by
Sylvia Dooling
When I was in grammar school, one of the first assignments we would almost
always be given upon returning from our summer holidays was to stand in
front of the class and talk a bit about how we spent the previous three
months. Vacations in my family were usually uneventful, but how I loved
them. They meant that I had time to read. And, what I read was always the
subject of my presentations.
I still love to read, and one of the best books that I read during my summer
vacation this year was Thomas Oden’s, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy Signs of new
Life in Christianity. I commend it to you for your consideration, and
guarantee that the hours you spend with it will be well invested.
One section in Oden’s book is particularly apropos of an issue that is
currently a hot topic for discussion in the PC(USA). I refer to what, in its
latest incarnation, is being called ‘gracious separation.” Of course,
conversations about splitting the church are neither new, nor particularly
restricted to Presbyterians. I would be willing to wager that schism is a
subject for discussion in every mainline denomination. But, I have to admit
that these particular conversations profoundly disturb me. So, I was acutely
interested in some things that Dr. Oden has to say. Let me share them with
you.
‘We are sternly warned by scripture against schism. We dare not further
divide the church, which has suffered enough already under the
divisiveness of false teachers and ideological advocates who presume to
speak for the future of Christianity.”
“None of us heard the gospel apart from the community of believers who
transmitted it to us. To quit contending for the faith is to hold cheap
our baptismal vow, which ties us to the larger body of faith … “
“We in the confessing movements do not deny that a sincere believer may
leave a faltering church or denomination for good cause, but to leave
one structure is to embrace another and that second structure may have
similar limitations or worse. Furthermore, to quit is to leave behind
mounting problems that will never be solved unless the faithful are
willing to roll up their sleeves and help. The churches need loyal and
steady critics more than purists or loners or deserters.”
I experienced the tragedy of schism first hand when I was a young woman. The
conflict between the two ‘parties” in our congregation was so profound that
had my parent’s family not been on the same ‘side” as that of my future
husband, we probably would never have been married.
That event left deep spiritual and psychological scars on both of us as well
as instill in both of us a profound resolve to never again be part of such a
horrific catastrophe. Long ago we learned that it is far better to pray and
work for reform and reconciliation than to walk away from people with whom
we disagree.
My prayer as I share my perspective on this issue is that you will join me
in saying, ‘No,” to those who are counseling division within our
denomination, and ‘Yes,” to those who are laboring long into the night to
be agents of reformation. As the writer of Hebrews put it to some sisters
and brothers who were losing heart in their day, ‘lift your drooping hands
and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so
that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.”
God is always doing ‘new things” in his church and that includes the
PC(USA). Therefore, I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Oden the church does
need ‘loyal and steady critics more than purists or loners or deserters.”
Now is the time to keep the vows that we made upon joining the church to dig
down deep, to pray, and to invest our time, energy and resources in the hard
work of renewal.
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