Commentary
Anybody listening?
By Parker Williamson, The Layman, August 5, 2010
A gang of Presbyterian peacemakers has kicked the “CAT.” The boot was actually a soft-toed alternative to another proposed option, that Caterpillar, Inc., be evicted from the house entirely.
So how did this denomination’s morality police arrive at their modified conclusion? They reasoned that if the church divested itself of Caterpillar, it would forfeit
Parker Williamson
its seat at the bulldozer’s table. “We’d lose our voice,” intoned a preacher, eager to sermonize on the tractor maker’s sins. Better to denounce than divest.
Respect squandered
While parsing their paragraphs, commissioners at this assembly failed to ask if Caterpillar really cares what this General Assembly has to say. And why should it care? This crowd that so vehemently denounces the earth mover has bulldozed more than half of its membership and plugged massive budget holes with diminishing reserves, while trivializing its worship of Almighty God, and embroiling itself in lawsuits against fleeing congregations.
Were any corporation to chart a comparable performance, its management would soon be filing for unemployment benefits.
Once upon a time, the Presbyterian Church (USA) commanded respect. The denomination was growing, drawing into the fold those eager to hear the Word of God, including persons of moment in their local communities and in the national body politic. Thriving on generous member support, it sent missionaries around the globe, established colleges, hospitals, orphanages, home mission churches and burgeoning congregations among a rapid influx of immigrants.
The current crowd has squandered that heritage. Having failed to order its own house, it has the gall to judge another’s abode. Arrogance in any venue is ugly. But it becomes particularly grotesque when, as this General Assembly has shown, there’s not a scintilla of evidence to bolster its high ground claim.
The politics of sentiment
Presbyterian pronouncements fall on deaf ears, partly because of the way those pronouncements are made. General Assembly commissioners in recent years – this one was no exception – show scant evidence of thinking through the challenging issues that they choose to discuss. Instead, having equated spirituality with sentimentality, they emote.
Denouncing Caterpillar for someone else’s use of its equipment makes no more sense than blaming Chevrolet for a bank robbery because the thieves carried out the heist in an Impala. But logic was not encouraged at this assembly. Better to pummel people with distorted pictures showing giant, claw-like machines gobbling up poor people’s houses than to have them reason their way through a cause-and-effect analysis.
The loss of moral authority
In The Reformed Imperative, theologian John Leith urged church leaders to remember that the church has a message for the world that no one else can deliver. He warned them not to lose sight of the Gospel by succumbing to the allure of secular pursuits. Leith lamented the growing predilection of clergy to think of themselves as mini-psychologists, politicians and ecclesiastical CEOs.
There is a place for the psychologist, the statesman, and the executive, he said. Each is a worthy vocation, but none can replace the call to proclaim the Gospel. That, said Leith, is the special province of the church.
It is the Gospel that gives the church its moral authority, and it is in the church’s faithful proclamation of that Gospel that it becomes a light to the nations. As such, the very presence of the church in the world elevates every secular vocation.
Salvation as liberation
Not only has this General Assembly not proclaimed the Gospel, it has replaced it. Substituting liberation for salvation, commissioners embraced various and sundry ideologies as if they were expressions of the Great Commission. With virtually no business to consider, the General Assembly committee on evangelism closed its session early and disbursed its members among committees dealing with gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender demands for boundary-free sex, liberationist rhetoric from Palestinians, eco-justice and climate change rhetoric from environmental activists, and strategic advice for the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ironically, in its attempt to influence secular culture, the General Assembly has rendered itself irrelevant, abandoning the very ground from which it could have spoken an eternally meaningful Word.
Caterpillar will not listen to the PCUSA. Nor will Motorola, or General Electric, or Boeing, or Microsoft. Why should they?
Having exchanged the Word for words, the PCUSA no longer has anything to say.
The Rev. Parker T. Williamson is editor emeritus, consultant to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, and an honorably retired PCUSA minister.