Reflections on a Draft Theology (xii)

This is the twelfth and final 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.

We come now to the Draft's proposals for a way forward based on its concerns about the current theological and confessional state of the PC(USA), which the authors of the Draft do not see as good to say the least.    In the last half of the last chapter of the Draft, entitled, "Ideas & Questions for Immediate Consideration," the authors propose that it is now time to reengage in "theological work."  This reengagement will require sustained conversations, prayer, rigorous study of Scripture, a willingness to listen "to the voice of the church around the world and through the ages," and reliance on theological wisdom.  The Draft proposes that "we" (who this "we" is not clearly stated) form "theological friendships" among elders and clergy, ones that will provide mutual assistance and accountability in carrying out needed theological work.  These friendships need to be deep, sustained, and broad.

All of this sounds anywhere from interesting to helpful to verging on exciting.  The Draft even proposes that Fellowship Presbyterians make use of an emerging program in the PC(USA) called, "A Pastoral Rule," as a tool for developing sustained theological friendships.  And it concludes by suggesting three "theological projects" that the Fellowship should engage in: (1) make a renewed commitment to a "particular confessional heritage"; (2) identify & affirm the essential tenets of the Reformed Faith; and (3) make a commitment to "re-engaging the theological enterprise broadly and deeply."

The tone of this concluding section is generally inclusive, but what is not clear is inclusive of whom.  Indeed, as I think about the whole Draft it seems to reflect a mixture of values and perspectives that are not classically evangelical, at least not rigorously so.  It is telling of this mixed presentation that one of the three authors of the Draft, Joe Small, is a mainstream Presbyterian who has no intention of going off into another denomination (see installment iv).  Thus, sometimes the Draft comes across as "hardcore" evangelical and sometimes it comes across as seriously "ecumenical".  Parts of it seem to beckon a response from those of us who are not self-styled evangelicals, but parts of it seem almost antagonistic.  And, in fact, the proposals contained in this last section of the Draft are ones that the whole denomination would do well to consider.  The discussion questions contained in the Addendum (p. 11) are very good ones and worthy of a good deal of dialogue in search of answers.

In the end, however, any attempt to talk across the boundaries of our self-styled theologies using the Draft as a means for such a dialogue is problematic at best.  It comes back to the central concern expressed in the Draft in several places that there be a theological consensus that exhibits the Reformed heritage—a consensus that is rigorous and affirmed by all who are involved in the process of seeking that consensus.  The Draft's proposed theological friendships are apparently friendships within a theological faction of the denomination rather than friendships formed across the boundaries of such factions.  We catch a hint that the friendships are so limited in the list of goals for theological friendships (page 10), item c.(3), which says that the friendships should include a "breadth of participants" from "other orthodox and evangelical theological traditions."   Now, one must say immediately that the list does not exclude anyone and that item (d) calls for these theological friendships to "engage other theological fellowships, thus forming broadening communities,"  which suggests broadly drawn boundaries.  Still, apparently, those who are worthy of inclusion in the formation of theological friendships are those who are orthodox and evangelical.  At the end of the day, the Draft's (and our denomination's) heritage of dissension and conflict suggests that Fellowship Presbyterians are seeking to build their theological relationships within the circle of evangelicals.  Progressives, certainly, need not apply.

Fair enough.  We can appreciate the heart-felt need to work on matters of faith & theology with others who share the same general perspective, especially when the goal is to define core or essential tenets.  It may well prove, however, a more difficult process than Fellowship Presbyterians realize.  They could well find is that they can't come to the desired consensus and that different individuals, all self-professed evangelicals, will take different stands on the essentials to the point that the process breaks down because it is based on "discussions, deliberations, and debate" rather than dialogue (see installment iii).  Or it could happen that what comes out at the end is so broad and watered down as to carry little weight.  The sad truth is that evangelicals often fight among themselves as intensely as they fight with the rest of us.  The drive for theological consensus inherently builds walls and creates still smaller factions within factions.

Let me conclude with one other concern, one that I have voiced earlier in these postings (see installment iv).  "Theological work" is a good thing, and it is important.  There is very little chance, however, that it will lead to the kind of church renewal that mainline churches of all stripes need today.  However hard Fellowship pastors work at it, only a fraction of their membership is going to become theologically articulate.  Many more will not be interested or not have the time or not be intellectually inclined in the way required for theological literacy.  Furthermore, theologically rigorous Reformed preaching is not going to communicate across the boundaries of America's growing secularity.  Reformed theology requires an arcane language especially if it is going to be based on historical confessions, which themselves speak to the needs and issues of other times and places.  I'm sure that Fellowship churches plan to do much more than engage in discovering a theological consensus and build theological friendships, and their hope will be in those other things—not in the theological work.  It's a dead end street in and of itself.

