{"id":131,"date":"2013-04-10T22:22:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T05:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gajunkie.info\/blog\/?p=131"},"modified":"2013-04-10T22:22:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-11T05:22:14","slug":"the-pcusa-focus-on-the-form-of-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"The PC(USA) Focus On The Form Of Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/font>Let me say right up front that this post may appear snarky to some of you, maybe many of you. Maybe it really is snarky. But as I processed through what I am going to talk about I came to the conclusion that this is not just a knee-jerk cynical reaction but there is something really revealing about this. I am hoping I get all the snark out – you may think otherwise.<\/p>\n

To begin with, a really interesting and useful piece was announced today on Twitter from the Presbytery of Chicago<\/a> and the tweets attributed it to their Stated Clerk Barbara Bundick. It is a Road Map To The Form Of Government<\/a> — a one-page, two-sided color leaflet that guides a person through the Form of Government section of the PC(USA) Book of Order<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It is a very good resource – get it, use it. I will include it myself in future ruling elder training.<\/p>\n

But what got my attention was the stylized map that went with it to explain the relationships.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Let me first give it credit for good cartography – things are clearly labeled and there is a north arrow and a scale. If I had to guess I would say they used the Netherlands as a starting point for the base map. That would make the Book of Confessions<\/i> and the Rules of Discipline Belgium, or part of it, and Germany is The Secular World.<\/p>\n

But the graphic bothers me on one secondary and symbolic point. I have no problem with the vast majority of it – Scripture as an ocean, the emphasis on the Form of Government (that’s what the pamphlet is about after all), the Rules of Discipline as a bordering area (and is the red symbolic? “Danger, Will Robinson!”), and the Directory for Worship and Foundations of Presbyterian Polity as being more of Scripture than government and the Foundations tying it all together.<\/p>\n

But yes, it is the treatment of the Book of Confessions<\/i> that I find revealing. On a practical level when viewing this it looks like just another section, like the neighboring Rules of Discipline. It is not given the heft of a part of our Constitution that has its own volume — and being volume 1 no less. Should it not be treated as different in nature from the sections of the Book of Order<\/i>? Would it not have been useful to somehow distinguish it as different since our ordination vows say we are instructed and guided by the confessions, something that is not said of the Book of Order<\/i>?<\/p>\n

Or, am I getting worked up over nothing?<\/p>\n

Let’s break down the possibilities…<\/p>\n

One is that I am completely off my rocker, over interpreting a stylistic figure and finding importance in minor details that are not really part of what the document is ultimatly about. This could certainly be the case.<\/p>\n

Another possibility is that this diagram was carefully laid out so that the Book of Confessions<\/i> was fully intended to have no greater or lesser importance in the PC(USA) polity world than the Rules of Discipline. This could also be the case but considering the emphasis Presbyterians generally place on our confessional standards I don’t think it was quite this intentional.<\/p>\n

It is my conclusion that the answer probably lies in between these two. The guide sheet is about the Form of Government so that section is rightly given predominance in the diagram. The figure is carefully constructed and full of symbolism but it appears that the other pieces are placed at particular points around the focus of the picture. On the map location is the quantity that carries the significance.<\/p>\n

I am inclined to think that the sizing of the region representing the Book of Confessions<\/i> is inadvertent but telling. It reflects what seems to be the commonly held perception of the PC(USA) Constitution that it is out there and useful at particular points in our life together, but the confessions are just one piece of it like all the others. In particular, our day-to-day business is guided by the Form of Government so that is what we need to know.<\/p>\n

In short, I think this mapping of the parts of our constitution is unintentionally all too honest about how we frequently regard the parts of our constitution. It reflects how much attention we pay to the different parts of the constitution — lots of times our books fall open to the Form of Government because that is where we spend the most time while the other sections are less frequently referred to.<\/p>\n

Let me affirm that this really is a good diagram overall and those that put it together had a particular point that is neatly brought out by it. The point I am bringing up is that the secondary details may be a Rorschach test for me and I am seeing what I want to in it, or it may be a sort of graphic Freudian slip for the creators who are inadvertently saying something about the day-to-day place of the confessions in the PC(USA).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me say right up front that this post may appear snarky to some of you, maybe many of you. Maybe it really is snarky. 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