.5% in the growth report), and additional fund raising.

Another item of business I would expect to be a major topic is a proposal to replace the Westminster Standards with a n
ew Statement of Faith and the associated commentary as the Subordinate Standards of the PCANZ.  The Westminster documents would join the Scots, Heidelberg, Second Helvetic, Apostles and Nicene documents in a “library of confessional documents which are central to the Church’s heritage.”  This recommendation comes from a body with the interesting name of the “Focal Identity Statement Task Group.”  This business is a follow up from the 2004 General Assembly where the Task Group report noted that the new confession had not been widely distributed in advance of the Assembly and that while the statement was originally included in the proposed new Book of Order, the commentary was not and should have been.  It is also possible that this report has been/will be withdrawn since the report from the July Council Meeting indicates there will only be a progress report.  If the report is presented and passed, it is my reading of the PCANZ Book of Order that this section is subject to the “Special Legislative Procedure” that requires the approval of the presbyteries.  I’ll keep researching this one.

It is probably worth noting at this point that this new Book of Order was approved by the previous GA in 2006 and then was approved by “the vast majority” of the presbyteries.  In the new Book the “Barrier Act” has been replaced by the similar “Special Legislative Procedure.”

This post is getting long so the one other major item I will put off until a follow-up post:  There is also a task group reporting on reforming presbyteries.  Briefly, the recommendations are 1) To restructure presbyteries to make them larger (they cite the PC(USA) as a model here) 2) separate the resourcing and governance functions and 3) separate the governance into core and discretionary.  It also wants to see what functions can be shifted to the central office.

In other business before the Assembly there are three presbytery “proposals.”  This is the first year with this new terminology and format and this is what most of the rest of the Presbyterian world would call an “overture.”  The first is a “clean-up” proposal designed to adjust the brand new Book of Order so that ministers in other validated ministries, not just in parish ministry, would be properly represented as GA commissioners.  The second proposal also addresses the new Book of Order, but asks for dispute resolution for certain lesser problems to be available quickly at a lower level as opposed to the new, central procedure.  The third proposal asks that the legislation of General Assembly be communicated not just to the presbyteries but to the parish councils/sessions directly as well so that the church is better informed.  Regarding this last one, I don’t read this as a request that sessions as well as presbyteries need to approve any legislation that GA has to send down to the church as “special legislation.”  It is also an interesting request in light of the new commissioner structure where each parish is supposed to have a commissioner, elder or pastor, to GA.

In reading through the rest of the business most is fairly routine that you would expect at most Assemblies.  The Council of Assembly has some business related to capital funds that appears to be coordinated with the funding models of Press Go.

So, with two weeks to go it will be interesting what lead-up there is to the Assembly and what coverage and commentary is like during the meeting.  And I’ll keep poking around and see what is actually supposed to happen with presbytery reform and the Focal Identity Statement.

Boundary Dispute Between CCAP Synods Continues in Malawi

4 Replies

One of the continuing news items that I have followed on this blog is a dispute between two Synods of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP).  I first mentioned this issue almost exactly two years ago and then did a follow-up in December of last year.  From recent reports it appears that this situation is no better, and has possibly worsened.

Some background:  The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian has five Synods: Zambia and Harare (Zimbabwe) are pretty much national Synods in those countries.  In Malawi there are three Synods – Livingstonia in the north, Nkhoma in the center, and Blantyre in the south.  From reading up on this it is important to note that these Synods have more autonomy than many American Presbyterians would expect, a legacy that derives from their missionary heritage.  As I read about the CCAP it seems that it might be better described as a “confederation” than a “denomination.”  It is also interesting to note that its confessional standard is not Westminster but the Belgic/Heidelberg/Dort standards.

Quick recap:  While Livingstonia and Nkhoma are supposed to be geographic Synods with specific boundaries, over the last several decades as workers migrated the Synods have followed and churches have been established among their respective language groups, Chewa for Nkhoma and Tumbuka for Livingstonia, even across Synod boundaries.

This week a new, detailed article in Nation Online titled Synod Fight Turns Nasty reports that the dispute continues and appears to be worsening.  The lede:

It started as a border dispute 50 years ago but
it is now much bigger. The battle lines have been drawn between
Livingstonia and Nkhoma synods of the CCAP. The former has since
declared a ‘Holy War’ while the latter wants its adversary to quit the
General Assembly.

and later in the article:

The [Nkhoma] synod also said it is not prepared to go to
war with its sister synod; it will continue pushing for discussions as
men of God but said if Livingstonia insists on its new stand then it
has to move out of the General Synod and stop using the name of CCAP.

Continuing to read through the article the point the writer of the article wants to make is that this is all about… Money.  The article says:

“All those areas such as Kasungu are just
scapegoats, the main target is Lilongwe. Money is central to the whole
issue,” said University of Malawi historian Professor Kings Phiri.

