The Berkley Blog

Trust No Covenant Network Bearing "Gifts"

2011-10-31T15:44:00.000-07:00

Unctuous is a word that often comes to mind when I read a statement from the Covenant Network (CN). In a suave and clever manner, CN unctuously implies one thing while actually saying another. The October 28 statement by the Covenant Network board provides a telling example.

The CN statement endorses a political tactic that relies on an Authoritative Interpretation (AI) to make a sweeping change in Christian practice concerning marriage. The endorsed AI would permit Presbyterian teaching elders “to celebrate same-gender marriages where they are sanctioned by the civil authorities.”

An AI allows a single General Assembly vote to rule authoritatively about what the Presbyterian Church (USA) Constitution means in any case where the wording of the Constitution is in dispute. An AI such as the Covenant Network is supporting, however, would presumably need to declare that although the Constitution speaks clearly in numerous places about marriage only in terms of one man and one woman, it actually means any two people.

This would be a case of an Authoritative Interpretation making absurd what is already clear and unambiguous. Such would be an abuse of an AI, by employing it, rather than an outright amendment, to reverse the actual meaning of the Constitution, rather than merely disambiguate it.

Too clever by half
Shrewd as Covenant Network is, it knows that getting a constitutional amendment past 173 presbyteries nationwide would be a monumental task, perhaps "a bridge too far." Thus, CN is cleverly opting for an AI, which is effected by the vote of only a single General Assembly.

The track record is clear that CN can likely get a General Assembly to do its bidding. The General Assembly voting commissioners are a skewed population of Presbyterians, more theologically and politically liberal in opinions and beliefs than Presbyterians as a whole. CN ought to be able to play the next General Assembly like a violin and get its AI passed without breaking a sweat. The AI would allow for same-sex marriages. Mission accomplished.

However, had Covenant Network joined its more gung ho but less politically adept More Light Presbyterians cobelligerents in opting for full-blown constitutional amendments to allow same-sex marriages, CN would have a much riskier task on its hands. It would need to amend the Book of Order, the Directory for Worship, and several confessions. That process would require approval by two General Assemblies, plus approval by two thirds of the presbyteries (for the confession amendments).

Such an undertaking would be a big order, and presumably CN would fail. Then it would have to deal with defeat. So CN has decided to take the easy route with an AI. An Authoritative Interpretation does the job—albeit cheaply, but it would work.

False impressions
What's more, Covenant Network comes across as such nice folks, such reasonable diplomats for “tend[ing] to the unity of the denomination,” for not disturbing the waters with yet another constitutional amendment vote. But such unctuous talk is as phony as a $3 bill. If CN truly valued unity, it would not use the oily stealth of an Authoritative Interpretation to get illegitimately what it has hustled for years at the expense of denominational peace, unity, and, most of all, purity.

The Covenant Network is clever and effective. However, it is not and probably never will be a true statesman in the life of the PCUSA.

No one should be fooled by Covenant Network’s shrewd tactic with only the false appearance of restraint and good order. CN plans to get exactly what it wants, but at a bargain price—and with some bogus goodwill thrown in in the deal.

[Viola Larson makes two good points about the Covenant Network statement on her blog: Naming His Grace".]

Tit for Tat Truth

2011-03-22T15:16:00.000-07:00

Major abortion providers are in a huff about crisis pregnancy centers from which not-yet-born babies emerge alive. Their newest tactic is to push laws that make a crisis pregnancy center notify potential clients through signage that the center does not perform abortions or refer clients to abortion providers.

Think of it like Burger King being forced to put up prominent signs stating that it doesn't offer a Big Mac or give out directions to the nearest McDonald's. Or a church being forced to state on a sign that it doesn't sell methamphetamine or recommend neighborhood dealers.

The Baptist Press published an informative article on the subject, listing arguments from both sides of the issue. Among other observations, it pointed out that Planned Parenthood has a clear financial interest in counseling clients to abort, something the statistics shout out loud and clear. Planned Parenthood performs 340 abortions for every one referral to an adoption agency.

Tit for tat

Okay, let's be fair. I propose that if pro-life crisis pregnancy centers are required to put up prominent signs, so should pro-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.

Pro-life centers: WE DO NOT PERFORM ABORTIONS.
Pro-abortion centers: WE KILL YOUR BABY.

Pro-life centers: WE DO NOT REFER TO ABORTION PROVIDERS.
Pro-abortion centers: WE URGE ABORTION OVER ADOPTION.

Fair is fair! Full disclosure cuts both ways.

But if only pro-life crisis pregnancy centers must post signs, then let the sign read: WE WILL NOT HELP YOU KILL YOUR OWN CHILD.

We Pay to Get Lobbied?

2011-01-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

What’s the Washington Office up to these days? Is there major “mission creep” going on?

A recent article from the Presbyterian News Service speaks of the participation of the Office of Political Witness (OPW, formerly the Washington Office) in the Ecumenical Advisory Days coming up in March—the days when mainline denominations and other religious groups gather in Washington to push an all-things-liberal agenda, speaking as if they were representing millions of Christians who actually would advocate for the other side of many issues. This is a longstanding exercise in leadership deception and political futility. Same old same old, although this year the stated theme sounds more decent than others.

However, a line from the article caught my attention: “OPW is working to extend its work outside of Washington and into the greater church.” What? So the office originally designed to lobby Congress is now going to lobby its funders instead?

Let me get this straight. Although…

Presbyterians already have multiple, overlapping, denomination-funded entities pushing one theologically and politically liberal issue after another at the church as a whole, so that we are already over-lobbied by our own church leadership elites;

Presbyterians in the plurality who actually happen to espouse a theologically or politically conservative position have no such internal access to denominational funds and clout (paid in part with their own money), but must turn around and support other groups that actually do promote their convictions;

The Office of Political Witness was set up to lobby the federal government apparatus in Washington for causes deemed important to Presbyterians—a lobby set up strategically to lobby exactly where political power is concentrated, in Washington; and

The Office of Political Witness has been roundly ineffectual in its task for years, held in low esteem by secular power, and generally ignored (fortunately, since it usually pushes radical issues opposed by most of the church);

… now the office plans to turn its focus back toward the church itself, in order to lobby us about issues frequently more important to and determined by liberal mainline lobbying peers than Presbyterians as a whole?

So we Presbyterians get yet one more agency funded by our dollars whose task it has become to pester us with skewed viewpoints “backed” by anemic theology?

Exactly who decided that this church-targeted effort was necessary in a denomination notorious for its backsliding miscues?

At least we Presbyterians have one consolation: The OPW has never been very good at what it does, so it will probably be as ineffective in this misdirected focus as it was in its wrong-headed lobbying. But what a waste of dollars and goodwill!

Light Makes Critters Scurry and Hide

2010-01-21T14:36:00.000-08:00

I am pleased that Carmen Fowler has taken up the torch for open meetings and that Layman letter writers (January 21) truly understand the importance of this cause.

For a few years, I was often the lone outsider at Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) meetings in far-flung locations. I have observed many of its meetings, reported on what I saw, and learned much about how the committee operates. A few people gather, they share a remarkable affinity for liberal social policies (uncharacteristic of Presbyterians as a whole), and they welcome with open arms and access to discussion guests and “experts” who share the committee’s ideology. Critics, true experts of another persuasion, and the press, they sequester, occasionally hector, roundly ignore, and gamely tolerate.

Members spend hours and hours at meetings pursuing mainly personal hobbyhorses, they work very hard (but frequently not very effectively), and they produce long, opinionated, overreaching, dilettante, always-politically-liberal papers that typically garner a yawning approval from unquestioning and largely uninterested commissioners at General Assembly, who figure “Somebody must know what this is about, so I guess I’ll just go along.” Then the wordy papers generally get forgotten and unused by the church as a whole, which does not generally value the opinions of the ACSWP.

However, the approved papers form the basis for always-politically-liberal advocacy by eager entities such as the Washington Office and other ingrown radical-advocacy groups that are given vague Presbyterian identity but no effective Presbyterian oversight. Also, the papers provide access to the joint Presbyterian purse, so that the radical initiatives get funding (such as a UCC pastor hired to wear a tomato on her head, when other PCUSA staff were being downsized). Our per capita and mission dollars regularly get funneled to ACSWP fancies, courtesy of this process. Further, ACSWP is supremely adept at getting even more business tossed its way by arranging for friendly presbyteries to overture that ACSWP studies be commissioned, and planting follow-up work in papers that it presents to General Assembly. ACSWP acts like a dog that throws its own stick to gleefully fetch.

While I was wryly observing and commenting on this process as a lone outsider, often I was icily tolerated at best, logistically frustrated, and even physically barred from parts of meetings. I was denied papers in a supposedly open meeting. I was warned and threatened not to divulge particulars of what was written in drafts. In broad strokes, ACSWP generally labored to blunt and even disregard the intent as well as the letter of an excellent Open Meetings Policy that ought to have governed and restrained the committee’s secrecy tactics.

More sunlight for meetings
As a result of experiences like mine, a General Assembly commissioners’ resolution sparked an amendment of the Open Meetings Policy to include a sentence detailing that papers in open meetings are certainly to be made available to observers. Because of the kinds of concerns ACSWP expresses and the apparent handiwork of Associate Stated Clerk Mark Tammen, a degree of the value of this new clarification may appear to be diminished by explanations in the “Rationale” section. (Tammen, at times, has appeared more concerned with finding ways to help ACSWP hide its processes and work than with simply upholding the obvious intent and clear provisions of the Open Meeting Policy.) The Rationale includes this suggestion:

The documents may of course include an appropriate heading, e.g. Draft; Not Yet Acted on by the Committee; Proposal Only; Not for Distribution; Not Approved, as the case may be, to distinguish it from the finally adopted action, if any, at the open meeting. It is expected that interested persons at the meeting who receive the documents will honor such limitations.

ACSWP, it appears, is trying to stretch this Rationale to extremes by doling out its papers suspiciously, retrieving them at the end of the meeting, and scaring observers into draconian measures of secrecy and abridged free speech and free press. This is seriously wrong!

First, these suggestions in the rationale were never approved by the General Assembly. Only the “Recommendations” portion of an item is approved. The “Rationale”—the sales job to get an item of business approved—carries no authority. For instance, a commissioner on the floor of General Assembly who might propose an amendment to an item’s Rationale would be called out of order, for the Rationale is not Assembly business. A Rationale is simply the proposing group’s attempt to argue for its proposal.

What was approved by General Assembly was the wording: “Documents being considered at such [open] meetings shall be available to interested persons at the meeting.” Anything spoken in a truly open meeting is public information; anything passed out to be read in that open meeting is public information. If you’re at the meeting, the papers shall be available to you. Period. End of story.

Second, ACSWP’s attempted secrecy is wrong because the Open Meeting Policy specifically opens to the public not just the decisions that a group finally makes—such as the final document that is approved—but also “the work done.” The exact wording from the policy is this: “Church members have a basic right to know about the work done and the decisions made by entities within the church.” A draft document is certainly part of “the work done” by an entity.

Often, the most newsworthy and useful part of reporting from a meeting is the process of getting to a final decision. The wording that was considered and scrapped is vital information to get out; the ideas that didn’t fly; the amendments that spelled compromise. (Think of national legislation: What if no one could report on the healthcare initiative until its final version is voted into law eventually!) It’s not just the final decision that is of interest to the church; it is also how that decision comes about. And that includes the content of preliminary drafts.

ACSWP can do better
General Assembly, itself, does a great job with openness. All the business before it—drafts and all—is there for reading, citation, and dissemination. ACSWP can and must be equally as open.

Maybe ACSWP fears that some journalist or blogger would publish or treat quotations from a draft as if the draft were the final, approved version. Should that happen, however, the perceived skill and wisdom of the journalist would be imperiled, not the work of ACSWP. Fearing “what ifs” is hardly good policy for a denominational entity! And if ACSWP is simply afraid that once the church fully gets wind of its intentions, it will be harder to hustle ACSWP items through a generally unknowing General Assembly, then shame on the ACSWP! If ACSWP members can’t stand the light, they should get off the stage.

The church is served by openness. Jealous, parochial, power-abusing self-interest is served by measures to hide information from the church.

One further note: ACSWP tried to use the General Assembly to cast observers at meetings as presumed scoundrels in need of admonition to stay under control (see the final comment here). Added to the responsibility for church leaders to “conduct their business with a spirit of openness and vulnerability to public scrutiny” now in the Open Meeting Policy, ACSWP proposed to General Assembly these preemptory admonishments as a policy amendment: “observers and other guests, particularly members of the PC(USA), have a basic responsibility to show respect for elected members and staff of church bodies and, though not under General Assembly authority, to demonstrate a spirit of openness and vulnerability to public scrutiny in their behavior and publications.” This petty ACSWP attempt to cast doubt on the intentions and character of observers went nowhere. It failed. General Assembly was obviously more concerned with true openness in meetings than it was in catering to ACSWP worries that some observer may not write flattering accounts of ACSWP affairs.

Shine a light!
So, I say this to Carmen Fowler: Thank you! Shine your light behind the ACSWP curtains. Read the reports, preliminary or final. Hear the arguments. Watch the posturing. And write on what you see. Let us know what is coming from ACSWP, good or bad. Be the eyes and ears for all the rest of us who cannot afford the time and expense to go to Louisville to watch the ACSWP struggle through its radical advocacy in what is supposed to be an entirely open meeting.

News That Has a Familiar Ring

2009-09-23T12:35:00.001-07:00

Today I was reading about the Vietnamese government declaring that "all properties in Vietnam belong to the country and the government." Anything the Vatican previously owned that has been confiscated by the decree of the government of Vietnam ostensibly belongs to that government.

The Prime Minister is attributed as saying that "all the property claims [by the Roman Catholic Church against the government of Vietnam] have to be carried out according to the law" and "the property claims of the Vatican go against the Vietnamese constitution and the law." Thus by legal decree, the property of the churches has been unilaterally confiscated from the congregations and made the property of the state.

We in religiously free states believe that such confiscation of religious property is an outrage, a miscarrige of justice, a greedy grab by the powerful from the powerless.

But the funny thing is, this situation in Vietnam sounds so altogether familiar to Presbyterians! The declaration and the arguments sound like something we've heard within our denomination.

By a decree of the denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) claims to own all congregational properties. Each congregation--which purchased the property, built the buildings, pays for maintenance and upkeep, and pays the utility bills--did not assent to the property grab by the denomination. Each congregation did not begin any legal action to place its property in denominational control, while maintaining all the costs and liabilities locally. Like the Catholic Church in Vietnam, each congregation had this situation imposed on it by a higher authority with all the apparent power and none of the right to do so.

It ain't fair in Vietnam. And it ain't fair in our country either. Someone else cannot just declare one's property to belong to another authority altogether.

Clergy Poll: Getting What You Pay For?

2009-08-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

I read the news today, oh boy! It was an article about clergy opinions on gay issues.

A poll by Public Religion Research has some startling and disheartening results about an apparent slide of Presbyterian clergy belief—basically a rush away from God’s will as revealed in Scripture toward the views of a godless society on its way to destruction. Sad.

However, I find it important, when reading news, to consider the source of the news as well as the content. Thus, it is interesting to note how clearly the poll represents the viewpoints of both the research organization and the foundation funding the poll. Neither party could be considered a disinterested bystander in the issue of homosexual advocacy.

Public Religion Research appears to be a boldly progressive group, advocating for gay causes in particular. Its website and blog leave no doubt about its politically and theologically liberal/progressive stance and advocacy. The president and founder, Robert P. Jones, is also a fellow in a progressive think tank. Unless Public Religion Research found a way to be totally scrupulous in its polling research procedure, it would not be difficult for testing bias to seep through in its research results.
The Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, which bankrolled the poll, makes grants for millions of dollars to gay-advocacy groups each year, including approximately $6.5 million in 2008! This is the foundation that flooded $1.2 million into political activist groups such as More Light Presbyterians, allowing it to add staff to lobby the PCUSA to lower its sexual standards. (Note that MLP is now advertising to add two staff members—staffing probably made possible in part by the Haas Fund windfall.)

How coincidental that the results the poll obtained would be so useful for the known advocacy of the pollsters, the funders, and the sexual revisionists they support!

For possibly less biased polling, I would suggest the Presbyterian Panel’s 2008 snapshot of Presbyterians. The final page shows gay-ordination opinions. The 2005 snapshot also lists opinions on gay unions and marriages.

If the Haas-PRR poll is indeed accurate, it documents a disgraceful clergy abandonment of biblical morality, a selling out to the Baal of our times. If, on the other hand, the poll turns out to be tainted by testing bias, it will amount to nothing more than a propaganda tool to be used to sway popular opinion away from biblical truth. Either reality is less than propitious.

Mortal Hubris

2009-07-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

In reading about the Group of Eight’s decision on so-called global warming, I was somewhat relieved and much amused.

I was relieved that saner heads must have prevailed, so that our leaders aren’t pledging draconian measures that would push us all back into frontier times. Has anybody ever stopped to think what a wild measure like locking carbon-dioxide emissions to 20 percent of what was emitted nearly two decades ago would entail? Has anyone tried using one-fifth of the electricity in their home that they used in 1990? Or driving one-fifth of the miles they drove in 1990? Or cutting their natural gas or heating oil consumption by 80 percent? That 80-percent-reduction talk is absolute foolishness, unless we are expected to regress drastically to live like our great-great-grandparents did--minus the wood fires.

But I was actually much amused by the political leaders’ prideful assumption that they could precisely control the world’s temperatures by government fiat. The hubris of thinking that we mortals have that much control over a vast ecosphere, that government leaders could just dial up the precise change they deem necessary—and no more! Just who do they think they are, anyway?

“Group of 8 Agrees On a Ceiling for Temperature Rise” the headline read. What will we see next?
• “Group of 8 Forbids Further Sunspots”
• “Group of 8 Outlaws Volcanoes”
• “Group of 8 Moves the Equator South”
• “Group of 8 Demands Greater Cloud Cover”
• “Group of 8 Fine-Tunes Tides”
• “Group of 8 Delays Sunrise”

It seems to me that there is a very good reason for the old quip, “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one is doing anything about it.” You can’t.

And it seems to me to be downright pathetic to wreak social and economic disaster in a foolishly prideful attempt to control the uncontrollable. “Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind,” Bob Dylan sang.

Presbydigitation

2009-04-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

You probably know the word prestidigitation already: fast (as in presto) fingers (as in digits), sleight of hand, legerdemain. It's the magician drawing your attention with one movement, while deftly removing your wallet with another. That's prestidigitation.

I think it is time to coin a new word: presbydigitation. This word would be defined as Presbyterian sleight of hand concerning numbers, as in reluctantly meting out some budget figures, but drawing attention away from or withholding equally significant numbers at the same time. That's presbydigitation, and presbydigitation appears to be happening again.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to ferret out what went wrong with the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) budget (see here and here). For the second time in as many budget cycles, the Stated Clerk has needed to announce major budget cuts a mere three months into a two-year cycle. Just when the OGA was starting to use a budget approved only a few months earlier, it found the budget untenable and in need of drastic emergency cutting.

Hmmm. What's going on?

Rather than an answer to that question, I find that we've received presbydigitation.

Two years ago, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick proclaimed that "over 95 percent of per capita apportionments are being paid," as if it were a good thing. He was correct on the percentage, apparently, but he left the wrong impression that 95 percent was good or normal. It was not.

Traditionally more like 98 percent of per capita apportionments were being paid. That year, approximately twice as much per capita had been withheld, and that withholding was causing problems. Kirkpatrick, however, chose presbydigitation over a clear account of what was wrong.

Now this March, our new Stated Clerk, Gradye Parsons, a protégé of Kirkpatrick, has perhaps learned too much from his mentor. In announcing his need to slice his recently begun budget, Parsons fingered "the economic downturn," which "has undercut the value of OGA’s investment reserves."

What Parsons conveniently neglected to mention is that per capita receipts were down $1 million at year-end 2008, compared to the previous year. Nor did he mention that the General Assembly budget had been overspent by a cool half million dollars last June. Presbydigitation.

It's sad and disconcerting that apparently our Stated Clerk has either:

a) failed to personally pursue the money troubles to the source or relied on and passed on only incomplete information from others, or

(b) decided to tell a version of the "truth" that fails to leave the correct impression that the whole truth would have provided, a partial-truth version that masks damaging or difficult information the Stated Clerk might not want the public to know.

If (a) is the correct alternative, then we have an uninformed and careless Stated Clerk. If (b) is the case, then we have a deceptive and crafty Stated Clerk.

Personally, I don't care for either of those alternatives. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) deserves far better. And what's more, I think Gradye Parsons can do much better than either (a) or (b) would imply. Parsons is typically a good and conscientious leader, and this kind of behavior is not characteristic of such character.

It seems to me to be time for the OGA spokespersons to tell the full story of what is happening with per capita finances: the big drops in per capita pay-up, the GA cost overruns, the shrinking number of Presbyterian "heads" to pay per capita, and, yes, also the disastrous stock market that shrunk investments. Lay it all out. Chart the facts and trends. Come clean.

Then, I would wager that most Presbyterians would be happy to be fully informed, rather than vengeful or accusatory. Yes, San Jose was a costly place, so General Assembly going over budget isn't surprising. Yes, it is a distrustful time, when people don't easily cough up donations, so per capita pay-up being down is understandable. Yes, losing cash reserves in the stock market is all too real.

We Presbyterians can cope with the truth, and with the truth, we can start to devise appropriate remedies. What we cannot stand is being handled, being spun, being managed, being propagandized. What we will not abide is presbydigitation.

Ecclesiastical Isolationism

2009-04-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

I wonder if a form of church isolationism isn't taking place.

When a country thinks it can be isolationist--all safe and protected by borders and the open seas--it soon learns that wars and oppression gain strength and end up on the attack. An isolationist country soon loses its isolation and becomes the focus of invasion.

It seems to me that the same effect can overtake Presbyterian congregations that grow weary of defending the faith, grow excited about "just being missional," grow distant from the very real ideological disputes in the denomination, and thus grow vulnerable to invasion and ruin by the very entities these congregations had decided to benignly ignore.

It would be a wonderful respite not to have to defend orthodox doctrine, not to have to fight the gross secularization of the church, not to have to muster the troops once again to retain biblical standards. Oh the leisure of just forgetting such unpleasantness!

But oh the danger!

Kelly Kannwischer, Executive Director of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship, is a fine person performing a great ministry. Recently she has written about what PGF is going to do. What she says makes good sense in many ways. It is definitely valuable and needed.

However, I fear that the PGF agenda is inadequate, given the Presbyterian world in which congregations operate. PGF reminds me of a colony joyfully planting fields and cultivating crops--and talking cutting-edge agriculture--while all around the colony destructive forces collect to overrun the prosperous band. This colony also needs to urgently take up defense, as distasteful as it may seem to the farmers who aren't soldiers.

I left a comment to Kelly on the article. Here is what I wrote:

Kelly,

That's great, but...

What are you going to do about a denomination that is going astray and in doing so can greatly harm if not destroy the missional work of all your churches?

Every Presbyterian church is connected. If the denomination completely falls apart or abandons the majority of Reformed theology or plays the harlot with non-Christian beliefs and practices, every single Presbyterian church will feel the consequences. The stink raised by the denomination will be attributed to every congregation that bears the Presbyterian name!

What's more, no church is invulnerable to attack and perhaps even confiscation of property and deposition of leaders. The 500-pound-gorilla churches like Peachtree may feel immune, but in no time, even such a church could be hurt badly and even destroyed by a presbytery that so chose to oppose it.

Most churches aren't the mini-denominations like the tallest-steeple churches, and they are completely vulnerable to who is running presbytery. Property can be taken, sessions can be declared dissolved, and pastors can be removed. And then what? How is missional work to continue in such a toxic or devastated
environment?

Just what does PGF plan to do about a denomination teetering on the brink of disaster? You're good people, but all it takes for evil to prosper is for good people to be merrily involved in other things deemed more important. Then Presbyterian power politics can turn on you and bite you where it hurts.

I've waited for a PGF answer about this problem, and I haven't heard much, except that such protective and restorative work seems rather yesterday and is pretty much being left to those who apparently must not get the missional message and must still like to fight instead.

That's not much help.

Jim Berkley
Bellevue, WA

RCRC Support in Name Only

2009-02-17T22:19:00.000-08:00

Following my previous post about the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC)--a "never met an abortion we didn't like" kind of political activist group--I was asked in a comment if the PCUSA provides any financial support for the RCRC. I didn't know, but I found out.

At least for 2007 and 2008, nothing has been given to RCRC in terms of direct Presbyterian financial support.

It is good to know that Presbyterian money is not supporting RCRC and its appalling pro-abortion advocacy. But I am left with two further thoughts:

First, it was anything but easy coming up with a conclusive answer from denominational leaders to my simple questions about funding. Between January 28 and February 5, I wrote no fewer than six e-mails before I received a clear and unequivocal answer.

Three Presbyterian entities are listed by RCRC as member groups: The Washington Office, Women's Ministries, and Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options (PARO). Joey Bailey, Deputy Executive Director for Shared Services, quickly made it clear that GAC entities hadn't written any checks to RCRC in 2007 or 2008, but it took a third e-mail to him to get clarity that that didn't say anything about PARO's possible support.

So, looking at the PCUSA web site, I found contact information for a co-moderator of PARO, and I wrote her about possible PARO financial involvement with RCRC. Well, the web site was out of date. That co-moderator is no longer co-moderator, and what's more, she wouldn't tell me who was now in her former role, nor would she give me the information I sought.

Finally, when I was forced to cc higher-up leaders in order to try to obtain an answer to my simple questions, the answer eventually came from Sara Lisherness. Ably filling in for an associate, she assured me that "No funds from PARO, PHEWA, or any related entity were given to RCRC in 2007 or 2008. The last time that PARO gave any money at all to RCRC was $100 for membership dues in 2000."

Lisherness, who serves as Director of Peace and Justice, had the savvy and courtesy to simply answer my question clearly and fully the first time, rather than give partial or evasive answers, as other leaders had done. I have regularly found Lisherness to be a breath of fresh air, due to her nondefensive and helpful attitude in dealing with matters from constituents. She understands what is being asked for and graciously provides it.

So I finally got the information that ought not be that hard to pry out of the system, and it was encouraging information.

But second, that got me thinking: Why does RCRC allow groups to be named as members but pay no dues? And won't dues-paying groups be steamed if they find out that, unlike them, the Presbyterian member groups don't have to pay anything at all?

I can guess why the Presbyterian groups can remain named as RCRC members although they have not contributed: RCRC wants the apparent legitimacy of endorsement by official Presbyterian entities. It's worth a lot for RCRC to be able to list PCUSA members to make it look like the PCUSA is a proud sponsor of abortion.

So while Presbyterian money hasn't gone to RCRC for some time, the Presbyterian name gets lent to the RCRC cause, and that is distressing for those of us who believe that abortion is a great moral tragedy. Whatever good name is left for Presbyterians ought not be associated with so morally bankrupt an organization as RCRC.

Further, we don't know for certain what in-kind contributions might be made by PCUSA staff, offices, and organizations. Publicity channels, staff members' time, advocacy by Presbyterian entities, promotion of RCRC activities by PCUSA groups--all of this is worth something to RCRC, too.

But one does wonder, who is supporting RCRC financially, if member organizations can freeload, as the three Presbyterian organizations apparently do?

Infernal Doublespeak on Abortion

2009-01-27T20:31:00.000-08:00

The sun is darkness.

Death Valley is a soaring peak.

High cholesterol enhances circulatory health.

You may wonder what I’m doing. I’m practicing writing with all the verity and logic of Carlton Veazey, President of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Let me tell you, it takes tremendous talent to be perfectly wrong so brazenly, so often. It must be a gift to produce such continuous doublespeak while keeping a straight face.

And doublespeak it is. William Lutz, an English professor at Rutgers, described doublespeak as “language that only pretends to say something; it's language that hides, evades, or misleads.” In this case, it does more: It describes what is evil in glowing terms, and what is good in disparaging terms.

Look at how Veazey began a recent press release:

After eight years of a policy that contributed to the suffering of women and children worldwide….

So what would one expect that policy to be, the policy that causes women and children to suffer? Might it be a policy that causes women to turn on their own children and mercilessly kill them by dousing them with caustic chemicals, hacking them into pieces, or leaving them battered and exposed until they die? Would that policy be one that causes suffering and death in disproportionate numbers for millions of the most helpless children of color, of poverty, of the underclasses?

No, it’s not that. The policy Veazey so oddly describes is a policy that has the effect of discouraging women from taking the lives of their babies, of discouraging the suffering deaths of the innocent.

President Obama has put the United States back on the path of charity, hope and compassion….

And what exactly is Veazey describing that is so charitable, hope inducing, and compassionate? Abortion. Abortion at every opportunity. Abundant abortion. According to Veazey, by enthusiastically exporting the wickedness of abortion on demand, the U.S. is exercising charity, hope, and compassion. Down is up. Hot is cold.

… by overturning the Bush administration's global gag rule.

So what was the “global gag rule”? It was a humane decision not to fund abortions with aid money or to use U.S. funds to interfere with other countries’ pro-life laws. U.S. funds would not enrich the horrific abortion industry. But now they will, under Obama’s rules.

… President Obama has reaffirmed that the United States is a caring and humane world citizen…

Let me get this straight: When we cherished the sanctity of life, seeking the welfare of women, families, and children by not promoting the savagery of killing one’s own child, that made the U.S. uncaring and inhumane? So it’s caring and humane to destroy our own children before they see the light of day? Infernal doublespeak!

… and has removed injurious barriers to funding family planning services for some of the world's poorest women.

The euphemism “family planning service” means abortion, plain and simple. It means snuffing out an innocent life. By describing a barrier to such inhumane cruelty as “injurious,” Veazey pretty well completes the pattern of serial doublespeak.

The apostle Paul has succinct counsel for the doublespeakers of the world: “Hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9). That, however, would require a 180-degree turn for Carlton Veazey, so that he would no longer hold fast to what is evil and hate what is good.

As hard as that abrupt turnaround would be, it is necessary, because the prophet Isaiah has hard words for doublespeak, which hides, evades, or misleads: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20). One ignores God's woe statements only at the greatest of spiritual peril.

Surely our denomination must be morally bankrupt to lend one cent or one shred of Presbyterian legitimacy to the turned-backwards work of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Speaking Nonsense to No One in Particular?

2009-01-13T11:56:00.000-08:00

Episcopal Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson has never ceased to scandalize and fracture the church with his sexual immorality and his “It’s all about me!” promotions. His error and controversy seem continual.

But still, I believe he is on the cusp of being his most scandalous when he declares about his pending inauguration-related invocation: “I am very clear that this will not be a Christian prayer….” That leaves one wondering, then, to whom it will be addressed and whether it will be a prayer at all.

Who will be invoked?
According to the New York Times reporter Laurie Goldstein, “Bishop Robinson said he might address the prayer to ‘the God of our many understandings….’” Who the heck is that? Is that “god” simply a generic stand-in for some vague deity-like construct that Robinson is not able or willing to clearly name?

Is there any true God that Robinson believes worthy of being addressed and capable of acting on one’s earnest petitions? Or are we just kind of playing at some kind of amusing wish fulfillment in thinking there truly is a God, and so it’s perfectly okay to envision that “god-image” any old way one fancies in order to fulfill a ritualized but actually meaningless tradition in public occasions? Or might it be that in truth there is a whole pantheon of gods, and Robinson’s intended wording is meant to address the whole lot of them equally?

Bishop Robinson has taken the role of a Christian clergyman. One would think that that would entail allegiance to, love of, and devotion to the Christian God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That true God has declared himself the only God, as opposed to the false gods that humankind continually seeks to worship as idols of human construction. This true God rightfully demands that his people “shall have no other gods before me” (see the beginning of Exodus 20).

