Reflections on a Draft Theology (ix)

This is the ninth installment in a series of postings reflecting on a document entitled, "Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body," recently posted online by the Fellowship of Presbyterians.

The concluding subsections of Section III of the Draft, "Essentials of the Reformed Tradition," under "Essential Tenets" points to both the possibilities of and obstacles to dialogue between the self-styled evangelical and progressive wings of the church.  Those subsections include: C, "Covenant life in the church," D, "Faithful stewardship of all of life," and E, "Living in obedience to the Word of God."  Let's take the obstacles first.  These subsections twice touch on the question of homosexuality by defining the God-created relationships we should live in as being between men and women and by defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.  The definition of marriage appears in the Draft's commentary on the Ten Commandments (in Section E, "Living in obedience to the Word of God"), which do not themselves actually so define marriage.  The Commandments merely charge us to not commit adultery or to covet our neighbor's wife.  Homosexuality,in any event, is the latest issue we fight about and walk away from each other over.  And that's the one clear obstacle between us, at least so far as these three subsections are concerned.  There are other points over which to dialogue, again especially the Draft's very low view of humanity.  But the one clear obstacle to  dialogue (and, apparently, reconciliation) is the possibility that homosexuals can be ordained in the PC(USA).

On the other hand, there is much that unites us.  In the second paragraph of subsection C, for example, the Draft eloquently affirms diversity in humanity and the church as being created in us by God.  In subsection D, the Draft affirms the right of women to full participation in "all ministries of the Church."  In subsection E, the Draft's brief commentary on the Ten Commandments, mentioned above, contains some very good commentary.  I, personally, find its description of the Sixth Commandment particularly apt.  It states that those adhering to the Draft will hold each other accountable to, "eradicate a spirit of anger, resentment, violence, or bitterness, and instead cultivate a spirit of gentleness, kindness, pace, and love."  If Presbyterians of various persuasions had treated each other by this principle, our present would have looked very different from what it does today.  In general, there is very little with which I would argue in these three sections and much that I would affirm without reservation.

Indeed, that fact suggests an important reason why the separatist faction of the Fellowship seems bent on forming yet another Reformed denomination rather than hooking up with one of the more conservative ones that many individual disaffected PC(USA) churches have joined in the past.  The hardcore evangelicals, the ones who cannot abide the ordination of women, for example, have already left PC(USA), most of them long ago.  Those who are going to leave now, apparently, have "bought into" a less absolutist expression of evangelical faith, one that allows for more diversity and even for embracing elements, notably women's ordination, that are clearly prohibited by a literalist reading of the Bible.  Were it not for the ordination of homosexuals....  But, that is today's hot button, we will not tolerate dissenting views issue—for progressives as well as evangelicals.

One wonders what those of us who are left will argue about next.  One wonders what those who leave will find to fight about after they leave.  Oh well.

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The final paragraph of the chapter on essential tenets (p. 9) merits a special note.  It reads,

In Jesus Christ we see the perfect expression of God’s holy will for human beings offered to God in our place. His holy life must now become our holy life. in Christ, God’s will is now written on our hearts, and we look forward to the day when we will be so confirmed in holiness that we will no longer be able to sin. As the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, Jesus leads us along the path of life toward that goal, bringing us into ever deeper intimacy with the Triune God, in whose presence is fullness of joy.

 OK.  Yes.  But I would like to suggest another of my "minor" adjustments, this time to the words "perfect" and "perfecter of our faith."  The concept of "perfection" has nothing to do with our human experience other than the fact that there is no such thing as "perfect" in our real world.  God, again as best I can tell on the basis of the process of creation as we know it to be through science, doesn't create perfect things but, rather, things laden with potential and programmed to evolve.  I would thus like to suggest as an alternative reading, first, "In Jesus Christ we see the full expression of God's holy will..."  Those for whom "full" means perfect can read it in that way.  Those for whom "full" means that God has set Christ as guidepost of the direction in which we are headed can read "full" in that way.  In place of "perfecter of our faith," I would suggest "model of our faith" for much the same reasons.  And I would thus whole-heartedly agree that Jesus leads us into a future just as the Draft states it.  Our faith can never be perfect so long as we are human so Jesus as "perfecter" of our faith points to something we cannot attain, namely perfect faith.  As the "model" for our faith, Jesus sets before us a goal, a direction that one day by the grace of God we just might attain—and we will call it the Kingdom of God.

This isn't just playing with words.  Perfection is a trap.  Fullness is a hope.  Amen.

Reflections on a Draft Theology (viii)

This is the eighth installment in a series of postings reflecting on a document entitled, "Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body," recently posted online by the Fellowship of Presbyterians.