He explained that Lilongwe, being the capital and having a lot of
members from the North, gives Livingstonia Synod the feeling that if
they have a congregation in the Capital City there will be prospects of
beefing up the synod’s revenues.

Phiri, who once chaired a task force appointed by the General Synod
to look into the problem, also said the other factors to the issue are
tribalism and politics.

He said after the task force came with its
recommendations Nkhoma Synod accepted while Livingstonia rejected the
proposals and clearly showed that their minds had already been made to
plant churches in Lilongwe.

This situation is clearly getting heated and the article quotes Livingstonia officials as saying that they will continue development in Lilongwe to show Nkhoma “how it pains.”  In addition, a Deputy Minister of Education said that as a Northerner he would rather go to a Livingstonia church in the capital to keep his money in that Synod.  There are also warnings that a continuing church dispute could break down into a political dispute with the potential for violence.

The article concludes with a discussion about the General Synod getting involved, getting respected members of the church engaged as part of discussions to resolve the dispute, and making sure all the parties are at the table.  There is an acknowledgment by one theologian that it can not be a one-sided resolution on territory, implying that both Synods will need to stop their encroachment.  And there is also the necessity for a discussion about the status of the General Synod — Does it become a strong central unifying body, or do the individual Synods go back to their previous, fully autonomous status.

There is also a recent editorial in The Daily Times — Why Should Synods Forgo Boundaries?  The editorial argues that the CCAP is one church and members originally from a different synod should not have a problem worshiping in a different synod when that is where they live.  The editorial then says:

But probably we are working on the surface when
looking at the wrangle between the two warring synods. Probably, there
are other motivations for the synods to encroach into each other’s
territory beyond serving God’s flock. It appears the two synods know
why they want to operate in each other’s territory but cannot bring
these reasons to the public domain. And if this is the case, then they
are failing as God’s messengers because their first call should have
been to serve God and His people.

The editorial concludes with this:

How can the clergy be trusted to mediate between
fighting politicians when the clergy themselves do not reconcile and
resolve their conflicts?

The only way to solve the boundary issue is to establish why the
church’s forefathers created synods and assess whether by eliminating
these administrative boundaries, the church would become stronger or
weaker. Obviously, those who came up with the idea of synod, with each
operating in a specific designated area, had good reasons for it and
that is probably why some churches like the Catholics, Anglicans,
Seventh Day Adventists and others have their equivalents. All these
other churches can obviously not be in the wrong.

In doing the research on this the past few days I have found one other voice, a CCAP blogger who occasionally ventures into the topic of his church’s politics.  Mr. Victor Kaonga works for the Christian broadcaster Trans World Radio in central Africa and writes the blog Ndagha.  Back in February 2007 he had a post on this border situation where he presents his view as a member in that church.  In particular he writes:

Someone has said that the boundary dispute between the CCAP synods of
Nkhoma and Livingstonia is a very healthy situation for the Church in
Malawi. I somehow agree for several reasons:

It is helping us
ask questions we have never asked before. The questions about when this
issue started coming up. We hear it is an old story for about 50 years.
Was there a time when they disputed like it is now? How did they solve
it then? Why is it a big issue now? Is this a product of missionary
failure in handing over to Malawians? Is it another after-effect of the
postcolonial period in Africa?

He goes on to echo many of the themes from the other two articles: Christian unity, power politics, historical context, economics.  And while he is part of the broadcast media himself, he writes with the tone of an informed member of the CCAP.  His outlook is ultimately optimistic for the situation, at least at that time 18 months ago, as opposed to the more cautious tone of the other two current print articles.  His final conclusion is that while the situation is complex and there are many issues in play here, in the end the two arguing synods are concerned for, and committed to, spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is still a developing situation — The talks organized by the General Synod are to continue at least until December so we will see if any resolution and reconciliation is demonstrated in the near future.  Stay tuned.

Amendments A – N — It Is Not Just Amendment B

2 Replies

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has posted on it’s web site a PDF of the booklet with the proposed amendments to the Book of Order sent out to the presbyteries from the 218th General Assembly.  In a very nice touch, each write-up is followed by the URL to find the item on the PC-biz site.

To be a little bit more precise about the items that will be voted on, there are actually just ten amendments to the Book of Order, items A-J.  And, you guessed it, the ordination standards amendment to G-6.0106b and elsewhere is once again Amendment B.  At least it will be easy to remember.

The other four items are Ecumenical Statements with the Roman Catholic Church (08-K), Episcopal Church (08-L), Korean Presbyterian Church in America (08-M), and the Moravian Church (08-N).  These do not enter the PC(USA) constitution, but need to be adopted by a majority of the presbyteries for them to become guidance.  I have not been following these so I will just deal with the constitutional amendments in this post and return to those at a later date.