So why would Bishop Robinson deem it appropriate to pray not to the God of the Universe but to some unnamed and undifferentiated construct or to some handful of idols? In such a “prayer,” he would be vigorously breaking the first and second commandments. Apparently that does not bother Bishop Robinson, who seems more intent on currying public favor than serving the Living God.

What will be said?
And that leads to the second concern: Will it be a prayer at all? A prayer is communication with God. In public, the speaker of the prayer is intended to raise up the devotion, the needs, the petitions, and the praise—if not the confessions!—of the whole people, saying for them as one speaker what needs to be said to God by all. God is the audience. The people are the co-supplicants with the one voicing their prayer.

Thus, if Bishop Robinson will be truly praying, then he will address God with and for the people. His words will be directed to God and not get diverted to a human audience. Certainly people will hear what he says in so public an occasion, but their thoughts ought to be “Yes! That is what I would like to say to God, too!” rather than, “I’m convinced by what you say, Bishop Robinson, and you make a good point!”

The temptation for anyone leading public prayer is to grandstand, to say things to the crowd through the guise of addressing God, to make a statement or wage an argument or wax loquacious. A prayer, however, is an intimate conversation with God. A public prayer is an overheard conversation with God, intended by the one offering the prayer to capture the needs of the people and include the listeners in the experience of addressing God.

Prayer is no exercise between a speaker and a human audience, yet one wonders if that is not Robinson’s bottom-line intent. In addressing no god in particular, Robinson seems not very concerned about the vertical communication but apparently very concerned about his horizontal message to the crowd.

And then again, the whole idea of offering an invocation in a pluralistic society is rather dicey. How can the one praying attempt to speak for a crowd of mixed intent and devotion—or none at all?

It would seem to me that if a person of a particular faith is invited to invoke a deity in an invocation, the expectation should be that the person of faith would invoke the god that person believes in and worships. Typically, those planning occasions seek someone most likely to represent a broad plurality or majority of the crowd, so that the invocation best represents the interests of as many as possible.

Some people, however, will inevitably find the undertaking to be superfluous or meaningless. Those people have every right to quietly, respectfully not participate in the prayer. For instance, if a Hindu spiritual leader were invited to open an occasion with prayer, I would simply wait out the time of prayer with dignity and decency. It wouldn’t speak for me, and I wouldn’t be taking part in the prayer, but that’s okay. I can give the spiritual leader that opportunity to pray as he sees fit.

But what I wouldn’t do is expect the Hindu to tailor his prayer to Christian standards or to abandon his beliefs and pray to some mush god. Neither he nor I would have integrity in such a situation. A spiritual leader can legitimately pray only to the deity in which he or she believes. Anything else is a mockery of prayer, a blasphemy, a false accommodation to syncretism.

But as it looks to me that from what he says, Bishop Robinson is apparently a man who doesn’t have a prayer.

The Gospel in a Carol

2008-12-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve gives worship leaders a golden window into people’s hearts when they are especially receptive to the Good News of Jesus Christ. By the millions, people flock to churches. Many in the Christmas Eve crowd hardly set foot in the door the rest of the year, but Christmas Eve is a point in which the tender story of God’s overwhelming love for us can be conveyed to aching hearts particularly hungry for meaning and hope.

The Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” gives any congregation a simple and compelling way to tell the kernel of the evangelistic story. This carol, written by Phillips Brooks in 1868, is the Good News in a beloved song. Note the lyrics:

O little town of Bethlehem,
how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by.

These first four lines tell about apparent realities versus eternal realities under the surface.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth
the everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
are met in thee tonight.

Now a hint of hope is introduced to gain the secular person’s attention: Our hopes and fears meet? Where? How? What—or better yet, who—is “the everlasting light”?

For Christ is born of Mary;
and gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
their watch of wondering love.

This is how and who! These lines introduce the Gospel story, while again contrasting what is apparently happening versus what is truly happening.

O morning stars, together
proclaim the holy birth!
And praises sing to God the King,
and peace to all the earth.

The carol breaks into praise over this truly good news. Now, the following stanza is an absolutely profound revelation.

How silently, how silently,
the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven.

This part poetically tells the warm heart of the gospel story: a gift of grace. This is the Great Exchange: God gives salvation and blessing; God takes away sin and stain. What a deal! And this can happen today.

No ear may hear his coming,
but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still
the dear Christ enters in.

This part tells how to receive this wonderful gift: meekly receive it. But how? What follows is the answer.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in;
be born in us today.

Here is a classic prayer of salvation, asking God to stoop to us, forgive our sin, enter our lives, and be alive in us! Singing these words with earnest intent, a seeker can realize salvation.

We hear the Christmas angels
the great glad tidings tell;

This is very good news indeed!

O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!

Here the singer reaffirms the prayer that asked Jesus Christ into his or her life.

Taken altogether, this simple and familiar carol piques interest, tells the Gospel story, invites response, and leads the singer into a prayer that voices a decision to believe.

People may frequently sing the carol without thought, but this Christmas Eve the time is ripe to point out the profound meaning of this carol and invite people to sing it as their faith received and allegiance declared.

"No on B" Votes Increasingly Doom Passage

2008-11-22T18:22:00.000-08:00

As of this writing, 9 of 173 presbyteries have voted on Amendment 08-B. All have voted no, most overwhelmingly. Each successive “no” vote makes the prospect of gaining approval of the moral revisionist amendment—and thus approving nonmarital sexual practice for ordained Presbyterians—all the more unlikely.

“Well DUH!” you might say. “Every no vote isn’t a yes vote, and they need yes votes to win. And besides, all nine presbyteries have voted just as they have in the past. The vote is rather obvious, with no surprises so far. It doesn’t prove anything.”

I’m no rocket surgeon, as a “Dilbert” In-Duh-Vidual was once quoted as saying, but I think there is something very important going on even in these according-to-form early votes. It is this: The folks who want us to toss out our ordination standard and approve the constitutional amendment desperately NEED some surprises to happen, and so when the obvious happens, the forces for change lose big.

Let’s do the math: The last time we voted on the matter, 127 presbyteries voted to retain the standards we have always upheld. Only 46 presbyteries voted to remove the standards. That means that this year, in order to get the 87 presbyteries needed to approve a constitutional amendment, the revisionists need 41 of the 127 opposing presbyteries to change their mind and vote the other way. In other words, nearly a third of these presbyteries need to flip-flop on the issue—and that’s if the moral revisionists manage to hold on to every one of their previous 46 presbyteries who voted with them.

So, the moral revisionists needed 41 of 127 opposing presbyteries to change their minds. That was a 32 percent change rate. But now 9 presbyteries have already voted, and not one of them has changed. That means that only 118 opposing presbyteries remain that might possibly flop over to the moral revisionist side.

Since the revisionists still need 41 presbyteries to switch, they now need 41 out of 118 opposing presbyteries, or a 35 percent change rate. As you can see, the needed change rate just keeps getting steeper every time a presbytery votes according to form against the amendment. Should a presbytery that formerly voted with the moral revisionists now vote against them (as in voting no on Amendment 08-B), the needed change rate would really jump higher.

Or think of it this way: Those who favor ordaining persons sexually active outside the marriage of a man and a woman need to nearly double the number of presbyteries willing to vote with them, from 46 to 87. Every presbytery that doesn’t do so is one more nail in the Amendment 08-B coffin.

It could get to the point before long that nearly every remaining opposing presbytery would need to switch its vote for the moral revisionists to get their amendment approved. That is not likely to happen.

However, having watched my team’s criminally lax “prevent defense” allow a college football rival to win a game today that my team ought to have won, I understand the need for caution. The wholesale revision of Christian sexual morality can and will happen if good people do nothing. Revisionists are working diligently to try to get Amendment 08-B approved. Thus, those of us who want to retain biblical morality simply must show up to work against, speak against, and vote against Amendment 08-B in each of our presbyteries.

We ought to take hope that the odds are stacked in our favor on this vote. We ought not to let that lure us into fatal complacency.

Everyone Needs to Respond to the Good News

2008-11-13T22:32:00.000-08:00

Former General Assembly Moderator Susan Andrews asked, “Can the inclusion of gay and lesbian persons be a part of our evangelism?” She was bringing up what she considered a sensitive question at a denominational evangelism consultation at Stony Point.

The answer seems a no-brainer to me: Of course we ought to include gay and lesbian persons in our evangelistic outreach!

No one—absolutely no one—ought to be left out of the invitation to say yes to Jesus Christ. Why would anyone not be given access to redemption and the opportunity to switch the lordship of one’s life from self to God? Who does not need to respond in obedience and thankfulness to so great a salvation? Everyone needs to be valued enough to be evangelized.

So, yes, by all means, we must include gay and lesbian persons as part of our evangelism. I fail to see any controversy in that.

If you want controversy, mention including Jewish persons as part of our evangelism. Or better yet, if you want controversy, try simply doing evangelism in a denomination that has studiously avoided it for decades. But sharing the Good News with gay and lesbian persons outside the faith and inviting them to give their lives in submission to Jesus Christ—just as every one of us already in the church has supposedly done—now that’s not particularly controversial, as I see it.

Something else?
But perhaps that isn’t what Susan Andrews was considering. Maybe she was trying to turn political social engineering into some form of ersatz evangelism. It is quite possible that she was thinking not so much of telling gay and lesbian persons about redemption through faith in Jesus Christ, but instead just kind of inviting them to join her club and be a part of this do-good social organization.

No expectations. No faith requirements. Nothing to give up, as Jesus asked the rich young ruler to do concerning his attachment to money. Just mosey on by and join our club, without paying any attention to the radical redirection of all of our life and living that is supposed to go hand-in-hand with making Jesus Lord of everything and not just chief affirmer of all that's wonderful in me.

There’s this little hang-up with sexual morality that perhaps Susan Andrews was hoping we’d just kind of paper over—you know, the thing about living our lives by God’s loving commandments rather than being controlled by our prideful sins and harmful addictions. That part about being born again, about confessing sin and experiencing metanoia (a turning of direction to follow God’s will); that part about saying “Not my will but thy will be done”—perhaps Susan would prefer to lay that aside and just tell people what they want to hear, not what they desperately need to hear.

Oh, we’d be very popular in this anything-goes world if we would simply invite people with any particular sin to celebrate it and not worry about conforming it to God’s will. We’d be hip. We’d be happenin’. We’d be the darlings of the “tolerant” set, who demand adoration of any bent other than orthodox Christianity, which oddly must not be permitted. The press would lionize such “acceptance,” as compared to the much-frowned-upon “intolerance” of orthodox Christian morality.

But we would be unloving, and we would be in opposition to the Lord of the Universe if we became sloppily antinomian. We’d be unloving by encouraging people to destroy themselves and others with ungodly actions. We'd be unloving in hiding from gay and lesbian persons the one message every one of us most needs to hear: Repent and be baptized.

We’d be in opposition to the Lord because we would withhold from people whom God loves the radical words of salvation. We’d be in opposition to the Lord because God hates sin, and no sin gets a pass, while every sin can be erased through God’s grace.

So, yes! Let us include gay and lesbian persons in our evangelism. The Good News is for every one of us sinners. Let us include them in the church—unrepentant as they taste the love of God and get exposed to the Good News of redemption, and then repentant as they are swept up in God’s overpowering love and accede to God’s lordship.

And let gay and lesbian persons—fully given to Jesus Christ as he gives them power to live chaste lives in obedience to him—reach out as evangelists to others, not with some bogus “good news” that tries to accommodate brokenness, but with the genuine Good News that Jesus saves us from any and all behaviors and proclivities, as he transforms our lives to mirror his good and perfect intent for our perfection.

Now that, I contend, would be gutsy evangelism!

We Are Not Amused with Arrogated Power

2008-10-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

Wait one minute, Mr. Tulsa Attorney now threatening the Kirk of the Hills property settlement! The property agreement between the Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma and Kirk of the Hills is none of your business.

The Form of Government does not give the denomination the authority to “approve” a transfer of property. G-8.0301 states:

Whenever property of, or held for, a particular church of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ceases to be used by that church as a particular church of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in accordance with this Constitution, such property shall be held, used, applied, transferred, or sold as provided by the PRESBYTERY [emphasis added].

G-8.0401 states:

Whenever a particular church is formally dissolved by the presbytery, or has become extinct by reason of the dispersal of its members, the abandonment of its work, or other cause, such property as it may have shall be held, used, and applied for such uses, purposes, and trusts as the PRESBYTERY may direct, limit, and appoint, or such property may be sold or disposed of as the PRESBYTERY may direct, in conformity with the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) [emphasis added].

Further, G-11.0103y (a section on the responsibilities and powers of presbyteries) states that the PRESBYTERY has the responsibility and power “to consider and act upon requests from congregations for permission to take the actions regarding real property as described in G-8.000.”

Could it be clearer? The PRESBYTERY is given the responsibility to make this call. What the presbytery decides is what matters.

The denomination has no authority to involve itself in this matter, other than general administrative oversight over a lower governing body. However, even that general oversight responsibility belongs to the synod first and would require some kind of complaint process that would trigger an administrative review of the synod by the General Assembly. What some hyperactive bureaucrat (or agent thereof) thinks or wants is irrelevant.

We Presbyterians do not have a bullying monarchical form of church government, in which denominational lawyers threaten the proper constitutional governance of the presbyteries and congregations. King Henry VIII had spies and enforcers ready to deal severely with anyone who dared question his absolute authority. For example, to disagree with his discarding of Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn was to be guilty of treason, and the punishment was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

After watching from afar the “king’s” expensive, disgraceful, ministry-crippling, and God-dishonoring grasping after the assets of the Kirk of the Hills, after hoping that the mutually agreed upon settlement would finally end the hostilities, and then after reading that some denominational king apparently will not be satisfied without first hanging, drawing, and quartering the Kirk, I am disgusted that kinder, gentler, more Christian leaders have not stepped forward within the denominational structure to put an end to this avaricious disgrace.

This is especially disgraceful after General Assembly declared that “Scripture and the Holy Spirit require a gracious witness from us rather than a harsh legalism.” General Assembly made it clear that “trying to exercise this responsibility and power [to divide, dismiss, or dissolve churches] through litigation is deadly to the cause of Christ.”

But there is more. The new Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Gradye Parsons, is also disposed against further resort to courts. “The last thing we need to do in dealing with these situations is to go to court,” he said in a press conference following his election. “We need to find ways to address them with each other and try to stay out of court….”

So, we now see evidence of three rather grave errors:

First, the denominational hierarchy is arrogating powers to itself that belong to the presbytery.

Second, the denominational hierarchy is acting in a manner contrary to the authority and will of the General Assembly—to say nothing of the will of God!

And third, apparently the intention of even the Stated Clerk counts for nothing for the denomination’s legal arm, supposedly a department under his authority.

Somebody please tell me that this is just a rogue, self-appointed attack attorney who is operating outside the scope of legitimate denominational authority. That is, after all, a possibility—the most benign explanation I can come up with at the moment.

Solidarity

2008-10-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

At a time of great national economic ruin and joblessness, I find myself in solidarity with the masses. I am unemployed—although I hope to avoid the "great economic ruin" part.

On September 17, I was told that my position as Director of Presbyterian Action with the Institute on Religion and Democracy was being eliminated and I was being laid off as of that day. It was a necessary decision, as I understood it, one that I had seen coming for some time.

Had I been my own boss, I probably would have made the same call. One cannot spend money that isn’t there. Prudent judgment required a three-person reduction in the IRD work force. The hole I left could be ably filled by Alan Wisdom, and Presbyterian Action would be around to see another day. So it was done.

I remain a great fan of the positions advocated by the Institute on Religion and Democracy and the work its people do. Theirs is a vital and necessary ministry undertaken by brilliant and deeply faithful people. Theirs is also a difficult and rather thankless task: To stand up to the ideas and forces that would unmake the Church, sully its witness, and harm individuals and society.

Too few conservative Christians seem to understand and embrace the importance of a biblically faithful social witness. They tend to cede that territory by default to the progressives, who revel in that playground as political players largely cut free from biblical constraints. The progressives run mostly unchecked, except for the nagging IRD whistle blowers. However, with somewhat of a collective evangelical yawn, evangelicals have insufficiently funded the IRD’s ministry, and therefore the cutback.

Responding to a wider phenomenon

The IRD’s belt tightening is not unique, however. Throughout the Presbyterian renewal community, income is scarce and ministries are suffering. It’s not that beliefs have changed. It’s more that hope has dwindled, interests have diffused, and constituencies are fracturing.

Evangelical cynics would say, “Well of course! The bums leading the so-called renewal groups haven’t been able to accomplish a thing! Not a penny more to them!” Those cynics would, of course, see the glass as half empty--a glass that would have been completely drained, if not for the dogged efforts of many renewal groups as they stymied a progressive take-over of the PC(USA). The cynics mindlessly dismiss the very renewal organizations that have struggled for their own interests, delaying and diminishing disaster for decades!

Progressive adversaries are probably saying, “Sweet! Our opposition is crumbling, and in no time it will be our church to run unhindered. Not a penny more for renewal’s obstacles!”

It must look juicy to the progressives. Perhaps tottering are the very renewal groups that have stood in their way and tripped up their radical recasting of beliefs and practices. Still only about a nineteen-percent minority of the PC(USA), the activist progressives could find the whole kit and caboodle dropped into their hands--if a panic sweeps the evangelicals, who give up or walk away.

Evangelical stalwarts therefore must say, “That can’t happen! If we drop the ball, only ill can result. Every penny possible to the effort; every defender to the barricades!”

Without a unified and, yes, expensive effort, evangelicals will soon find themselves detested aliens in their own denomination, which will have departed from the faith entirely. This struggle won’t go away simply by ignoring it or concentrating on more pleasant endeavors.

Awkward irony

The timing of downsizing is awkward for evangelicals. Just when a radical activist group—More Light Presbyterians—gets windfall secular funding to add staff to further attempt to turn the PCUSA into another gay-advocacy caucus for political purposes, that’s when renewal groups are struggling to retrench or maybe even to survive. If evangelicals allow a wholesale collapse of their renewal and reform efforts, what a boon that would be for the progressives!

But the rightsizing of the IRD is a little ironic in itself, since speculative and self-serious voices from the progressive fringe have gone loony about how well-funded the IRD is and how it supposedly bankrolls and controls all the other renewal groups in several denominations. No, the IRD doesn’t receive bales of unmarked bills from clandestine right-wing fanatics out to destroy the church for political purposes. The IRD evidently receives insufficient $20 checks from dear saints even to maintain its own staffing level. So much for the half-baked conspiracy theories!

And now that More Light Presbyterians’ umbrella organization--the Institute for Welcoming Resources--has become a wholly owned subsidiary of a secular gay political lobbying organization, will these same “concerned” voices be railing about the “outside political influence” on the denomination? Somehow one thinks not!

Solidarity

What is needed is evangelical solidarity. Together, those of us who are theologically orthodox/conservative/evangelical need to come out of the woodwork and work in union. There are more than twice as many evangelicals in the PCUSA than there are progressives, although one would never know it from the liberal-skewed demographics of those placed in leadership roles. We evangelicals have history, theology, the Bible, the Book of Order, the Book of Confessions, the international Church, and tradition in our favor--as well as the numbers.

But do we have the will? The spiritual fortitude? The solidarity? Time will tell.

And one more thing: God will prevail. God always does.

Attractive Nonsense

2008-08-27T23:14:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite bloggers who happens to be a first-rate scholar--Mark Roberts--has written two articles on a change in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) standardized ordination exam on exegesis (here and here). The change is rather disturbing, especially since it came not from a General Assembly action but from the routine work of an obscure committee that was elected without a moment of consideration by the General Assembly.

Where once budding preachers would be compelled to find the "principal meaning" of a sermon text--demonstrating proficiency in the original language of the text--now, the test takers must give only a "faithful interpretation" of the text. So what does that mean?

It depends on the principal meaning of "faithful" in "faithful interpretation." So what makes an interpretation "faithful"? We have at least two options:

Faithful can mean full of faith, as in an interpretation that is imbued with the faith of the interpreter. The interpreter ostensibly is a person of faith and uses that faith to whatever extent to come up with a personal interpretation of the passage. Thus, according to this understanding, that would make the resultant interpretation a faithful interpretation. By this meaning, unless the interpretation were done by a raving atheist with no faith, it would necessarily be a faithful interpretation because of the faith of the interpreter.
Faithful could mean instead that the interpretation keeps faith with the original meaning of the passage, that it has fidelity to the original intent. It would be like a copy of a last will and testament being a faithful reproduction of the original. It can mean that the interpretation is authentic, true, as accurate as possible a rendition of the meaning intended by the writer.

So which is it? I would hope that it would be the latter.

I would hope that relativism hasn't so weakened Presbyterian understanding of "true truth" that we've given up hope of ever determining what is the clear, obvious meaning of a text that was written to transmit meaning that God inspired and expected to be effectively transmitted through the text. I would hope that the communication-crippling nonsense of deconstructionism hasn't completely undermined Presbyterian expectations of exegesis.

But I would probably be wrong.

It appears to me that "faithful" was probably intended to denote #1 above. That means that personal impressions, biases, hobbyhorses, weaknesses, blindness, power trips, and blunders would be allowed to triumph over the discipline of exegesis, so that a passage could have a "faithful interpretation" to mean whatever anyone professing any form of faith wants it to mean.

Thus preachers who don't discard or ignore the sermon text altogether could simply transform the text into their own idiosyncratic creation through their "faith." I would argue that we need less of such troublesome practice, not more.

Who could be opposed to something as attractive sounding as "faithful interpretation"? Anyone who knows what is actually being lost and what is sadly being perpetuated when whim is allowed to replace rigor.

Reading the AI with Comprehension

2008-07-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

When dealing with a complicated statement, I often find it useful to construct a visual representation somewhat like sentence diagramming from school days. I think that would help us better understand the new Authoritative Interpretation (AI), which is admittedly a complex statement. I think it will also point out at least one ambiguous part.

So here’s my try for the sentence: “Interpretive statements concerning ordained service of homosexual church members by the 190th General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and the 119th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States and all subsequent affirmations thereof, have no further force or effect”:

1) Interpretive statements
a. concerning ordained service of homosexual church members
b. by the 190th General Assembly of the United Presbyterian
Church in the United States of America and
c. [by] the 119th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
and

2) affirmations
a. all
b. subsequent
c. thereof,
3) have no further force or effect.

Okay. So what do we have? Numbers 1 and 2 are the subjects; number 3 is the verb phrase. “Interpretive statements and affirmations have no further force or effect.” That’s the bare-bones skeleton.

But obviously not all interpretive statements, as 1.a-c tell us. The interpretative statements being considered are strictly limited by:

(a) Only those that concern ordained service of homosexual church members. (Notice how this is written as if homosexual orientation and not homosexual practice were the main thing. The 1978/1993 Authoritative Interpretation was very careful and specific in dealing with homosexual practice. This new statement is actually more careless and less clear. In a way, there is no historical statement about the ordination of homosexual persons per se to be rendered of no force or effect, because the previous statements are about homosexual behavior, not about someone's abstract state of being homosexual.)

(b) Only the statement by the UPCUSA 190th General Assembly (1978) and
(c) Only the statement by the PCUS 119th General Assembly (1979)

Okay, so now we know that the statements that have no further force or effect are just two very specific statements, and they were mischaracterized in this new resolution as being about homosexual persons, when they were in truth about homosexual practice.

We also know that we’re talking about “interpretative statements” in their totality that were issued by these two denominations in 1978 and 1979, not the very narrow part of each statement that for some reason the Stated Clerk’s office zeroed in on in its Advisory Opinion #22.

What else do we know from the sentence diagram? We know that there is something else that has no further force or effect: “affirmations.” What kind of affirmations in particular?

a and b) “all subsequent” affirmations. That means that after 1978-79, every single such affirmation is also of no further force or effect. But still, what kind?

c) Affirmations “thereof.” The “thereof” tells us something specific. It’s not just any affirmation that may have come out of our mouths after 1979, such as “I like chocolate!” It is only affirmations that pertain to the two very specific statements delineated in the first part. So if a General Assembly affirmed something else or reaffirmed some other statement of principle, such affirmations that aren’t “thereof” are not being included here and would remain in force and effect. Only in cases where the General Assembly has affirmed the 1978 UPCUSA statement or the 1979 PCUS statement about homosexual (practice as it relates to) ordination is such a subsequent affirmation of no further force or effect.

But here’s the ambiguity: “affirmations” by whom? By any Presbyterian anywhere? One would think not! By sessions or presbyteries? I seriously doubt it. They haven’t been mentioned at all in this section of the resolution, so there is no reason to slip them in as the party making the affirmations.

No, it appears that the elliptical party doing the affirmations or reaffirmations would have to be a subsequent General Assembly, such as the 217th General Assembly as recently as 2006 that commended the statement to the study of the whole church. If we are going to supply an assumed party to be doing such affirmations, it would most likely be the only party that can with authority affirm a statement by the General Assembly: another General Assembly.

Thus, in this reading, if any subsequent General Assembly has affirmed the 1978/1979 statements, that affirmation is now left without further force or effect, because this particular, most-recent General Assembly has said so.

What about the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) and its ability to also produce Authoritative Interpretations? The Stated Clerk’s office in its new Advisory Opinion seems to think that any time a GAPJC cited the 1978/1979 statements, this new Authoritative Interpretation then basically invalidates that decision, as if the GAPJC opinion were not also rooted in the Bible, our confessions, legislative intent, and the standard practice of Christians for two millennia.

The Stated Clerk’s office, if it is being careful with the exact language of this new Authoritative Interpretation, must be interpreting “all subsequent affirmations thereof” to include GAPJC decisions as well as General Assembly resolutions. But is a GAPJC decision truly an “affirmation” of an “interpretive statement” by a General Assembly?

I would say no. The GAPJC may use the interpretative statement or rely on it or partially base its decision on the interpretative statement, but that is something different than it being an “affirmation” of the statement. The entity that can affirm or reaffirm such statements is the General Assembly.

Thus, if we read the new Authoritative Interpretation for what it says and not for what we only assume it is saying or what we want it to say, it is basically saying this: Those 1978 and 1979 interpretative statements about homosexual practice have, in their entirety, no further force or effect. In addition, all affirmations of these particular interpretative statements (and only these) by subsequent General Assemblies also have no further force or effect.

I wish the 218th General Assembly had never made such a statement, but I do believe that this is the meaning of their statement.

This reading would also mean that other General Assembly policy statements about homosexual practice or Christian sexual morality in general are not affected by this new Authoritative Interpretation, nor would Permanent Judicial Commission decisions—with the force of being Authoritative Interpretations in their own right—be affected by this new Authoritative Interpretation.

With that in mind, the Stated Clerk’s Advisory Opinion #22 seems to require either more thought and revision, or far better clarity and explanation. This is no time for muddy, ambiguous, confusing counsel. We need to know what is the case and why.

Fragmentation and an Idealized Opposition

2008-07-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

In comments on my previous posting, a writer warned against fragmentation among evangelicals/conservatives, following the event of the recent General Assembly in San Jose.

I replied in the comments, but I thought it worthwhile to make my reply a separate posting. Here's what I wrote:

Thanks for your insights.

Yes, personal foibles always are at play in any organization. It's easy to have "ergocentricity" rear its ugly head, where my work is central and everyone else should drop what they are doing and do what I do (or what I lead).

Fragmentation is always a danger within the orthodox camp, especially when we start laying blame on others for a difficult setback. We need to be gentle on one another at a time of disappointment, and then firm in our stern opposition to whatever damage might have been attempted.

We also need to avoid the tendency to idealize the opposition. They are not monolithic or without their own internal squabbles. I have attended Covenant Network meetings in which significant infighting was evident. The "Let's get it on!" group always chafes against the "But we need to be strategic" group. The "I don't care if it destroys the PCUSA!" group wrestles with the "But we must not kill the goose that lays the golden egg" group.

The "others" are definitely not unified. Why should there be both a That All May Freely Serve and a More Light Presbyterians? And why a Covenant Network that is ideologically aligned but usually strategically at odds with the GLBT groups? You should hear the gay voices complain about the sympathetic liberal voices trying to counsel restraint.

In the case of Covenant Network versus MLP or TAMFS, all of them are fundamentally at odds with the Bible and Christian morality. But they are not in lock-step with one another on how to proceed. They, too, are human and have their leadership and tactical foibles.

What the gay-activist forces have done for the most part, however, is endure setbacks. They didn't have just one General Assembly as bad for them as our San Jose assembly has been for us. They have had one assembly after another after another that has been a horrible disappointment that was filled with setbacks, from their perspective.

And yet, yet--they were still there in San Jose, working their plan. This time, in an odd situation with a very skewed set of voting commissioners, they experienced a major victory.

Now, will this one setback cause evangelicals to: 1) blame each other, 2) get all discuraged, 3) fragment, and 4) just plain quit? Or will this setback make us fighting mad and awaken the fence-sitters and spur us into better, more determined action?

I hope it is the latter. I don't think we are made of lesser stuff than the gay activists, who have weathered far worse for decades and still show up for the dispute.

Official Negligence Helped Doom the Authoritative Interpretation

2008-07-04T02:25:00.000-07:00

Our just-completed General Assembly tossed a gem of a policy on the theological trash heap.

Well, make that "a slim majority of the General Assembly" did so. Many fine, brilliant commissioners tried to stay the hands of the majority, but just couldn't forestall such a mistake.

After thirty years of stalwart biblical counsel, after holding the line with grace and pastoral sensitivity all these tumultuous years, by a single decision of a horribly skewed General Assembly, the statement that started out as definitive guidance about homosexual practice in 1978 and in 1993 became an authoritative interpretation is gone. Discarded. Trashed. What a tragic waste!

How did that happen? Let me venture two causes.

The first cause is a massive disconnect between the sample of Presbyterians chosen as commissioners and the population of Presbyterians as a whole. Quite simply, the commissioners at General Assembly are not a representative sample of Presbyterians overall. The slice of Presbyterians who generally concentrate their work more in presbyteries than in parishes and thus manage to be elected as commissioners by presbyteries is theologically different; it is typically far more progressive theologically and politically than the bulk of people "back home."

Thus, a General Assembly will make pronouncements and take actions that scandalize the rank and file and that divide the church. Here, on the issue of the permissibility of homosexual practice, that disconnect and thus the scandal are readily apparent.

The second cause is leadership failure. In 2006, the General Assembly chose wisely to affirm and uplift the very same Authoritative Interpretation (AI) that in 2008 the assembly voted to discard. In 2006, the assembly felt so strongly that the AI was a good and valuable document that it required the Stated Clerk to commend it and to send it out to all the churches for renewed acquaintance and study. Here was a document whose wisdom needed to get into people's hands and minds!

The Stated Clerk failed horribly in doing his job. In a half-hearted and delayed effort, he distributed it poorly, without adequate fanfare, and with little sense of its value. As a check, do you remember receiving the AI from the Stated Clerk? Did you read any notice that it was available? Did you get the sense that this is something valuable being commended by the General Assembly as a major, enduring policy statement of the church? Most likely not.

The AI did not get the prominence, distribution, and commendation that the 2006 General Assembly intended. And thus, at this assembly, the hardly known document with all its unrealized value could just be casually tossed aside as if it were theological drivel.

How many of the 2008 commissioners had even read the AI they voted to discard, having been told it was bad and unnecessary?

A little more history: In General Assembly plenary debate over the Authoritative Interpretation in 2004, three separate progressive leaders egregiously misquoted and misrepresented the AI. It was obvious then that even the committee chair of the committee to which the business had been assigned didn't know what the real AI contained and thus could mischaracterize it so badly. Nevertheless, even with major disinformation floated about the AI, General Assembly in 2004 voted to uphold it.