In the last posting in this series (vii), I was working on Section III of the Draft, "Essentials of the Reformed Tradition," which is in the chapter on essential tenets.  Where the draft states that "since the fall our natural tendency" is toward evil, apparently total and complete, I argued that it should drop "natural" and state merely that we have a tendency toward evil.  Our God-given natural inclination, I argued, is toward goodness.  Admittedly, our evil tendencies frequently (one might even say "habitually") and tragically overshadow our good inclinations.  I particularly, however, objected to the sweeping claim in that section that humanity "prefers" evil.  That is by no means uniformly and universally the case.

Reading on in the draft in that same section, we are told that the consequences of our rebellion against God are "everlasting death."  Sin touches every part of human life (this is true, obviously), and what we take to be "natural" no longer "corresponds to God's will (true, but not entirely so).  Our rebellion so stains us as to render us helpless.  We depend on God's undeserved grace.  The Draft marches on with such sentiments to the conclusion that, "In union with Christ through the power of the Spirit we are brought into right relation with the Father, who receives us as his adopted children."  The crucial factor here is the identity of the "us".  "We" are those who are united to Christ's humanity by the Holy Spirit in baptism in such away that Christ's victory over death is also "ours".  In other words, baptized Christians are freed from the sentence of eternal death that hangs over the rest of humanity.  Only "we" can become the adopted children of God, and Christ is the "only Way to this adoption."

This is one of the points on which evangelicals and progressives simply do not agree.  Evangelicals tend to privilege a narrower reading of some parts of scripture and thus insist on an exclusive view of salvation.  Only those who profess a a true faith in Christ and are baptized may be saved.  Different evangelicals will draw the boundaries of salvation in somewhat different ways, but by-and-large those who call themselves evangelicals will agree that only Christians can be saved from eternal damnation.  There are many of us outside of the fold, however, who read the same passages and stories that the evangelicals read, but we come to very different conclusions.  As best as I can tell this is not really a matter that can be decided "reasonably."  Each "side" finds the reasoning of the other flawed.  We begin at different points in our thinking and inevitably arrive at different conclusions, and all too frequently we simply cannot honor the thinking of the other "side."

The thing that I find difficult as a progressive is that once I have stated that I do not believe that salvation is limited to Christians, the run-of-the-mill evangelical places me in the category of those who are beyond the pale of salvation.  There seems to be no room for discussion let alone dialogue, which is not surprising because exclusivist thinking assumes a dualistic, black and white world view.  One is either right or wrong.  One is either on God's side or not.  There are no gray areas.  That is why still more evangelicals are planning to depart the PC(USA).  The decision to no longer tie ordination to sexual orientation has for them placed the whole denomination beyond the pale.  We are wrong on homosexuality, so dualist thinking runs, and therefore we are wrong.  Period.  We are faithless.  Period.  We dishonor God.  Period.  We "play games" with scripture.  Period.

When I read the teachings of Christ, however, the God that I meet there is the one who takes our burdens on himself, who celebrates the return of the prodigal (without any hint of damning the prodigal if he doesn't "return"), and who has a heart for lepers, prostitutes, women, tax collectors, and other marginalized peoples.  Jesus built bridges to others, witness the Samaritan woman at the well, rather than walls between people.  The judgment Christ proclaimed in Matthew 25 doesn't divide us by religious persuasion but rather by our compassion for those in need.  I understand that there are other passages that can be read in other ways, but as best as I can understand these things a non-dualistic, inclusive, universal reading of the New Testament is the one most faithful to Christ.  As best I understand these things.

This is discouraging.  I do not understand the mentality of those who hold to absolutism, exclusivism, and dualism.  And it is clear that "they" don't understand the mentality of those of us who hold to non-dualism, pluralism, and relativism.  Indeed, for each side the words that describe the other side are almost anathema.  Understanding that  I have been and still am part of the problem, I really do wish we could find a way to build bridges across these walls, but it is so rare that we do that I have little hope that it could actually happen—at least in PC(USA) in the next couple of years.

What is really sad is that instead of being an answer to the deep distrust rife in our nation today because of the culture wars we in the church are serious players in those wars.  The whole church is part of the problem rather than part of the solution, which surely puts all of us—progressives as well as evangelicals—at odds with the superintending work of the Spirit, which works for reconciliation, healing, and renewal.  Perhaps, however, we should take heart in Gabriel's statement to Mary when she objected that she couldn't birth a son because she was a virgin.  Gabe reminded Mary that with God all things are possible—and maybe that even includes reconciliation, healing, and renewal among Christians of differing persuasions.  Someday.  One only wonders if we will wait until we have become  a small, irrelevant remnant of a religion before that day, someday.

Reflections on a Draft Theology (vii)

This is the seventh installment in a series of postings reflecting on a document entitled, "Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body," recently posted online by the Fellowship of Presbyterians.