There is little question about it.  Once the Fellowship of Presbyterians creates its "new Reformed body," and numbers of clergy, laity, and whole churches break away entirely from PC(USA)—once this happens what will be left is a still weaker PC(USA) and yet another smallish new Presbyterian denomination that may grow for a time as it pulls members from the old denomination and in its initial enthusiasm attracts some others.  In the long run, however, the "winner" is America's growing secularity.  While creeping secularism saps the life from congregations across the nation (and especially here in the Northeast), we Presbyterians seem bent on expending great amounts of energy on fighting amongst ourselves.  The establishment of yet another denomination only encourages the decline of our shared faith.  That is to say that the Draft and its call for a return to the essential tenets of the Reformed tradition is actually complicit in weakening the whole Body of Christ and its ability to discover new directions for a new age.  I can only add with all due humility that it is not alone in its complicity.

Reflections on a Draft Theology (xi)

This is the eleventh 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 previous posting in this series (here), I spent a full posting on the first paragraph of the final chapter of the Draft.  Moving on, we find in the next paragraphs the Fellowship's central complaint against the PC(USA) as they experience it today.  PC(USA) has lost interest in forging a theological consensus.  It prefers ambiguity and is suspicious of certainties.  It rejects as "arcane" the issues debated by the church in earlier generations and again shows little interest in "doctrinal work."  Pastors try to teach the truth to their parishioners without laying "foundations of the truth in the hearts and minds of the congregation."  Ruling elders have become mere managers and aren't able to teach the Faith themselves.  In all, the church has neglected "the substance of the Faith" in a way that evidently pervades the denomination.

There is truth in these charges.  The evangelical unrest with PC(USA) is not without reason, whatever one's theological orientation.  We have given short shrift to what the Draft calls, "theological work," and we have failed as churches to inculcate an articulate faith among the faithful.  Truth be told, part of the reason may well be our reluctance to talk about things where we might differ if we did talk.  For many church members, theological differences seem to be a dangerous minefield best stayed away from.  And it must be said bluntly that evangelicals (not all, of course, but many esp. among the more demonstrative evangelical folk) are as much to blame for that condition as anyone.   When in this chapter the Draft notes that many of our theological debates have been graceless and divisive, one trusts the authors and the Fellowship understand their role in making it so—not they alone, again of course, but the vocal evangelical presence in PC(USA) has been at times blatantly graceless, unloving, and divisive.  Sadly, vocal progressives have at times given as ill as they received.

Where we again part company is at the point where the Draft's authors state, "We have forgotten the humble recognition that ambiguities exist and must be respected, and now dwell in a land where ambiguities are preferred, and certainties are suspect.  We are coached to celebrate diversity of theological conviction, rather than seeing this as a sign of important work yet to be done."  That is, we Presbyterians do not humbly acknowledge or respect such ambiguities as do exist but paradoxically prefer ambiguity and uncertainty.   Does that make sense?  Perhaps from the perspective of some of our evangelical brothers and sisters it does because they undoubtedly feel as though progressives have pursued their agendas in the denomination uncompromisingly, which is true.  Vocal progressives have not recognized or respected the ambiguities that many evangelicals feel.  But that is also the kettle complaining about the soot on the pots and pans.  Both sides of the argument have treated each other in that way.

The charge that must be taken more seriously is the sense that we in PC(USA) prefer ambiguity and are suspicious of certainties.  To a degree, I believe that many of us are guilty as charged and with reason.  It is the same reason I alluded to in the previous posting,  and it has to do with idolatry.  For me, personally, faith is not a call to certitude but to trust.  I remain firmly convinced that my doubts and uncertainties are an important part of my faith.  They keep me from being too self-assured and, at least I hope, from being too self-important.  They remind me that I don't have a handle on Jesus and demand humility from me (not that I pay attention to the demand all the time!).  There is so much that we cannot understand that doubt and uncertainty are natural to our "epistemological condition."  If faith is not ambiguous, it is not faith.  We depend on trust because we do not know for sure.  Certitude too often leads to arrogance.

And then there is the temper of our postmodern times, which itself has an almost innate mistrust of grand schemes of belief (so-called "meta-narratives") and tends to frown on the very concept of objectivity.  I admit to having been "infected" with such inclinations—as are many other progressive Christians.  Evangelical Presbyterians, apparently, continue to inhabit a "Newtonian" universe where there is one universal objective truth and where words have basically one meaning for both writers and readers, hence they are able to read the Bible in the way its original authors intended it to be read.  In that universe, theology is does not emerge from metaphors but rather is grounded in objective facts.

Progressives and evangelicals inhabit different cognitives universes.  And, apparently, never the twain shall meet.  The thing that is at the heart of the matter thus is not differences about Christ as real as our differences might be.  The heart of the matter is that we really do live in different mental worlds.  I'm not sure, however, why that means we can't inhabit the same denomination.  I lived for 25 years in a nation, Thailand, and a cognitive universe, Thai culture, not my own.  I learned how to live in that universe and to speak its language with some facility.  I found it stimulating and challenging to be able to function in a world not my own, and I'm a better person for it.  It is ironic that we who share so much in common are so determined to be defeated by our differences in spite of our common faith in Christ.