However, that debacle of ignorance or deceit led to the overture in 2006 that intended to make the true AI read and known, so that people could appreciate for themselves how valuable its measured, biblical, pastoral approach was. Or if people were to still oppose the AI, at least they would oppose it from knowledge and not from misadvised hearsay. The overture was approved in 2006.

But it appears that the Stated Clerk had little interest in following through with the clear intent of the 2006 General Assembly. In much the same way as one can “damn by faint praise,” the Stated Clerk frustrated the project by faint effort. Here is what General Assembly demanded of the Stated Clerk, compared to what Clifton Kirkpatrick actually did:

First, to send to each congregation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) a pastoral letter explaining the role of an authoritative interpretation of the Constitution….” The explanation was one sentence, buried in a letter that takes pains not to state the central finding of the AI: that homosexual practice is sin. The letter was posted rather unceremoniously on the Theology and Worship web site.

Second, [to send] a copy of the “Policy Statements and Recommendations” from the 1978 report “The Church and Homosexuality” (also known as the Authoritative Interpretation of 1993)…. This fresh copy of the policy statement and recommendations was needed, since the 1978 version was found 57 pages deep in a pamphlet that first contained dozens of pages of a confusing and contradictory report that was rejected rather than approved. Such a clean copy was not sent.

Third, [And to send] a brief study guide prepared by the Office of Theology and Worship and commended to sessions and congregations for study of this authoritative interpretation. The study guide turned out to be 35 pages long and was available as a PDF file for download. The Stated Clerk hoped it would “continue our discernment of God’s will about issues of human sexuality and ordination.” He said nothing of the 217th General Assembly affirming and commending the AI for study. All in all, his was a most tepid way to commend a repeatedly affirmed policy of the church—as if we were waiting for something new to come along through further discernment to replace it.

Fourth, the study guide shall be written in a manner sympathetic to the standards and intention of the Authoritative Interpretation of 1993, commending it to congregations as the historic policy of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The study guide remains decidedly neutral if not skeptical about the policy, treating it as possibly dated and introducing arguments against the policy in the form of leading questions. The policy is not treated as a treasure that propounds enduring Christian belief and practice, but as something to pick apart, to take or leave.

Fifth, it shall be sent to congregations no later than one year prior to the convening of the 218th General Assembly (2008). The letter by Clifton Kirkpatrick was dated “spring 2008” and was posted on the Theology and Worship web site June 13, eight days prior to the convening of the 218th General Assembly. If the purpose was to inform discussion at the 2008 General Assembly, that purpose was thoroughly frustrated by the Stated Clerk’s utter failure to fulfill the Assembly’s requirement.

Sixth, electronic communication will be used as a means of saving costs. This part was followed. The items were posted unobtrusively on the web. No Presbyterian News Service article announced them.

Therefore, given such massive subversion of the will of the prior General Assembly and the resulting continuance of the widespread ignorance of and indifference to the contents of the AI, is it any wonder that this year's General Assembly came along and with hardly a thought swept the Authoritative Interpretation aside?

Where's the General Assembly Stuff?

2008-07-03T17:26:00.001-07:00

During General Assembly, roughly June 19-29, I was blogging frequently on the Presbyterian Action blog, titled "PresbyActBlog (click here to go there).

I have signed my name on all the PresbyAct Blog postings I wrote. Other postings are by my colleague Alan Wisdom and my wife, Debbie Berkley.

I'm switching back to this blog now that General Assembly is over.

Two Tightly Controlled Elections

2008-06-08T01:26:00.000-07:00

The newspaper on Saturday carried another sad and shocking story from Zimbabwe. "President Robert Mugabe banned party rallies and detained his rival" the teaser read in the Seattle Times.

Okay, so why did my mind flash immediately to the coming Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly's election of a Stated Clerk?

The newspaper teaser sounded just all too familiar:

Someone in office and expecting to win gets challenged.
All challenger campaign rallies are banned. (In our case, the total campaigning ban for stated clerk is due to new standing rules first proposed by the office from which the candidate in power is running. The rules were then approved without consideration by General Assembly in a consent agenda. Strangely, these new rules happen to have sprung from a process first kicked off by allegations that supporters of the present Stated Clerk had attempted to manipulate the previous election.)
Although of course no rival is being physically detained, the challengers might as well be, for election regulations have lowered a cone of silence over them.
Somehow challengers must try to become known and elected anyway, even given the many imposed disadvantages.

Think maybe President Mugabe got hold of our new rules and picked up some tips on how to run an election from a position of incumbent power? We Presbyterians apparently have written the book!

Were it so, it wouldn't be the first gift the church has given Mugabe. He rose to power as a violent rebel commander, funded in part by World Council of Churches dollars earmarked for liberation causes. The PCUSA still funds the WCC to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars a year.

Remember when Mugabe's men shot down an airplane carrying missionary families and then murdered those who survived the crash? That didn't keep him from being the darling of WCC liberationists, however, and the honored host of a WCC assembly, once he had seized power.

Ah, your per capita dollars at work!

Why Not a Marriage of Four in California?

2008-06-07T12:17:00.000-07:00

In San Jose, the very city where General Assembly will be held in a couple of weeks, Tony, Kevin, Sandi, and Kaye have set themselves up as a group marriage. They believe in polyamory, and they practice it. Boy, do they ever practice it--Sandi with Kaye, Tony with Sandi, Tony with Kaye, Sandi with Kevin, Kaye with Kevin! So what's holding back Kevin and Tony as a duo--the prudes!

Given the miserable ruling of the California Supreme Court about same-sex marriage, one wonders why not groups of whatever size being recognized as marriages. Logically, what's to hinder it? The majority of the Supreme Court ruled that due to "the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians...." [emphasis added].

Tony, Sandi, Kaye, and Kevin are Californians. Presumably they, too, have a fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, which presumably is guaranteed as their basic civil right as Californians by the California Constitution.

But why just gay couples?

If straight people and presumably now gay people have such a right to marry whomever they choose, wouldn't bisexual and polyamorous people also have such a right? What's so sacrosanct about the number two, that marriage should be limited to such a small number, anyway, if we're making this up as we go along?

There is really no excuse for limiting marriage only to straight and gay people in pairs--if people have some constitutional right to form the family relationship of their choosing. These four chose four for their marriage. Who's to quibble? What's to hinder them from adding in Nathan, their foster son, if at least one of the four should happen to "fall in love" with him, too?

California appears to be the perfect place for the foursome to declare their "marriage," because civil order, morality, and common sense about marriage have already been sacrificed to the gods of gay activism.

Choices at General Assembly

In the very same San Jose of Kaye, Kevin, Tony, and Sandi, Presbyterians also will be asked to sacrifice to these same gods of gay activism. We're being asked to change the Christian definition of marriage from "between a woman and a man" to "between two people."

How passé! Logically, shouldn't the constitutional amendment ask for the definition of marriage to be "between any number of parties"?

As long as folks are seeking to change the definition of marriage--God's sacred provision--as a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman, why not make it such that anything goes? If one intends to ignore Scripture, several millennia of Judeo-Christian practice, and our Confessions, why not at least be logically consistent and go whole hog?

Why is approval sought only for gay marriage? The answer is clear: Because right now polyamory, incest, pedophilia, bestiality, and who knows what else don't have big, noisy, insistent, and politically powerful lobbies pushing for similar recognition. None of these other arrangements is any more or less sinful than homosexual practice. Homosexual practice and these other practices all equally transgress Christian morality and any biblical warrant.

Marrage is not four--ever! Or two whatever.

In San Jose, Presbyterians can do something truly countercultural and uncharacteristically brave. Presbyterians can make a clear decision to choose this day whom they will serve--not the gods of a licentious society falling further into immorality, but rather our Holy God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Commissioners can affirm that as for us and our denomination, we will serve the Lord!

Presbyterians can choose not to conform to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds to believe and act according to the mind and will of God. Quite simply, by disapproving the proposed Directory for Worship amendments, Presbyterian commissioners can steadfastly refuse to defile marriage by redefinition.

"Marriage should be honored by all," God commands us through the writer of Hebrews, "and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral" (Hebrews 13:4). In San Jose, General Assembly commissioners can keep that command, even when Sandi, Tony, Kaye, and Kevin have chosen to trash it.

Consistently Inconsistent

2008-05-29T23:08:00.000-07:00

Remember the phrase being tossed around two years ago at the time of the PUP report being considered by the last General Assembly, words about "according the presumption of wisdom"?

The phrase came from PUP recommendation 5.e: "All parties should endeavor to outdo one another in honoring one another’s decisions, according the presumption of wisdom to ordaining/installing bodies in examining candidates and to the General Assembly, with presbyteries’ approval, in setting standards."

In other words, in the sphere in which a governing body operates and for the decisions it is chartered to make, the other governing bodies were counseled to back off and consider that the first body knows what it is doing. It was basically a statement to observe boundaries and not go barging in to supposedly interfere.

Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick got on this band wagon. He seemed all for such gentlemanly reserve about ordination standards. In his Advisory Opinion #18, Kirkpatrick:

Counseled that "ordaining bodies should be given the 'benefit of the doubt' in making individual judgments...."
Joined the Assembly in urging the church "to exercise great restraint in utilizing that right [of administrative review], reserving its use to clear cases of abuse of authority...."
Reminded the church that "it is the duty of both individual Christians and Christian societies to exercise mutual forbearance toward each another (G-1.0305)."
Prayed that "all ordaining bodies will exercise restraint and Christian charity."

One would think that Kirkpatrick was all for being mellow and laissez faire about constitutional matters. You know, just live and let live; govern and let govern; slide and let slide.

But that was then and this is now. That was about Christian morality and ordination standards, something Kirkpatrick apparently has no stomach to uphold. Now the subjects are property and per capita, which, for some strange reason, seem to super-animate Kirkpatrick.

Take, for instance, the Louisville Papers, issued under Kirkpatrick's authority. These legal briefs about taking denominational control of church property have sparked vicious, grasping lawsuits and the most suspicious, ungracious, and selfish behavior by upper governing bodies. Their actions show that they are absolutely unwilling to honor the decisions of or accord the presumption of any wisdom to lower governing bodies.

Or take the issue of churches transferring to another Reformed denomination, which our Constitution allows (unlike the ordination of those refusing to abide by moral standards). Kirkpatrick seems fiercely unwilling to honor decisions to depart. He seems utterly opposed to according the presumption of wisdom to church sessions or even to gracious presbyteries. No, Kirkpatrick instead sends in the property lawyers and accuses the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of stealing whole flocks of sheep.

And there's the issue of per capita payments. Some congregations have determined that their fiduciary and stewardship responsibilities aren't met by paying for beliefs and activities of Kirkpatrick's office that do not accord with their faith. Some presbyteries have chosen neither to force per capita payments nor to curtail other ministries to pay for uncollected per capita funds.

Are such sessions and presbyteries presumed to be wise in their financial decisions? Is Kirkpatrick falling all over himself in his endeavoring to honor such decisions? Hardly! His office instead counsels judicial means to disapprove and punish such supposed wrongdoing by governing bodies such as Seattle Presbytery (see page 3 for the PJC decision).

I long for ideological consistency and just plain fairness, which we'll probably never see in the last days of discontent under Kirkpatrick. It is indefensible to champion tolerance and laxness in one area of moral and constitutional law he must not particularly favor, while severely tightening the screws in another area of constitutional law by which his office stands to gain financially.

Consistency--that's what is needed. All the "accorded the presumption of wisdom" talk becomes mere blather when it is followed by aggressive litigation. Either sessions and presbyteries are inherently wise and should be left to do whatever they decide, or they are not and can be contested appropriately when they stray from approved practice.

Kirkpatrick can't have it both ways. So I won't buy any more high-sounding talk from him about "according the presumption of wisdom." Not if it will be applied only when it is expedient because there is something to gain.

Witherspoon Society Invites IRS Correction

2008-05-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

I hope the Witherspoon Society realizes that its latest Network News puts its nonprofit status in jeopardy. It could have the IRS breathing down its neck in short order and for good reason.

While a portion of a not-for-profit's work can be about lobbying for political issues, exactly zero of its efforts can be directed toward lobbying for any political candidates. Here is how an April 17 IRS statement reads: "By law, organizations exempt from tax under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) may not 'participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.'”

The Douglas Ottati article on pages 30 and 31 crosses the line and puts Witherspoon Society directly in the position of promoting Democratic candidates for president and opposing Republicans. Any pretense of being neutral or not intervening in a political campaign has evaporated.

Ottati asks the readers, "Which Democratic candidate should we support?" He summarizes: "In short, after eight years of W. and his many accomplishments, both foreign and domestic, our chief electoral responsibility seems nicely summarized by a sticker I saw the other day on another friend’s car: 'Enough is enough. Vote Democratic.'"

There you have it--an exempt organization doing exactly what it cannot do: beating the drum for a political party in the election of president. It would be just as guilty if it had hyped the Republican candidate and denigrated the Democratic candidates. I hope the Witherspoon Society is prepared to answer to a no-nonsense Internal Revenue Service, which has pledged to "maintain a meaningful enforcement presence" concerning such violations of law.

But even beyond that legal jeopardy, why would any group whose interests are Christian make its main concern secular partisan politics? Are there too few possible acts of Christian witness or mercy available to maintain its interest? Or is the Witherspoon Society in truth just a Democratic Party action group at heart, with only the vestiges remaining of being a genuine Christian ministry whose work transcends the platform of any particular political party?

Heads, They Win; Tails, We Lose

2008-05-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

"Okay, let's flip on it," someone would say when I was a kid. "Heads, I win; tails, you lose." Obviously, if I get into that kind of an arrangement, I'm going to lose.

That's the way I'm beginning to feel about the system of Presbyterian Permanent Judicial Commissions: When those of us who are conservative or evangelical enter in, it seems that most often we're going to lose. But worse, it seems that when just plain common sense and obvious intent enter in, they come out losers, too.

Take two cases that hit Presbyweb Saturday.

Case #1: Sacramento Presbytery. In this case, the presbytery charitably voted not to appeal a secular court case that had allowed a congregation to retain its property while transferring into a sister denomination. In other words, the presbytery altruistically chose the welfare of the worshipping congregation over pure possessiveness on its part.

However, such good motives cannot go unpunished in an aggressively litigious atmosphere encouraged by our Stated Clerk's office. Three disgruntled pastors from a church on the losing side of the vote filed a "stay of enforcement" with the synod Permanent Judicial Commission. A stay of enforcement usually keeps something from happening--an ordination, a rebuke, a rule change, etc.--until after some dispute has been settled in the church courts.

Not this time.

This time, the "stay" is causing the tiny minority's desires to be carried out, against the will of the large majority. This "stay" plays out in an amazingly convoluted and unusual way in this case, actually causing an action rather than suspending action.

Since the "stay" is actually going to cause the exact action to occur that a strong majority of the presbytery voted not to do, there seems to be a need for the majority now to stay the "stay"!

Quite simply, the presbytery voted not to go to court to appeal, but yet the stay of enforcement forces the presbytery to appeal. In other words, according to the members of the synod PJC, to hold off on not appealing means that the presbytery must appeal. Thus, the presbytery officers were summarily ordered to file the appeal, and they did.

So much for the fundamental of Presbyterian polity that "a majority shall govern" (G-1.0400). Three people in Sacramento made the presbytery do the mean-spirited action it had voted not to do--and this is supposedly through a "stay" of action, which, during a time of legally sorting things out, ought to restrain action rather than force it!

Case #2: Twin Cities Presbytery. Here, a former pastor had surrendered his ordination because he would not support chastity as an unmarried gay man. He has now decided that the time is ripe still to refuse to abide by "chastity in singleness" but take his ordination back after all. His presbytery concurred, and some presbyters filed a remedial complaint.

The complaint seems justified. Our underlying policy on homosexual practice specifically names it as sin. It says that "all homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian faith and life" and that "God's will precludes the ordination of persons who do not repent of homosexual practice." And yet the presbytery has just handed back to this scofflaw his ordination.

Permanent Judicial Commission decisions have set the precedent about "fidelity and chastity" that "the church has decided to single out this particular manner of life standard and require churchwide conformity to it for all ordained church officers" (Bush, 218-10). The General Assembly PJC has decreed that "violations of behavioral standards are to be addressed through repentance and reconciliation, not by exception or exemption." And yet, the presbytery made an exception, because the guy had formerly been ordained and just wanted his papers back.

So, what does the synod PJC rule about the remedial case? It refuses to sustain the complaint. Why? Because, strictly speaking, previous precedential decisions were about getting ordained, not about restoring ordination, so apparently they don't apply. Also, the guy is not ministering within the PCUSA, but at an independent seminary, in a validated ministry.

Thus, in classic casuistic reasoning that can ignore the meat of the matter and forget its original purposes in order to concentrate on extraneous circumstances until a way is found around an obvious restraint, the synod PJC ignored Presbyterian convictions and policy and let the fellow go his merry way with his ordination restored.

Never mind that we officially call homosexual practice sin, that we forbid ordination of those not willing to practice fidelity or chastity, that sinful behavior is not to be winked at but repented of. Never mind that we would not ordain new folks with this guy's attitude and practice, and don't really need any more renegades running around who will not abide by our polity. No, never mind. A way was found to ignore the obvious and to approve the unapprovable.

Jesus said to people like this: "You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel" (Matt. 23:24).

The camel in this case is that homosexual practice is sin. Everything we do about the subject as a church, therefore, ought to flow from that starting point. And the flow ought not take us to the place of giving back an ordination rightfully renounced at an earlier point by a person who will not practice what our standards say he must.

We have a judicial system stuck in gnats and missing obvious camels. And for those of us who just want to uphold biblical morality or further congregational ministry apart from vindictiveness--well, it seems to end up heads, they win; tails, we lose.

Prayer? Yes! But Hold the Propaganda

2008-05-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

People are praying for General Assembly. That's absolutely wonderful. It's necessary. It's primary. More power to them. Count me in, too.

Moderator Joan Gray asks us to "pray that we will be open to the fullness of God’s will in our General Assembly." May it be so!

On the other hand, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick delivers a rather mixed message about Christian unity:

While Kirkpatrick has failed to champion and uphold historic Christian moral teaching, he yet brings attention to "the strong faith we share with Christians throughout the ages." Yes, that historic faith is outstanding, but why hasn't Kirkpatrick honored it with his own example? Why hasn't he vigorously sustained the sexual morality that has been part of that strong faith throughout the ages?
While Kirkpatrick writes, correctly, that "The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has long understood that it is only one part of the body of Christ, and that we seek to make visible the unity we share with other Christians," he has concurrently issued harsh and retributive legal briefs (here and here), seeking to label any group of Presbyterians not sufficiently attached to the PCUSA alone as not "the true church." Which is it? Is the PCUSA only one part of the body of Christ, or is it the only part that is "true"?
While Kirkpatrick invites us to find out more about an "effort to create closer connections between NCC member churches," he seems to limit the graciousness of ecumenicity only to the dance of the few dying dinosaurs within the National Council of Churches. At the same time, he has seemed to stoke the fires of distrust against our closest denominational siblings, such as the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Why limit the call "to engage in fellowship, prayer, and study with other Christians" to a small, increasingly irrelevant and secularized sliver of the body of Christ? Why leave out vital fellowship with Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, Pentecostal, independent, and evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ?

For Pentecost and leading up to General Assembly, Moderator Joan Gray calls us to prayer and to seeking God's will. Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, on the other hand, touts the National Council of Churches, which just happens to have its funding slightly imperiled at the coming General Assembly. I'll take the prayer, but for me, hold the not-so-subtle NCC propaganda.

It seems high time for a new Stated Clerk more attuned to the faith and life of the congregations within our denomination--someone to match within the Office of the General Assembly the fresh breezes of ministry blowing within the General Assembly Council. And someone less attuned to promoting and maintaining personally favored failing ecumenical institutions of a previous era.

High Priests of Secularity in the California Supreme Court

2008-05-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

The California Supreme Court has released a decision that in essence requires that same-sex unions be termed marriages, reversing the moral position taken by the people of California. See the whole decision here, and a useful and briefer segment here.

This is an amazing, if not too surprising, case of judicial activism, as a dissenting opinion by Justice Corrigan also holds. The court has decided that it knows better than the people of California what is good and right and desirable, and the court imposes its vision upon the people by fiat.

A couple of portions of the ruling stood out for me as disturbingly audacious:

These core substantive rights include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish--with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life--an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage.

The court doesn't really believe that. What if the person has chosen his mother to whom to be married? Or a ten-year-old? Or his daughter or granddaughter? What if the person one chooses is already married to someone else but would willingly add another spouse?

What if many such individuals are chosen, rather than one? For that matter, on what grounds, using this logic, would just one spouse be deemed the proper number, if it is all about the fundamental opportunity and right to establish a family the way one chooses?

Must any and every coupling, no matter how exploitative or ridiculous, be "accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage"? Ridiculous!

Finally, retaining the designation of marriage exclusively for opposite sex couples and providing only a separate and distinct designation for same-sex couples may well have the effect of perpetuating a more general premise--now emphatically rejected by this state--that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects "second-class citizens" who may, under the law, be treated differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals or opposite-sex couples [emphasis added].

This statement is so full of judicial activism! The state has voted. The people determined quite soundly that marriage is between a man and a woman. Now four of seven justices emphatically reject for the whole state the very beliefs the state has embraced for itself!

This statement within the decision is also a religious statement. The judges have taken their belief, their value judgment--that gay sex is not morally wrong and is to be accorded every respect given to marital heterosexual sex--and imposed it wholesale on the state. The state supreme court justices have made a religious/moral determination on their own, distinctly different from the moral determination the state has made through its proper voting process, and they now impose that morality from on high upon a state that has said it doesn't so believe. That is tyranny!

Fellow Christians: Be prepared to live your lives as social outcasts from a society that calls your moral beliefs heterosexist discrimination and labels your morality the state-disapproved notions of hateful bigots.

For believing God's Word and for standing for the sexual purity that God has taught us, you will be one of those Neanderthals considered to be promoting something "emphatically rejected by the state." Well, not exactly rejected "by the state," but certainly by a majority of activist California Supreme Court justices speaking as if they were the state.

Blithely Giving Away Other People's Money

2008-04-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

Let’s say you want to redo your home’s landscaping. You get a loan for $10,000 on your equity, the bank gives you that $10,000 of its money, and you spend the bank’s money freely. But now you have loan payments on the bank’s money that you have received and spent. That’s no fun. In fact, it is cutting deeply into your spendable income each month. You really don’t want to pay back the loan.

That’s where I come in. I, as a supposedly caring, thoughtful third party, step in and feel your pain. Wow! It IS tough to make those loan payments! Then, in a grand way, I boldly declare that in a spirit of jubilee, your debt should just be forgiven. You should be able to walk away with someone else’s money, and that would be the fair and just—and most definitely CHRISTIAN—thing to do.

It’s easy for me to make the declaration. I didn’t loan you the landscaping money. It’s no skin off my nose if you never pay back your debt. But I can get on my soap box and play my violin for you—a very mournful tune about how onerous it is for you to return someone else’s money. I can really schmaltz it up and make the lender look like a real jerk for not just giving you its money outright. It’s great fun for me, redistributing other people’s money at no personal cost. And when all is said and done, I can feel so self-righteous for helping my neighbor stiff the lender.

Somehow, I think that scenario isn’t exactly what God intended for the whole jubilee arrangement. For one thing, I can choose for myself to be beneficent and generous, forgiving debts of people who have borrowed from me. I can give away my own assets whatever way I choose. But when it comes to me somehow trying to be beneficent with your assets—without your agreement and at no cost to me—then the concept has gone horribly awry.

Forced redistribution of wealth

This “give away someone else’s money” scenario is what comes to mind in the shallow and oversimplified advocacy of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office concerning forgiveness of debt to impoverished nations. Here’s how the recent “Witness in Washington” article reads, in part:

Today, the world’s most impoverished countries spend more than $100 million each day in debt payments to wealthy governments and financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF. In countries where the majority of the population lives on less than $1 per day, this money should be spent on clean water, basic health care, and education, not sent to the world’s wealthiest financial institutions.

Note the simplistic shading: The lending governments and institutions are not at all praised for reaching out with vital loans as strategic infusions of capital to raise the economic welfare of the most impoverished countries. These lending countries and institutions took their own money and put it in the hands of governments that needed it to improve their countries. It wasn’t an outright gift; it was a loan.

Such capital for the impoverished countries ought to have benefited the people and raised revenue that would have allowed for debt repayment. However, in many cases, the money was used by national leaders to line their own pockets, or squandered in unwise and often larcenous ways.

But who is subtly made to be the villains in this brief description? The lenders, described only as “wealthy governments” and “the world’s wealthiest financial institutions.” That these entities simply expect to receive their loaned money back, as agreed upon prior to the loan (and sometimes under new agreements even more beneficial to the borrower) is somehow deemed bad.

The Washington Office’s implied message is that these groups should just give away the money that the poor countries had borrowed and still owed in return. Presbyterians, it appears, are being called upon to shame prudent governments and international banks into subsidizing the corrupt and imprudent juntas of the world that have ripped off their own people and now hope to rip off the lending banks and governments.

I don’t think that’s as good an idea as the Washington Office makes it out to be. The forced redistribution of wealth is a much more socialist or communist idea than it is capitalist. Besides it being just flat out unjust to confiscate one group’s capital to give to another, it doesn’t work. Socialism is one of the best ways not to even out wealth equitably, but to eliminate it altogether. It rewards sloth and corruption, and it harshly penalizes initiative and risk-taking.

Let’s say I have a little money to lend. Maybe I’d like to help out with small loans to budding businesspeople in terribly poor countries. I can loan a widow $100 to buy a sewing machine, and then she can work, feed her family, educate her children, and slowly pay back the loan. She has pride because the loan allows her to make something of her life. Soon she is hiring other sewers and building her business, helping others as she does.

Let’s say I do that 100 times over with $10,000. The small interest and repayments I receive, allow me to continue doing the micro credit over and over again.

But what if there are parties like the Washington Office who cast aspersions on my even having that $10,000 to loan in micro credit? What if I must be a filthy exploiter to have accumulated that capital in the first place, and the best way to deal with creeps like me is to take away that money and give it to the poor? So I get some onerous tax slapped on me, and now my $10,000 is in the government’s hands, from which maybe $3,000 emerges eventually, given to some corrupt Third-World bureaucracy that basically misspends it. Not much help there.

Or what if, rather than lending my $10,000 to individuals seeking to raise themselves out of poverty, I just loan it to their government. Then some corrupt official uses it for a down payment on his second Mercedes, while his people starve. But then, to make things worse, some third party steps in and says it is horribly wrong for me to have money to lend and for the impoverished government to have to pay it back. What if that third party declares that the corrupt government’s debt to me is cancelled? I’m out my well-intentioned $10,000. The corrupt government official’s kid is driving a Mercedes and has a big grin on his face. And the poor seamstress has no way to work and feed her family.

Or, let's say that things like this happen and I still somehow have another $10,000 lying around. Do you think I will be favorably disposed toward lending it to impoverished people overseas? I mean, I’ve lent $10,000 before, and the government just canceled the debt, in effect giving away my money. Or I’ve seen my money sent off into corrupt hands and it never gets to the truly needy. I’ll not want either of those things to happen again, so I’ll probably not use that $10,000 again in the same ways.

Bad policy will have been terribly effective in halting the exact behavior that could have brought some benefit. And that bad policy is what our Washington Office appears to be advocating, without seriously wrestling with the knotty consequences of its advocacy.

Preliminary questions

If the Washington Office is going to blithely ask us to lobby our government to give away previously loaned money, it seems it should first answer some basic questions for us:

Whose money is being given away with loan forgiveness? Is it our collective money as a nation, or is it private or semi-private capital that is being made a gift rather than a loan?
If it is government money, what consequences will that have on further loan availability? Or what will the government not be able to do, because of the loss of money it would have recovered from its loans?
Where would the money come from to replace the forgiven repayments?
If it is private money, how can the government forgive someone else’s loans? Can it say, “Well, that party once owed you money according to a valid contract, but now we’re saying it doesn’t have to pay, and you’re stuck with uncollectable loans. Tough luck”?
Whose money is being given away if the World Bank forgives loans? Who takes the loss? Whose money is being given away if the International Monetary Fund forgives loans?
When the government arbitrarily determines that some loans don’t need to be repaid, what effect would that have on the availability of loan capital for future loans? Why would lenders make further loans if they could lose the whole amount by some governmental decree?
Won’t capital become unavailable to economies that desperately need an infusion of capital, and couldn’t that be disastrous for the impoverished countries?
Wouldn’t the precariousness of loans that could be suddenly declared uncollectable force up the interest rate incredibly on any such future loans? With high risk comes the expectation of high returns.

The Washington Office rationale is entirely incomplete. It seems to go like this: “Some countries and institutions are wealthy. That’s bad. Some countries are very poor. It’s our fault. Therefore, we should just give away to the poor countries money that we originally had loaned them. There’s something in the Bible about “jubilee,” and therefore the catchy name is good for convincing everyone that this should be a no-brainer to support. Quick, call your congressperson about this issue.”

I think we Presbyterians deserve more and better rationales than this. There are some very fine arguments for and against specific debt forgiveness. I would think that some situations would indicate debt forgiveness as the wisest and most humanitarian way forward. But I would also guess that in many situations, debt forgiveness would reward kleptomanic governments, hurt the economic future of the poorest of the poor, and cripple further efforts to extend investments and aid in that economic situation.

It insults Presbyterans to produce the overly simplistic argument that “Golly, there are poor people and wealthy countries, so let’s confiscate the wealth and give it to the poor countries!” The Washington Office ought to give us more meat in their rationales, and far fewer blithe directions that fail to evidence careful analysis and prudent thought.

Doesn't Faith Matter?

2008-03-20T10:54:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that the news story about Martha Clark, the new general counsel for the PC(USA), illustrates a concern many of us share: Is this denomination just one more corporation, no different in practice and vision than just any old secular business?

Let me interject that I don’t know Martha Clark and have no bone to pick concerning her promotion. She sounds legally qualified and competent, and the search appeared to be thorough. I wish her well.

However, in reporting about Clark’s promotion, the news story reads no differently than if it were talking about a promotion at secular Humana, just down the street in Louisville, where Clark once worked. What do we learn of Clark’s spiritual competence for church leadership? Nothing. Does she believe? Does it matter? What do we find out about her theology of the intersection of secular law and Christian practice? Nothing from this news report.

What does Clark bring to the job? Experience, we’re told. Does she bring faith or congruence with our church purposes? We don’t know. She may well be spiritually mature and a pillar of her church, but we wouldn’t know it from this report, nor would we know if such qualifications were even considered germane to the search. Maybe they weren’t. Linda Valentine didn’t mention anything about spiritual qualifications for Clark.

Is this just another job for Clark, or is it a calling by God to a Christian vocation, a significant leadership ministry in a self-consciously Christian organization? We don’t know. Apparently such information is not important for such a news story, or maybe not important for such a staffing decision. But I can’t help but think that it should be.

The previous general counsel, Erik Graninger, came under fire for his harsh, take-no-prisoners contribution to the “Louisville Papers,” the legal briefs that counsel extremely aggressive and contentious tactics for presbyteries to grab the property of transferring congregations. Thus, the attitude and tactics of the general counsel do have bearing in this ostensibly Christian organization. An attorney who sees her calling to be pastoral as well as legal would probably operate with a different set of practices than one who makes it her job only to fiercely contend for worldly goods and power for the corporation.

I hope we have a new denominational general counsel who prays about her decisions, who looks to the good of the Body of Christ and not only to the secular ambitions of an institution, who seeks to live by Christian guidance and principles as she practices law with excellence, and who sees herself in a role of Christian responsibility and leadership. I hope this isn’t just a nice promotion, like one might get at Humana or any other corporation.