The Draft articulates a highly traditional Calvinist view of humanity summed up in a sentence in section III, "Essentials of the Reformed Tradition," in the chapter of essential tenets, which reads, "Since the fall our natural tendency is to abuse and exploit the creation, preferring evil to goodness."  "The fall," of course, refers to one interpretation of the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis where God creates the world good but Adam and Eve decide to ignore God's commands, eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil, and get themselves thrown out of the Garden of Eden.  The Draft goes on to observe that, "Since the fall, our natural tendency is to engage in relationships of tyranny and injustice with one another, in which power is used not to protect and serve but to demean."  And, finally, "Since the fall, our natural tendency is to hate God and our neighbor, to worship idols of our own devising rather than the one true God."

OK.  One can hardly deny that humanity is seriously deficient in all of the ways described.  We exploit and abuse the natural world.  We often choose evil over good.  We are tyrannical and habitually visit injustice on each other.  We misuse power with sometimes tragic and catastrophic consequences.  We also habitually worship the creations of our own minds, which we sometimes  shape into physical idols and always express as ideologies and ideological theologies.  Guilty as charged, beyond any question.

But, there are some other points to be made:

First, in his outstanding commentary on the Book of Genesis (John Knox Press, 1982), Walter Brueggemann contends that later interpretations of the Genesis stories misinterpret their original intent, which was not to describe a fundamental change in human nature from purely good as created to purely evil.  In general, he argues the Old Testament does not take such a pessimistic view of humanity although some of the prophetic books do lean in that direction (pp. 41ff).  The point is not that Brueggemann is necessarily correct on this point so much as that the Genesis stories can be read in other ways—and we should at least give consideration to the views of Brueggemann, arguably America's leading Old Testament scholar and a man deeply committed to the Christian faith.

Second, it is simply not true that humanity only behaves in the ways described above.  Knowing full well my own frailties and failings, I know that I do not prefer evil to goodness.  I get confused on things and sometimes have a dickens of a time figuring out what is best, but I do not prefer evil over goodness.  Not one person in the community of faith it is my privilege to serve as teaching elder and pastor prefers evil to goodness.  The same is true of every church that I have ever been associated with.  For 11 years, I lived in a largely Buddhist rural community in Thailand, and there is no one in that community that I know of who prefers evil over goodness.  This is not to deny for a minute that there are people who do prefer evil—although most of them probably don't think of the evil they prefer as evil.  It is simply not true, however, that the human race collectively prefers evil.  Bashar al-Assad apparently is a man who prefers evil and visits evil daily on the people of Syria.  But the people of Syria don't prefer evil, indeed, many of them are taking serious personal risks for freedom and justice.

Yes, the human race is busted, broken, and ill-formed.  But we do not collectively prefer evil.  Actually, it makes more sense in the early 21st century to think in evolutionary terms.  God, the author of the universe, as best as we can tell uses evolutionary processes to create.  God thus has been creating the human race for tens of millions of years and our creation goes on today.  The way God does this evidently is through a mixture of natural evolutionary processes shepherded by the underlying presence of God's Spirit prodding us forward to a destination we cannot yet see but might call the Kingdom of God.  So, it's not so much that we are broken as that we are still only half-formed.  But God is not done with us as God's incarnate presence in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, indicates.  There was never a fall in any objective sense, and Eden does not lie behind us in the past but out there ahead of us in the future.

Therefore, third, I would suggest one "minor" change in the wording of the Draft and that is to drop the world "natural" from the phrase, "since the fall, it is our natural tendency..."  We do indeed tend to be abusive, dictatorial, and idolatrous.  We really do.  If, furthermore, Fellowship Presbyterians decide to retain the old-fashioned concept of the fall, so be it.  That is one way to read the Book of Genesis.  However, in light of  actual human nature, it makes no sense to read Genesis as describing an absolute fall into total depravity.  I would humbly suggest that in actual fact our "natural" tendency is toward good, a tendency created in us by God and coaxed out of us by God's superintending Spirit.  Genesis is right on this point: God created us and saw that we are good.  So, we do tend toward evil all too often, but we surely do not collectively prefer evil.  It is not our natural state.

More to follow in the next posting.

Reflections on a Draft Theology (vi)

This is the sixth installment in a series of postings reflecting on a document entitled, "Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body," recently posted online by the Fellowship of Presbyterians.

In this posting, I would like to skip ahead a bit to what I personally feel is one of the most important sentences in the Draft.  It is found at the end of the second paragraph of section II.B, "Incarnation," in the chapter on essential tenets.  Having repeatedly avowed that the incarnation of God in Christ is a mystery the author of this section wrestles with the nature of the incarnation.  The author states that "Jesus is the exact imprint of God's very being."  God's fulness dwelt in Jesus.  Jesus' human nature in no way impaired "the divinity of the Son" and that "his true humanity is in no way undermined by his continued divinity."  There immediately follows the sentence in question, namely, "This is a mystery that we cannot explain, but we affirm it with joy and confidence."  Yes!  This whole Jesus thing is wrapped in a mystery that we simply cannot explain.  That indeed is the meaning and the beauty of  it all.  We're dealing with ultimate things that are beyond our ken yet they are profoundly meaningful to us.