Amendment 08-A — Vows of Membership
This is what I refer to as a “Blood on Every Page” amendment since it derives from a specific controversy in a presbytery, in this case Mission Presbytery.  For some background on this you can check out my post back in September 2006 and coverage by Toby Brown (then a member of that presbytery) in June 2006 and September 2007.  This overture was covered by Daniel Berry a bit less than a year ago.

The causative incident was admission to membership in a PC(USA) church of an individual who did not acknowledge God, to say nothing of the lordship of Jesus Christ.  To clarify membership standards the overture asked for explicit vows of membership to join a particular church, these vows to follow the standards of declaring Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, renouncing sin, and participating in the church that are presently listed in the Book of Order.  The General Assembly took the advice of the Advisory Committee of the Constitution and is sending to the presbyteries a new section that does not specify language but says that new members “shall make a public profession of their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, as do confirmands (W-4.2003a, b, and c).”

It is interesting to note that the Presbyterian Church in America dealt with similar issues at their General Assembly this year as well.

Amendment 08-B — Ordained Officers
This is the amendment everyone is watching and that would replace the current G-6.0106b, “fidelity and chastity,” with a paragraph that includes that candidates for ordination will “pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church.”

Enough ink (and electrons and photons) have been spilled over this already so I will leave it at that.  There are also corresponding changes to G-14.0240 and G-14.0450.

Amendment 08-C — Replacing the Word “Sympathy” With the Word “Compassion”
This would change the description of the role of the office of deacon in G-6.0202b and G-6.0401 from a ministry including “sympathy” to one including “compassion.”  The original overture requested “empathy” but the GA chose “compassion” instead.

Amendment 08-D — General Assembly Mission Council Name Change
This would change the General Assembly Council’s name to the General Assembly Mission Council in four places in Chapter G-9, six places in G-13, and five places in G-14, as well as in seven places in the Discipline section.  This is in line with the new Organization for Mission adopted for the General Assembly (Mission) Council at GA.

Amendment 08-E — Non-geographic Presbyteries
No, not new non-geographic “affinity” presbyteries, but this amendment permits churches to join an existing non-geographic “language” presbytery in another synod as long as everybody involved (two presbyteries, two synods, and the GA) agree.  But remember, non-geographic presbyteries are temporary transitional structures and should not be considered permanent parts of our governing body structure.  (You may remember that this was complicated, or at least highlighted, at GA by an overture to extend the lifetime of the Hanmi non-geographic presbytery.)

Amendment 08-F — Presbytery Membership of Certified Christian Educators
This appears to be another “Blood on Every Page” amendment and simply clarifies that Certified Christian Educators have the privilege of the floor at presbytery “during the term of service in an educational ministry under the jurisdiction of the presbytery”  Read the rational for the request for clarification.

Amendment 08-G — Synod Membership on Permanent Committees
With reorganization of General Assembly Council, a desire for flexibility, and some unintended consequences from previous changes in the Book of Order, this amendment changes designated synod representation on “permanent” GA committees to synod representation on the Committee on Representation and the Council.  Rather than explicitly saying the synods put forth their representatives, committee members are now just selected through the nominating committee process.

Amendment 08-H — Five Ordination Examinations
No, this is not directly related to the controversy that has just arisen over the Biblical Exegesis Examination, but rather word-smiths some language in G-14.0431 to clarify the taking of the exams, not the exams themselves.  In particular, the group of four exams has changed from a “may” to a “shall be taken… after two full years of theological education,” and with the addition of “or its equivalent.”  In addition, not only must the CPM approve the candidate to take the exam, they “shall first attest that the inquirer or candidate has completed adequate
academic preparation in each examination area and adequate supervised experience in the practice of pastoral ministry.”  There is another change to make the Biblical Exegesis Exam explicitly open book.  The hope is that all of these changes will improve the pass rate on the exams.  (note that Biblical Exegesis has been open book, this just clarifies that)

Amendment 08-I — Certified Christian Educators
This is a “clean up” or “fix the problems” amendment arising from the complete rewrite of Chapter 14 from the 217th General Assembly.  It simply changes “certified Christian educator” to “Certified Christian Educator” since that reference is to a specific professional certification.  That’s it.  (Isn’t it amazing what we have to go through the amendment process for?)

Amendment 08-J — Alternative Forms of Resolution
As the Rational section of this amendment indicates, this is more word-smithing to clarify certain phrases in the Discipline section, specifically D-2.0103 and D-10.0202h.  Principally, it replaces “all parties” with appropriate references to the investigating committee and the accused.

And there you have the Book of Order changes.  If I had to handicap this assortment of changes, I’d say one controversial ( B ), three or four that will have some discussion (A, C, G and maybe E), four that will be pretty much formalities, and H (the ordination exams) that somebody on the floor of presbytery is going to want to rewrite in light of the recent changes.  But these can not be rewritten, only approved or disapproved.  For changes, write an overture to the 219th GA.  If you think I’ve missed a sleeper in here, or have gotten my description wrong, please let me know.  And I’ll try to tackle the four Ecumenical Statements shortly.