I can hope, but I don’t know, because the news story gives us no clue about the spiritual side of this decision. That, to me, seems odd, for a church.

Two Minds on Abortion ... Rights

2008-03-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

My good friend and colleague Alan Wisdom and I agree in essence about abortion. We are, however, in friendly disagreement on the use of the phrase "abortion rights." Here are the two viewpoints in a point-counterpoint format. I'll start with my viewpoint and then give Alan the opportunity to bat cleanup.

Jim says: Abortion is a violent noun, not a handy adjective

I suggest that all who oppose abortion hereby swear off use of the phrase "abortion rights."

Abortion is a violent noun that stands in stark ugliness by itself. An abortion aborts—violently ends—a life that God intended to continue. Abortion is not an adjective, handy for political and rhetorical purposes to modify a so-called right that was created ex nihilo by the Supreme Court’s social engineering.

Using “abortion rights” in writings and speech implies that there is a right to abort a baby. Thus, it also implies that anyone opposing abortion is proposing taking away a fundamental right, such as freedom of speech or freedom of religion.

The widespread use of the phrase “abortion rights” by abortion friend and foe alike is one of the public-relations triumphs of the last century. The pro-abortion forces have cleverly gotten everyone to apparently concede that there is such a right, simply by making the phrase "abortion rights" the ubiquitous term used whenever people refer to the subject.

If you would do a word-association test with random people, my guess is that if you said "abortion," a large percentage of people would produce "rights" as the first word that comes to their mind. Abortion being a right becomes indelibly implanted in people's minds, simply by the repetitive use of the phrase "abortion rights."

I consider the PR coup akin to getting people to attach "dignity" to "incest," so that every time the subject of incest is brought up, people would talk about being for or against "incest dignity." Or how about "genocide privilege" rather than just genocide, so conscientious Christians would be working to revoke the "genocide privilege"?

Morally and biblically speaking, there is no right to abort—to kill—one’s children. For the past relatively few years, the Supreme Court has propagated such a made-up "right," but I find it impossible to concede that taking an innocent baby's life in the womb is a fundamental human right.

If the unfettered permission to abort one’s offspring is bogus, no "right" at all, then let's not buy into the language that automatically terms it a right and concedes a prime point to the pro-choice crowd merely by the framing of the language. Let's discuss abortion, rather than abortion rights. Let’s oppose abortion, not abortion rights. In measures before our church bodies, let’s work to end abortion, not abortion rights.

The naked term “abortion” is so much more appropriate than the now-ubiquitous “abortion rights.”

I have no desire to run around stripping rights from people. If I am said to be opposing "abortion rights," then the main thing is that I'm ostensibly opposing some right, and it's only secondary that the so-called right I'm opposing is the "right" to abort one's children. But I am serious about disallowing not legitimate rights, but rather abortion, which is not a right but a sinful tragedy.

So all you folks out there who also oppose abortion: Why not eliminate the bogus “rights” from “abortion rights” in your speaking and writing, and simply use the stark, ugly term “abortion” from now on? After all, there’s nothing right about abortion.

Alan says: Make them use the word abortion in their preferred phrase

I agree with my colleague Jim that we need to use the word “abortion” to remind people what’s at stake in this debate. But I believe that “abortion rights” is a useful phrase precisely because it contains that word “abortion”—the word that its proponents take great pains to avoid. (Remember how the “National Abortion Rights Action League” became “NARAL Pro-Choice America”?)

“Abortion rights” captures exactly what is at issue. Is abortion a right or is it not? Jim and I believe it is not a right. Therefore we are against “abortion rights.” Those on the other side believe that killing your unborn child is a constitutional right. Therefore they favor “abortion rights.” And they admit it when they agree to use that phrase to describe their position.

It is so important to have an agreed terminology that is honest and accurate, because we are talking about an act that makes even hardened consciences flinch a bit. That’s why those on the other side of the debate prefer to call themselves “pro-choice”—a phrase that obscures the issue by failing to specify the “choice” that confronts us. It’s also why they don’t want mothers and fathers dealing with problem pregnancies to look at ultra-sound images of their babies. As we all know from personal experience, guilty consciences strive mightily to avoid a straightforward consideration of the evil that they have done or plan to do.

The challenge for “pro-life” people is to find ways to prick the consciences of our fellow citizens, trusting that the God who gave them those consciences will do the convicting and convincing by his Holy Spirit. We must know that we cannot argue them into repentance by the force of our strong rhetoric. The purpose of our words must therefore be more modest and subtle: to cause our fellow citizens to examine their own consciences, to look into the mirror at what they are doing and advocating.

Many of the best efforts of the pro-life movement—the silent vigils outside abortion clinics, the billboards offering help in finding alternatives to abortion, the films with ultra-sound imagery, the legislation banning partial-birth abortion—have had this effect of pricking consciences. And recent polls suggest that some minds and hearts have been changing, especially among the young.

In this regard, however, the public shouting matches between “pro-life” and “pro-choice” people are not always helpful. The two sides often talk past one another rather than to one another. There is no common language that centers the discussion on a common concern. Neither side accepts the other’s self-designation. “Pro-choicers” would never agree that we are truly “pro-life.” (If we disagree with the liberal agenda on any issue ranging from the death penalty to welfare reform to Iraq, the “pro-life” label is dismissed with a sneer.) Nor would we grant that they merit the name “pro-choice.”

Even greater offense is taken at each side’s descriptions of the other. We don’t like being called “anti-choice,” when we have expended so much effort in offering better choices to those facing problem pregnancies. Likewise, the “pro-choicers” resent being called “pro-abortion.” Most of them deny that they believe abortion is a good thing to be encouraged. At least some of them are credible in making that denial. (Those who favor taxpayer subsidies for abortions, or forcing health care plans to cover abortions, or forcing health care providers to refer patients for abortions, or forcing pharmacists to dispense abortifacient drugs, are not credible in their denials. These folks are promoting abortions, and they can properly be called “pro-abortion.”)

The result is that each side perceives the other’s rhetoric as a hash of unjust accusations. They do not give a moment’s consideration to the accusations. Instead they reject them instantly and respond with a quick barrage of counter-accusations. This is not a debate that’s going anywhere. And, most seriously, it’s not a debate that’s likely to prick many consciences.

This is the point at which the phrase “abortion rights” can play a helpful role. The proponents of those “rights” accept the phrase as an accurate description of their position. The mainstream media—overwhelmingly favorable to that cause—also accept that phrase. And I am willing to accept it, as long as I am free to use other similar phrases (“those who exalt killing unborn children as a constitutional right”) that amplify the meaning.

This phrase gives us a framework for a debate that has at least a chance of engaging the real issue and thereby troubling some consciences. Any phrase that might induce the “pro-choicers” to acknowledge the reality of the “choice” that they are championing is a step in the right direction. Of course, they will probably prefer to say “abortion RIGHTS.” But we can emphasize that it’s ABORTION that they want to make a right.

The fact that they would turn something so manifestly evil—something that, in the most honest “pro-choice” arguments, is merely defended as a “necessary evil”—into a sacred right on a par with free speech and habeas corpus, shows how far they have twisted their consciences. Facing this fact may help a few of those consciences snap back in the right direction.

Of course, our argument against abortion rights is part of a larger necessary argument against the excesses of rights talk. Western societies have gone way too far in defining any desired good as an inalienable “right.” So we may need to raise an eyebrow and add a quizzical inflection to our voices as we say “abortion rights”—in the same way that we must cast doubt upon “gay rights,” “ordination rights,” “left-handed transvestite rights to use whichever bathroom they want,” and the like.

It also should be noted that talking about “abortion rights” can be a kind of jujitsu move, where we let the other side choose a label and then pin the new label on them, demonstrating that it still refers to the same ugly reality that the old label did. I think this is why the left keeps shifting its politically correct terminology so frequently—all the old “liberals” now want to be called “progressives”—because it can’t handle the underlying realities. So we just need to keep after them and remind them that “you can run but you can’t hide” from your conscience.

Et vous?
There you have it. So what do you think? Add your comments, and be sure to sign your full name, city, and state at the end.

Berkley's Theorem

2008-03-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

When I was a young pastor, I came up with Berkley’s Theorem: “It’s a foul idea when the turkeys agree with you.”

I mostly kept it to myself. I didn't go running around calling people turkeys. But by the theorem, I meant that some people have their thinking completely lopsided, such as not wanting such an emphasis on God in worship, or on the Bible in preaching. Operating from outside Christian faith and devotion, they just don’t know what is good and acceptable and perfect.

When you run into people like that, you really don't want them agreeing with you. If they agreed with you and thought you were just ducky, there would be something terribly wrong with what you are doing! So their opposition is a good sign. You must be doing something right.

In a similar manner, it seems to me that John Shuck is giving me a high form of praise when he so sourly thinks he’s slamming me. I don’t want to be someone doing what he could commend. It would be all wrong.

If you look carefully at his recent blog posting in response to mine, the very things he thinks are terrible indictments against me are stands I’m proud to take: I'm opposed to homosexual practice, I'm against abortion, I don't think a Presbyterian missionary ought to lie her way through an interview, and so on. He thinks that in quoting me, it becomes self-evident what a dastardly person I must be; I think the quotations for the most part represent well the standards I try to uphold.

Shuck reads like someone noting that a particular leader is compassionate, honest, caring, and truthful—and isn’t that just awful! However, when I interpret John Shuck in the same way as I would Screwtape, everything makes sense again.

When you read The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, you have to keep remembering that everything Screwtape considers horrible is excellent, and everything he thinks is wonderful is horrendous. God is "the Enemy" to Screwtape. Sin is delicious, and righteousness is to be avoided at all costs.

When I keep a Screwtape orientation in my mind when I read Shuck, everything does make sense again. His "indictments" of me, I consider high praise.

Where are the moderates?

2008-02-29T23:22:00.000-08:00

You know how people keep wondering where the moderate Muslims are? If Islam is such a religion of peace, the thought goes, then where are the voices of Islam to speak up and censure the crazies who blow up children in marketplaces in the name of their faith? Every once in a while, one does hear some super-brave Muslim speak out to condemn the Muslim fanatics who would kill you for even wondering out loud if Islam is a violent religion.

Okay, along the same vein, where are the moderate liberals, the moderate progressives? Where are the reasonable voices from within the progressive camp to speak out when some of their own become crazies who definitely cross the line and give a bad name to fellow progressives?

Take John Shuck, for example. Shuck pastors First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethton, Tennessee, a church he describes as progressive. On his own (with far too much time on his hands), he writes a profane, juvenile blog, appropriately named “Shuck and Jive.” He considers it “part of my outreach and teaching ministry.” Whatever.

On February 20, Shuck’s humor consisted of posting condescending photos of rednecks, with mocking captions about renewal leaders, myself included. What a card that Shuck is! Hoo-eee! Deep teaching in this ministry.

But once one gets into the comment section, Shuck turns from immature and tasteless to just plain mean and profane. Speaking of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, he writes (and please excuse the language):

You right-wing bastards won't even allow a freaking scruple. Now it is war again. I tell you, if there was a proposal now that would remove G-6.0106b and the 1993 AI and allow congregations to leave with the denomination's property free of charge, I would be for it just to get rid of you SOBs. I feel no affection for you and your Taliban theology. You are destroying our denomination. I despise you today.

Later, in a comment to Viola Larson, one of the most decent and gracious persons I have ever met, he wrote: “As for the lovely Viola, no, I don't hate you phony, hypocritical, pious, ignorant bastards. You just tick me off, some days more than others.”

Okay, all the thoughtful, caring, sensitive progressives out there who crave dialogue and value diversity, and who are so concerned about alleged angry conservatives, who is going to stand up and say that John Shuck is a disgrace and embarrassment to fellow progressive Christians? Or do you think it is perfectly okay for him to treat church leadership and fellow Christians this way?

And I’m sure Shuck's presbytery has a Committee on Ministry. Is this behavior well within the standards of clergy conduct and demeanor expected by the presbytery of its spiritual leaders? Does anyone care enough about him and about the church to step in and provide some necessary correction? Does the presbytery have any behavior boundaries? Does it have some guts?

I understand that our denomination espouses a big-tent philosophy. But the big tent is not meant to contain a profane circus.

On Pastoral Sensitivity and Property

2008-02-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

Pretend that you are on the presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry, and in examining a candidate for ministry, you ask this candidate a situational question: “You get word that someone has attempted suicide and is now in the hospital. You rush off to visit him. Tell us what you might say and do in that visit?”

“The first thing I’d do is remonstrate with the man freely,” the candidate replies. “Then I’d ask what in the world caused him to do such a sinful thing and I’d rebuke him and tell him to beg God for forgiveness. Then I’d lead him in a prayer of confession and tell him to buck up and show that he had really repented. Finally, I’d leave him to medical care.”

Would such practice commend the candidate for pastoral ministry? Should such a candidate be ordained into ministry in a Reformed church?

Be careful in how you reply, because you could bar John Calvin from the ministry. Such a response was Calvin’s way of dealing with an attempted suicide.

Calvin said it
I am visiting Geneva to attend a meeting of the World Council of Churches Central Committee, and on a free afternoon, I decided to visit the International Museum of the Reformation. There, one of the exhibits provided an English translation of Calvin’s testimony in what must have been the equivalent of a police investigation, or perhaps a coroner’s inquest. Let me reproduce it in full:

I, the undersigned, hereby declare before Lord Pierre d’Orsiere, appointed by the Lieutenant of Geneva, that this is my true statement, made today, January 23rd, 1545. Yesterday between eight and nine, Pierre Vachat came to me in tears and told me of a deplorable event that had occurred at his home, namely, that his brother had asked his maidservant for a knife and plunged it into his stomach. He asked me to go to him. I immediately set off, and on the way met our colleague Monsieur Mattieu de Gestons. When I reached the high chamber where Jean Vachat was lying, I remonstrated with him freely. I then asked him what had driven him to thus wound himself. He told me that he was in great suffering. I showed him in several ways how the Devil had seduced him and led him astray. After rebuking him, I asked him whether he repented for offending God and succumbing to such a temptation. He answered in the affirmative. He repeated this twice. I asked him whether he begged God for forgiveness and whether he had faith, and believed that He would be merciful. He answered in the affirmative. Then we prayed as the situation required, recognizing and confessing the error of his action. I exhorted him again with my words to be patient and seek consolation in the grace of God. Just then, Master Claude, the barber, arrived. I asked Vachat to allow himself to be treated, and thereby show that he repented of his act and entrusted himself to God. By his attitude and words, I saw that he was calm and lucid. When this was done, I left with our brother Monsieur de Genestons. I swear that all this is true. John Calvin

Before Reformed pastors became psychologists and group-hug enablers, we were first concerned about the state of one’s soul. That was certainly clear in Calvin’s practice.

One good deed deserves another
I thought of one other thing while I was in the museum (fascinating, by the way), located where the cathedral cloisters had once stood. It was in those cloisters in 1536 that the Reformation was voted. When that Roman Catholic (the only “denomination” at the time) cathedral’s pastors and congregation voted to became Protestant, they left their previous denomination with property.

That property, a historic cathedral on prime real estate, has been part of this new denomination for nearly 500 years. This afternoon, in an ecumenical service commemorating the 60th anniversary of the World Council of Churches, at least three Roman Catholic bishops (or perhaps they were archbishops or even cardinals) were in attendance in that cathedral to demonstrate their ecumenical support.

Quite noticeably, they were smiling and didn’t ask for the property back. Perhaps they had never heard of the Louisville Papers.

Posthaste or Post Hoc?

2008-02-06T22:52:00.000-08:00

I find the following time line about yesterday's blog entry interesting:

Friday: Reading about a horrendous instance of a suicide bombing in Baghdad, I wonder if Cliff Kirkpatrick will ever fulfill the responsibility given him by General Assembly "to take every opportunity" to condemn such crimes against humanity. So I write him, somewhat late in my West Coast day, which is quite late in his day.

Saturday: By midday, I have a response back from Kirkpatrick's right-hand man, Vernon Broyles, with a public letter in response, purportedly written by Kirkpatrick--from Kenya, nonetheless! Wow! Instant response! It is the weekend, however, and of course it won't be posted on the PCUSA web site until at least Monday.

Monday: No posting appears. Broyles is out and Kirkpatrick is traveling home, I later find out.

Tuesday: I write Broyles to ask about the letter. Broyles replies quickly, attaching a revised letter, which also included the latest Palestinian suicide bombing in Israel. The problem is, the letter has factual errors and other problems, and I point them out to Broyles. But without change, that single letter gets posted on the web by the end of the day. I write a blog posting that night, saying that the statement misses the point by being addressed to the governments of the victims rather than to parties responsible for the bombings or for stopping them.

Wednesday: My blog is picked up in the morning by Presbyweb, making it most public. Kirkpatrick writes a second letter and posts it in the same posting as the previous letter, giving it a new introduction and predating it with Tuesday's date. This second letter is addressed to the President of the Palestinian National Authority, asking him to do what he can to stop the suicide bombings. It's a great letter, finally doing what ought to have been done all along.

Okay, so what am I to make of this? I request a statement, and it is produced within 24 hours. I argue that the statement/letter ought to have addressed the perpetrators or others responsible. Within hours, such a second letter appears mysteriously on the web, where previously there had been only one letter.

One possibility is that the reason and sensibility of my requests produced results posthaste. Woo-hoo!

But there is another logical possibility: My requests merely preceded the two letters from Kirkpatrick, but did not cause them (the old post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy).

Well anyway, a guy can at least hope that he has helped cause one tiny little outbreak of fairness and good sense for a moment. At the end of the day (literally), Clifton Kirkpatrick had done something good and right--and required by the General Assembly. That's what's best.

Thank you for that second letter, Cliff and Vernon! And may I evermore be presented with opportunities to hand out kudos! I'd like that.

Jim Berkley
Bellevue, WA

Suicide Bombings: Too Little, Too Lite

2008-02-05T23:55:00.000-08:00

On February 5, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick published a “statement of concern about recent suicide bombings.” While it might seem like a decent gesture, the statement unfortunately falls short in any number of ways, such as:

Concern: For a “statement of concern,” the statement offers no sympathy. It provides the heat of anger without the warmth of compassion. It describes the various bombings and declares them horrific, egregious, terrible, and unconscionable, but it says not a word of concern for the innocent victims carefully counted but barely considered. No one is consoled—Iraqi, Israeli, Sri Lankan. The statement offers no condolences. The statement reads as strangely cold and perfunctory.
Clarity: The statement bends over backwards to leave ambiguous who might actually be doing the bombing. It uses a passive construction: “bombs apparently were attached to two women.” It doesn’t say that “Islamic terrorists attached bombs to two women.” The statement talks about bombings without condemning bombers. In the Israel suicide bombing, Kirkpatrick did finger a Palestinian Fatah faction. But it felt like a way to take the heat off of the Hamas government of Gaza, which also claimed responsibility and celebrated in the streets at the news of the Israeli death and injuries.
Target: For whom was the statement written? The introduction on the PCUSA web site says Kirkpatrick “sent the following statement to the United States Secretary of State and the prime ministers of Iraq, Sri Lanka, and Israel.” One would think, then, that with political leaders of many religions as the audience, the statement would be tailored for them. It is not. The language sounds attuned to fellow Christians’ ears, concluding with, “Let us all increase our prayers to God that even in the midst of our brokenness, the Holy Spirit will make a way for peace and security for all of God’s children.” Nice thoughts for Christians, but I wonder what Islamic, Jewish, and Buddhist prime ministers will make of the work of the Holy Spirit? Kirkpatrick spent most of his words describing the bombings that the leaders would have known all too well on their own. Odd, if they were the intended audience. One gets the feeling that Kirkpatrick is really speaking to fellow Christians, who are supposed to overhear this mangled political message.
Action: Only in the middle of the second-to-last paragraph does Kirkpatrick finally get down to calling for action. There have been horrific bombings. There are hundreds of innocent victims dead and dying. Suicide bombers have committed crimes against humanity. So who does Kirkpatrick address to take action? Is it Islamic terrorists in Iraq, killing their fellow Muslims? Is it Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka? Is it Palestinian terrorist groups indiscriminately targeting Jews simply because they are Jews? Is it the fanatic Hamas government of Gaza or the terrorist element of Fatah in other Palestinian territories? No. Kirkpatrick directs his remarks to the victims’ governments. He appeals to the government leaders “to quickly find paths to reconciliation.” That’s it. “You’ve been hit by violence,” he seems to be saying. “I’m not going to comfort you. But I will give you some advice: Reconcile right now with those who attacked you!” To the vile perpetrators of random death and mayhem, Kirkpatrick apparently has nothing to say.
Honesty: Kirkpatrick’s statement dated February 5 claims he learned of the Baghdad and Sri Lanka bombings “upon returning home.” That is not the case. On Friday, February 1, I e-mailed Kirkpatrick about the Baghdad bombings, in which terrorists used Down syndrome women to bomb civilians in two pet markets. I asked if finally he might condemn the suicide bombings, since General Assembly in 2006 had required him “to take every opportunity” to do so—and he has failed on that score.

By noon the next day, Saturday, February 2, Vernon Broyles, Kirkpatrick’s Volunteer for Public Witness, had replied that he “was able to get through to [Kirkpatrick] to inform him of the details of terrible killings in Baghdad and Sri Lanka, and he has responded with the attached message.” I was impressed with the speed of Kirkpatrick’s composing a reply while on the road in Kenya in a difficult situation. However, this exchange shows that Kirkpatrick did not learn of the bombings as late as “upon returning home”; he knew about them and even wrote a response while in Kenya, at least according to Broyles’s account to me.

On Tuesday, February 5, Broyles took the blame for writing the “upon returning home” phrase, when I queried him about its truthfulness. “That is simply my error,” he confessed. The phrase had ended up in the wrong place. At the same time, Broyles revealed that he “helped Cliff in the drafting of the statement” and that it was he who had “worked on a revision, in response to the Israel bombing.”

So apparently Broyles is producing the statements that Kirkpatrick eventually signs and distributes. This time, Broyles gave Kirkpatrick a statement containing a minor untruth that Kirkpatrick either didn’t see or didn’t correct. The statement subsequently came out uncorrected later on February 5 on the PCUSA web site.

No way to do social witness
This is not how to do social witness right! This is, in truth, embarrassing.

Vernon Broyles is apparently doing some of Kirkpatrick’s writing for him, and Kirkpatrick is either too preoccupied or too unconcerned to properly correct the copy Broyles brings for his signature. In addition, it looks like the narrative in the statement may have been embroidered to fit the rhetoric. Either Kirkpatrick knew of the bombings while in Kenya but allowed Broyles to write that he only learned about them later, or Kirkpatrick didn’t know about the bombings until he returned, and Broyles was feeding me a phony account of Kirkpatrick’s participation in writing the February 2 draft of the statement while in Kenya.

But worse, the statement is an embarrassment to Presbyterians. It evidences no sympathy for the victims. It studiously avoids laying blame on actual terrorist parties by simply denouncing actorless atrocities. And it inexplicably directs the victims’ governments to speedily reconcile with parties unnamed, unaccountable, and violently unwilling. Oh, and U.S. government leaders are counseled “to use all the means at their disposal to support those who are working for peace,” whatever that vague banality is supposed to mean.

What is keeping the Stated Clerk from simply fulfilling his responsibility “to take every opportunity to publicly and officially condemn suicide bombings and terrorism and to help empower victims of such attacks to be able to bring those who plan and inspire suicide bombings to the bar of international justice”? Why not “call for international judicial prosecution of all those aiding and abetting these crimes,” again as General Assembly stipulated? Why doesn’t Kirkpatrick staunchly “affirm the culpability of individuals and groups that assist in carrying out suicide bombings and terrorism” and hold accountable “civil or military authorities who fail to exercise adequate powers of control over perpetrators and fail to take appropriate measures”?

Let me hazard a guess: Taking such clearly mandated steps would necessarily involve holding some Palestinians accountable for their lawless and violent behaviors. It would run counter to the continued vilification of Israel and its existence as the root of all evil in the Middle East. My guess is that Clifton Kirkpatrick (or maybe I should say Vernon Broyles) has no desire to be forced to fulfill a clear mandate by General Assembly to publicly condemn suicide bombings, because the bombings most regularly are done by Islamic terrorists, and whatever they do is to be understood and excused, rather than condemned. Thus, Kirkpatrick’s response to the General Assembly order has been tepid to missing.

It all fits together
This too-little, too-lite statement is but the latest evidence of a fundamental unwillingness to be fair in treating Palestine and Israel evenhandedly. One sees it elsewhere in letters from a mission volunteer at a liberation theology outfit in Jerusalem, the one-sidedness of the Israel-Palestine Mission Network, and a frightfully prejudiced statement from the National Middle Eastern Presbyterian Caucus. Presbyterians ought to be appalled at such bias-filled acts continually being pushed forward in their name. This is but the tip of the iceberg of bias, a harsh parochialism supposedly banished by General Assembly resolution in 2006, but allowed instead by denominational leaders to flourish unchecked.

Those who think such bias is unfair can let Clifton Kirkpatrick know their concerns. He can be reached at ckirkpat@ctr.pcusa.org. (Who knows, you may even get a reply from Vernon Broyles!) Letters to Presbyweb (hcornelder@presbyweb.com) or The Layman Online (laymanletters@layman.org) also garner national attention on the web.

It is high time for the will of General Assembly to override the ideological lock that staff and associated entities have on Presbyterian social witness concerning the Middle East. Presbyterians as a whole are far more fair and level-headed than those who dominate social-witness leadership. It is time to be heard. Perhaps this can be a start.

Now What Will We Hear?

2008-01-17T18:12:00.000-08:00

After the fuzzy new Authoritative Interpretation of G-6.0108b of the constitution stumbled out of General Assembly in 2006, many voices—some of whom are supposed to know such things—have rushed to proclaim with full assurance: “The Authoritative Interpretation has changed nothing!”

Some of the rest of us were not so sure, having read and vigorously opposed the troublesome language of the stealth constitutional amendment put across as an Authoritative Interpretation (AI). We knew how the AI read. We had read and heard what the Peace, Unity, and Purity (PUP) Task Force intended and had written in the rationale section of the report.

It wasn’t lost on us that those seeking gay ordination favored the PUP report, and those opposed to ordaining the serially unrepentant opposed the report. There was obviously a reason for such stands. We noticed which side broke out the champagne the night of the PUP approval at General Assembly, and which camp was in tears or outraged.

Even the idea that a task force would labor for years and produce a grand plan to be celebrated for accomplishing precisely nothing seemed rather unbelievable to many of us. I, for one, would have been delighted to have been retained to produce absolutely nothing that changes precisely nothing--and then to have been paid what the task force cost. But I don’t think what the task force did was without major negative change.

Obviously many, many people felt that something had changed with the approval of the PUP Authoritative Interpretation. And since that time, Scott Anderson has decided that the way is now clear for him—a partnered gay man—to be ordained again. He was on the PUP Task Force, and this is his conclusion.

Paul Capetz of Twin Cities Presbytery, who prior to the PUP AI had surrendered his ordination out of honesty about his refusal to abide by “fidelity and chastity,” now wants his ordination back, because he thinks the PUP AI definitely changed things.

But the biggest indicator and the first case to definitely challenge and possibly clarify the ordination situation following the 2006 General Assembly is the recent decision of San Francisco Presbytery to approve Lisa Larges for ordination, after over twenty years of not allowing her to proceed because of her lesbian sexual practice. Obviously San Francisco Presbytery thinks something drastically changed with the approval of the PUP AI.

So, voices of “No change,” speak again!

Okay, it seems time for all those who so confidently assured us that nothing has changed to speak up again, telling Lisa Larges and San Francisco Presbytery to cut it out! The time is now. Talk was easy in 2006, because the subject was hypothetical; now it is actual.

Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick wrote in an Advisory Opinion that it is clear that “that there are national standards for ordination, which are binding upon all ordaining bodies.” He also made it clear that “an individual may declare a scruple concerning the appropriateness of a mandatory provision. But a governing body cannot excuse a mandatory provision, for it lacks the power to set aside a provision of the Constitution. However, a candidate may still be ordained or installed so long as she/he is still willing to comply with the mandatory provisions” (emphasis added).

Okay, San Francisco Presbytery has flat out discarded as inessential a binding standard (a term that ought to be considered redundant in its clarity). Lisa Larges declared a scruple and is entirely unwilling to comply with the mandatory provision. Such unwillingness was excused. Yes, a mandatory, binding, required standard was set aside by the presbytery. Will our Stated Clerk now contest this anarchic state of affairs?

Ed Koster, Stated Clerk of Detroit Presbytery and a frequent polity pundit, wrote about the 2006 General Assembly that “some of the press have been reporting that it has approved the ordination of non-celibate homosexual persons at the discretion of local ordaining bodies. The press have it wrong, and in fact the Authoritative Interpretation approved by the General Assembly has probably made it less likely that such ordinations will be allowed” (emphasis added). Okay, given the fact that San Francisco held off for twenty-some years and just now feels entitled to ordain Larges on the basis of the AI, what will Koster say now?

The PCUSA Director of Constitutional Services, Mark Tammen, got snippy with me a while back because I persisted in saying that the AI could pave the way for ordinations such as the one being contemplated for Larges. As I remember the conversation, this chief lawyer on Kirkpatrick’s staff made it clear that those like me plying such allegations ought to cease such careless speculation that was so patently wrong and inflammatory. “Nothing has changed!” he snorted, as if it were completely self-evident. Well, I wonder what counsel Tammen will offer at this juncture. Will he labor relentlessly to counter San Francisco’s impermissible errors that make his overconfident pronouncement untrue?

Clark Cowden is a highly respected presbytery executive and expert on the Presbyterian Church. He also has a deeply evangelical faith. Following General Assembly in 2006, he argued that both the meaning and the intent of G-6.0106b (“fidelity and chastity”) stand, as does the Authoritative Interpretation of 1996 that carries forward the guidance of the landmark 1978 statement on homosexuality: “… these continue to be mandatory requirements that all elders, deacons, and pastors must agree to live by. The approval of the amended PUP report does not change any of this, and does not give governing bodies ‘wiggle room’ to allow disobedience of the requirements” (emphasis added). The time is ripe for Cowden to reiterate his arguments, as it appears that San Francisco Presbytery hasn’t bought any of them.

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over

This San Francisco case with Lisa Larges is bound to go into an extended appeal process. Here is an open-and-shut case. Larges openly and squarely fails to meet the standard of G-6.0106b. San Francisco has said that that doesn’t matter; she ought to be ordained anyway. Nobody is disputing those facts.

The question now for the Permanent Judicial Commission is if San Francisco Presbytery is right that it can ordain Larges anyway because of the 2006 Authoritative Interpretation. Or does our Constitution and especially the new Authoritative Interpretation give the presbytery no such right to “excuse a mandatory provision,” as Kirkpatrick put it?

As we observe the legal wrangling and wait for a ruling that sets a needed precedent, may we not forget that our larger theological and polity questions are being determined in the midst of a human drama being worked out in the life of Lisa Larges. As much as I believe that what she is attempting is not of God, as much as I oppose the wider relentless pressure to distort and discard Christian sexual morality, as much as I lament the costs in relationships and crippled church witness that such disputes incur, I need to remember that Lisa is beloved by God. I need to keep her temporal and eternal welfare deeply in mind. It is so sad when wounded individuals end up being tossed around the vortex of a theological cyclone.

But remembering Lisa’s deepest needs, I know all the more that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) must do what is right, rather than what is either popular or expedient. All the more, we must uphold the only standards worth valuing—those given to us in Scripture by God, those well represented in our constitutional ordination standards. Everyone ultimately benefits when that happens.