All of the words in the Draft, all of the words and all of our theological treatises from the earliest days of the church down to the present—all of these words upon words upon words simply cannot encompass the mystery of Christ.  So, what are we fighting about?  Why do we get so wrapped up in our words?  Why did we become so angry when we disagree about these things?  All any of us are doing is shouting down a deep dark well.  At the very least, the crucial fact that Christ is a mystery (has to be!) should encourage all of us who claim to be his followers to be willing to listen to each other and share our insights with each other.  It encourages us to dialogue (not discuss, debate, or deliberate but dialogue) with each other.  And it encourages us to be patient with our differences because we are really and truly groping in the dark.  It's hardly surprising that we bump into and stumble over each other.

Reflections on a Draft Theology (v)

This is the fifth installment in a series of postings reflecting on a document entitled, "Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body," recently posted online by the Fellowship of Presbyterians.

The Draft is a draft.  Like all drafts it is a tentative, flawed work.  From my personal perspective one of the most serious flaws is its christology, that is its understanding of the Person of Christ.

Section I, "God's Word: the Sole Authority for Our Confession," under the chapter entitled, "Essential Tenets," begins with a sentence that reads, "The clearest declaration of God's glory is found in his Word, both incarnate and written."  The sense of this sentence is that God's Word takes two forms, Christ and the Bible.  Further on in the same paragraph, the authors state that God's "authoritative self-revelation" is found "both in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and also in the incarnation of God the Son."  Again, the sense is that God's Word takes two forms, the Bible and Christ.  The paragraph closes with the observation that, "The Holy Spirit testifies to the authority of God's Word and illumines our hearts and minds so that we might receive both the Scriptures and Christ himself aright."  One more time, the sense of this sentence too is that God's Word is in two forms, the Bible and Christ—the written Word and the incarnate Word.

At no point does the Draft blatantly claim that Second Person of the Trinity and the Bible are co-equally the Word of God, but any fair reading of the contents of Section I leaves that impression.  And if one looks at the word order, above, often enough the Bible is listed before Christ, which reinforces the sense that they are both equally the Word of God.  One can only ask how it can be that the Bible is co-equal to the Second Person of the Trinity, the divine Son of God?  If Jesus Christ is who the Draft itself later affirms him to be, namely the Second Person of the Trinity, how can the Bible stand as co-equally the Word of God?  That is certainly not the sense of the classic biblical chapter on God's Word, John 1, where Christ alone is the Word.

Apart from the sheer impossibility of the Bible being co-equal with Christ, there is a real danger that the Draft's view of God's Word will take Fellowship Presbyterians in the direction of asserting that the contents of the Bible are everywhere equally authoritative.  It would make still less sense to say that some parts are more "the Word of God" than other parts.  The consequences is thus that if, for example, certain sections of the Old Testament repeatedly portray God as commanding genocide in clear contradistinction to the teachings of Christ and the New Testament, the Draft can be read to mean that we may not allow see those commands as wrong or simply mirroring a much more violent time than ours.  We are required to believe that God is genocidal.  This is not mere theological nit-picking.  In the years leading up to the Civil War, Southern theologians made a strong biblical case for the South's brutal, inhumane form of chattel slavery.  They quoted numerous biblical passages demonstrating that slavery is a part of God's providence.  Their arguments were cogently stated.  According to the draft, we must accept that judgment in spite of the fact that the model of Christ convinces us that slavery is evil—which it obviously is,  Or, again, the New Testament contains passages that clearly put women in a subordinate status in the church and forbid them any authority in it.  The evidence from the gospels, however, shows that Christ took a much different attitude toward women, Samaritans, lepers, tax collectors, and marginalized folks in general.  Still, a theology that insists that the Bible is in its entirety and its every part God's Word requires the subordination of women in the church.

Now, Fellowship Presbyterians have themselves affirmed in any number of places the equal status of women in the church, which suggests that they may not pursue the Draft's view of the Bible as the Word of God to its logically literalist end.  Let us pray not.  I hope, instead, that they recognize that they can affirm the authoritative role of the Bible without assigning it a status virtually co-equal with Christ and reshape the wording in Section I.  We frequently speak of the church as the "Body of Christ," without claiming that it is co-equal with Christ.  We have historically affirmed the authority of our councils and ordered ministries over the church even though we do not see the church as co-equal to Christ.  This is to say that we can best see both the church and the Bible as human products born out of the faith of the first generation of Christians.  For those who are not blinded by ideology disguised as theology, there is no question but what the Bible bears all of the marks of something written by humans, edited by other humans, transcribed by still other humans, and translated by still other humans—and, yes, the Bible has the marks of inspiration, but then we experience inspiration in other places and ways without claiming co-equal status with Christ for inspired prayers, services of worship, small group sharing encounters, or those rich moments in nature that touch us deeply.

