An open letter to the General Assembly Chair Cathy Chisholm
By Stephen A. Moss, The Layman Online, May 12, 1999
In the past few days, the story of the imminent award to Jane Spahr has crossed my desk, and crossed it again quite a few times. To say that I am appalled at what the story means, and will mean, for the future of our denomination, barely scratches the surface. I simply cannot imagine what you and the others on the Executive Committee of the GAC must have been thinking! If I were traveling down a familiar road, and suddenly saw a conflagration up ahead, I think that I would not say to myself something like, “Well, this is the road that we always go down, so we will go down this way today.” To make the lame excuse that you all merely followed established precedent, suggests that common sense has been lost at the level of the General Assembly Council! To overturn the NMD steering committee decision reflects either a “damn-the torpedoes” mentality, knowing full well that this would raise a firestorm of major proportions, or else a total lack of awareness of what you are dealing with. Further, for the GAC Executive Committee to do this by secret ballot supports the tentative conclusion that you knew that you would be “in the soup,” and didn’t want anybody to know who cast which votes. I challenge you on the Executive Committee to go public with your votes, to stand up for what you believe is the right course of action.
More damage than you can imagine
I would like to think that I am a relatively moderate-to-traditional person, theologically, and so I have had to spend much of the last 20 years or so explaining to the various congregations that I have served just what on earth was going on at the national level of our denomination. Usually, not just explaining, but defending! I am tired of having to defend the church I love, and that is the only church I have ever known! The last couple of years have been better, and indeed, it seemed that we had turned a corner away from foolishness and self-destruction. But this latest action, in which you are a major player, will accomplish more damage than you can possibly imagine. Let me lay out for you what I expect will happen.
Those out on the right side of the church will exclaim with new-found passion that they are not at all surprised, that they never believed that the “liberals” would co-exist with the spirit of moratorium that evolved from last year’s General Assembly. They will say that this simply confirms that the folks (all the folks) in Louisville are not to be trusted. They will say that “heads will have to roll” (again). They will then redouble their efforts to defeat the various overtures coming to this Summer’s General Assembly to lighten up on the homosexual issues, and these will all go down to crashing defeat.
If ever those who believe so strongly that the ban ought to be lifted on the ordination of sexually active homosexuals and unfaithful heterosexuals, if these folks wanted to shoot themselves in the foot, and the rest of the denomination in the back, it has now been accomplished, and you, who occupy one of the top positions in our denomination, helped make it happen. I am saddened beyond words for the hatred and discontent that this will now raise among us all.
Where is the fairness?
This will lead not to rational and thoughtful consideration and action, but to war? How could you on the Executive Committee not see the possibilities here? How could you say to yourselves, and to the rest of us, that this was the only fair way to proceed. What about fairness to all of us who have voted in rather significant numbers that we have decided this issue, and that we want it to go away (At least for awhile)? Where is fairness to us? Where is the fairness for mission programs whose financial support is bound to take a hit? Where is the fairness for those of us who are pastors, who have to explain one more time why “you folks” at city hall have again lost your minds at our expense? If you think that what you did was fair, then you simply don’t have a clue about fairness within the PCUSA!
I serve an absolutely wonderful, vibrant, mission-oriented congregation that is growing, and that has over 250 years of service to the Presbyterian Church. After reunion took place, and before I arrived on the scene, the congregation was invaded by some who were sure that the Presbyterians were literally going to hell, and that we ought to exercise the Article 13 option within the Articles of Reunion, and leave while we could.
The infamous Human Sexuality Report of 1991 added considerable fuel to the fire here. The congregation went through a terrible time, one of great pain, that split life-long friends, and families, and in the end we had to write off about a hundred members. But we voted to remain within our denomination, because we loved her. Now I will have to try to convince folks that they did not make a mistake when they voted to remain.
A self-destructive mentality
Further, to go to the base issue, the original choice of Ms. Spahr, when her work has flown in the face of denominational policy, shows a self-destructive mentality on the part of the representatives of the five groups that made the choice. For example, the National Network of Presbyterian College Women, which is coming back to this GA in the hopes of receiving on-going support, is likely to lose out. Doesn’t anybody ask themselves the implications of their actions? This is something that we preachers preach about all the time! Garrison Keillor once commented in one of his Prairie Home Companion monologues about Lake Wobogen that he never ceased to be amazed about the folks who had no desire to go to St. Cloud, but who still continued to get on the bus for St. Cloud in large numbers.
When Barbara Dua comments publicly that, in the selection of the three recipients, the “cream rose to the top” I wonder what she must be thinking. I have no doubt that, if anyone had looked, one could find literally hundreds and thousands of Presbyterian women who are marvelous women of faith, who in their daily lives touch people all around them, and are wonderful models for the Gospel of Jesus. There certainly isn’t a shortage of grand women in our church today!
The possibilities for damage to the folks at Louisville, and to the denomination as a whole are immense! Just as in the ReImaging controversy, we have all taken a major hit, that will cost us for a number of year to come, and it didn’t have to happen. But nine of you, operating in secrecy, chose to disrupt the life of the entire denomination, to make a point of fairness.
An end run around policy
Frankly, I can’t even believe that you (and the others?) think that we in the church are dumb enough to believe the “fairness” argument. This wasn’t about fairness, it was about making a point, about making an end run about denominational policy. It is as though you simply could not stand the relative calm that we have been experiencing of late (No, I know that is has not been calm, but only relatively so – perhaps), and had to do something to liven up the action, Well, you have succeeded, and beyond your wildest dreams, (I suspect), before this is all over. Because, before it is all over, we will, all of us, pay a fearful price.
Is it too late for you to come to your senses and rescind your action? Will it take an action on the floor of the General Assembly to rescind it, or to censure you on the Executive Committee for what can only in the end be considered malfeasance in office? And, if you think that I am angry, wait until you hear from those on the conservative side of the church. They will make me appear to be mild in comparison.
You have contributed to (and led in) a major blunder, which you had no right to make on behalf of the church as a whole. I have teenagers in my congregation who display better sense. So, I am appalled, saddened, and ashamed of my church. I would be more than interested in some explanation that really made sense, as to why the “gang of nine” felt so strongly on this matter that you chose to put the rest of us, on both left and right, through the “church hell” that we are going to experience. Screwtape must be ecstatic!
Your brother in Christ,
Stephen A. Moss, pastor
Thyatira Presbyterian Church at Mill Bridge
Salisbury, NC
This letter was originally sent by the author to GAC chair Cathy Chisholm. A copy was sent to The Presbyterian Layman and is reprinted with the permission of the author.
Cathy Chisholm,
General Assembly Chair