Someone Is Missing More Than Yoga Classes

2008-01-12T13:28:00.000-08:00

Does anyone train, supervise, direct, and, if necessary, correct our volunteer missionaries on assignment in Presbyterian mission? I ask, because there is an obvious need in Jerusalem.

Presbyterian volunteer missionary Shannon O'Donnell is assigned, oddly enough, to a radically politicized and highly controversial liberation theology outfit in Jerusalem. (I say "oddly enough" since liberation theology has been widely repudiated after its excesses in Latin America and is hardly the stuff of Reformed theology.) She appears to be a sincere and idealistic person, but her biased assumptions and questionable behaviors do not represent what the overwhelming majority of Presbyterians would want to support with their mission dollars.

Her January 8 letter, dutifully publicized on the PCUSA web site, provides ample examples of her crying need for supervision, for someone wise and experienced to provide more direction and loving mentoring, as she grows in her ability to exercise sound judgment. The letter is filled with embarrassing and contradictory statements, such as:

"At first I was going to lie my way through the gym application process...." In O'Donnell's favor, she eventually didn't lie to get what she wanted, but only because she sensed that the truth might work this time. However, it does give one pause that in her ethics (or lack thereof), lying would be a potential and even primary choice about how to handle a matter. Apparently O'Donnell operates with the understanding that one can lie, if it achieves a desired end. Such a failing in basic ethics hardly recommends her as a Christian leader! Is no one supervising her and teaching better practices? Will someone do so now that the problem has surfaced?
O'Donnell did write a thoughtful and interesting analogy about Nazi Germany, telling of an alley protesters would use in order to avoid saluting Nazism. Turning introspective, she wrote: "How many hearts gave in to injustice to save their own lives? Which path would I chose?" Well, I could guess. Anyone who would consider lying in order to avoid a few questions to get into a dance class couldn't be expected to risk life and limb for the truth. We learn most about the heart by the small habits of life, not the vain grandstanding.
"I don’t know what Bush’s visit will accomplish, but I do know for certain that ... I will not be going to my yoga class at the YMCA...." How petty, self-centered, and inane! A head of state is knocking himself out to broker a just peace, and O'Donnell laments that she'll have to miss yoga because it gets too inconvenient. Perhaps a mentor could suggest that it's not all about her.
Within inches of each other, she wrote two very contradictory statements: (1) "I didn’t expect to feel accepted at such a place on the west side of town" (displaying gross prejudice against the inhabitants of Jewish Jerusalem), and (2) "I have also found that it is equally important not to judge others." Yet, she had prejudged others, and, from what she has written previously, she does it regularly. A little consistency between what she supposedly champions and what she actually does would be nice.
"We are to love people, even when it hurts," she writes. I see her working to live that out as she loves the Palestinians. That's good. But, in a way, given the propaganda in which she is steeped, that's not very revolutionary. She's just flowing with the stream of her political persuasions. How much more sacrificial and "hurting" it would be for O'Donnell to demonstrate genuine love for George W. Bush, for her own country, and, particularly in Israel, for the Jewish people and the government of Israel. For her, to love those entities would "hurt," I would imagine. I don't think she's seen that. She appears to be too busy being oh-so-politically proper in following her liberation theology dogma, with a broad streak of naivete and smugness showing through.

I am sure Shannon O'Donnell is a delightful person to know. She has given a good portion of her life to doing something she thinks is good and right. That's why it is all the more tragic that she appears to have no one wise and caring to help nudge her misguided and nascent energy in a more appropriate direction. Letter after letter displays her shortcomings.

Who should be watching Shannon O'Donnell's back? Who cares about her enough to gently, lovingly disciple her, rather than allowing her to flounder?

Massive Mission Creep in Per Capita

2008-01-08T12:50:00.000-08:00

Someone asked me today about a way to get funding for ecumenical enterprises unlinked from per capita funding. The World Council of Churches (WCC), the National Council of Churches (NCC), and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) all receive funding out of General Assembly per capita assessments--over $1 million a year in total. Obtaining and fiercely protecting such funding has been a major priority for Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick.

I suggested two possible overtures to send to General Assembly. One (attached below) is a suggestion to limit what per capita funds. In the Book of Order, the description of per capita is very brief, and it has been stretched unbelievably in order to make it an enormous $12.6 million "business." Including the NCC as a necessary administrative expense rather than as a mission undertaken is, to me, an egregious mistake.

A second overture has already been approved by Indian Nations Presbytery and will be advocated at General Assembly by Jim Cahalan, a wise veteran of many assemblies. Any other presbytery can pick it up verbatim to concur as a presbytery. Then when the presbytery adds its own version of a rationale, both rationales get printed for commissioners to see. It is a great way to combine efforts and double the opportunity to explain the concept.

The Presbyterian Coalition also suggests a like overture.

About a year ago I wrote an article about a bizarre experience I had at the NCC offices that was almost surreal. Also the Institute on Religion and Demcracy did a groundbreaking study on the funding for the NCC. The report, Strange Yokefellows, found that secular liberal foundations are the primary source of NCC income, and their interest is not religious but rather political. From the IRD site, you can read it chapter by chapter, but it is also available as a booklet.

Such resources provide a lot of material about what has happened with the NCC over the years in its decline from an organization interested in uniting and strengthening churches in Christian ministry into an organization aligned to be the liberal/progressive political voice in opposition to a perceived national bent toward evangelical and traditional Christian voices. The NCC represents mainly left-leaning Christians and is actually busily opposed to the beliefs and work of a great many of the American Christians it claims to represent!

It is sadly necessary to note that it has been the common practice of denominational leadership to spare no cost and effort to defeat any overtures that seek to limit or eliminate funding for the NCC and WCC. Any pretext of fairness or neutrality evaporates when it is the stated clerk's ox being gored, and so committee leadership, staff "experts," and big-name officials are all aligned to thwart any grassroots attempts to unhitch ecumenical funding from the per capita budget.

All the Stated Clerk's weight of authority , position, and persuasion is used to defeat such measures. It becomes "everyman" from Presbytery X aligned in battle against Clifton Kirkpatrick, denominational staff members, committee leadership, flown-in celebrities such as the general secretary of the NCC, and any number of other forces. When I have seen it before, it is the most brutal and unfair display of bias and advantage I've seen at General Assembly.

Elder Jim Cahalan from Indian Nations Presbytery knows this, has seen it in action, and is prepared to go up against it anyway. It would be a wonderful thing for him to have able people at his side with like or concurring overtures to face off against the imported giants on a slanted playing field. Perhaps truth, reason, and simple fair play could win after all!

No congregation's money should be confiscated to fund organizations that may promote beliefs and policies completely in contradiction to the congregation's convictions. Per capita apportionments were intended to jointly fund the expenses of commissioners and simple administrative costs. Mission creep has caused the per capita budget to mushroom like cancer, and it needs to be restrained.

Time is of the essence for new overtures (a February 22 deadline), but concurrences and support of the Indian Nations overture can abound!

Sample overture:
On Delineating Per Capita Expenses

The Presbytery of ________________ overtures the 218th General Assembly (2008) to direct the Stated Clerk to send the following proposed amendment to the presbyteries for their affirmative or negative votes:

Shall G-9.0404d be amended as follows: [Text to be inserted is shown as italic.]

Each governing body above the session shall prepare a budget annually for its operating expenses, including administrative personnel, and may fund it with a per capita apportionment among the particular churches within its bounds. Care shall be taken to ordinarily limit this budget to those specific ecclesial expenses related to the government, historical and archival activities, and polity of the governing body. Benevolences, ministries, ecumenical dues, or other elective spending for the work and mission of the governing body shall not be funded by the per capita budget. The presbyteries … [and so on]

Rationale
According to the Book of Order, per capita may be used to pay the expenses of elders and pastors to attend governing bodies (G-9.0308). It also is meant to cover “operating expenses” for the governing body, “including administrative personnel,” which probably means some clerical and bookkeeping help (G-9.0404d). Those are the only specified per capita expenses.

Yet, from this modest beginning, meant to provide equitably for the governance of the church and to spread the expenses fairly among the churches, per capita has grown to include the costs of a vast number of enterprises, many of which cannot easily be distinguished from ministries or benevolences of the governing body. At every level, large staffs carrying on a number of ministries may be funded by per capita. For instance, over $1 million yearly is given to ecumenical relations with a narrow spectrum of church bodies through the National and World Councils of Churches.

One is hard pressed in many instances to provide a sufficient criterion for why some activities are funded by the per capita budget, while others are covered by the judicatory’s mission budget. And, as mission budget dollars have become scarcer, the temptation is to move expenses into the per capita budget, which can be raised by what amounts to compulsion if need be.

Since congregations are all but required to contribute their share to the per capita budget, the plethora of items currently included in the per capita budget — some of which are highly controversial — causes much of the greatest resistance to giving by congregations. While a congregation might be happy to help supply the basic governmental functions our Constitution requires, they would not be willing to be forced to fund causes and activities not in keeping with their conscience. Thus some churches have decided not to pay per capita at all. If what is included in per capita expense were confined to the purely ecclesial, governmental expenses it was intended to be, the per capita–withholding problem would diminish greatly.

The ministry and mission of the judicatories are important, but such activity needs to be funded through the general giving of congregations and individuals who desire to support the various activities. Work beyond the essential governmental and historical functions of the church should not be funded through assessments bordering on involuntary.

A $17.5k Fine Would Injure MY Feelings!

2007-12-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

It seems that a Christian in Canada distributed pamphlets that presented a straight-forward message of disapproval of homosexual practice from a classic position of Christian morality. Apparently freedom of speech and freedom of religion are no longer the right of Canadian citizens.

According to a World Net Daily article, "Bill Whatcott was fined 17,500 Canadian dollars by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission in a complaint by four homosexuals who charged he 'injured' their 'feelings' and 'self respect' in pamphlets denouncing the 'gay lifestyle' as immoral and dangerous...."

So, Whatcott gets thousands of dollars of his money confiscated, loses his right of free speech, and is publicly shamed by a government institution for daring to voice his religious beliefs--beliefs held by Christians for two thousand years, beliefs supposedly guaranteed in the country's constitution.

I think I know what I'd do if I were Whatcott: I'd charge the Human Rights Commission with violating my human rights by "injuring my feelings and self-respect through a ruling that denounced my Christian lifestyle as immoral and dangerous."

Hey, if the feelings of the persons Whatcott supposedly injured count, shouldn't Whatcott's feelings count, too? Whatcott only vaguely and impersonally affected the allegedly aggrieved gay parties. But the Human Rights Commission very pointedly, personally, and painfully affected Whatcott. I think Whatcott would have a case!

I know what I'd do if I were a Canadian citizen: I'd work like crazy to end the foolishness, injustice, and abuse of human rights by the ironically named Human Rights Commission. It is no small thing for such a kangaroo court to cancel both the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion!

And I know what I'm doing as a U.S. citizen: I'm speaking out against our country's drift toward a constitutional quagmire similar to Canada's. Perhaps by tasting from this side of the border the rotten fruit of that tree, we will never allow its clone to take root here in this country.

Discernment Is a Gift, Not a Tactic

2007-11-30T09:51:00.000-08:00

Discernment is a spiritual gift. The gift of "discernment of spirits" is given by God (1 Cor. 12:10). Everyone who is a Christian has the responsibility to be appropriately discerning, but those with the gift of discernment have an extraordinary ability, given by God, to be employed "for the common good." Such people see with spiritual eyes and have a special ability from God to cut through the fluff and what's bogus, in order to latch on to what's real and true and of God.

Friends, I am becoming sick to death of the oh-so-trendy, touchy-feely, all-views-are-equally-valid, sociologically driven, feel-good, human-potential-centered, quasi-psychological pottage that is being hustled on the streets by our denomination as "discernment."

This is not what God means by spiritual discernment. This is not what the Bible speaks of. This is not right or good. This human-centered "discernment" leads to the will of God being trampled by the exalted feelings and self-important opinions of mortals. It leads to manipulation and compromised convictions. For God's sake, we must lay it aside to be led by God's Word, which reveals God's will! Enough already of the misconceived and misused "discernment" that is being misspoken among us ad nauseam!

Just recently, presbytery moderators from all over the country were lined up and doused with this bogus "discernment" solution at a conference in Louisville, put on by the Office of the General Assembly (OGA). (The OGA appears determined to drag the denomination into both this kind of discernment and also troublesome consensus decision making, foisting both on an unsuspecting church at every opportunity.)

If one looks at the Presbyterian News Service account, Moderator Joan Gray shines. "It’s really about God; it’s not about us," she said. She reminded moderators that "Jesus Christ is the Lord and head of the church," and that authority must come from him and accord with his will. Preach it, sister! Discernment, she said, is "seeking, recognizing God’s will .... It's about surrender." Amen.

But when the account turns to the presentation on "discernment" that the Reverend Vicky Curtiss gave, what we get is a sociological process that listens to human opinion, pretty much without critical thinking. But the greatest shortcoming in this little exercise is the utter absence of looking to God's Word.

Look at the news story, and see if the Word of God is even mentioned in Curtiss's discernment process. It's not there. Instead we find a fuzzy "spiritual approach and a consensus-seeking approach in an effort to 'discern the mind of Christ.'" Do we seek what Scripture teaches us, since in the Bible we find the mind and will of God? No. We look inward and listen to others' feelings and opinions--"Praying, listening to one another and emphasizing the use of silence," she explains. All is subjective and captive to our totally depraved humanity.

This "discernment" is nothing more than a small-group tactic playing dress-up in Grandma's quasi-spiritual garb. It is not the spiritual discernment of the Bible, the spiritual gift supernaturally given by the Holy Spirit. It leads to our feelings and impressions, our brokenness and misperceptions, having authority over God's Word in how we determine what God wills. It is the poisonous extract of a church more psychologically than spiritually attuned. It's about me--and maybe you, if I get really generous.

If we Christians are to truly discern anything, let us go to the Word of God. And let us stay there until God's message to us is understood at least as clearly as it has been lovingly communicated to us by God.

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." ... For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. -1 Cor. 1:18-19, 25

Vindicated

2007-11-28T18:25:00.000-08:00

A while back I wrote about a careless slip or idle prattle on the Stated Clerk's part when he made an early (and actually quite considerate) announcement of his retirement next June. "I am making this announcement now so that the Stated Clerk Nominating Committee … will have ample time to search diligently and discern whom to propose to the 218th General Assembly (2008) for election as the next Stated Clerk” [emphasis added].

Clifton Kirkpatrick was obviously assuming the nominating committee would be busy beating the bushes for the next Stated Clerk, operating as a proactive search committee. That was an incorrect assumption, as it turns out. Kirkpatrick's announcement didn't necessarily aid the nominating committee, since its job right now is to wait for applications. Instead his timely announcement nicely served the others who were considering applying for the position.

I made the case in my posting for why Kirkpatrick was in error, that the committee was tasked specifically to receive and not actively search for nominations. But then a few persons writing comments on my posting got all over me for my assertion, as if I were gravely misinformed or inventing meaning. Not so.

I viewed today--okay, with sinful gloating--a comment attributed to Steve Grace, Stated Clerk Nominating Committee Chair: "... in the interest of fairness to all the candidates, it is not our role to invite specific individuals to apply..." [emphasis added]. My previous points exactly.

Excuse me, please, while I do a little dance around my office.

Perhaps a Little Too Smug?

2007-11-26T12:02:00.000-08:00

I was taken aback today in reading a Presbyterian Outlook account of the Covenant Network conference, in particular, the comments by the plenary speaker Damayanthi Niles. Niles had been recently examined for ordination, and the Outlook reporter quotes her as complaining that “some people saw a candidate ‘who’s a little too dark, a little too female, a little too single, a little too smart.’”

Just how many pity cards can one person play at a time?

A little too dark. What? The Presbyterians I know would be absolutely thrilled to embrace a dark-skinned, very ethnic Sri Lankan--with a solid Christian faith and a genuine call by God to ministry. Rather than an impediment to her being ordained, her ethnicity would be seen as a boon. “At last we’re actually moving toward the kind of church we hope to be!” would be on people’s minds. “Here’s someone who can do things and go places I never could! We’re in for a treat!”

A little too female. No way! Has Niles looked around? The percentage of women in seminary and being ordained is large and growing. Being female is no bar to ordination in this denomination. What she means by “too female,” I’m not sure, but if her idea of “female” means “heterodox,” then, yes, she would be correct. But hers would be a very narrow and faulty definition of “female,” excluding the brilliant minds, excellent ministries, and consecrated lives of many of my esteemed colleagues with two X chromosomes.

A little too single. What does that have to do with anything? In more than three decades in presbyteries, I have never seen marriage considered an ordination requirement. If by saying “too single,” Niles meant “too single and sexually active,” then, again, she’d have a point. But then that’s not a case of being single; it’s a sad case of simply being immoral. Being married and immoral would be just as great a hindrance to ordination.

A little too smart. Okay, this might actually be the rub--not in actuality, but in her self-perception. I have yet to find a presbytery that says, “Give us candidates who aren’t very bright. We like the dumb ones, the slow learners, the imperceptive louts. No more Phi Beta Kappas and summa cum laude candidates. We want underachievers, dimwits, and drudges!” Instead, I have seen presbyteries captivated by some truly brilliant candidates for ministry. But I have also seen presbyters rightfully provoked by smug and egoistic candidates who consider themselves superior to the naïve, simple folks presuming to judge them. Any candidate who considers him- or herself “a little too smart” for the presbytery has much more to learn prior to ordination. I’d highly suggest a serious read of Helmut Thielicke’s slim A Little Exercise for Young Theologians prior to a second, more reality-based consideration of ordination.

If Niles's lame excuses weren’t sufficient to raise some red flags about readiness for ordination, her sweeping dismissal of those in her denomination with convictions different than her own was absolutely stunning. Rather than ascribing any hint of deep theological conviction to her ideological opponents, any semblance of either caring love or intellectual capacity, Niles just swats them away with a breezy, “Our friends want to deal with rules so they don’t have to deal with people.” Well, if this is any indication of the quality of Niles’s theological discernment, collegial esteem, breadth of understanding, and pastoral style, again, I would think that voices in her presbytery that questioned her readiness for ordination were on to something.

Any candidate who puts on airs, seems to consider ordination some kind of birthright, is swift to give pitiful excuses, deems her- or himself just too brilliant for the morons in presbytery to understand, and perhaps shows up weak on orthodox theology--well, that person is understandably going to have a difficult time being ordained.

I would think the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) could well do without any more smug, self-satisfied, and possibly heterodox pastors. But apparently the Covenant Network showcased one such as a conference speaker.

How Not to Be Open and Welcoming

2007-11-12T21:02:00.000-08:00

The meetings of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) entities are intended to be utterly open, according to policy. In practice, however, actual openness and welcome vary considerably, from transparent and warm, to cold and prickly, to secretive and pretentious. At the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) meeting last week in Los Angeles, I witnessed a major instance of the cold pricklies at one point.

At the beginning of the second day, Jim Roberts was newly arrived from San Diego to observe. Roberts is an attorney specializing in mediation, a member of the Presbyterian Church of the Big Wood in Sun Valley, Idaho, and a director of the Committee to End Divestment Now. He had previously attended an MRTI meeting in New York City, prior to the 2006 General Assembly. He had also graciously corresponded with MRTI leadership about his planned attendance in Los Angeles.

The MRTI chair, Carol Hylkema, began the meeting by asking Roberts to introduce himself, since he was newly arrived. Everyone else had done the same the evening before. Roberts stood and gave his name, where he was from, and his church, and he made some friendly comment about coming to observe the meeting. He was ready to sit back down, when Hylkema indicated that she wasn’t done with him yet.

What followed next was nothing less than a public interrogation, with Hylkema firing off questions in an increasingly adversarial and accusative tone. (My account, here, is approximate and reconstructed from memory; the quotations are not exact, although the flow of the conversation is intact.) “Who are you representing?” she asked. Roberts answered. “What will you be writing about us?” Hylkema shot back. Roberts said he was just visiting and didn’t think he’d be writing anything.

Hylkema wasn’t satisfied. “You were with us before,” she declared, as if that were a crime she had caught him committing, “and you weren’t clear then about who you were representing.” She seemed to be implying that there was some kind of prior disclosure required of anyone who dared attend one of her meetings, and somehow Roberts had violated her rules the last time he had dared to darken her doorway. Roberts remained courteous and even deferential in his reply, even though Hylkema was sorely violating common courtesy as well as proper moderatorial decorum.

"You’ve got your computer with you,” Hylkema pressed. “So what is going to go into that computer?” Roberts said he was actually trying to read his e-mail, if she really must know. After more of what seemed like the Spanish Inquisition, finally Hylkema let Roberts sit down, and the meeting went on. The damage to openness and welcome, however, had already been wrought.

Many ways to get it wrong
What was wrong with this episode? Let me count the ways:

1. An introduction ought to welcome a guest, not treat one’s guest like a suspect. Roberts, I’m sure, felt about as welcome as the black plague when that little interrogation was finished.

2. Observers ought to be encouraged to attend meetings, not be browbeaten by those in authority. Roberts had forgone a day’s work, traveled hours, and paid for a hotel and meals in order to be a concerned Presbyterian involved in Presbyterian matters. That’s a sacrifice. That’s commendable! He is active, committed, and invested. Is that not something to be encouraged, honored, and appreciated by those in charge? Why discourage such behavior and demean the person?

3. Observers should never be required to pass some sort of idiosyncratic test devised by committee leadership in order to attend meetings. According to policy, observers “have a basic right to know,” and meeting leaders “have a basic obligation to honor that right.” Observers have no obligation to divulge any organizations they may be involved with, as if being a part of such organizations makes any difference in their right to observe the work done and decisions made by entities of their church government. In addition, had Roberts wanted to write an account of the meeting, he would have been entirely within his rights, and Hylkema had no authority to quiz him about what he might write, why he was writing, or to whom the account would be distributed. That is none of her business! It is her business, however, to conduct the meeting openly and fairly.

4. A public accusation of a guest is a heavy-handed and entirely inappropriate way for a committee chair to use his or her authority. Perhaps Hylkema had personal qualms about something Roberts had done or not done at the previous meeting. If so, the proper course of action would have been to confront him privately about his actions, and if that hadn’t led to a satisfactory resolution, she ought to have properly charged him in the appropriate venue with whatever misconduct she considered he had done. Then Roberts could have had his “day in court” to defend himself. As it was, however, Hylkema acted as if she considered Roberts devious, right off the bat. She ambushed him with some vague and apparently bogus accusation, when she should have been a gracious host. Hylkema had the gavel and was calling the shots, while Roberts was caught totally unprepared for such rudeness. The unfairness of the situation was palpable. What were committee members supposed to think of this man, come to be their guest, after Hylkema had poisoned the relationship from the get-go?

5. The episode disclosed a shocking attitude of proprietorship on Hylkema’s part. She acted as if it were her meeting, and hers it was to grant or deny access, once she became fully satisfied that this interloper was worthy enough to be entitled to receive her beneficence. Thus she could interrogate and accuse, assuming permission to attend was hers to grant or withdraw. How wrong! The meeting was not Hylkema’s meeting. It was not even MRTI’s meeting. It was the Presbyterian Church’s meeting, and how appropriate it was for church members to be present! Hylkema as moderator, MRTI members as elected members, and denominational staff as servants of the process had roles to play, but none of these parties owns the meeting or has any right to make it difficult for church members to participate as well. While Presbyterians have many fine servant-leaders, we are not meant to have owners and masters to lord it over us.

An alternate scenario
Think of how this might have played out differently: Roberts introduces himself. Hylkema welcomes him warmly and commends him for having the interest and making the sacrifice to attend. She uses the opportunity to be sure that others know they will be warmly received if they, too, make the effort to observe. As a gracious host, she makes sure that Roberts feels at home and has all the papers and access he needs to meaningfully observe the meeting. She might even wisely turn to Roberts sometime during the meeting and perhaps draw upon his knowledge and experience to enhance the gifts the committee members also bring. Roberts goes home, feeling appreciated and positive toward MRTI and its work. The committee perhaps benefits from what he has to offer. And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is all the better served because of this interaction.

That’s how it might have been. Maybe it might actually be that way yet, sometime in the future. Certainly our Open Meeting Policy intends such pleasant circumstances. After all, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Alternative Forms of Disruption

2007-10-05T23:29:00.000-07:00

The quickest means I’ve seen to disrupt the orderly flow of a business meeting is for the moderator to shift into a mode that has been misnamed “discernment.” I make this claim from my observation of several General Assembly committee meetings, the recent General Assembly Council meeting, and now a meeting this week of the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA).

I can nearly guarantee that if you introduce “alternative forms of discernment,” chaos ensues.

The most recent example involved a generally insignificant item of business that tied up COGA for more than an hour in three separate episodes of confusion, yet caused COGA to stumble to a nonconclusion with no decision in sight. Why should it take such a tortured a process just to set an inconsequential theme for the 2010 General Assembly? Well, more accurately, not to set the theme yet, as it turns out.

Why do moderators of Presbyterian meetings keep tossing the consensus sabot into well-oiled parliamentary machinery, causing it to seize up and belch smoke?

Alternative disruption: Round 1
At the recent COGA meeting, chair CatherineUlrich, ordinarily a conscientious moderator, seemed intent on forcing consensus on the committee proceedings when it was handling the prosaic task of determining a theme for the 2010 General Assembly in Minneapolis. Some Twin City leaders had suggested “Rivers of Living Water,” from John 7:37b–38. A group from COGA was suggesting some variation on the theme of hope, using one of several pertinent psalms.

Normally a group would talk about the pros and cons of the two suggestions, vote for one, and that would be that. Not with Ulrich inserting an unfamiliar and unwieldy discernment process.

Ulrich wanted the committee to use four steps: (1) state a proposal, (2) ask clarification questions, (3) explore other options, and (4) reach consensus. She treated the “Living Waters” theme as the proposal and considered the “Hope” theme an option. Then the group came up with other options, including an awkward “Rivers of Living Hope” hybrid, which was meant to please everyone but won no one.

After a lot of stumbling around the issue, with members not following Ulrich’s intended course through the consideration, Ulrich conceded the obvious: “I do not think we’re moving toward consensus.” Her solution was to hand out index cards and encourage members to write notes to one another. And then she abruptly halted consideration for a season.

Alternative disruption: Round 2
After a break, Ulrich found docket space to resume the discussion. “I was feeling we weren’t moving to consensus,” she explained. “Does anyone have a better sense of where we might like to go now?”

Joan Gray, Moderator of the General Assembly, suggested something rather routine for Presbyterians: a vote. “Would it be possible to have a straw poll?” That seemed okay to Ulrich, but she made it clear that the vote was not binding. It was merely to get a feel for how the body was moving toward consensus.

Then Ulrich asked for what appeared to be a rather prayerless form of prayer, intended, as she stated it, “to cleanse our minds and hearts and clear a space.” What? Such a practice may be an approved method to empty one’s mind for transcendental meditation or some other form of eastern rite, but isn’t prayer for Christians intended to be our sacred communication with the Living God?

One would think that pseudo-prayer as a convenient means to an empty mind and psychic space is worse than no prayer at all. Prayer for wisdom and courage would almost seem to be overkill for something as mundane as an immediately forgotten theme. Prayer for sensitivity to one another’s ideas would seem appropriate. Prayer to praise God or even prayer for fortitude to endure this silliness would be fine. But for “space”?

The straw vote was taken after a solemn period of silence. The committee, it turns out, was nearly evenly split between “Living Waters” and “Hope.” Thus, Ulrich turned to other business, leaving the matter once again unresolved. So far, the score was Chaos, 2; Progress, 0.

Alternative disruption: Round 3
There seemed to be an aversion to any division being truly settled, but nearing lunch, an opening in the agenda provided a third shot at the theme issue. “I can tell from our straw poll that we are actually leaning toward the two themes that had the most votes in the straw poll,” Ulrich observed. “We are down to two options: living waters and hope.” Now the discernment task at hand was to explore the two.

COGA member Dennis Hughes acknowledged that he “had no dog in this hunt,” but he reminded his fellow members that the “living waters” proposal was coming from a small, unofficial group in Minneapolis, while the “hope” proposal was “from our group here.” He said he “would like to stay with our precedent,” so that COGA originates the theme, rather than people in the region in which General Assembly is held. Ulrich, stepping out of moderator mode but not handing over the gavel, also argued for precedent.

Associate Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons pointed out that an overarching theme is designed to be in place for three General Assemblies in a row (something that has probably escaped 99.9 percent of Presbyterians to this point). The “hope” theme would be the first in a series on hope.

And then an odd, awkward exchange happened. Ulrich seemed bothered by what Dennis Hughes had said about a dog, and returned to it. Bringing up Michael Vick’s charges for dog fighting and getting a little preachy about needing sensitivity to animal cruelty, Ulrich appeared to be indirectly chiding Hughes for using “a dog in that fight.” Clearly such language should not be repeated, according to Ulrich. So now a confused accusation of political incorrectness got added in to the chaotic mix.

Hughes hastened to say, somewhat bemused, that he was using a colloquialism about a hunt and not a dog fight. Upon realizing her gaffe, Ulrich seemed to fall all over herself to create a different impression. “We want all opinions to be stated,” she blustered. “Bring them on, because we want all of them.”

So COGA member Jack Baugh, sounding perhaps a little impatient, ventured his opinion: “I get the sense we’re leaning toward #2.”

Ulrich had a different opinion. “I’m not there,” she countered. And then, catching herself, she added sweetly, “I thank you for that observation, and we’ll look at this at another point in time. We need to be comfortable with where our committee is and how we make this decision.” And that was that.

It appeared to this observer that the committee had become quite ready to make a decision, but its chair seemed possibly too uptight to let it happen. Consensus-think seemed to dictate to Ulrich that everyone had to agree perfectly--or perhaps agree with her.

In any case, the upshot was again no resolution of a rather simple item of business after three valiant tries. Ulrich’s final “Thank you for wrestling with this another moment” became the odd benediction to this confused and chaotic attempt at an alternative form of discernment and decision making.

Had good old parliamentary procedure been employed, I’m convinced the item could have been thoroughly discussed, a decent decision could have been reached, and the committee could have had plenty of time left over to deal with other more weighty matters. Some people may not have gotten their way, but most of us learned somewhere around kindergarten that that’s okay.

Stated quirks

2007-09-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

With the generous notice given by Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick that he will not stand for a fourth term in 2008, a couple of realities kick in: First, other candidates for the office now gain a sporting chance to actually be elected, and second, the Stated Clerk Nominating Committee will not have to face the difficult prospect of possibly passing over a standing Stated Clerk for re-election.

As I read Kirkpatrick’s letter-- genuine and gracious as it was--I found the wording especially interesting in a couple of quirky instances.

A work, or just plain work?
I noticed that Kirkpatrick referred to his position as his work, as in “While this work has been a great blessing…”. Others might have written “this ministry,” or “this office,” but Kirkpatrick appropriately chose a term used in the Book of Order (G-6.0502) for a ministry calling. The section, concerning of all things renunciation of jurisdiction, begins, “When a church officer… persists in a work disapproved by the governing body…” [emphasis added].

So what am I getting at? Well, I have found it troubling that the most recent version of the proposed new Form of Government (FOG) adjusts that term from “a work” to just plain “work,” distorting and broadening the meaning considerably through the mere removal of the indefinite article. The proposed FOG wording may change twice again prior to General Assembly, but the proposed FOG rewrite (5/7/07 draft) reads: “When a minister persists in work disapproved by the presbytery…” (new G-2.0309b, and see also new G-2.0210 for the same wording for elders).

Why the fuss? It’s important.