The nature and status of the Bible is surely one of the things that divide evangelicals and progressives most deeply from each other.  For me as a theological progressive this section, "God's Word: The Sole Authority for Our Confessions," clearly demonstrates why.  My reliance on the authority of the Bible is grounded on my faith in Christ just as is my membership in the Body of Christ.  Neither church nor Bible are perfect.  Both require a critical attitude because they are products of human minds and human faith, but the purpose of the critical attitude is not tear either one down.  The purpose, is to keep our own minds and hearts open as best we can to the ways the Spirit uses both church and scripture for the benefit of humanity and the building of God's Kingdom.  That is, we exercise a critical attitude toward church and scripture in order to discover again the inspiration that led to their creation in the first place.  Christ is the measure of both scripture and the church, not the other way around.  The Draft thus rightly states that, "The revelation of the incarnate Word does not minimize, qualify or set aside the authority of the written Word."  The reason this sentence is correct is because the authority of the written Word is itself subordinate to Christ and derives its authority from him just as the authority of the church and its ordered ministries are derived from and subordinate to Christ.

If the purpose of this Draft is to honor Christ and better serve him as Lord and Saviour, I would humbly urge a careful rewrite of Section I.  Christ alone is the Word of God.  The Bible is God's word written.

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For another critical appraisal of the Draft that makes some of these same points and others see the Rev. Steven Kurtz' posting, "A Response to the Fellowship of Presbyterian’s recent draft paper on Theology – on Scripture."

Reflections on a Draft Theology (iv)

This is the fourth installment in a series of postings reflecting on a document entitled, "Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body," recently posted online by the Fellowship of Presbyterians.

The first theological section of the Draft is entitled , "Confessional Standards," and provided a bit of a shock for at least this self-described progressive—not because of what I disagree with in it but because I find so much in it that makes sense to me personally.  The Draft, that is, starts off in a way that feels almost inclusive of the whole of PC(USA) rather than just its evangelical wing.  I found that interesting.  It turns out, however, that the author of this section, Joseph D. Small, does not consider himself part of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and has no sympathy with its plans to birth a "new Reformed body" that will break away from PC(USA).  Small has in fact felt it necessary to write an open letter (here) explaining and defending his role as one of the authors of the Draft.  He writes that he was asked by a friend to help write part of the draft, which he was willing to do for the sake of preserving at least some sense of unity and reconciliation in our denomination.  Evidently he has been criticized for doing so, which is unfortunate.  We should instead appreciate and thank him for his efforts—and for the contents of the confessional standards section of the Draft.

The section, "Confessional Statements," opens with an affirmation, namely that confessions of faith contained in the Book of Confessions of the PC(USA) are "the appropriate confessional standards for the Fellowship/New Reformed Body."  Listing the confessions contained in the BOC, the author then observes that, "This collection is theologically faithful, ecclesially appropriate, and organizationally suitable" as standards for the Fellowship and whatever new Reformed body emerges from it.

Where does this last sentence take us?  Are the eleven confessions contained in the BOC really faithful, appropriate, and suitable standards for the church today?  Granting that the Fellowship may take them as such, is it wise to do so?  Considering the almost gale force winds of secularity that are blowing through our churches, is it wise to take even the more recent credal statements as the standards for our faith and practice today?  It seems not. New times require new measures.  Or, better, new times require that we carefully rethink our theological and ecclesiastical heritage(s) in light of contemporary circumstances.  Small suggests as much in his description of the "Reformed understanding of the church's confessional and theological tradition."  He argues that our historical confessions provide us with opportunities for an "ongoing dialogue with those who have lived and died the Faith before us."  Such a dialogue, he suggests, keeps us from being imprisoned in our own times by providing us (if we listen) wisdom from ages past.  We can learn from the way previous generations struggled with the issues of their day and even discover "new apprehensions of the truth" from the answers they discovered.  Their struggles and their wisdom can even provide us with an opportunity "to be utterly honest" about our own failings in the early 21st century.  And in all of this the confessions of the church offer us the possibility of "liberation from the tyranny of the present" as we seek to follow God's will for our generation.

All of this is based on the idea of dialogue.  The Draft (Small) affirms that the confessions of the church are authoritative, but theirs is not an authority that chains us to old answers and archaic worldviews.  Instead, the authority of the confessions invites us into a dialogue with them.  We learn from them.  We look through them to see how previous generations of Christians "did theology" in their time and thus gain insights for our theological tasks today.  The past, then, can in some sense be a bridge into the future.

This is good stuff.

Small's proposed dialogue, however, needs a bit of "tweaking."  He proposes a dialogue between the authors of the confessions and their times and the church today, a dialogue between two partners.  We would do well to invite a third party to the table and that third party is the secular world we live in.  We need to invite science to the party.  We need to invite the forces of non-sectarian democracy to the table.  We need to listen to the sometimes strident voices of atheists.  We need to pay careful attention to scholars, such as Peter Berger, who study secularity and use what we learn from them as a part of our dialogue with the confessions.  We need to invite folks from other religions, such as Thich Nhat Hanh, to join us in our dialogue so that we incorporate as many creative and representative voices as we can in the dialogue.  The Holy Spirit rides the winds of secularity seeking to bend them to God's will, and it is our daunting task to discern the Spirit's "still small voice" in those winds.  To do that, we must study the winds carefully.  Joe Small is correct.  The confessions of the church can be invaluable aids, partners in a sense, that help us bend an ear to the Spirit, but we can't confine our dialogue to the confessions alone because then we could become imprisoned in the traditions of the church rather than liberated by our theological heritage.

