The Error of Church Unity

At the end of the 2008 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury was quoted in the New York Times (August 4, 2008) as saying he was hopeful the expected covenant would help avoid schism. If he is quoted correctly, he said that everyone would be moving along "in step" and the church would be acting more like a church.

That hit me right in the old ecclesiology! That might have worked in the earlier generations, but the church in the 21st century cannot flourish in a a lock-step unity. It's the same error being promoted in my denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Church leaders continue to hold out for unity as a primary value. The Presbyterians require a vow that church leaders will "further the peace, unity and purity of the church." I believe all three of those are off the mark as primary values. This post will deal with "unity."

I take my cues in this matter from an article by Arthur Dewey of Xavier University, "Ecclesial Techtonics" presented to the Westar Institute's National Jesus Seminar in 2004. In Section 11.7, Dewey writes:

• The sense of eccelesial unity ("one" [in the formula "one holy, catholic and apostolic church"]) can no longer be understood as a monolithic adherence to a propositional confession, nor reduced to a litmus test. The reality of human experience brings us to the recognition that unity is discovered in diversity, brought about by genuine human relations. Dialogue not dictate characterizes such unity in diversity. The hierarchical, pyramid of power collapses as a structural principle for church. This sense of inclusive unity agrees with the vision of the historical Jesus who trusted in a God that benefited good and evil, just and unjust. Paul also intimates this unity in the diversity through his understanding of the gifts of the Spirit to the community.

If we can have unity that promotes diversity (as illustrated in the table fellowship of Jesus), that celebrates difference, that allows freedom of choice in belief and practice, then I'm for unity. If unity is created through power, domination, coercion or force, or even through financial obligations, then I'm against it. If we have to sacrifice diversity for the sake of unity, unity has become an error. The church in the 21st century needs to focus on diversity and freedom over unity and purity.

And of course I value your opinion ESPECIALLY if you disagree with me--diversity, you know.

Time for a new Gardiner Spring Resolution?

In the wake of the PC(USA) General Assembly Action to propose to the presbyteries that G-6.0106b, a paragraph of the denomination's constitution explicitly blocking faithful, monogamous lesbian and gay members from serving in church office, the next discussion is about what will happen in the presbyteries. More specifically, the discussion is focusing on whether pastors, members and whole congregations, like the New Wineskins group, who have been talking loudly for the past two years about withdrawing from the denomination will take this action as a prompt to go ahead and leave, or whether some in that group will decided to stay and "fight" this latest move toward a more inclusive and open church.

My own passion on this discussion leads me away from my usual pro-union position--I was a strong supporter of the reunion of the southern and northern streams of our tradition in the 1970's and 1980's. Today I'd like to start a thread of this discussion about whether we should craft a new "Gardiner Spring Resolution" for our presbyteries.

This is a real departure for me, because I'm usually critical of the action of the 1861 General Assembly which adopted the resolution of the Rev. Dr. Spring (shown above, from reformedpersepectives.com), pastor of Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, requiring commissioners to pledge allegiance to the "integrity" of the United States of America. It seemed to me to be an unnecessary hurdle that led to the split of the north and the south.

Practical theology leads one to reflect on current situations and re-think theological views and political strategies. Thus I'm now moving to a position that would prevent anyone who is planning to withdraw from the denomination from voting in a presbytery's deliberation on the proposed constitutional amendment to remove G-6.0106b. In other words, should we create a resolution that requires a statement of allegiance to the PC(USA) in order to vote on that amendment.

My practical theological reflection includes another piece of history, more recent than Gardiner Spring. In the preparation for Presbyterian reunion in the 1970's and early 1980's, a group of conservative southern Presbyterians were appointed to the Reunion Committee in order to assure that their perspectives were considered in the plan for reunion. Rev. Andy Jumper, pastor of a prominent congregation in St. Louis MO, was part of that group. He used his considerable persuasive power to frame and shape the Plan of Reunion and the proposed new constitution in his image. Then shortly after reunion was enacted, he led his congregation out of the denomination. I still feel the anger of betrayal in that set of actions, and that anger and reflection on that bit of history prompts me to raise this question for discussion.

Not that any of us can ever predict our future actions, but we can be more honest and transparent about our current intentions. If I were planning or hoping to withdraw, I would personally recuse myself from voting on that constitutional amendment. Since I'm not planning on withdrawing, I would be happy to pledge my allegiance to this denomination.

Siblings Wrestling Over Homosexuality

Hearing Margaret Farley, the Grawemeyer Prize winner in religion, talk about sexual ethics, prompted me to ask her what she thinks has made homosexuality the key issue in denominational and cultural battles in the last 30 years. "Why this particular issue at this time?"

She gave her usual calm, clear but well qualified and nuanced response about the loosening of sexual norms in the sixties and early seventies, which led to some people being able to recognize and talk about the fact that they love someone of the same gender. That experience and the co-relative experience of those who have family and friends who are gay and learn to love and except them, led to a deep shaking of the foundations of sexual identity. This shaking, because it is so fundamental, has become extremely threatening to some who "pull the shades" on that topic and insist on holding on to and enforcing the old norms and moralities. This identity crisis makes dialogue about the topic very fraught with difficulties.

I appreciate that Farley's notion of identity crisis is much more generous and graceful than my thinking. I think my thoughts are similar, however, in that I recognize that the acceptance of homosexuality challenges traditional standards of male dominance in which the male is active and the female is passive (also part of Farley's analysis), and the assumption that a man engaged in sexual activity with another male makes one of them "passive," and thus threatening to male identity.

This helps fill out my image for what's happening in the mainline denominations, particularly my own PC(USA). It seems to me that one way of understanding the conflict over homosexuality is that we are having an ongoing fight between siblings, well known in family circles, in which the siblings have engaged in the battle for so long that they cannot imagine either stopping the fight or separating. The background for the two positions could be simplistically put that one side is holding on to traditional moralities due to the threat of gender identity crisis, and the other side is pushing for loosening the traditional moralities due to their experience with persons who are gay or lesbian.

The Biblical story of the sibling rivalry between Jacob and Esau is the model. They struggled within the womb (Gen. 25:22), they were born with Jacob refusing to let go of his brother's heel, and they spent their lives in a wrestling match. It is not accidental that Jacob dreamed of wresting the angel on the night before he met his brother again after many years (Gen 32:22ff).

It's not a pleasant image, and I'd be happy to replace it with a more hopeful story (although the last word on the Esau-Jacob match is that they cooperated in burying their father--Gen. 35:29).