Should the new Form of Government replace our current one, a pastor or elder would not need to persist in a formal ministry or call (a work) disapproved by the presbytery to be considered to have renounced jurisdiction and thus lose his or her ordination. In fact, if the minister or elder simply “persists” in doing any mere activity the presbytery might frown upon--preaching funny, writing letters to the editor, pastoring a church that doesn’t pay per capita, attending a New Wineskins conference, or whatever else might displease presbytery--it might consider that “work disapproved by the presbytery,” which could have draconian consequences for the officer.

So, back to Cliff: He understands that his calling and position as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly was a work, his work that was a great blessing to him. It is too bad that the new Form of Government doesn’t similarly realize the difference between “a work” that is a calling, and just any old item of “work” one might perform.

A search committee or a nominating committee?
Kirkpatrick wrote: “I am making this announcement now so that the Stated Clerk Nominating Committee … will have ample time to search diligently and discern whom to propose to the 218th General Assembly (2008) for election as the next Stated Clerk” [emphasis added]. Such advance notice is a considerate gesture. Kirkpatrick is kind.

But will it actually be the Stated Clerk Nominating Committee’s (SCNC) job to go out and beat the bushes to find our next Stated Clerk? Are the members to search high and low until they find exactly the right person to propose to General Assembly for election?

Not by the Standing Rules amendment approved by General Assembly in 2006. Under the new rules for the nomination and election of the Stated Clerk, the SCNC receives applications of all who want to stand for the office, interviews the candidates, and proposes one from among them to be the SCNC nominee. The SCNC job is therefore responsive and discerning; it is not to scare up candidates or to be proactive.

Therefore it is not exactly accurate for Kirkpatrick to write that the SCNC will have time to “search diligently,” since the committee won’t be searching! They will need to use ample discernment, however, to settle on the best nominee out of a field of possible candidates who take the initiative to apply. (By the way, potential nominees not chosen by the SCNC--and only they--will still have an opportunity to be nominated from the floor at General Assembly.)

I find it rather revealing that even in his friendly, generous swan song, apparently Clifton Kirkpatrick just didn’t get it quite right as an interpreter of our policy. That has been one of the problems all along.

Renouncing sin is nothing new for church membership

2007-08-27T16:51:00.000-07:00

My previous posting has been a magnet for comments. It has also been treated by some almost as a unique point of contention, as if our Presbyterian policy and polity haven't been saying all along exactly what I was explaining in the posting. But my key point was simple: Presbyterian policy names homosexual practice as sin.

Most Presbyterians--including me--think such a policy is entirely appropriate and biblical, while neither easy nor particularly popular in this age. Some theological innovators wish our policy weren't that homosexual practice is sin, for a number of reasons. But with homosexual practice definitely considered sin, then logically, not just the act of ordination of practicing homosexual persons as deacons, elders, and pastors is considered wrong by the Presbyterian Church; it is the homosexual practice that is wrong, which is what makes any such ordinations innately flawed.

And that led to the subject of church membership, and I contended that it would not be lovingly pastoral to admit to church membership anyone bent on publicly flouting Christian morality, anyone unwilling to acknowledge sinfulness and begin to bend one's will to God's gracious purposes instead. Certainly there are no perfect church members; the church is a hospital for sinners. But a key prerequisite for admission needs to be the admission of sin and a desire for healing. Confession is agreeing with God, and that's a necessary starting place for healing to begin.

I referred to a part of the Authoritative Interpretation (AI) of 1978, which read: "Homosexual persons who sincerely affirm 'Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior' and 'I intend to be his disciple, to obey his word, and to show his love' should not be excluded from membership" (at the end of PDF page 57). That led a friend to ask where the AI got that specific language about members needing to affirm Jesus as Lord and to obey his Word.

Is this some new requirement the AI cooked up? Is it an ancient requirement now repudiated? Good questions, but neither is the case.

As best I can discern, the AI quotations come either from the Book of Order of the UPCUSA at the time (1978) or from The Worshipbook (copyright 1970 for use in both the northern and southern churches). Most likely, they came from both. They were nothing new in 1978, in other words.

I don't have the 1970 Book of Order, to see if the phrases are directly from that, but the service for commissioning baptized members in The Worshipbook (page 49) includes four questions:

____________, who is your Lord and Savior?

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.

Do you trust in him?

I do.

Do you intend to be his disciple, to obey his word and to show his love?

I do.

Will you be a faithful member of this congregation, giving of yourself in every way, and will you seek the fellowship of the church wherever you may be?

I will.

As you can see, those questions asked of prospective members contain the wording used in the 1978 AI. Those who couldn't honestly respond in the affirmative could not join a church.

But now since 1983, we have a new constitution, some might argue. Yes, but our constitution retains similar statements (emphasis added):

G-5.0103 states in part, "The congregation shall welcome all persons who respond in trust and obedience to God's grace in Jesus Christ and desire to become part of the membership and ministry of his Church...."

W-4.0203 is even stronger. Of new members, it says, in part: "They shall reaffirm the vows taken at Baptism by:

a. professing their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,

b. renouncing evil and affirming their reliance on God's grace,

c. declaring their intention to participate actively and responsibly in the worship and mission of the church....

G-5.0202 talks about what is expected of an active member, including voluntary submission to the government of the church. It also permits churches to be more stringent if they believe it necessary:

Other conditions of active membership that meet the needs of the particular church and are consistent with the order and confessions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) may be adopted by the session after careful study and discussion with the congregation.

Further, in 1985, a book referred to as the "Supplemental Liturgical Resource 2" was published by the Office of Worship of the PCUSA. Note that this is after reunification in 1983. The resource is titled "Holy Baptism and Services for the Renewal of Baptism." This book recommends appropriate liturgy for various worship occasions.

There is a service for "Renewal of Baptism for Those Who Have Been Estranged from the Church" (pp. 78ff). Here is a powerful part of the service, meant for those who are being presented to join the church by reaffirmation of faith:

Now, as you publicly declare your faith, I ask you to reject sin, to profess your faith in Christ Jesus, and to confess the faith of the church, the faith in which you were baptized.

Do you renounce evil, and its power in the world, which defies God's righteousness and love?

I renounce them.

Do you renounce the ways of sin that separate you from the love of God?

I renounce them.

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior?

I do.

Do you intend to be Christ's faithful disciple, obeying his word, and showing his love, to your life's end?

I do.

[And so on. This same wording for the questions is used for baptisms and for confirmations.]

Obviously, renunciation of sin plays an important role in church membership, as well it should! We become new creations in Christ, and our lives ought to show it and our lips proclaim it. Imperfect we will be. Mistakes we will make, and we will make them again and again. But renouncing sin is necessary, rather than embracing it or declaring it of no consequence.

No. Asking for the renunciation of sin is no new requirement for membership, sprung as a "deeply pernicious heresy." Seeking metanoia--repentance, the turning from sin toward God--is a deeply loving act of nurture.

Heresy would be the Gnostic notion that one's practice is not a part of one's profession of faith! The intention to obey Christ through obeying his Word is part and parcel of genuine faith. And the profession of genuine faith is a requirement for church membership.

Officially for Presbyterians, is homosexual practice sin?

2007-08-08T23:32:00.000-07:00

Do you know what the official Presbyterian Church (USA) policy is on homosexual practice? Did you know there is such a policy, and that it is both clear and pastoral?

A public letter by Joan Gray, Moderator of the General Assembly, reminded me once again of how forgotten or ignored is the excellent counsel of the 1978 General Assembly policy statement on homosexuality. Moderator Gray characteristically operates in a wise and pastoral way, and I’m sure that was her intent in her letter. However, her memory of the 1978 policy document, now an Authoritative Interpretation, appears to leave something to be desired.

Moderator Gray argues that “the Authoritative Interpretation of the Constitution delivered in 1978, which is the basis of our understanding of how the church relates to homosexual persons, states that homosexuality or homosexual practice is not a bar to church membership.” That is not exactly correct.

First, as one turns to the actual paper, now available in PDF format on the web, the first 56 pages basically need to be discarded. This first part consists of a deeply flawed report merely “received” from a deeply divided task force. It was never approved. “It is reprinted as an aid to study and does not have official policy status,” the preface reminds us.

Still in effect as the policy of the church, however, are “the policy statement and recommendations, which were adopted as the official position of the General Assembly,” according to the preface. The policy statement and recommendations begin on page 57 on the paper version (page 55 of the PDF version).

So, to better elucidate what Moderator Gray has contended, what does Presbyterian policy say about homosexual practice and church membership? The policy certainly names homosexual practice as sin. Here are some instances:

"the practice of homosexuality is sin..."
"homosexuality is not God's wish for humanity..."
"homosexuality is a contradiction of God's wise and beautiful pattern for human sexual relationships revealed in Scripture..."
"the New Testament declares that all homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian faith and life..."

That is the official policy of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Given that, what does one do about the questions of church membership and ordination? Well, starting with the understanding that the practice of homosexual behavior is sinful, then, according to Presbyterian policy, “for the church to ordain a self-affirming, practicing homosexual person to ministry would be to act in contradiction to its charter and calling in Scripture, setting in motion both within the church and society serious contradictions to the will of Christ.” Also, “our present understanding of God's will precludes the ordination of persons who do not repent of homosexual practice.” That’s our position on ordination.

What about church membership? The policy starts out by counseling against homophobia, wanting to treat all people with respect. That’s good and necessary. But then it turns to church membership:

As persons repent and believe, they become members of Christ's body. The church is not a citadel of the morally perfect; it is a hospital for sinners. It is the fellowship where contrite, needy people rest their hope for salvation on Christ and his righteousness. Here in community they seek and receive forgiveness and new life. The church must become the nurturing community so that all whose lives come short of the glory of God are converted, reoriented, and built up into Christian maturity. It may be only in the context of loving community, appreciation, pastoral care, forgiveness, and nurture that homosexual persons can come to a clear understanding of God's pattern for their sexual expression (emphasis added).

As one can see by noting the italicized words above, the emphasis is on someone at least intending to contritely repent and turn away from living in a way that comes short of the glory of God. It involves putting oneself in God’s hands as God points out a clear new pattern for orienting one’s sexual life and expression.

The policy states that “homosexual persons who sincerely affirm ‘Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior’ and ‘I intend to be his disciple, to obey his word, and to show his love’ should not be excluded from membership” (emphasis added). The language is appropriately encompassing for those who have a homosexual orientation.

But given the fact that homosexual practice is sin, the emphasized words show the assembly’s intent that those who seek church membership understand the lordship of Jesus Christ in their lives and what discipleship and obedience to the Word means. This is no free pass for homosexual practice, as if that particular form of sin were inconsequential in respect to church membership.

I find it odd that some of our denominational leaders (although not Joan Gray) seem to be acting as if it were perfectly okay with Presbyterian policy for people to participate in homosexual sex, but, for some obscure reason, we've just decided not to ordain people who do so. Maybe we're just fussy or old-fashioned, they seem to imply.

But the Authoritative Interpretation of 1978 is a whole piece, and the lynchpin is the biblical and theological determination that homosexual practice is not God's will and is indeed sin. The rest of the policy flows from that: not ordaining those who practice unrepentant homosexual sex, not sinning by practicing homophobia either, treating even the sinner with respect, calling for true repentance and discipleship, and so on.

The foundation is that homosexual practice is indeed sin, as the Bible says it is. That simple declaration seems to have been largely lost, as people fall all over themselves not to appear judgmental or rude--or even very confident in what Scripture says to be true!

We do well to remember exactly what it is that Presbyterians have adopted as policy and have always held to be true, despite more than three decades of assault by secularizing ideas that would exchange God’s loving truth for the world’s destructive lies.

How DARE you say the UCC was fair!

2007-06-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

After being congratulated for being magnanimous and fair, key leaders of the United Church of Christ (UCC) are lashing out, in effect growling, “We most certainly were not!” The indignity expressed over the notion that perhaps UCC was being wise and evenhanded in a resolution approved at its recent General Synod meeting is a sight to behold.

In 2005, the UCC General Synod approved two resolutions aimed directly at reproving Israel: one about tearing down the protective separation barrier and one about divestment from Israel. Apparently in the intervening two years, some morally attuned UCC members have been following events on the ground and have had some second thoughts about singling out Israel alone from a whole cast of players for particular approbation.

Thus delegates to the General Synod developed a carefully worded resolution that supplied many sensible reasons to rethink the former policy and to ease back from one-sided advocacy. Parts of the resolution and its explanation imply that it is becoming clearer every day that the tragic situation in the Middle East isn't all that appropriate to pin only on Israel.

Read through the resolution, which was approved without amendment. You will see abundant indications in the wording that with this resolution, the UCC recognized its previous shortcomings and is turning over a new leaf. The resolution is clear and compelling in its argument. For instance, it states (emphasis added):

The UCC “passed two resolutions focusing on the actions of Israel … and has yet to fully address other forces contributing to the ongoing violence, oppression and suffering in the region.”
“In recent months violence has dramatically escalated between the Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas, especially in the Gaza Strip, in spite of the fact that Israel disengaged from Gaza in September 2005.”
“The escalating violence between Fatah and Hamas now calls us to consider whether we may have overlooked many aspects of an extraordinarily complicated situation."
The UCC “recognizes the need for ongoing balanced study, commentary and critique related to the conflict in the region.”
The study needs to look into “appropriate responses to the situation that may or may not lead to further support of economic leverage and removal of the security barrier.”
“[T]he possibility for a brighter future for Palestinians is diminished not only by actions of Israel but also by violent internal battles being waged between Palestinian political parties and militias."
“We cannot raise our voices only to point out the transgressions of one side.”

When a Jewish friend pointed me to this generous resolution, I realized that such fine work needed to be commended. All too often my organization, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), finds itself needing to blow the whistle on something going wrong. Thus, it was a joy to be able to actually commend the UCC, a group with whom we commonly have major disagreement.

The IRD press release was kind and generous. “I am impressed by the magnanimity of the United Church of Christ in this action,” I wrote. I said that “the IRD commends the UCC for its action.”

One might think that the UCC response would be in kind: “Well, thanks for the compliment. That’s good of you.” But that wasn’t the response at all. Instead, UCC President John Thomas “express[ed] outrage at how some outside groups are distorting a recent action on the Middle East by the United Church of Christ.”

What? The UCC gets complimented for being fair and generous, decent and noble--and it is outraged? People read and applaud the plain meaning of the resolution--and Thomas fumes about how the press releases “reveal an ignorance of General Synod parliamentary process as well as a distorted understanding the long history of engagement by our church related to the conflict in the Middle East.”

What is Thomas saying, that we should have known that the UCC would never be that reasonable? That the hierarchy would never allow such fine General Synod work to remain unmolested?

Although Thomas proclaimed alleged ignorance and distortion on our part, he didn’t bother to actually substantiate it. In fact he stumbled into confirming the interpretation the resolution itself made clear. “[T]he proponents of the resolution clearly believe that current UCC understandings of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are too one-sided and need to be broadened,” he admitted. Yes, indeed. The words in the resolution definitely say that., and that meaning got enacted by the General Synod. What was he reading?

But even though the resolution said it and the General Synod approved it and the public at large recognized it as right and good, Thomas is not about to let such technicalities ruin a perfectly good ideological prejudice. He plans to plow ahead with the firm concept that “General Synod policy related to Israel and Palestine remains today what it was before our Synod convened." Well, yes. Of course. But a task force will be taking a second look at factors that complicate the current policy and may recommend changes. That much was clearly set in motion by the General Synod.

The UCC leaders also seemed unwilling to pass up a perfectly good opportunity to say something spiteful about the IRD, even though the IRD had just commended them. In an article distributed by Ecumenical News International, J. Bennett Guess, a UCC spokesperson “criticised the IRD,” wrote author Chris Herlinger. Guess “said that the institute's ‘repeated and ruthless attempts to attack, distort and demean the work and witness of mainline Protestant churches, including the United Church of Christ, are not to be trusted.’” (It must remain to be seen if other groups’ “ruthless attempts” can be trusted, instead.)

Here in the press--but not communicated directly to me in person as the writer of the IRD press release, or to the IRD in general--UCC President John H. Thomas has called on those of us who publicly commended the UCC “to correct misleading statements.” Okay. I’d be pleased to do so.

After reading Thomas’s statement and rereading the resolution approved by the UCC General Synod, I have to admit that I did mislead readers in two ways.

First, I had written that “I am impressed by the magnanimity of the United Church of Christ in this action.” That is not entirely true. I remain impressed with the magnanimity of the General Synod, which diplomatically asked for a difficult reassessment of a perhaps ill-conceived policy. However, I have become appalled at the quarrelsome deception of leaders like John Thomas and J. Bennett Guess, who will not let a virtuous decision go untwisted, or a kind commendation go unpunished.

Second, I had written that “The IRD commends the UCC for its action.” That part remains true. It was a much-needed and well-worded resolution. But sadly, I need to remove from that commendation any accolades for Thomas or Guess, who have fallen all over themselves to re-imagine the plain wording of the resolution, to misguide the public about its meaning and import, and finally to bite the hand that commended them.

Where our Lord said to bless those who curse you, oddly, Thomas and Guess must have decided to curse those who blessed them.

Where Is the Staff Accountability?

2007-06-11T14:55:00.000-07:00

Any large organization needs to operate not by idiosyncratic whim of the hired personnel, but rather by policy legitimately established to reflect the corporate purposes of the organization. Loose cannons and tinhorn radicals need to be lashed down or let go by those we have placed in leadership responsibility and hold accountable to manage the organization.

Right now in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Associate for Women’s Advocacy--Molly Casteel--needs to feel the weight of what Charles Wiley (Associate for Theology) has termed “ordinary discipline.”

Casteel is operating in direct defiance of a resolution approved by the 217th General Assembly a year ago.

Her supervisor (unit Director Rhashell Hunter), or her supervisor’s supervisor (Tom Taylor, Deputy Executive Director for Mission) needs to let her know that such defiance simply will not be countenanced, and steps need to be taken to undo the damage.

But to be fair to Casteel, her behavior is hardly unique within the Women’s Ministries unit. She may only be following the lead of her colleagues, or standing in as the spokesperson for a streak of defiance that far exceeds her own personal authority and permeates an entire department.

Quite simply, Casteel has published very regrettable papers that violate a General Assembly directive. When called on it, she has indicated in a recent letter to Voices of Orthodox Women (VOW) that faithfulness to biblical and confessional morality is but an opinion or a choice of some small group of Presbyterians, and she and her department disagree with that option and are thus not among those people who take the Bible and Book of Confessions very seriously.

Casteel paints herself and her work in glowing terms that are unattached to biblical realities. She evidences absolutely no recognition of the clearly stated violations of theology and practice that Viola Larson skillfully elucidated in a pair of letters. She doesn't even try.

Nor does Casteel admit any need to conform her work to the bounds of distinctively Christian morality practiced by the church over the centuries. Casteel’s obvious benchmarks for excellence are the latest decrees by secular or heterodox radical feminists. Those writings, apparently, form her canon.

Direct opposition to GA instructions
Even more disconcerting is that Casteel’s dismissive reply to VOW comes despite a clear and recent decree of the General Assembly, which directs “the General Assembly Council (Congregational Ministries Division) and all other PC(USA) entities to use the biblical and confessional teachings that sexual relationships belong only within the bond of marriage of a man and a woman as the standard for the development of any future materials or recommendations for materials in print or in its website.”

Note that the General Assembly directed “all … PC(USA) entities” to follow the directive. All entities are to produce materials that teach the standard that “sexual relationships belong only within the bond of marriage of a man and a woman.” And the standard is to be used for "any future materials” and for any “recommendations for materials in print or in its website.”

This General Assembly instruction definitely meant to prevent exactly the kind of articles Casteel produced and commended on the website to supposedly "stimulate discussion."

Why should it require the vigilant and insightful efforts of Viola Larson and a group like VOW to point out the gross errors of the Women’s Advocacy Office? Why can’t that office self-police its work, so that it is biblically derived, theologically defensible, and General Assembly compliant?

Groups like VOW ought to be rendered unnecessary by an office and ministry staff faithful and competent in what they do. But instead, VOW must play a vital role, and I thank them for doing so.

And why is it that when Larson makes a careful and well-documented case, asking distinct questions that deserve a prompt and thoughtful answer--and something like an apology and retraction--Casteel doesn’t praise her for an obviously needed corrective? Instead, Casteel repeatedly delays, she misses the point, she dodges key questions in her reply, and finally replies months later with patronizing, self-serving hogwash.

It certainly appears to be time for some supervisory correction. Our denomination cannot accommodate independent characters free-lancing policy in positions of influence and authority. When General Assembly makes a decision, staff members must comply. Plain and simple.

If staff members like Casteel can’t in good conscience comply, their supervisors need to make it clear that they are welcome to take their advocacy some place else where the organization authorizes such views. The PC(USA), however, isn’t such a place.

[And a final word about the inevitable complaint I expect to hear: “Don’t listen to him! He’s a privileged, middle-class, middle-aged, white male who is out to ‘put a woman in her place’! How dare he seek to assert his authority over the women of the church!” and so on.

The thing is that gender is irrelevant here. It’s just not salient. We’re talking about ideas, not power or intent, and ideas need to be able to stand or fall on their own merit. Being white, male, middle class, middle-aged, clergy--whatever--should neither discount my words nor protect me from legitimate correction in the Body of Christ. Nor should being female either privilege Casteel’s words or protect her from legitimate correction by the Body of Christ. We can and should talk about these things, gender aside.]

Mr. Edgar Goes to Washington

2007-05-24T01:05:00.000-07:00

I see that Bob Edgar is stepping down from his position as General Secretary of the National Council of Churches. It appears to be an excellent decision for the unique guerilla conversationalist and rain maker for the progressive lobbying outfit doing business as the NCC. Edgar is off to head the Washington-based advocacy group called Common Cause.

But I’ve been thinking. Wouldn’t you consider it only fair if the guy who finished converting an erstwhile Christian ecumenical council into a politicized advocacy group for all things left of center would somehow turn around and convert a liberal political advocacy group into a genuine religious organization instead? I mean, balance is balance! Some day when the Reverend Congressman Edgar departs this planet, he could leave behind a convert-neutral footprint, if only he’d transform Common Cause into a Christian ecumenical council!

Actually, Edgar’s new position seems a good fit. Politics is what Bob Edgar does best--well, it’s actually what he does exclusively, when I think about it. And he can do politics ‘til the cows come home as head of Common Cause, a bona fide lobbying group.

Maybe he’ll even take with him some of the secular money and political influences that have been distorting the National Council of Churches, perhaps freeing the NCC once again to actually do the witness for Christ and efforts for Christian unity that its charter specifies as its purpose.

In a recent Common Cause press release, Edgar made a claim I could almost agree with--maybe even something I might say, myself: “With devastating consequences, powerful special interests distort and disrupt the democratic process in ways that shift political power away from the American people.”

The problem is, however, that I’m certain Edgar and I would list nearly mutually exclusive sets of special interests busily at work distorting and disrupting the democratic process. And he’s more interested in secular politics, and I’d be thinking about church governance. He’d be beating the dead-horse conspiracy theories about some vast right-wing conspiracy, and I’d be referring to secularizing, worldly influences hijacking the faith and ministry of mainline churches to take them to unbiblical places.

Since I would list Bob Edgar and the National Council of Churches among the “powerful special interests” who “distort and disrupt the democratic process” in churches, with the effect of making the churches handmaidens to secular politics, truly he and I would not agree on that count. But it does seem rather amusing to me that he’d probably register the Institute on Religion and Democracy and me on his list of distorters and disrupters of democratic processes. Oh well.

At any rate, I wish Bob Edgar well. I wish the National Council of Churches a speedy recovery of its original purposes. I wish Common Cause great effectiveness in promoting open government and ethics reforms. I wish a lot.

A Really Crass "Religious" Coalition

2007-05-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

On May 22 the pro-choice group that calls itself the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) issued a press release. This is a group that hasn't yet found an abortion it couldn't support, and it shamelessly speaks as if its political pronouncements were established Christian doctrine with broad popular support, which they most certainly aren't!

There's one sentence in the press release that pretty well highlights the RCRC's central failure to propound essentially Christian belief rather than growing-stale secular opinion. Here is what the Reverend Carlton W. Veazey, president and CEO of the RCRC, claimed:

...the continuous political attacks on abortion have obscured the single most important concern for the woman with an unwelcome pregnancy: making a decision that is right for her and her family.

Shouldn't it instead be the case that in distinctively Christian reckoning, the single most important concern ought to be making a decision that is right with God?

Totally depraved as we are, there is no end to the ways we can rationalize and justify doing things that supposedly are "right for us," but are instead both harmful to us and others and an affront against the moral will of God.

God wants what is right for us and our families, and what is right cannot be the killing of unborn babies created in God's image.

There is no excuse for Presbyterian entities--Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options, Women's Ministries, and the Washington Office--continuing to financially support and lend our once-good name to a crassly political, morally bankrupt, abortion-at-any-cost outfit like the RCRC.

Mission Initiative error is the least of our problems

2007-05-09T23:39:00.000-07:00

Today, a Presbyterian News Service story tells of an accounting error that had overstated the total pledged or raised by the five-year-old Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands by about $1.4 million in previous reports. Okay, that’s not a big problem. Accounting errors happen.

The error was found and it has been corrected. Yes, it’s good not to incur such errors in the first place, but the system is sound that detects, announces, and fixes such inevitable mistakes.

That could be the end of the story, except for a larger story that is set up but never explored. The greater item of unspoken news is that the Mission Initiative continues to show discouragingly weak results.

At a point when the Mission Initiative ought to be really rolling, when it should be gliding toward the grand conclusion of a $40 million goal, it is falling far short. In the first three months of the year, the Mission Initiative managed to eke out only about $174,000 in new pledges or contributions.

That’s nationally. In three whole months. At the height--supposedly--of the campaign. While spending $81,000 on the effort.

To put that in perspective, my home congregation received $6.6 million in the first year of its own current capital/missions campaign. That’s at a rate nine times greater than the denomination's rate--more than $1.6 million every three months, compared to $174,000 for our 2.3-million-member denomination’s campaign.

At the denomination’s present rate of pledging and/or giving, it will take another 19.65 years to raise the remaining $13,668,193 required to conclude the campaign!

But it gets worse. Pledging, weak as it is, is running far ahead of actual giving. Between 2002 and March 31, 2007, a total of $4.5 million had been actually received at the national level.

At the same time, presbyteries and churches participating in the Mission Initiative had directly received another nearly $3.9 million. (A good part of that money might have been raised locally anyway for new church development, even if there had never been a national campaign.)

In total, the campaign thus claims roughly $8.4 million in actual receipts.

That means that in the first five years of the campaign, only about one-fifth of the $40 million goal has been received. At that rate it would take about 20 more years to reach the desired goal.

And it gets even worse. The costs of operating the campaign since 2002 have totaled $3,556,955. Thus, it has cost the denomination approximately 42 cents for every dollar raised thus far. In other words, for every $42 we spent to raise money, we grossed $100 and netted $58. So far, we have netted just over $4.8 million.

And now it gets sad. The whole campaign was fueled by dismay over budget cuts necessitating the termination of dozens of career missionaries in 2002. Earnest General Assembly commissioners bought the pitch for the $40 million campaign, which they were told would produce $20 million to fund more missionaries.

However, as of March 31, nearly five years later, only a little over $700,000 had been disbursed for mission personnel. Remember, in that same time frame, roughly $3.6 million was spent on the campaign. That means that so far we are behind about $2.9 million that might have been spent for missionaries but instead funded a passing parade of fund-raisers, travel and entertainment, literature, and other overhead.

That’s the truly sad part.

There is one mitigating factor, however: As of this point, another $17.8 million has been pledged but not given. Financial campaigns do have front-loaded costs. You spend a lot up front and then reap the benefits down the road. It takes money to make money.

But even the mitigating factor has a downside, unfortunately: Of the $17.8 million pledged but not paid, only about $1.4 million is earmarked for missionaries. Another $12.8 million will go to church growth, and $3.6 million in undesignated funds will probably be chewed up as overhead.

With a potential outlay to missionaries of only about $2.1 million ($700,000 already spent and another $1.4 million pledged), at this point we would be $1.5 million ahead in missions spending if we had simply spent the $3.6 million campaign overhead on missionaries instead of a campaign!

In October 2006, former Princeton Seminary President Tom Gillespie warned the General Assembly Council that the one imperative for institutional fund-raising is this: “Never ever have an unsuccessful campaign." Friends, it appears that despite the best efforts of some dedicated people, and despite the good intentions driving the Mission Initiative, we pretty much have an unsuccessful campaign on our hands at this point.

I often wonder why the Presbyterian News Service leaves unraised such obvious and major implications as this. Isn’t it time that someone with responsibility--say, the General Assembly Council--talks about this enormous rhinoceros in our living room?

Outside money buys Presbyterian constitutional change

2007-03-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

The title of this posting is meant to grab your attention and get you thinking. I want you to discover that I’m referring to something different than what you probably expected. The title is true; it is just not referring to what you probably think it is.

For instance, critics of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the renewal group in which I serve, fall all over themselves imagining a vast right-wing political conspiracy that is buying its way into Presbyterian processes to destroy the denomination. This isn’t about that, mainly because “that” is a figment of an overcynical imagination.

Some people get positively unglued when they find out that member organizations are looking at denominational matters, seeking solutions to problems, writing them up as suggested resolutions, offering them to interested parties, and helping representatives present them cogently and effectively in meetings of governing bodies. Somehow this must break some code of holy ignorance, it appears.

The self-appointed whistle-blowers act as if:

(a) having knowledge of a subject and investing in preparation to present it is unholy (this is refuted by Presbyterian-polity expert, the late Marianne Wolfe [see booklet page 18, #2 and #3]);

(b) helping representatives speak knowledgeably on an issue has never been done before by the theological left; and

(c) exclusive license to provide information ought to be granted to the political and theological bias of denominational staff members and unrepresentative entities.

But the title above isn’t about that nonsense, either.

The title is about U.S. Presbyterian money being used to change the constitution of the Evangelical [Presbyterian] Churches in Syria and Lebanon. That’s right: American money and influence bought western-style policy changes in indigenous churches in the Middle East. You can read about it in a Presbyterian News Service article, full of congratulations to Presbyterian Women for making the $10,000 grant that oiled the constitutional changes.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I am pleased with the constitutional changes for the Presbyterian churches in Syria and Lebanon. It is wonderful that finally women will be able to sit in as judges in cases that so greatly concern their own welfare--such as divorce and inheritance law. In a country where actual civil law is carried out by the church judicatories, women especially need to be represented. It only seems fair.

Thus, it is a good thing that Presbyterian Women made the grants and the churches’ constitution was able to be changed in this beneficial way.

Okay, so if Presbyterian Women, an outside organization, is doing a good thing by being beneficially involved in the life of another church in another country, does it not stand to reason that renewal groups such as Presbyterians Pro-Life, One By One, and Presbyterian Action also could be applauded rather than scorned for their intended beneficial influence on their own denomination?

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I look forward to the time when Presbyterian news sources equally laud the theological insight and necessary balance that Presbyterians Pro-Life brings to abortion considerations, for instance. Or the stories of hope and love that One By One offers those wanting to break the trap of immoral desires. And it would be great for the Presbyterian Action contributions to social-witness policy to be recognized as positive, rather than marginalized as unwanted. Such groups have much to offer, but not if they are systematically excluded or even vilified, as they have been by even such groups as Presbyterian Women!

The Lebanese and Syrian Presbyterians could have denounced Presbyterian Women and said, “Yankee, go home, and take your egalitarian values with you!” But instead, they had the wisdom and grace to welcome their help in this case, and the churches will be better off for it. Certainly the PCUSA could learn from the Evangelical Churches in Syria and Lebanon.

Just one final aside: I wondered why $10,000 was needed to effect a simple church constitutional amendment. Was it necessary for calling the constitutional assembly? For printing new constitutions? For promoting the excellent reasons why the amendments should be approved?