I thus have to question the Draft's contention that, "Our task is to be faithful to our vows [as teaching & ruling elders], reading and studying the confessions, learning from them, teaching them, and living out their wisdom."  If these activities are intended to chart the path toward church renewal in the 21st century, they are almost certainly going to be a dead end.  Sure, it will be helpful to study the confessions.  In some venues it will be helpful to teach them to members of the congregations (to the extent that they are at all interested).  But we will only hasten the decline of our declining churches if we seek to live out today the wisdom of the confessions.  Ours is a search for new ways, new means, new insights, new ways of taking reasoned risks, and while we can certainly learn from the wisdom of past generations we need to see the limits of their wisdom.  None of them faced what we face, just as we will never face what they faced.

Still, this is good stuff.

Reflections on a Draft Theology (iii)

This is the third installment in a series of postings reflecting on a document entitled, "Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body," recently posted online by the Fellowship of Presbyterians.

From a progressive perspective, the Draft's concept of "essentials" is unclear and problematic as discussed in the previous posting in this series.  The section entitled "The second task," sheds further light on all of this.  It reads, "The second paper [of the Draft] invites us to discuss, debate, deliberate, and finally to decide what truths reside in the heart of our Faith and what is the proper Reformed expression of those truths."  This sentence takes the Draft in two different directions at the same time.

On the one hand and remembering that the "us" is apparently Presbyterian evangelicals, the language of this sentence suggests that the Draft is seeking to open doors and build bridges as much as it is seeking to define boundaries. It is an invitation to engage in discussions, debates, and deliberations.  By implication, there is going to have to be a period of listening to one another in a reflective mood.  Furthermore, the thing being sought after is the discovery of a set of truths that "reside in the heart of our Faith."  Such explorations are important to the whole church and especially local churches.  In the hustle and bustle of weekly church life most active members are actively engaged in activities, doing things.  Local churches "do" an often impressive array of things.  What we don't do so much of is engage in important discussions with each other about spiritual matters.  Some members belong to small groups, and some small groups do discuss the deeper matters of faith, but that isn't the usual experience of the bulk of church goers.  The Draft is inviting Fellowship Presbyterians to engage in a journey of discovery, and that is potentially very exciting.  One prays that it will work out well for those engaged in the process.

The following section, "The third task," points to some of the potential for this proposed process of discovery.  Its goal is to identify practices important for the future, practices that can be built into the common life and the structures of the church.  It calls for a learning process, which is always an exciting prospect.  The goal of the process is to  contribute to "the theological well-being of the church" with an eye to building this theological health into the structures and mission of the churches.  The authors of the Draft "propose the establishment of theological friendships in communities of mutual encouragement and accountability."  At the end of this process of theological reflection, the Draft envisages a clearly stated theological confession that Fellowship Presbyterians can adopt sincerely.  It is a confession that will sustain their convictions.

One hears in these words a longing among evangelical Presbyterians for denominational and local church structures that they can buy into whole-heartedly and with conviction, ones that will reflect their understanding of the faith and that will foster a spirit of friendship among them.  They are hungry for a life together that belongs to them not in a political sense but in a spiritual sense.  They are seeking a theological family that they can embrace sincerely, that will give clarity to their faith and beliefs, and that will sustain them rather than seem bent on tearing them down.

Framed in this way, the rest of PC(USA) cannot but wish Fellowship Presbyterians well on the journey, knowing of course that for quite a few the journey will take them away from our denomination.  That's sad but evidently inevitable.  The undercurrent of ill will and of profound political and ideological tension that has permeated PC(USA) for so many decades (actually, going back as far as the 1870s) seems to have rendered reconciliation impossible, which is a severe judgment on all of us.

In all of this, however, there is a point of concern that could well cast a shadow over the process.  I hinted at it in the last posting and would like to explore it a little further here.  In the sentence I quoted at the beginning of this posting, the Draft calls for discussions, debate, and deliberations that will ultimately lead to  decisions about which "truths reside in the heart of our faith."  The three d's of discussion, debate, and deliberation suggests a worrisome and potentially divisive process that is built on people talking first and listening later.  The idea of debate especially suggests an adversarial approach where various individuals bring their positions to the table and then duke it out with contending ones brought by others.  Debaters first establish their own position and then defend it.  One listens only to discern the flaws in the thinking of others.  While the ideas behind "discussion" and "deliberation" are somewhat less in your face, they too are built on the premise that one discusses one's own position with others who have their positions.  Such discussions require deliberation aimed at deciding the right and the wrong of the various positions taken.  One prays that the spirit of friendship the Draft calls for will carry Fellowship Presbyterian safely through the potentially rough waters of theological debate, but the larger history of the Christian movement down to the present is forbidding on this point.  We have a propensity for theological strife that is clearly demonstrated in our denomination today.  Can the Fellowship of Presbyterians dodge this bullet?  One can only wonder.

