‘Building Community’ revised
By Gerrit Scott Dawson, Layman Correspondent, May 20, 1999
Returning within the bounds of historic Reformed faith, the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy has revised 1997’s controversial study document “Building Community Among Strangers.” Significant changes have been made in the new paper, which will be submitted to the 1999 General Assembly. If adopted, it will be a policy statement used to guide the mission of the PCUSA.
Policy prescriptions
Three key issues identified
The revised version of “Building Community Among Strangers” says the denomination should be “most welcoming of people from various cultural backgrounds and lifestyles.” But the document calls for an emphasis on three social conditions:
- Racism – recommending ministries such as “yoked” inner city black and suburban white congregations
- Classism – through ministry to homeless people, jobs programs, prison ministries and other helping ministries
- Sexism – for example, women studying theology “reinterpreting and reclaiming biblical texts long misinterpreted or ignored” and working to end the so-called “stained-glass ceiling” that women believe has reduced their opportunities for calls from congregations
The original study was sharply criticized for equating believers in the truth of God’s revelation with followers of “a jealous tribal God.” It urged Presbyterians to become “Christian humanists,” religious pluralists who believe that all beliefs about God are equally valid. The new document unequivocally states that “Jesus Christ is Lord of the world as well as the church.”
A Reason to hope
We may commend the committee for having the fortitude and courage to undertake such significant revisions. The first third of the document establishes a biblical and confessional basis for the vision of one humanity reconciled to God and each other in Jesus Christ. This section includes significant affirmation of the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, and God’s intention for that grace to be proclaimed to the entire world. Quotations from such varied sources as the Westminster Catechism, The Confession of 1967, Karl Barth and Raymond Brown undergird the argument.
Three lovely paragraphs on the Trinity relate the God who has his being in communion to the way we were created to be in community with each other. There is even a section affirming the boundaries that create and maintain our common faith, “These boundaries around the church cannot be dissolved even as we seek to build community …” A real basis seems to be established for a fresh discussion of living faithful Christian lives in a pluralistic world.
More changes needed
But by the end of the second two thirds of the document, I felt wearied by what was mostly the same tired social analysis that plagued the original study. The argument goes on and on, leaving me feeling guilty but uninspired to change. What is the problem? Perhaps a closer look can give us some ways to encourage the GA to make some additional, and essential, changes before adopting this report:
1) The boundary of Scripture: The policy statement notes the sacramental boundaries of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The next step needs to be an affirmation of the historic Reformed boundary of Scripture. A clearer respect for the authority of Scripture would issue in the joyful articulation that the Bible speaks clearly on the essentials of faith.
From this, the Assembly could listen more openly to the full sense of the passages from the Bible on which its policy statements are based. For example, regarding the Old Testament command for Israel to welcome strangers, we must see that a full welcome into the community comes only in the context of a covenantal acknowledgment by the alien that Israel’s God is the God. And the breaking down of walls between people in the New Testament is always in Christ and for the glory of Christ.
The next step, then, would be to see how the vision of human community in Revelation occurs always and only in relationship to the acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty and the lordship of Christ over the entire cosmos.
2) The joy of Christ’s lordship: The revised policy statement affirms Christ as Lord of all. But this declaration could be made much more confidently, comprehensively, and above all, joyfully. That Jesus is the supreme revelation of God is not bad news for the world and those who follow other gods. It is the best possible news. God is like Jesus, and we are saved by God’s grace. There is real forgiveness, real power for transformation, not from ourselves but from God.
Of course, this means that we must enter a struggle with competing worldviews, whether they be the materialism of our culture or the misbeliefs of other religions. The committee has already identified, in different words, that how we proclaim the all-inclusive love of Christ simultaneously with the exclusive claims of his lordship is the question of the next century. Addressing this question from a vigorous celebration of Christ’s divinity, and with a sober recognition of the spiritual conflict this causes, would provide a helpful starting point for answers that will move the church forward.
3) The problem of sin: Finally, I would urge the Assembly to follow the biblical analysis of human estrangement throughout its social commentaries. The problem is human sin, a basic inward bent that occurs as much in the poor as in the rich, and as much in the victim as in the dominator. Human unity will be found in common brokenness over our sin and common joy over the one source of our salvation.
Gerrit Scott DawsonThere is indeed much to confess on the part of those who have held most of the power and wealth in the world. But people are moved to release their fears and confess their sins when humility before the cross is shared. Our unity can never be the result of our diversity; communion arises through being in Christ, by the grace of Christ and for the sake of Christ.
This document is a huge step forward from the fundamentally flawed draft that preceded it. To be sure problems remain, particularly in the policy prescriptions concerning sexism. Let’s keep going forward and embrace the full joy of our heritage.