I e-mailed the Presbyterian Women office today, March 30, asking those questions. I’ll add an addendum when someone responds with a copy of the grant proposal. Watch with me for the response, but given my track record at getting any reply out of Louisville recently, don’t hold your breath.

A "Baloney Detection Kit" for the spectacularly mistaken

2007-03-08T01:23:00.000-08:00

These days, a stream of nonsense flows from a handful of keyboards connected to persons who ought to know better. Personages no less prominent than the President of the United Churches of Christ and the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches write and speak patent nonsense and outright mistruths about the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). I consider myself qualified to judge the utter folly of many of their accusations, since my own activities in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are among those so sorely mischaracterized.

These prominent Christian leaders, who ought to show more responsibility if not simple integrity, get steaming hot material from Talk2Action, a seething hotbed of conspiratorial paranoia and mistruths lodged in a blog. There, breathless writers such as Frederick Clarkson and John Dorhauer wax slanderous about “a war of attrition” being fought “to disrupt and divide the NCC and its major member denominations.”

Why, we scoundrels at the IRD stoop to such scurrilous activities as openly attending public meetings or writing informative letters to churches. This must occur when we become distracted from our usual routine of torturing kittens or shaking down the White House for fresh bales of unmarked currency.

Today, however, my brilliant wife found on a co-worker’s office door the perfect tool for these writers, so mindlessly proud of their hypothesis of the IRD’s evil wrecking-ball dominion. The tool is Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit.”

As a public service, I commend the kit to anyone with a full-blown delusion such as Talk2Action’s. I’ll apportion it out line by line in italic, with my comments about Talk2Action (T2A) in Roman. Here goes:

The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:

Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts. Confirmation? What confirmation? T2A advances wild hypotheses about IRD’s purposes, motivations, and actions, but refuses to provide documentation from any source to confirm its bizarre accusations.
Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view. T2A allows people to comment on its blog only if they first sign a statement that they agree to the purposes of T2A. Only one point of view is allowed, in other words, and anyone else is considered a troll. “People who do not share the purposes of this site but join anyway, are trolls,” scold the site guidelines. “Trolls and trollish behavior will not be tolerated.” It’s a sweet set-up for an autocrat, but it tends to produce baloney.
Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities"). T2A writers play on the supposed authority of the extensive “research” they say they do. But their outlandish claims and wild conspiracies belie actual scholarly rigor and make Senator Joseph McCarthy appear to be a veritable fount of knowledge and fairness by comparison.
Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy. Hoo-boy! This is the big T2A problem. There is but one hypothesis with this crowd: Evil rightwing political outsiders are conspiring through the IRD to split and destroy unsuspecting churches, stealing their resources and silencing their voices. Any other hypothesis is further evidence of the evil conspiracy.
Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours. This would require a measure of humility for T2A writers. Don’t count on it.
Quantify, wherever possible. This would ential producing actual facts and documentation. That’s a no-can-do for T2A.
If there is a chain of arguments, every link in the chain must work. But what about T2A’s chain, where none of the links works?
"Occam's razor" - if there are two hypotheses that explain the data equally well. choose the simpler. Perhaps there should be “Clarkson’s razor”: If there are two hypotheses that attempt to explain the data, one being openly and consistently propounded by IRD and one being maliciously assumed by T2A, choose suspicious speculation every time.
Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, is it testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result? The case is that such groups as reputable members of the press and even fellow progressives scoff at the tinfoil-hat rantings of T2A. Most ignore T2A's wild claims. This perplexes and frustrates T2A writers, who usually chalk up how the “news media perpetually miss one of the biggest religion stories of our time” to the purported extraordinarily pervasive influence of the IRD.

I would certainly find it refreshing if Talk2Action and a couple of Christian “statesmen” would employ Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit” before deploying their own baseless blather. It would spare them from committing the sin of bearing false witness. And it would spare the rest of us from being fed a constant diet of their baloney.

Losses twice as bad as feared

2007-03-01T14:15:00.000-08:00

News arrived today from Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick that the Office of the General Assembly’s budget for 2008 needs to be cut 5 percent, and up to seven staff members need to volunteer to go elsewhere. Apparently the drastic budgeting and staff cuts that decimated the General Assembly Council offices in Louisville have found their way to the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) to semi-decimate its numbers.

Kirkpatrick had this to say:

“We have been good stewards of the resources entrusted to us, coming in under budget for the tenth straight year,” said Kirkpatrick, “and over 95 percent of per capita apportionments are being paid. We are deeply thankful for the faithfulness of congregations and presbyteries in their per capita giving, despite the financial crunch being experienced by many presbyteries and synods. That crunch, plus a decline in overall church membership, is having an impact on us.”

So, reading between and behind the lines, what is going on? First some facts:

The 2008 per capita expense budget approved by General Assembly in 2006 was $15,061,674.
A 5 percent reduction amounts to $753,084.
The 2008 budget had already taken into account an expected $350,000 in uncollectible per capita.
If, however, approximately 5 percent of the expected per capita apportionment has proved uncollectible, that amounts to $632,591, which is $282,591 worse than expected and an enormous jump in per capita withheld.
Likewise, the 2008 budget was already based on what was thought a rather pessimistic (but safe) estimate of a loss of 85,000 members in 2006. This was expected to follow an estimated loss of 65,000 members in 2005, compared to an average yearly loss of 43,430 members from 2002 to 2004.
Revenue already expected to be lost when 85,000 members are no longer present to pay $5.79 per capita equals $492,150. In other words, if you write off that many members, OGA loses nearly a half million dollars.
The heads to be counted and "taxed" in 2006 were expected to be 3.7 percent fewer than in 2005, but that was already factored into the 2008 budget. Losses much greater than 85,000 and far beyond 3.7 percent could be the case for 2006.
OGA has about 64 employees, as listed in the planning calendar directory. Reducing that number by 7 to 57 employees would be an 11 percent reduction.

All of this means that something worse than expected has happened. Apparently OGA is compiling 2006 membership statistics and total shortfalls in per capita collection that make an additional three-quarters of a million dollars of expected 2008 income disappear. A lot fewer members than expected are present to pay per capita, and/or a lot fewer presbyteries than expected are transmitting the full per capita apportionment.

In planning for the 2008 budget at General Assembly in June 2006, $350,000 was expected not to be collectible from presbyteries, and $492,150 was expected to be lost with the 85,000 net loss of members. That’s a planned $842,150 not to be received, and the budget took that fact into account.

Now in February 2007, only eight months later, the expected loss has nearly doubled, with an additional $753,084 needed to be cut from the budget! Apparently we are losing members and/or sessions are withholding per capita at nearly twice the rate expected eight months ago.

Individual members and church sessions are voting on the work of the denomination with their feet and their wallets. Obviously, change is required. Presbyterians as a whole simply do not want what they are presently receiving from Louisville. As painful as it must be to slash one’s employees by 11 percent, the church is sending our Stated Clerk a message by making that reduction necessary.

Further, OGA program expenses and personnel expenses each make up about half of the overall budget. So why not cut somewhere other than staff? Take out PCUSA contributions to the National Council of Churches ($300,000) and the World Council of Churches ($458,402), and the deficit is practically solved, without the loss of any employees!

Per capita budgets have grown to be enormous--over $15 million for 2008 for General Assembly--from one simple sentence in the Book of Order: “Each governing body above the session shall prepare a budget for its operating expenses, including administrative personnel, and may fund it with a per capita apportionment among the particular churches within its bounds (G-9.0404d).”

Perhaps our denominational structure is undergoing a “market correction,” much as the stock market seems to doing this week as well.

Totally missing the point

2007-02-22T00:30:00.000-08:00

What follows is a guest blog by none other than Deborah Milam Berkley, who, remarkably, happens to be both my wife and a first-rate thinker. One might think that the two attributes wouldn’t go together, but felicitously they have for the last 32 years.

The primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion just met in Tanzania, and one of the things they discussed was the U. S. Episcopal Church. A few years ago the leaders of the Anglican Communion had produced the Windsor Report, which had invited the Episcopal Church (TEC) to repent of its going ahead with controversial theology without consulting the rest of the Communion, of consecrating a practicing homosexual bishop, and of blessing same-sex unions; it also requested that TEC stop such consecrations and blessings.

Since TEC's response to the Windsor Report has so far been less than satisfactory, the primates, in a communiqué issued at the end of their recent meeting, decided upon an interim plan to deal with the Episcopal Church until an Anglican Covenant is solidified. Among the items in this plan is a request that TEC unequivocally refrain from blessing same-sex unions:

In particular, the Primates request, through the Presiding Bishop, that the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church ... make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorise any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention....

The Episcopal bishops have until September 30 to make their response to the primates. If the Episcopal bishops do not give a satisfactory response by then, their membership in the Anglican Communion may be at risk.

Already some of the progressives in TEC, such as Susan Russell, Mark Andrus, and Steven Charleston are lamenting this plan and speaking defiantly about it. One in particular, Jim Naughton of the Diocese of Washington, D.C., has commented in a way that I find almost defies belief. About the section of the plan that I have quoted above, regarding same-sex blessings, he says:

The definition of "authorizing," as in we must renounce the authorization of "any Rites for Blessing of same-sex unions," by Sept. 30 will be hotly debated. As I have said before, I think we are being given some room here, as there is a difference between authorizing and allowing. I take comfort in those capital letters. We are being asked not to approve texts. Very, very few dioceses have approved texts. Our diocese doesn't. So I think we can comply with this.

When I read this, I thought, "Does he not get it? Or is he just spinning it to his readership?" In charity, I will assume that he is not being deceitful; but in that case he must be very obtuse. He is missing the whole point. The primates are not merely asking TEC to refrain from writing official liturgies; they are asking TEC to stop doing same-sex blessings altogether.

But Naughton's response to their request is basically, "Hey, this will work. They don't want us to authorize official Rites of Blessing (with capital letters). But we're not doing that. We're only allowing unofficial rites of blessing (without capital letters). So we're just fine! ‘Authorizing’ is way different from ‘allowing,’ and ‘Rites of Blessing’ [capital letters] are different from ‘rites of blessing’ [no capital letters]."

Really, how self-deceived can a person be? It is hard to believe.

The sad thing is, if Naughton and the other progressives press ahead with this strategy, it is not going to work for them. He ought to be smart enough to see this. If they go on with their lower-case rites of blessing, then in September, when the primates ask them why they continued with same-sex blessings, those primates are not going to be satisfied with TEC’s playing about with words. The primates will not be happy if TEC says to them, "Yes, we did comply with your request; we did not authorize any Rites of Blessing; what you see here that we were doing was merely allowing rites of blessing." The primates will not nod in dawning comprehension and say, "Ah, we understand; that's different. OK, no problem." No, in September, if this is TEC's response to the primates' request, then the prospects for TEC as a member of the Anglican Communion do not look good.

Deborah Milam Berkley

Straining to remember the Bible

2007-02-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

In reading the Episcopal News Service report from the meeting of Anglican primates in Tanzania on Friday, I found this section almost comical:

During the final session, the Primates heard from Canon Philip Groves who presented an interim report on the Listening Process, which strives to honor the
process of mutual listening, particular to the experience of homosexual persons.

Groves has been making contacts around the communion and assessing what churches are doing to listen to gay and lesbian people, Aspinall said, acknowledging that there needs to be "established safe ground" for the process to be effective.

He outlined preliminary proposals for the Lambeth Conference and is working on developing high-quality materials that will deal with the experiences of homosexual people, what science can tell us about homosexuality, the legal contexts, the reflection on the Bible, and training resources on facilitating listening.

First, can you imagine listening teams to honor the process of mutual listening, particular to the experience of spousal-abusive persons, or of kleptomanic persons? It always amazes me what legitimacy the sin of homosexual practice receives so routinely in ostensibly Christian circles. Should we give "safe ground" to wife abusers and embezzling treasurers, too, so they can tell their story without fear of repercussions? Some sins--the society-fawned-upon types--get a pass and a pat on the head, it appears.

But second, the wording of the final sentence is amazing. Look for where the Bible fits in the list--AFTER emotional anecdotes, after the apparently superior (and ever-changing) wisdom from overglorified science, and after counsel from lawyers. The Bible, which should be primary, overriding, and authoritative, becomes an emaciated afterthought.

But then look at how what SHOULD be THE authoritative and undisputed reference is treated: "reflection on the Bible." Oh, how sweet! After the Anglicans have heard the highly considered voices from unhappy lives and science and law, they will take a nice little glance at what they feel about what they suppose the Bible might say, however misguided they may find it to be in their superior wisdom.

It doesn't look like they're planning to rigorously exegete texts or submit themselves to the authority of God's Word written, as it transforms their lives. They will instead "reflect on the Bible," much as one reflects on one's childhood or a nice walk in the woods. Maybe they can reflect awhile over martinis, to make it really special.

I can just hear it now: "And now for some reflection on the Bible." It sounds like it should be set to the background music from "Deep Thoughts" by Jack Handey on "Saturday Night Live." What an obvious revelation of the minimal role that Scripture plays in such an exercise!

Aren't Christians supposed to be people of The Book?

The Tomato Vendetta

2007-02-10T17:58:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking lately about the Taco Bell boycott that Presbyterians got involved in at the 2002 General Assembly. The campaign produced results in 2005, when the parent corporation (Yum! Brands) agreed to pay a penny a pound more for tomatoes picked for Taco Bell (but interestingly, not for its other brands, such as Pizza Hut).

The “victory” was celebrated at General Assembly in 2006, and then sights were set on other big fast-food giants. McDonald's and Burger King also buy Florida tomatoes. Could they be pressured to do what Taco Bell did?

News has just come out that Burger King will not surrender. The Miami Herald wrote a story that seems to be cribbed directly from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) own publicity.

McDonald's had already arched its back to the CIW demands, saying that its own pay and labor policies are already correcting the problems. CIW was not satisfied (click here and scroll to the 5/11 article).

A third party--one of the original shareholders filing a resolution to force YUM! Brands to raise wages by a penny a pound--conducted a study of tomato pickers’ pay at one grower that supplies tomatoes for McDonald's. The study concludes that these particular pickers earn a decent wage, better than minimum wage and better than what the Taco Bell campaign was seeking. But CIW contends that that study was tainted by partial funding by McDonald's, is riddled with errors, and should be considered sham research.

So where does that leave us?

My guess would be that the truth of the matter lies somewhere between the CIW/Presbyterian attitude that fast-food corporate tomato buyers are lying oppressors, and the McDonald's and Burger King corporate statements that make things look rather okay for the tomato pickers. There seems to be a lot of self-interest operating on both sides of the issue, which makes it troublesome that the Presbyterian Church would thus so routinely act as if CIW were always noble and corporations were always despicable--unless those corporations decide to do what Presbyterians demand.

While poking around the issue, here are some things I found and considered:

First, despite the clamor and glare of publicity around the YUM! Brands capitulation to the Taco Bell boycott, tomato laborers as a whole gained very little. Perhaps a thousand workers were affected, and then only when they pick tomatoes that end up being sold to Taco Bell and not to other YUM! Brands chains.

I wrote to Ruth Rosenbaum, PhD, Executive Director of the Center for Reflection, Education and Action, Inc. (CREA) in Hartford, Connecticut. She headed the promising but disputed study of pay for tomato pickers above. I asked if anyone had studied the relative sense of wellbeing for the Taco Bell tomato pickers before and after the penny-a-pound increase. Were they indeed better off after all the publicity and years of effort?

“The short answer,” Dr. Rosenbaum replied, “is that there has been some benefit to the workers picking for the tomato growers who sold to YUM! for Taco Bell. But big effect, unfortunately no.” It appears that the main effect of the YUM! Brands agreement was much more rhetorical and symbolic than it was sweepingly revolutionary for the wellbeing of the pickers. That’s a shame.

I also wanted to know if nearly doubling the wages for the Taco Bell pickers created an economic ripple, raising the rates other pickers receive or causing a shortage of pickers for other growers, because all the pickers would naturally want to pick for the growers supplying Taco Bell.

“There really is no such study,” Dr. Rosenbaum lamented. It turns out that neither CIW nor those funding its boycott campaign were interested in participating in a study before and after the YUM! Brands agreement. Thus the data aren’t available, and we cannot say for sure if the boycott accomplished much actual benefit, when all is said and done.

Second, CREA is working on an additional study of a set of growers who supply tomatoes to repackers who sell to McDonald's. The single grower in the first study had exemplary practices in relation to its pickers. The preliminary results from the other growers are mixed, according to Rosenbaum. The report is yet to be released but will become public.

Third, at a time when the PCUSA was cutting its staff and especially its missionary force by dozens and dozens of persons, the Taco Bell boycott brought about the hiring in 2004 of a United Church of Christ pastor as the PCUSA Associate for Fair Food Concerns. Noelle Damico appears on the staff of the Presbyterian Hunger Program and is hot on the trail of Burger King, McDonald's, Subway, and others.

Fourth, while McDonald's has not rolled over to the CIW boycott, it has taken some decent steps toward fairness and against some despicable labor practices of the worst operators. The rhetoric of CIW in response thoroughly discounts anything McDonald's has done (click here and scroll to 1/31/07). One would think that at least such excellent McDonald's practices as stipulating that pickers be hired as regular employees and not day laborers would be commended.

Fifth, Burger King has also refused to accede to the CIW boycott, but it has offered the CIW laborers an opportunity to enter into the Burger King work force. This would give willing migrant workers a permanent job with training and advancement opportunities. Such workers could foresee a modest future rather than the defeating cycle of grinding poverty in migrant farm labor.

This Burger King response was immediately met by derision and union posturing by the organizers at CIW. The Burger King rationale, however, bears some consideration. Burger King does not hire, supervise, or pay tomato pickers. Burger King buys from tomato repackers that buy from growers that hire the pickers. If one wants to change labor practices, shouldn’t one go to the grower as the responsible party, not to the end user two parties removed? Burger King operates all over the nation, however, and thus makes a nice, juicy target. Ubiquity seems to be Burger King’s greatest vulnerability; it can be picketed anywhere with ease! The same was true for Taco Bell.

Sixth, Christian compassion for the migrant tomato pickers is due. The situation of migrant farm workers in the tomato fields is definitely no picnic. The labor is back breaking and the pay is minimal. Conditions are hot and dirty.

On top of that, human depravity has found ways to further exploit and even criminally victimize the workers. Slavery has been found and prosecuted in several instances. Some corrupt employers are accused of shorting paychecks. Some bullying crew bosses require favors, take kickbacks, and tyrannize “troublemakers.” Irregular hours combine with low pay and day-labor conditions to ensure poverty and no job security.

There can be no denying that the lot of the tomato picker is dreadful. Everything reasonable and fair ought to be done to bring about justice, compassion, and fair play for these bottom-of-the-heap jobholders. Advocacy and a helping hand seem to be logical responses to the unfairness and misery of the pickers’ lot. Prayer and concern seem essential as well.

However, human nature is such that not everything CIW contends and wants can be entirely noble, and not everything growers and corporate buyers contend and provide can be entirely evil. Farm workers and those who organize them can be controlled at times by inflated self-interest and at times by humanitarian goodness. Tomato growers and large corporations who eventually buy their tomatoes may be controlled at times by greed and exploitation and at times by good intentions and kindness.

The trick for those of us wanting to support what is right is to move beyond the immediate stereotyping and overheated rhetoric to seek to discern the truth of the matter as best we can.

One final thought: Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick loaded on a heavy helping of guilt in his letter to Burger King: “Any company who profits from the exploitation of others is morally and ethically responsible for ending that exploitation.” That is pretty strong language: profiting from exploiting others. Kirkpatrick just assumes that Burger King condones or even promotes exploitation.

I wonder if Kirkpatrick ever considers his own advice. Any denomination that profits from the exploitation of others is morally and ethically responsible for ending that exploitation. Hmmm. What might that have to do with Kirkpatrick’s aggressive disputes over property and per capita with congregations feeling mightily exploited by their denomination?

Pope Clifton the First?

2007-01-29T11:12:00.000-08:00

In the January 29, 2007, edition of the Witness in Washington Weekly, an e-newsletter from the Presbyterian Washington Office, an article seeks individual Presbyterians’ opposition to President Bush’s plan for Iraq (the article is copied at the end of this posting). A strange line in that article caught my attention: “The Presbyterian Church, (USA) has responded to this new strategy with a statement in opposition to the escalation of the war.”

Really? How would “The Presbyterian Church (USA)” be able to respond with a statement? General Assembly hasn’t met since last June. General Assembly Council is still more than a month away. So who is “The Presbyterian Church (USA)” who has made some partisan political statement in opposition to the President’s plan?

It turns out that the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is actually the party who issued the statement (which reads, for the most part, like boilerplate from the Democratic National Committee). Apparently the Presbyterian Washington Office expects Presbyterians in general to consider a political statement by Clifton Kirkpatrick the same as an official resolution by the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Presbyterians individually oppose or support the President’s plan. There is a wide variety of political affiliation and personal sense of the right way forward concerning the tragedy of Iraq. Individual Presbyterians tend to lean toward Republican politics, if anything, although no political party should ever be thought the official party of the church. A surge in troops sent to Iraq may or may not be a good idea. That’s debatable. In other words, Presbyterians have no official political answer to the current situation.

Thus “The Presbyterian Church (USA)” has NOT responded to the new strategy. A solitary leader has, however, overstepping his ecclesiastical authority in order to play secular politician.

Three brief thoughts arise from this:

First, wouldn’t one think that disorder and possible collapse in one’s own sphere would perhaps cause a leader to exercise humility toward proffering amateur advice to leaders in another sphere, quite separate and complex?

Second, the Washington Office has taken the occasion to get people to urge their representatives and senators to "vote for any bill or resolution that opposes the President's plan..." (emphasis added). Note that the advice is to support any plan except the President's. Any plan! That's advice that could be as hazardous as it is partisan.

Finally, at what point did our polity change, so that a mere clerk became the Presbyterian pope?

*****

The article in Witness in Washington Weekly:

Oppose Escalation of Iraq War

On Wednesday, January 10 President Bush unveiled a new strategy for handling the current crisis in Iraq. The central tenet of his plan revolves around a substantial increase in the U.S. military force in Iraq. While the President assures the nation that this will help secure Iraq and bring an end to the conflict, this is not so certain. Instead, this will most likely continue to feed into an unending cycle of increasing violence, putting even more lives, U.S. and Iraqi, at risk.

The Presbyterian Church, (USA) has responded to this new strategy with a statement in opposition to the escalation of the war. Please pray for peace and join in the opposition to the surge of troops in Iraq. Send the statement, with your own personal message, to President Bush and your Representative and Senators. For contact information of government officials go to the Presbyterian Legislative Action Center.

Sample Message
I am a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and endorse the statement below that was issued last week by our Stated Clerk, Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick. I urge you to vote for any bill or resolution that opposes the President’s plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq. We do not need more troops, we need a cease fire, diplomacy and economic development.

[The sample message continues with Clifton Kirkpatrick’s statement, found here.]

What's a responsible Presbyterian to do?

2006-12-14T20:45:00.000-08:00

I just encountered another instance of frustrating stonewalling on the part of a Presbyterian Church (USA) official. Sadly, the experience is all too common.

Normally the incident assumes this pattern:

I read about a situation that is perhaps troublesome, but I’m not sure. Something may seem amiss, but there are aspects of the matter that first need following up before any determination can be made.

I thus e-mail specific questions to the church official responsible for the matter. Maybe there is an incipient problem. Maybe not. That’s what I’m trying to find out by obtaining some unambiguous facts. I try to be clear, thorough, and respectful in the correspondence, but I am dealing with ticklish matters that often the official would just as soon weren’t examined very thoroughly.

I wait.

I wait a little longer.

Then I ask again, pointing back to the first correspondence.

I receive a hasty, sometimes-testy response that either (a) discloses only part of the information asked for, or (b) misses the point of my clear queries altogether and provides only sketchy, often-irrelevant material.

I am forced to persist. I thank the official for whatever material was useful and ask again for answers to the other original questions--usually concerning the heart of the matter. I bend over backwards to number and list the questions to make it easy to respond.

One of four things then happens: (a) the official tells me he or she can’t be harassed like this any more and abruptly stonewalls any further correspondence; (b) the official portions out a tiny bit more of the information and continues to ignore the more pertinent questions; (c) I get no response at all; or (d) I finally get most of what I originally requested. Option d is rare.

There appears to be a pervasive tactic operating in many Presbyterian offices. Questions are to be delayed (Maybe the questioner will forget and give up!), deflected (I’ll answer another question and ignore the pertinent one), delimited (I’ll give out only the easy parts of what the person wants), or derided (Who are you to ask me such impertinent questions?).

If the officials can make obtaining the information hard enough, perhaps the questioner will just give up and go away. It often works.

That serves the bureaucrat well; the hound loses the scent. But the church as a whole remains uninformed about the official’s actions or inaction.

Who definitely is not served by such deceptive tactics is the church. That means that you are not served.

Legitimate questions that ought to be answered get brushed away. Important information that should make a difference in decisions never comes to light. Once again, knowledge is power, and power remains firmly grasped in the hands of the obscurantist officers of the church, who serve self-interest rather than the interests of the church as a whole.

Here’s the provoking example from today:

Two times lately, the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation (PPC) has released books that embarrass Presbyterians and propound theology in contradiction to our Reformed convictions: in July, Christian Faith and the Truth behind 9/11 by David Ray Griffin, and in November, Why Christianity Happened, by James G. Crossley. The publishing house’s board of directors actually repudiated Griffin’s 9/11 book, but kept right on selling it.

Thus, I’ve heard many people ask that if the PPC keeps acting in independent and harmful ways, why don’t we figure out a means to disassociate the PPC from the Presbyterian Church (USA)? “Why not cut the ties and end the embarrassment?” they wonder. That’s a good question, and it’s worth thoughtful consideration.

I thought I’d heard somewhere that the PPC each year gives its operating surplus to the church, so that rather than costing the church money, it actually helps support the church. If that were true, then cutting off the publishing house would mean forfeiting income. So I figured it would be good to follow up on that aspect.

I wrote the denominational Chief Operating Officer, Joey Bailey, to find out how much PPC donated over the last few years to the PCUSA. I couldn’t find any line item in the official income statement from General Assembly. After a couple of miscues with Bailey (who was actually helpful!), I got his clear reply that income from space leased to PPC is the only income the PCUSA derives from PPC.

Now I was interested in whether the PPC had a sweetheart deal with the PCUSA for the leased space or paid market rate for its offices in the Presbyterian Center. I wrote Davis Perkins, Publisher of PPC, to find out the particulars of the leased space and to ask for the PPC “audited financial statements” to check out the particulars, as Joey Bailey had suggested. Bailey later also wrote that PPC paid full market rate for its leased offices.

When I heard back from Perkins today, after waiting more than two weeks, I received a reply that basically said that he didn’t like what (he thought) I intended to do with the information, so he wasn’t going “to divert staff energy away from essential publishing activity to generate the information you are requesting.”

Although a publisher would obviously have at his fingertips something as basic as a copy of the PPC income and expenses, Perkins wasn’t about to send it to the likes of me! Instead he shuttled me back to the General Assembly Council Internal Auditor for the audited financial statement.

Further on in Perkins’s note, he wrote that since “the PPC Board has fiduciary responsibility for the publishing organization,” my “obvious recourse would be to query them….” Now it needed to be a board action to simply forward some basic information? Ridiculous!

That’s known as a brush-off. When in doubt, a nervous official often will hinder and obfuscate. I had expected Davis Perkins to be above such petty practices. I was proven wrong.

In my reply to Perkins, I made an observation about a common criticism of the press:

When the press writes an article without doing extensive research, it is told that it is irresponsible. When the press responsibly seeks public information in order to present accurate facts, it is told that PPC cannot "divert staff energy away from essential publishing activity to generate the information you are requesting."

I left Perkins with this comment: “And church bureaucrats wonder why the people of the church are so disaffected? Look in the mirror. You do your cause no good.”

Such are the frustrations of the common Presbyterian trying to exercise due diligence to comprehend the workings of a denomination, some of whose leaders would prefer not to be bothered with being accountable.

More Dor

2006-11-22T13:40:00.000-08:00

My favorite humorist is at it again. You’ve just got to read this comic! Click here for his latest.

I know I’ve written previously about John Dorhauer: “Funny as a Rubber Crutch.” But this guy is such a stitch! Kind of like Pat Paulson, the Laugh-in comic who ran for President, or like Chevy Chase’s anchor in Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” skits, Dorhauer feigns deep seriousness, while spouting absolutely hilarious material. I don’t know how he keeps a straight face.

Here’s an example of Dorhauer’s humor, complete with my explanations:

One of my staff colleagues is the Rev. Sheldon Culver. Together we have worked untold hours [Don’t you love the irony--his TELLING about his own unTOLD hours of labor? He’s playing the dolt who doesn’t realize that one doesn’t applaud one’s own efforts.] over the last four years researching attacks [Note the subtle word choice.] on our churches [See how he pretends to take ownership of churches, as if HIS point of view alone has legitimacy.] from renewal groups associated with the Institute on Religion and Democracy [Intended guilt by association as subtle as a bulldozer in a jewelry store.].
We are finishing the manuscript on a book that is due out next spring [Oh, for joy!], and are available for workshops and seminars on the subject [Not that he would ever interject a self-serving advertisement in serious humor.]. A month ago we presented such a workshop to a group of about 75 delegates from the Missouri Mid-South Conference.
We always hope that such an effort will, at the very least, provide active church members with some new insight [As opposed to “stale insight”?] and some good, hands-on information [Ha! What a funny description of wacky conjectures and sloppily “researched” conspiracies!] designed to equip them for the difficulties they will face should their church ever come under attack [That subtle “attack” word again. It’s doubly funny when the “attack” is by some poor soul who wonders aloud if perhaps heresy might possibly be out of place or the denomination might not be serving congregations’ Christian ministry interests.]

But the most humorous elements are written into Dorhauer’s over-the-top praising of the wonderful effectiveness of his own seminar. He plays the pompous self-congratulator with a classic absence of self-awareness.

Let me set it up: Dorhauer teaches a seminar about the vast conspiracy that is out to destroy their good little liberal churches with the introduction of some outlandish idea that the church ought to conform to the Bible. He plants the notion that there are trained agitators and infiltrators out to dismantle churches for secular political ends.

But such lethal agents of the dread Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and its affiliated minion organizations can be recognized and neutralized by diligent liberals. The agents blow their cover by asking astute theological questions, by considering the Bible relevant to church life, and by at times questioning the legitimacy of some denominational actions and pronouncements.

So Dorhauer equips his seminar attendees to be on the lookout for such hostile actions by sleeper cells waiting to destroy churches for right-wing political reasons. And sure enough, “In the short time since we made our presentation,” Dorhauer crows, “we have heard from one of our local churches, which talks about the immediate and direct impact the presentation made on their church.” Again, ever the comic, Dorhauer acts as if he is not the least bit hesitant to praise himself.

A woman in one church, it appears, has blundered into suspicious territory. She asked that her church “cut all funding from the local church to the denomination offices,” in which offices, coincidentally, Dorhauer serves and depends upon for his livelihood. Aha! An IRD henchman at work? An evil plot to take over the church uncovered?

Well, actually, no, it turns out, in a rather awkward denouement. The lady simply didn’t think the church could afford to pay the assessments. She had nothing to do with IRD or any other renewal group. In fact, she fell over herself to undo her suggestion and pledge allegiance to the UCC.

So the truth of the matter is that Dorhauer provoked a great deal of angst and accusation, but there was absolutely nothing to the vast conspiracy worry. This “illustration” was much ado about nothing. Ha ha! Fooled you! False alarm.

But here’s the comic genius: Dorhauer pretends not to get it. Not only that, Dorhauer turns the situation into a burlesque comedy by acting as if he had introduced a wise and necessary process.