It would be better, I feel personally, to build the whole process on dialogue, which begins with listening and does not seek conformity.  In dialogue, partners in the process are not concerned to defend their views however deeply they hold them.  Rather, dialogue partners genuinely want to learn about and from others.  It is true that such partners will disagree on important points, but rather than debating those differences in search of consensus, they will learn what they can from the differences and otherwise celebrate their diversity.  The goal remains a common search for truth, but the process wisely understands that truth cannot be had through consensus.  Such a process, we can assume, would result in a plethora of confessions rather than in the one clearly stated confession the Draft is calling for, but at the end of the day it seems very possible that the search for consensus will only serve to create more division.

Reflections on a Draft Theology (ii)

This is the second installment in a series of postings reflecting on a document entitled, "Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body," recently posted online by the Fellowship of Presbyterians.

Another key difference between evangelical and progressive Presbyterians is this whole thing about the "essentials" of the Reformed faith.  From a progressive perspective, the idea of "essentials" seems slippery at best.  Under the heading "Essential Tenets," the Draft defines the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation as being the two central Christian mysteries.  They are essential doctrines so far as faith is concerned.  The problem is that neither one of them are found in their full expression in the New Testament.  It took the church some centuries to work out each of these "essential" doctrines.  Yes, both are implied to one degree or another in the New Testament—but even seeing that they are implied requires that we read later theological developments back into the Bible.  The earliest generations of Christians thus did not have access to the essentials of faith that we do now.  (I am assuming here that the essentials of the Reformed faith are not different from the essentials of Christian faith although the Reformed traditions may express or emphasize them in distinct ways—the Draft seems to take this same view).  Was the early church defective then in its faith and understanding of Christ?  That seems to be a harsh judgment to make.

More generally, the concept of theological essentials is itself murky, at least in the Draft.  They are tied somehow to scripture.  They are central affirmations and truths also found in the theological confessions of the church.  They are "indispensable indicators of confessional convictions" about the Bible's teachings.  They are something that PC(USA)'s ordained leadership should willingly accept.  None of this is particularly clear, and the problem is that the Draft doesn't really explain what the essentials are essential for.  Are they essential for salvation?  Presumably so.  But does this mean that one must believe in the Doctrine of the Trinity to be saved?  What then about the earliest generation of Jewish followers of Jesus?  They believed that Jesus was the messiah but had no sense of the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation.  Were they not saved by their faith in Jesus the Messiah?  They believed (trusted) in Christ but not with doctrines developed only in later centuries.  We could argue that these doctrines are essential today because we have  developed them, but such an argument would certainly violate the spirit of the Draft, which rejects the idea that essential doctrines evolve over time.  Essential tenets surely must have been essential from the beginning if they are essential now.  That seems to be what the word essential means.  So, either the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation are not essential after all, or the earliest church did not accept truly essential essentials.  Or, perhaps, it could be argued that the early church did accept the essentials of these doctrines, which means that there are versions of the doctrines that are essential and other versions that include non-essentials.

When one pokes at the concept of "essential," is truly is a slippery concept.

And then there is the perennial question of who decides what is essential.  The Draft rests on the premise that there are essentials, which are contained in scripture and pointed to by the confessions of the church.  It acknowledges that the PC(USA) has lost touch with these essentials—something that evangelical Presbyterians share blame for.  The Draft wants to discover again these essentials and seems to be proposing that evangelical Presbyterians do so by dialoging among themselves as part of the process of forming a new Reformed body.  Are these essentials to be established by a vote of a general assembly of the new Reformed body?  Should they not be so compelling that any reasonably articulate and faithful follower of Christ would understand them?   They are, after all, essentials—no small or peripheral matters.  If they are truly essential should not even more moderate, less conservative Christians see them as such?  Do we share these essentials with other faith traditions such as Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy?  Who decides all of this?  And by what authority do they decide it?

Truth be told, the proposed search for essentials seems to be more of a quest for identity and boundaries by which evangelical Presbyterians can self-identify each other and thus exclude those who do not belong in their fold.  They are essential for joining the Fellowship of Presbyterians and for being involved in the founding of a new Reformed body.  More largely, a clear set of essentials will allow their signatories to judge whose faith is more faithful to Christ and whose is less faithful.  So, the real issue is not so much what the essentials are essential for as for whom are they essential.  Sadly, one can foresee the day when the new Reformed body angrily splits into two bodies over profound disagreement on essentials.  It seems only to be a matter of time.

