Desmond Tutu to The PC (USA): Good Work

One of the prominent arguments against ordaining gay men and women to church office is that the “global church” finds the move unconscionable. Conservatives in America have become enamored of the “global church” of late, often claiming that departing from it in this matter is nothing short of theological arrogance.

Now, a letter addressed to Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA) by none other than Desmond Tutu casts serious doubt on this “global church” position. Tutu is a retired Bishop of the Anglican Church in South Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his efforts to fight apartheid. He wrote to Parsons to express his support for the PC (USA)’s recent change to its constitution that will permit gay ordination. Here’s an excerpt:

I realize that among your ecumenical partners, some voices are claiming that you have done the wrong thing, and I know that you rightly value your relationship with Christians in other parts of the world. Sadly, it is not always popular to do justice, but it is always right. People will say that the ones you are now willing to ordain are sinners. I have come to believe, through the reality shared with me by my scientist and medical friends, and confirmed to me by many who are gay, that being gay is not a choice. Like skin color or left-handedness, sexual orientation is just another feature of our diversity as a human family. How wonderful that God has made us with so much diversity, yet all in God’s image! Salvation means being called out of our narrow bonds into a broad place of welcome to all.

That a prominent churchman from another part of the global church community supports the change in ordination standards does not, of course, mean that the issue is settled. Many brothers and sisters across the globe do not support it and find it deeply offensive. But Tutu is an important voice of reason in the conversation. His letter disqualifies blanket appeals to the global church as, in and of themselves, conclusive.

The Fellowship Gathering: First Thoughts

“I remember when we shared a vision, you and I”

The Mountain Goats

I’ve just returned from The Fellowship of Presbyterians gathering in Minneapolis. The event was organized by a group of evangelical pastors within the PC (USA) who called like-minded pastors and elders to join with them in creating a New Reformed Body connected to the current denomination and yet separate from it. Though I’m not one of those like-minded pastors (as evidenced by this post), I attended on behalf of my presbytery to listen to The Fellowship’s proposals and to work with local colleagues around them.

Better bloggers than I have summarized the gathering’s accomplishments. Here’s a summary from a sympathetic participant and one from an unsympathetic not-participant. Rather than summarize, I need to process. Thank you.

[update: I contributed to a roundup of reactions over at Two Friars and A Fool that gets more into the mechanics of the event]

I’m troubled by a couple of things. This post will process one.

I’ve been underestimating the distinct theological, methodological, and sociological DNA of evangelicalism and its expression within mainline denominations like the PC (USA). Which surprises me, given my evangelical breeding. I was baptized in a charismatic church and went to college at an evangelical Presbyterian school. I fumbled a job interview at a progressive church with an uncritical recitation of the reasons why gays shouldn’t be ordained, and the first chance I had to vote on the issue, I stood for the status quo (the “fidelity and chastity” standards).

The Fellowship is an expression of the core convictions of American evangelicalism: that the church exists to seek and save lost sinners (read: everyone), that the Bible is the only admissible guide to faith and life, and that Christians stand in a position of loving opposition to the wider culture in which they’re situated. My time in Minneapolis illuminated how differently I relate to those convictions now than I did even five years ago. It’s not that I don’t believe them, it’s that words like “sin,” “save,” and “guide” (not to mention “sex“) have acquired meanings for me that they didn’t have before. The old meanings haven’t been replaced so much as nuanced, complemented, and, pray God, enriched.

I have to believe that God has been in this process, while I still acknowledge that I could be wrong.

This unsettling realization has sent me running to historians of the evangelical movement to help me better understand the ways in which The Fellowship movement is replaying an oppose-and-separate movie the church has seen before (I’m starting here and here). Every Christian denomination has evangelicals in it, even though the vast majority of evangelical Christians belong to church expressions that aren’t affiliated with anything like an organized denomination. For mainline protestants in the U.S., that has always been the case, and it has always been a source of tension, if not all-out conflict (see the First and Second Great Awakenings). Since coming into mainline protestantism in my early 20’s, I’ve understood myself to be an heir of the evangelicals in those conflicts.

I don’t anymore.

My gut reaction to the things happening in Minneapolis showed me that I’m now standing somewhere else. I’m not sure what to make of that.

Are Presbyteries Families?

The Presbyterian Church (USA) is entering a period of renegotiation, as congregations and presbyteries absorb the reality that both the New Form of Government and amendment 10-A may pass. A number of efforts are already underway to align congregations and presbyteries on the basis of theological agreement and not geography, a shift that will involve the creation of entirely new presbyteries. Presbyteries and church sessions, as well as a Middle Governing Bodies commission formed by the last General Assembly, are working on these things at the same time.

At the center of this renegotiation is the understanding of the purpose of church structures beyond the congregation, namely presbyteries, but also a denomination per se. And at the center of that conception are metaphors. The Ministers and Presbytery Executives who are urging this realignment are doing so with metaphors to describe presbyteries and the denomination. I want to examine those metaphors.

[[Excursis: the PC (USA) Book of Order doesn’t dally in metaphor when it comes to presbyteries: “Presbytery is a corporate expression of the church consisting of all the churches and Minsters of the Word and Sacrament within a certain district. The Presbytery is responsible for the mission and governance of the church throughout its geographical district.”

The proposed New Form of Government adds language about the imperative for congregations to “share with others both within and beyond the congregation the task of bearing witness to the lordship of Jesus Christ in the world.” Neither of these draw on anything metaphorical.]]

One metaphor being employed for presbyteries in an attempt to re-conceive their nature and purpose is the family. A colleague of mine writes:

The reason for doing something like this is to create circles of shared mission, shared theology, and trust within a diverse and fractured larger body. I’d compare this to the familial unit existing within a diverse nation. I like having a family with shared values. One of the reasons my wife and I got married was because of the values that we shared . . . We had certain shared values, which created trust and intimacy between us, and we teach those values to our children.

That congregations ought to experience trust and intimacy with one another as they share the tasks of ministry is undeniably important. But are family-style trust and intimacy enough to carry the load of that task? And are there aspects of family life that go unnoticed by this adoption of the metaphor? And does choosing to align with a presbytery with whom a congregation shares certain values mean that it believes the churches in its current presbytery don’t share those values? Isn’t choosing to leave one family for another divorce?

I would press my colleague to identify precisely those values that he doesn’t think we share. And I would ask him to consider that perhaps the parental role in the family is not the one that churches should occupy in the metaphor. If, as our denomination affirms, “Christ is the Head of the church,” then aren’t churches related to one another as siblings? Siblings may grow apart. They may have open conflict. One may even kill the other. But they can’t simply adopt different families.

The truism, “You can’t choose your family” ought to be remembered here. You can choose your friends, and that’s more in line with what people do when they choose to get married. In that case, it’s worth stating that the bonds of marriage aren’t negated because the values of one of the spouses changes. Families don’t always share the same values. They don’t stop being families because of that.

If congregations wish to align themselves with presbyteries with whom they imagine they share values not shared by their current presbyteries, then they are not joining a family but a circle of friends. Maybe friendship is a better metaphor for the kinds of connections we ought to seek within a denomination (it certainly bears fruit for these folks). I’m not sure. I feel strongly, though, that The Family is not as helpful as my colleague thinks