You can imagine his frowny face as he intones, “I am not now in a place to say one way or the other what was going on prior to this new revelation” [that the woman rescinded her proposal not to fund Dorhauer’s office]. What understatement! Dorhauer had made up a conspiracy and frightened everyone, and then the theory was found to be incorrect. He explained, “That is not the purpose of my writing telling [sic] this story.”

Okay, then, what was the purpose? Comedy. “The point to be made is this,” Dorhauer continued: “we made a calculated decision a long time ago to treat the matter of church takeovers as a pandemic affecting even our strong, healthy, and covenantally connected churches” (as if many such churches remain under his leadership).

Brilliant! The comic ruse is that church takeovers are pandemic. You start with the crazy assumption that outside agitators are being trained and sent into churches to destabilize and then overthrow them. You ignore that the people mislabeled as outside agents are typically faithful, longtime members of the churches, who simply ask some difficult questions because they want their congregations to be God’s church and not a political action group for leftist concerns.

Forget that. Stick with your mindless assertion. Figure it’s a conspiracy, obviously orchestrated with amazing brilliance and reach by the dastardly IRD (spit when you say the name).

Now, find a supposed instance. Ignore or downplay the most logical motivations on the part of the alleged guilty party. Inject fear and suspicion. Get everyone all worried. Inexplicably drag in the detested IRD. Impeach the intentions of a church member. Figure the worst until the woman protests and demonstrates her innocence of being anyone’s minion. Find there was no conspiracy, no minions, no problem actually. But don’t fully believe the suspected woman when all is said and done.

Now, hold up this debacle as the positive outcome of your work, and thus you have the comic genius of John Dorhauer.

Remember: IRD had no involvement in this prime instance Dorhauer chose. No one was ever found to be an outside agitator. The church had not been “attacked.” Nothing nefarious was afoot. Remember that in no way was the church ever served by Dorhauer, either. The suspicion and acrimony he infused into the situation actually injured relationships within the church. With delicious irony, Dorhauer proves to be the outside agitator in this instance!

But still the good ol’ clueless character Dorhauser introduces soldiers on with inanities. “[H]ere is direct evidence that the strategy to equip church members with information about what may be happening in their churches is in our long term best interests,” he solemnly intones, absolutely counter to the evidence. “We will continue to do everything we can to empower churches to defend themselves against these new age marauders who find themselves on a crusade to destroy our churches in the name of an intolerant God.”

Damn the facts of the illustration! Full speed ahead.

That’s our hilarious Dorhauer.

Ready for a Book of Order downgrade?

2006-11-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

Not everyone knows that the PCUSA Book of Order is quietly getting the Readers Digest treatment in draft form over the next several months. By September 1, 2007, the Form of Government Task Force (FOG) will be releasing a draft of its suggested rewriting of the Book of Order.

General Assembly in June 2008 will work on the draft and vote on a final version. Then presbyteries will need to approve or disapprove the changes to our constitution during the year from June 2008 to June 2009. Thus, we’ll all know about it eventually.

But right now, we are being invited to comment on some preliminary drafts, helping the FOG Task Force refine its work. Cindy Bolbach and Sharon M. Davison, FOG Co-Moderators, are taking a proactive approach to receive feedback. They reached out in an e-mail: “The task force invites your involvement and solicits your help in the following ways:

1. Read with us the resources listed in our bibliography;
2. Read the documents we have posted on the website [here and here];
3. Share your comments, questions, and insights with us;
4. Continue to hold the task force in prayer as it continues its work.”

“We hope you will share this invitation to dialogue and discussion with all within your organization,” they ventured. So here I am, sharing. You can send your comments to FOG by e-mail.

Troublesome first impressions
I have not had time to study the documents carefully, but even a cursory reading of the first part of the “Foundations of Presbyterian Polity” was rather disappointing. I read it with the superb first four chapters of the current Form of Government open for comparison, and the new diet version seemed anemic and left a bitter taste in comparison.

Why would I want to jettison the rich theology of the current foundational chapters of the Book of Order for the new draft language, which begins, “The church bears witness to God’s sovereign activity in the world as told in the Bible and understood by faith….”?

“As told in the Bible”? Tales are told. God’s Word, however--awesome and authoritative--is grandly revealed by God. Likewise, a Bible left to the whims of subjectively being “understood by faith” can be twisted like a putty nose to say or mean nearly anything.

This is not a good start.

Then I immediately ran into what looks to me like the classic heresy of Modalism in the sections about “God,” “Jesus Christ,” and “the Holy Spirit.” So let me get this straight: Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit aren’t God? It’s at best a highly awkward Trinitarianism.

Aren’t Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit co-eternal with God the Father, and weren’t they, too, intimately involved in Creation? You wouldn’t get it in the new draft language of 1.0101.

Didn’t Jesus, the eternal Son of God, exist before the Incarnation? And doesn’t he “sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty” right now? And won’t he “come to judge the living and the dead?” You wouldn’t know it from the draft section 1.0102, which gives us only the Incarnate Jesus.

Is the Holy Spirit the only eternally present Person of the Godhead? Are the Father and the Son now distant, having once operated in the past? Are they currently dormant? You’d think so from the new section 1.0103.

Thus, at this early point, I’m still left wondering, Why trade the valuable Form of Government we’ve got for pottage? I don’t remember anyone demonstrating that the old Book of Order was broken. So if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

And when the new draft ain’t fixin’ it, but rather messin’ it up, it makes even less sense to me.

Take a look at the drafts (remember, they’re not final documents yet). Compare them to the first four chapters of the current Form of Government. And then send the FOG Task Force your commentary, too. They invited it.

Presbyterianism in ten words or fewer

2006-10-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

At the recent meeting of the Presbyterian Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy in San Antonio (click here, here, and here), chair Gordon Edwards was bringing members up to date on what went on at the General Assembly Council meeting a couple of weeks earlier. "One of the issues that really kept surfacing there was communication," he reported, "and one aspect of communication … is that the Presbyterian Church needs to have a ten-word-or-less statement of who we are.”

Hmmm. That got me thinking. What might that brief statement be?

Well, if the need is there, who's better than Berkley Blog readers to step up and fill the need? You can come to the rescue of your denomination by proposing what you think that ten-word-or-less statement of who we are might be.

So just to get your creative juices flowing, here are some warm-up examples of brief lines that help people get a handle on the Presbyterian Church:

Presbyterians: We're not half bad.

The church with more heritage than future.

Deformed and always being deformed by the word of ambiguity.

Not half as big as Baptists or bad as Unitarians.

We not only believe in total depravity; we demonstrate it!

Committed to per capita and property--and not much else.

Everything you’ve always wanted in a church--and less!

Presbyterians: Boy, did we once know what we believed!

The church that put the “total” in depravity.

We don't know what to think about damned unbelievers.

We care more about you than God.

Forget sin. Forget rules. Forget the Bible. We're PRESBYTERIANS!

Nothing is essential if you don’t want it to be.

Presbyterians: Preserving our property for the posterity of progressives.

Well, you get the idea. Now it's your turn to submit your suggestions. You can use the "Comments" apparatus of this blog (click on "Comments" at the bottom of the posting). Remember, make it ten words or fewer.

Common-sense theology

2006-10-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

If you're wanting to go directly to the bottom line of the new report on the sacraments, here, rather deep in the document, is the answer to the simple question about whether the invitation to the Table should be to all believers or all baptized believers (pp 20-21):

In conclusion, in our review of the literature the biblical-theological rationales used by those in favor of and opposed to open table practice seem to suggest that the fullest range of meanings of baptism and the Lord’s Supper—both God’s expansive love and forgiveness and the call to be a community of disciples, the body of Christ in the world—is preserved and embodied through the normative practice of baptism before Eucharist. However, there is a strong biblical crosscurrent, notably in Jesus’ inclusive meal practice and his breaking of certain purity laws that would seem to allow or even call for the disruption of those regular practices if and when those sacramental practices wrongly serve exclusionary purposes [emphasis added].

I haven't had a chance to digest the whole paper yet, which General Assembly approved and requested to be sent to congregations. But what I have read so far appears solid and reasonable, seeking both to uphold the sacred meaning of our sacraments and apply that meaning in today's context.

It will be interesting to see what other comments are offered and received, prior to a final report to be made to General Assembly in 2010.

Ah, the good old policies

2006-09-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

Today the Presbyterian Washington Office sent out the Witness in Washington Weekly e-mail newsletter. One of the articles read:

Elections Season- ‘The Principle of Church and State’
The principle of "separation of Church and State" implies that no Christian communion should seek privilege or power denied to others. On the other hand, this principle does not mean that churches should keep silent on, or be unconcerned about political issues. If the purpose of "politics" is to promote the good of the community and the nation, then churches should seek to be an influence in political life. . . . . . . all judicatories and local congregations have the right and duty to discuss social issues which may be called "controversial." (1955 Statement-PCUSA, minutes, p. 216)

That's a good statement. It's not as if the church and our religious convictions were meant to be in a totally different sphere than all those political things that do bode well or ill for the welfare of the people. We Reformed Christians believe in engagement in the world, not retreat or isolation.

However, let me add just three brief comments:

It's one thing to "discuss social issues which may be called 'controversial,'" and another thing altogether to produce outlandish decree after decree on one issue after another. We Reformed Christians would be wiser to discuss things together than to be spewing half-baked ideas on topics to which we have given scant thought and brief attention--topics on which there is no agreement among Presbyterians, nor special expertise, for that matter.
This article from the Washington Office fails to make a crucial distinction between speaking out on ISSUES (which is absolutely legitimate for a church, unless it becomes a substantial activity eclipsing the charitable purpose of the nonprofit corporation) and supporting or opposing particular CANDIDATES for office (which is strictly forbidden and a sure route to difficulties with the IRS).
As long as the Washington Office is hauling out policies more than fifty years old, let's invite it to show us what our Presbyterian Church's policy on ABORTION was at the time. The funny thing is that on the particular issue of abortion, the Washington Office just seems to get selective amnesia about our historic policy, which was rightfully and firmly opposed to abortion for the life of the church, up until recently, when we lost our bearings.

As funny as a rubber crutch

2006-08-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

Ever since Dave Barry, a Presbyterian PK, ceased writing his humor column, I've been a little starved for really funny reading--you know, the make-you-laugh-out-loud-with-an-embarrassing-guffaw kind of material that leaves you weak, with tears streaming down your face. Recently, I think I've found a contender.

He's John Dorhauer, a United Church of Christ clergyman who contributes regularly to the Talk2Action blog. The guy is a stitch! I mean, the broad irony and subtle self-parody in his pseudo-pretentious writing is priceless. He affects this mien of taking himself and the subject matter oh so seriously, but yet you just KNOW he can't be serious. And talk about a poker face! He never breaks a smile, never lets on that he's pulling your leg, never winks at his audience. He just plays it straight, as if his preposterous claims actually were intended to make sense.

Take his most recent little humor piece, for example: "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing." I'll give you a moment to read it...

Don't you just love the mock tone of concern, the deep alarm and furrowed-brow instruction? Those church ninjas dispatched by IRD are ubiquitous, and with their training in dismantling churches, you'll be lucky to have one 2X4 attached to another if you aren't careful.

Full alert, America! Somebody might want to effect meaningful change in a church somewhere. Watch out! Hoo-eee! It's a kick.

You can't help but chuckle at the broad irony of Dorhauer describing this sitting-duck "extreme welcome" church that succumbs to paranoia about apparently well-intended visitors whose only desire is to exploit the congregation because they are "[t]rained by others in the art of dissent, they are clever manipulators of thought and action who know the things that make for unrest."

Yeah. Right. Those people, with no mind of their own but total willingness to go wherever there is a church to be dismantled, have become kind of destroyer zombies under the command of the all-powerful IRD, who everyone just knows is lying in its mission statement and cares nothing about theology or churches or Christian discipleship. What an evil villain! Where's Superman when you need him? Right, Dorhauer? Talk about laying it on thick! Dorhauer knows humor.

But the juiciest irony Dorhauer employs is the bit about the church in which "there will always be an atmosphere of open and mutual respect," and in order to show that "openness" to others and "respect" for their ideas, the church becomes paranoid and exclusive, taking pains that "no one should be asked to join the church unless and until they can demonstrate their appreciation for and comfort with this openness."

Har har! He's got the church saying, in effect, "We're so open that we won't let you in if you're not as open as we think you ought to be! We're so inclusive that we'll exclude anyone who is not just like us!" And, get this: not a hint that there is any irony here. He just plays it straight. What a hoot! That Dorhauer just cracks me up.

Oh, there's more, such as progressive churches discovering that it might be a good idea to ask new members what they believe or to have some standards for membership, or to actually know people before they are made members or--get this--top leaders of the church! Keep that up, and these progressive churches could become conservative!

Well, if you have to explain humor, it's not that funny. So I'll lay off. Dorhauer's classic humor is easy to find. It's deeply embedded in just about everything he writes for Talk2Action. And his buddies aren't bad, either. Their conspiracy satire reads almost as if they believe it.

But nobody could be THAT ridiculous. Could they?

Evangelicals' splitting headache

2006-08-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

What is the evangelical mind concerning staying to contend for the faith within the PCUSA versus leaving to contend for the faith outside the PCUSA? All over the place.

We know this: We’re not of one mind. We’re even disagreeing over the numbers we estimated in a straw vote taken at the recent Atlanta meeting of the Presbyterian Coalition. The straw vote was meant to determine NOT what persons had firmly decided to actually DO, but what general direction they thought it most worthwhile to look into.

Parker Williamson reported his perception that more than half want to consider leaving the PCUSA.

I wrote about what I counted, that somewhere around 50 people--perhaps a sixth of those present--favored investigating departure from the PCUSA.

Toby Wilson estimated nearly 50 percent in the “some sort of separation” camp.

Gary Miller estimated a few more than 40 percent or maybe nearly half who are looking to head out the door.

Matt Ferguson was trying hard to count, too, from the back of the church, and he “guess-ta-mated 30% voted for the ‘Separate, Relocation’” option.

I’m happy that several people have given their estimates. I would hope that several more people--especially the Coalition board members who were strategically placed on the chancel and in front of the pews to “read the room”—would also give their impressions and estimates. It is in the data from the many that we can probably come close to reconstructing a near approximation of the true count.

Trial lawyers tell us that eyewitnesses are notorious for relaying different, even contradictory, stories about a crime. We see what we think we see, but it is usually only partial, and it is often colored by perception. Then that impression enters into the memory, where it can be distorted or partially lost. By the time it comes out as an eyewitness account, it may or may not be accurate. I think we see elements of that in all of our recollections of the vote.

Here’s why I retain a level of confidence in what I reported:
1) My exact task at that moment was to record what I saw. It had my entire attention, and I was straining to do it accurately.
2) I wrote down the result for each of the five options. I have a contemporaneous record and don’t need to rely on memory.
3) My vantage point was second to none. Looking down from near the pulpit, I could see all areas. Rather than looking out through a forest of hands around me from within the pews, I had more of a bird’s-eye view. The only better vantage point would have been if there had been time to roam the floor as a teller for an actual count.
4) There are basically two ways to determine a rough count: (a) One can judge “relative density” (Are there more hands down than up? A lot more? How thick is the clustering of hands up versus hands down?), or (b) one can count and if time runs out, extrapolate (If you count X hands on half the floor, and the votes look evenly spaced throughout the floor, you can double the count and get a close estimate of the vote). I used the first method to guess about 40 percent for the first option to “stay and fight.” It seemed significant but not quite half. Then when the second option’s hands went up for “fellowship,” I was surprised that the density seemed very close to the first, so I estimated another 40 percent. It was easy to count the votes for option three (3 votes) and four (2 votes), and they were insignificant to the overall picture. So that leaves option five: “separate, relocate.” This one entailed the greatest change from the present course, so I was intently interested in the exact number on this one. Thus I attempted a quick count. I got nearly two-thirds of the way around the floor and was up to 35. A quick glance at the rest of the floor confirmed that it was similar to what I had counted already, so I extrapolated the total count to about 50 votes (not 50 percent). This was the most accurate of my estimates.
5) There were about 450 people registered for this 24-hour conference. I wouldn’t expect a lot of attrition for this final session, which offered some of the greatest opportunity for insight and action. Therefore I would guess that at least 300 if not 400 people were present and voting in the straw poll. If I were extremely inaccurate in my actual count on the “separate, relocate” option and missed as many as half of the hands, that would still mean that no more than a third of the people voted for the departure option. I have a clear memory that the hands seemed sparser for the fifth option than they had been for the first or second options.
6) I came into the straw poll with no idea of what I would find. It wasn’t that I expected one thing rather than another, which can affect perception. I felt more like a social scientist than an advocate on this poll. While no one can claim a total lack of bias, searching myself, I don’t think that desired results biased my counts. I’m not even sure what I would have desired!

So what can we say at this point? Let me venture some new guesses for the range of votes.
1) Option One, to stay and fight: close to 40 percent. (Perhaps there is an optical illusion that makes a significant vote look closer to half the house than it is. Obviously THREE options couldn’t have had roughly half the vote each, since we’re not talking about Chicago politics!) Several observers seem to coalesce on about 40 percent for this group.
2) Option Two, to form fellowships: about 35 to 40 percent. There is less unanimity concerning this number. One observer even seems to fail to take this option into account. But it was a substantial group that approached Option One in size. It also would characterize those interested in the Presbyterian Global Fellowship, and many were in town to take in the PGF meeting immediately following this Coalition straw vote. It makes sense that that option would be a major percentage.
3) Options Three and Four: insignificant.
4) Option Five, to separate: as much as 25 percent (assuming I missed a bunch of hands in my count). This group, being the most fed up, also tended to speak out regularly and do so forcefully. It only makes sense. Thus, their presence may have felt larger than their actual numbers, which were significant but not near a majority, as I saw it. I realize that mine is a much lower number than others report for this option, but I don’t know what else to do with the actual numbers I counted. Even with twice as many as I actually counted, my number would be far below half the house that some others report.

This is my opinion. Of course, others’ opinions count, too, so you can take mine with a grain of salt. I’d encourage still more voices to bring their best estimates to the table. Taken together, we may get the most accurate picture.

And in the mean time, it is obvious that people among us want to go in at least two different directions. Since another conclusion from the same Coalition session is that people want unified leadership to lead them in ONE direction, I’m feeling not a little disconnect.

One small group had this advice: “No one option surfaced as a way forward…. We see a need for the Renewal groups to speak with one voice and organization.” The small group of 15 to 20 couldn’t agree on a single option, and yet they expect the entire renewal movement to speak with one voice and organization? Hello-oo!

Groups that oppose us love to talk about “wedge issues.” They figure if they can introduce a wedge issue to drive a wedge into the opposing bloc and split it into factions, they can defeat the individual pieces that result.

I’m not sure, but it looks like we may be doing a great job of “auto-wedging” ourselves, and we need to be very careful to work together with concern and support for one another, even though it appears that we are tending toward taking at least two different routes toward faithfulness. Parker Williamson beautifully modeled such a spirit of support and concern in his reply to my earlier letter. We can do it!

Earth to WJK: Come in!

2006-08-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

In a failing attempt to explain why the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation's Westminster John Knox imprint decided it was a spiffy idea to publish a book that rashly accuses the President of the United States and untold numbers of co-conspirators of cold-hearted, calculated mass murder of thousands of U.S. citizens, we find this sentence:

Under the Westminster John Knox Press imprint, we publish a theologically and religiously diverse selection of books that extends far beyond the Reformed tradition and the official policies and stances of the PC(USA).

Indeed. Regrettably so. And far beyond credibility or responsibility, too.

Putting the Squeeze on Generous Presbyteries

2006-08-08T23:30:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else know that a new Advisory Opinion #19 has been quietly released by Constitutional Services in the Office of the General Assembly? It’s titled “Implementing the Trust Clause for the Unity of the Church.” It ought to be titled “Limiting the Kingdom of God by Parochial Presbyterian Greed.”

It’s that bad.

Do you remember how the recently released Advisory Opinion #18 about the new Authoritative Interpretation on G-6.0108 was fuzzy, falling all over itself in its avoidance of useful counsel on ordination matters? Well, the same folks who couldn’t or wouldn’t be clear on ordination standards have found a way to be perfectly clear on church property--mainly that the PCUSA owns every square inch of it and that church property exists solely for the benefit of the denomination. And nobody had better mess with that tightly held and narrowly defined possessiveness!

The Advisory Opinion is rife with bad reasoning and poor logic, but the main points it attempts to establish are these:

A church can’t dismiss itself; presbytery must dismiss it. Granted.
Presbyteries need to be mighty careful about just how they dismiss churches, especially if they’re going to be giving away assets that Louisville covets--if’n you get my drift.
Presbyteries had better fear the wrath of synods coming in to assert original jurisdiction if they start squandering PCUSA riches by doing the unthinkable act of allowing worshipping congregations to leave with their property for the furtherance of the Kingdom of God and the welfare of a community of believers.

This is a narrow, parochial, covetous, desperate, bullying Advisory Opinion, unworthy to be emanating from our highest constitutional authority. Or his office. Or whoever was on duty at the time and didn’t see fit to attach his name.

I’ll leave detailed analysis to better legal minds than mine. But let me just briefly point out four glaring problems:

First, the opinion confuses polity with theology. It reads that Presbyterian “polity incorporates these theological principles regarding church property…” and then it goes on to list plainly legal and constitutional assertions about polity, not about theology. I suppose if any denominational office would think polity is theology, it would be most likely the legal wonks. But really, aren’t these guys supposed to be professionals?

Second, section II A attempts to limit presbyteries’ dismissal determinations to the most greedy aspect: what’s good only for the interests of the denomination. It reads: “All such decisions [about releasing a congregation] must be made solely upon the basis of advancing the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the presbytery’s geographic area.”

Forget about what would be good for the worshipping community of believers. Forget the community or neighborhood. Forget our supposed interest in ecumenism. Think entirely of PCUSA interests--or greed, or possessiveness. That’s so selfish, so institutionally sinful! (The section then attempts to buttress this atrocious selfishness with Book of Order references that don’t apply.)

Third, section II E is simply false. It reads: “… only the General Assembly itself can release or dissolve a presbytery (G-13.0103n).” If you actually read G-13.0103n with eighth-grade comprehension, you will see that it says nothing about releasing or dissolving a presbytery.

And fourth: Whatever happened to the Office of the Stated Clerk’s infatuation with the “presumption of wisdom” we’re supposed to lavishly grant governing bodies? When it worked in order to grant unconstitutional latitude to ordaining bodies, our Stated Clerk honored it, as in the final two paragraphs of Advisory Opinion #18.

But now, when governing bodies might perhaps make decisions about being gracious with departing churches, when a small part of the King’s riches might depart with a congregation for the congregation’s continued welfare and vitality rather than accrue to the bureaucracy of the denomination, where did the presumption of wisdom about that decision go? Pfffft! It’s gone.

Rather than a presumption of wisdom, we have a no-nonsense, hierarchical threat: “If a presbytery fails to carry out these constitutional responsibilities [to hoard the property for the PCUSA only], the synod may be required to intervene.”

Let me take a little liberty with the language of Advisory Opinion #18 to show how Advisory Opinion #19 might have read, if it were to follow the same kind of generous reasoning employed about ordination standards in the previous Advisory Opinion:

All parties should endeavor to outdo one another in honoring one another’s decisions, according the presumption of wisdom to presbyteries in graciously blessing departing congregations and to synods in respecting that generosity.

This means that presbyteries should be given the “benefit of the doubt” in making individual judgments regarding dismissals of congregations. Correspondingly, it means that presbyteries are urged to not “push the limits” in making those determinations. While explicitly recognizing the right of review, we urge the church to exercise great restraint in utilizing that right, reserving its use to clear cases of abuse of authority by presbyteries. We remind the church that it is the duty of both individual Christians and Christian societies to exercise mutual forbearance toward one another (G-1.0305). We pray that all presbyteries will exercise Kingdom judgment and abound in Christian charity.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think congregations ought to depart willy nilly. Presbyteries have a true responsibility to act prudently as well as graciously. Presbyteries may at times save congregations from swindles or blunders.

But presbyteries are given the ability by our Constitution (G-8.0300) to be generous and broadminded with congregations, transferring property to them if the presbytery so chooses. If a congregation simply must leave, a presbytery need not kick them on the way out. Or hold them over a barrel, squeezing every last nickel out of them before they go. Or confiscate property from a thriving congregation to be left in the failing hands of a disgruntled few holdouts for all things PCUSA.

A presbytery ought to be able to weigh many factors in its decision on how best to handle property matters when a congregation genuinely will not remain in the PCUSA. What’s good for the community? What’s good for the continuing discipleship of the vast majority of the people in the congregation? What is generous and openhanded, rather than grasping and legalistic? How can the Kingdom of God be enhanced by the decision, rather than just the bottom line of the PCUSA? What would bring the greatest glory to God?

When a dying WASP congregation lovingly deeds its property to an emerging neighborhood multi-ethnic congregation, we applaud the graciousness. Why can’t a pragmatic presbytery be just as gracious with a group of former Presbyterians who want to thrive in another Reformed denomination, being able to utilize the building they paid for over the years?

Surely presbyteries ought to be able to freely and prayerfully consider Kingdom factors rather than purely preservation-of-PCUSA-assets criteria when making their decisions about departing congregations. Our Stated Clerk has threatened such presbyteries preemptively, using much more certainty than the Constitution grants him, and certainly more certainty than he was able to muster about other constitutional matters dealing with morality rather than mammon.

I wish I could trust the PCUSA

2006-08-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

People are truly in need. Tragedy is definitely present. And the PCUSA issues a call for humanitarian aid.

I’d sure love to be able to respond wholeheartedly. But I can’t.

Unfortunately, I know too much. I can connect too many previous instances of inappropriate action, and that makes me hesitant to be taken for a ride once again.

It’s a little like a person who lies. Once the person is known to be a liar, you never know if what he or she says is true anymore. A particular statement might be perfectly true, and yet you have to wonder, because the last statement wasn’t. You just never know.

So it is when those in responsible positions have taken missteps and have proven not to be reliable. You never know if this time they can actually be trusted or not.

This time I’d like to trust the supposed aid givers, but previously they have proved untrustworthy. In particular, the Presbyterian News Service story calls for us to contribute to humanitarian relief for the Lebanese people, who are in need. Already, One Great Hour of Sharing has given $50,000 to Action by Churches Together International, and that group has sent aid to the Middle East Council of Churches for distribution.

Whoops! Big red flag.

The PCUSA mission worker assigned to the Middle East Council of Churches, Dr. Nuhad Tomeh, is the PCUSA go-to guy for this kind of thing. This is the same guy who time after time has escorted groups such as the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy and a group from San Francisco Theological Seminary into ill-advised and actually dangerous meetings with none other than the Hezbollah.

So Tomeh is found to be the controversial Presbyterian link time and again to Hezbollah. Does that inspire you? Does it seem a good idea to send money to the very guy who appears to be in Hezbollah’s back pocket?

“Safe passage for aid convoys remains a major problem,” says another spokesperson for the Middle East Council of Churches. Could it be that the MECC is at all compromised by their coziness with Hezbollah itself and thus not trusted? Could it be that Hezbollah has a habit of operating right in among vulnerable civilians, thus causing the security problem for aid convoys? Using civilians as human sand bags for their military operations does not particularly ennoble the Hezbollah as warriors!

Hezbollah caused the current war. Hezbollah is responsible for causing civilian deaths and suffering by operating their war from the midst of populated centers. Hezbollah is proudly hurtling unaimable rockets at just any old civilian population in Israel, hoping to knock off whoever happens to be under the rockets’ arc when they drop. And Hezbollah is the close buddy of “our man” in Lebanon.

Somehow, that doesn’t inspire my confidence. It's a sad thing, because the need truly is there.

(And where’s the aid appeal for the Israelis, who likewise are being killed and displaced by Hezbollah aggression? Not a word about that. Why am I not surprised?)

A compliance check on sexuality materials

2006-07-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

In June General Assembly approved an overture from Shenango Presbytery that should prove to be a blockbuster resolution. At the point when our denominational leaders and entities actually comply with this resolution, the PCUSA will once again be biblically and confessionally sound in relation to its public teaching on marriage and sexual practice.

I realize that’s a knock-your-socks-off claim. What do I mean?

Item 12-11, approved by General Assembly, bears this title: “On Sexuality Curricula and Other Materials Being Consistent with the Biblical and Confessional Teaching.” The overture reads:

The Presbytery of Shenango overtures the 217th General Assembly (2006)to direct the General Assembly Council (Congregational Ministries Division) and all other PC(USA) entities to use the biblical and confessional teachings that sexual relationships belong only within the bond of marriage of a man and a woman as the standard for the development of any future materials or recommendations for materials in print or in its website. The curriculum should include information on reproductive health to allow for an open discussion between teachers and youth in light of our understanding of God’s plan for sexuality.

The language is a little convoluted, so to see more clearly what is really being said, here’s a more graphic version of the key provision. The overture directs…

(1) the General Assembly Council (Congregational Ministries Division) and
(2) all other PC(USA) entities

to use the biblical and confessional teachings that

sexual relationships belong only within the bond of marriage of a man and a woman

as the standard for

(a) the development of any future materials or
(b) recommendations for materials
(i) in print or
(ii) in its website.

Let me boil that down to even simpler language:

All PC(USA) entities are directed to use the teaching that sexual relationships belong only in heterosexual marriage as the standard for any materials being developed or recommended.

That's what it says, folks. And General Assembly approved it.

Note that the directive covers sexuality curriculum materials, but it is not limited only to such materials. In fact, the overture itself doesn’t even mention curriculum; it uses the more inclusive word “materials.” The overture title proves that sexuality curricula aren't the only intended subject: “On Sexuality Curricula and Other Materials Being Consistent with the Biblical and Confessional Teaching” [emphasis added].

This General Assembly directive to all entities covers all materials of any kind in development, and all recommendations, in print or on the Web. This is remarkable! I like it.

But what will it mean in practice? Let me hazard a few answers:

The Washington Office will need to take steps to ensure that all of its print and electronic materials comply with the standard that sexual relationships belong only within the bond of marriage of a man and a woman. That will mean they can no longer press for gay marriage or civil unions, nor can they recommend materials that do so.
Any materials such as newsletters and e-mail alerts developed from now on by any Presbyterian entity cannot be in violation of the standard that sexual relations belong only in heterosexual marriage.
Curriculum Development within Congregational Ministries Publishing and Christian Education will need to conform to this standard all their curriculum pieces being developed, and when they recommend other reading, that reading will need to conform, as well.
No entity such as Presbyterian Health, Education, and Welfare Association or its networks can develop materials or recommend items that promote or permit premarital, extramarital, or homosexual sexual expression.
The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy will need to conform its coming papers and policies to the standard of heterosexual marriage as the only moral setting for sexual relations.
Materials circulated by the National Network of Presbyterian College Women will need to conform to this standard as well.
Church magazines, such as Presbyterians Today, cannot promote or excuse such things as cohabitation or same-sex marriage.
Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options will need to cease treating premarital or extramarital sex as normal and will need to affirm abstinence outside of marriage.
Articles, books, and websites that approve of or promote premarital or extramarital sex, homosexual sexual expression, same-sex marriage, or same-sex unions would not be appropriately developed, used, or recommended in any Presbyterian source.

Well, we’ve got the General Assembly resolution, and it sets an excellent standard. Let’s keep an eye out to identify ways the resolution is either followed or defied. Defiance would be the most natural course of events, given that the resolution itself is not particularly popular with many of the entities noted above. Compliance, however, ought to be the only possible response open to entities and leaders under the authority of General Assembly.

So watch with me the implementation--or not--of this amazing resolution.