Let us grant that PC(USA) has failed to treat seriously the quest for faithful theologies and the importance of theological literacy, and we are paying a serious price for our failure.  Is the search for essentials the antidote?  It feels like a divisive search, one meant to build walls and create standards for judging the theologies of others.  It feels like a largely closed process meant to exclude the unacceptable.  Only certain, carefully circumscribed ways of reading scripture and interpreting the confessions will be acceptable.  Over the last 2,000 years, we have gone over and over and over this same ground.  We have fought wars with each other—executed each other.  Would not an open process of dialogue across ideological and theological boundaries be more likely to articulate what is truly essential in our faith?  Why do we keep doing the same old thing over and over and over?  Does not the world deserve better of the Body of Christ?

Reflections on a Draft Theology (i)

The Fellowship of Presbyterians is a conservative/evangelical Presbyterian Church (USA) reform movement that is seeking new directions for its wing of the denomination.  It was formed in the aftermath of the controversial decision to no longer automatically forbid the ordination of gays and homosexuals to the ministries of the denomination.  In preparation for its "covenanting conference" to be held in Orlando on January 18-20, the Fellowship has prepared a document entitled, "Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body," which sets down in preliminary form a proposed theological orientation for the Fellowship—and for the new Reformed denomination that will evidently result from the Orlando conference.  It deserves careful attention by the whole denomination, and what I would like to do here is to reflect on its contents using them as a springboard to explore some contemporary theological issues.  I can't do this all at once and will add to this series of reflections as time allows and the spirit moves.

The immediate goal of the Draft is to initiate theological discussions within the Fellowship of Presbyterians looking to reclaim its Reformed heritage as an essential step to forming a new Reformed body from the evangelical wing of the PC(USA).  Its larger purpose is to foster discussions that will lead to a theological consensus and a spirit of theological friendship among those engaged in giving birth to this new Reformed body.  Its perspective is thus evangelical and Reformed.

The Draft begins with a confession of failure on the part of the PC(USA).  We have "severely weakened our worship and witness" by our "casual affirmation of our theological heritage."  We are "squandering the gifts our confessional heritage could give us."  The confession is an inclusive one, which is to say that the Draft recognizes that the evangelical wing of the denomination bears its own responsibility the sad state of the denomination's theological condition.  The Draft proposes to address this situation by promoting discussion leading to a theological consensus among Pc(USA) evangelicals concerning the essentials of the Reformed faith.  One of the main tasks of the new Reformed body that will emerge from the Fellowship is to foster this consensus.  "Identifying essentials," according to the Draft, "necessarily and rightly focuses our theological conversation and our life together."

Wordle for the Theological Draft document

It is clear that the authors of the Draft believe that our failure to ground ourselves in our confessional heritage and our loss of theological consensus is a key reason for the decline of PC(USA) churches.  It is for this reason that the Fellowship has issued the Draft.  It intends to build the future of its proposed new Reformed body on a firm  consensus rooted in the classical confessions of the Presbyterian church.

The Draft's analysis of what is needful for reclaiming the future does not appear to be based on any empirical data.  The decline of our churches is evident, but the causes are multiple and not clear.  They are often at least partly local as demographic changes leave some churches high and dry while others benefit from being located in areas of growing population.  It is not evident on the face of it that reclaiming a particular theological heritage will address actual causes of decline.

The Draft's analysis, furthermore, is built on the unstated assumption that liberalism is the primary cause of mainline church decline.  Liberal churches decline whereas conservative ones don't.  Evangelicals have long argued that in order to move forward, we must reclaim the classical doctrines and faith of the church.  The authors of the Draft look to PC(USA)'s Book of Confessions as our treasury of classical Reformed faith and write, "The documents that compose The Book of Confessions are not seen in our rear view mirrors as road markers of where the church has been; they are seen through our windshield as faithful and sure guides for our perilous road ahead."  The problem is that in our age of advancing secularity even the most conservative and faithfully evangelical churches are beginning to decline.  The Southern Baptist Convention has in the last decade passed a tipping point and the pace of statistical decline is slowly accelerating.  By the same token, evangelical megachurches are losing their momentum of growth and beginning to show indications that the boom times are coming to an end. Evangelical fervor, seriousness of purpose, and deep commitment to their churches has heretofore shielded many of their congregations as well as their denominations from the creeping secularity of our times.  Creeping secularity is slowly rendering these traits ineffective.  And, in any event, it is not at all clear that the theological orientation of evangelical churches in and of itself had much to do with their staying power down to the present.  Their deep sense of conviction seems to have been much more important.

It seems, then, that the Fellowship of Presbyterians is charting its future course and putting its hope on an assumption that does not bear out in the real world of church decline.  We are in a new age.  It is secular in nature.  Reclaiming our theological heritage will not ultimately address the challenge of secularity.  This is not to say that theological literacy is unimportant.  It is important, but it is not the key factor in decline.  Large segments of the church have always been "theologically challenged" even in ages when the church grew almost automatically.