Reflections on a Draft Theology (x)

This is the tenth 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 concludes with a chapter entitled, "Ideas & Questions for Immediate Consideration," which deserves our careful attention because it articulates a direction for the Fellowship to pursue as it begins to put flesh on the barebones  of its current "structure."  The chapter begins with the following paragraph:

"The Church has a Faith without which she cannot live faithfully. Truth leads to duty, faith to practice. A church that wants to be a servant found faithful to its commission must be a steward of the Faith entrusted to its care. A fellowship that desires to be an effective witness to the gospel, must know the gospel. An apostolic church must not only live a life like that of the apostles, it must teach what the apostles’ taught."

But for the capital "F", the first sentence appears redundant, but with it we seem to come close to the crux of the matter for many Fellowship Presbyterians, namely that PC(USA) today is deficient in its grasp of Faith and thus is not living it out. Were that not the case, it is hard to see the need for the Fellowship or a "new Reformed body." The problem with capital "F" Faith is that it does not exist and never has since the beginnings of the church. Empirically, we can only speak of Christian faiths of which there has been a multitude over the long centuries.  The adherents of many of them, probably the great majority of them, have proclaimed their own version as the one true Faith.  One wonders why we keep doing this to ourselves, but we do.  Indeed, this is a key difference evangelical and progressive Presbyterians, self-styled.  Evangelical Presbyterians continue to believe in and pursue the clearest expression possible of the One True Faith on which depends, usually, our salvation and the health of our churches.  For progressives such a thing does not exist in any empirical, objective sense; there are, as I say, only the many variations of faith in  Christ.  There is no need to re-hash this point.  We've touched on it in this series before.  But we do need to acknowledge that this is one of the key points of divergence that divide the good people of PC(USA) one from another.  Some of us are committed to our faith as being as best we understand the Faith while others of us are committed to a faith, which we understand to be but one of many possible expressions of faith in Christ.

For PC(USA) this crucial difference in mentality and perspective between evangelicals and progressives means apparently that we must go through yet another denominational split and add another "Reformed body" to the stable of Reformed and Presbyterian denominations.  Some (many? most?) of those who believe in Faith rather than faiths do not feel that they can remain in the same church with those of us who believe our faith to be one valid expression of faith rather than the only true one.  That is the bottom line, one that goes even deeper than the whole standards of ordination debate.

Moving on.

"Truth leads to duty," I would prefer to restate as "The search for truth leads to duty."  Fellowship Presbyterians will just as surely object to this rewording as reflecting some of what they find "wrong" with PC(USA) today, a looseness that feels like faithlessness.  For myself, the insistence on not capitalizing Faith or believing that I have a handle on the Truth actually lies at the heart of my struggle to be a person of faith.  Idolatry is a real danger that all those who would follow Christ faithfully must grapple with.  In our time, the most dangerous idols are ideas rather than physical images, and any time we start capitalizing nouns such as Truth or Faith we are in danger of turning them into things we worship in place of God.  There is a fine but important line between believing as a matter of faith (trust) and believing in Faith as an idol in place of God.

 And, yes, faith surely does lead to practice as day follows night.

The concept of "a steward of the Faith" offers intriguing possibilities so long as "Faith" is not understood to be an absolute.  We have inherited a set of traditions in the Presbyterian church, and we do have a set of confessions that speak from the midst of that tradition. Fellowship Presbyterians, to go back to a point made early in this series, make an important point when they observe that we haven't done much of a job at all at using the Book of Confessions as a tool for theological reflection and faithful action.  We would do well to pay attention to the criticism, especially because the Draft faults evangelical Presbyterians as much as anybody.  Even here, however, it would behoove Fellowship Presbyterians to understand that theology is not everybody's "thing" and that verbally semi-inarticulate Christians can still faithfully follow Christ by the way they live (see Nancy T. Ammerman, "Golden Rule Christianity").  Yes, there are dangers in the failure to be articulate in one's faith, but there are also dangers in fixating on the articulation of faith as well.

The Draft goes on to state that, "A fellowship that desires to be an effective witness to the gospel, must know the gospel."  No argument there.  And thank you for the small "g" in the word "gospel".  (One wonders, though, why "Faith" is capitalized at points but "gospel" isn't, since the two are often used as cognates of each other).  The final sentence in this paragraph, "An apostolic church must not only live a life like that of the apostles, it must teach what the apostles’ taught," makes an important point as well, so long as we understand that we have to "live like the apostles" in an entirely different social, political, and economic context and that different faithful Christians will do so in different ways.  And we also have to remember that "teaching with the apostles taught" as recorded in the New Testament leaves us a great deal of latitude theologically.  At least from this progressive's point of view, there are many different faithful ways to read the teachings of the apostles, none of them perfectly faithful but still faithful.  For clarity's sake, I am not suggesting that all readings of the New Testament are faithful, but I would insist that many are substantially faithful within the limitations of our struggle to be understand matters of faith.

In sum, this first paragraph displays again both the things that divide us and that we share in common.  I wonder what would happen if the Fellowship of Presbyterians brought the Draft to the denominational table and said, "Let's talk," instead of using it as an instrument for considering withdrawal from PC(USA)?  Would the rest of us be responsive?  Could we actually talk with each other across the boundaries of our differences, given how much we hold in common?  I wonder.