Commentary: Tinsel time
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, January 4, 2010
When ancient ancestors of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s current curia, (known in those days as scribes and Pharisees), heard Jesus’ words, they were amazed “because he spoke with authority.” He had something that they lacked, a property that neither faking nor fabricating could produce.
His authority was not an accomplishment, but a gift from above. “You who have seen me have seen the Father,” He said.
Centuries later, the Reformers discovered that speaking the truth plainly trumped half truths propounded by bountifully vested bureaucrats. Savoring simplicity over embellishment, the people of God heard the Word of God, and they were moved to live in its light. Like their forbearers who met the Word Incarnate, they recognized authority when they encountered it, and they called that authority “Sola Scriptura.”
An authority problem
The PCUSA has an authority problem, engendered because it has severed its tie to the truth. Pursuing peace without its Prince, this institution forges worldly alliances, embracing self contradictions whose incompatibilities it refuses to acknowledge. In the name of inclusiveness, it has placed truth and falsehood on a level plane.
In a recent “We can be all things to all people” speech, the moderator of the PCUSA articulated his denomination’s theology de jour: Whatever!
Having distanced itself from the One who alone gives credence to all earthly authority, the PCUSA has no substance on which to secure its stance. It remains an institution, but in no sense can it be called the Church.
Official vs. functional theology
Some may deem this judgment too harsh, insisting that the denomination still enshrines historic confessions whose texts are true. They refer, of course, to the church’s official theology, the theology displayed on its shelves along with Bibles and other books of yore.
But we speak here of the church’s functional theology, its working theology, its de facto theology which, because it has replaced theos with the vaunted self, is no theology at all. The denomination’s functional theology surfaces in feel-good sermons delivered by an increasingly unremarkable clergy.
Once upon a time, theology was queen of the sciences, and its practitioners were among Western civilization’s brightest and best. Sadly, today’s clerics have become institutional functionaries. Lost in this largely trivial pursuit is their spiritual and intellectual competence to rightly handle God’s holy Word.
The PCUSA’s working theology is being extruded through General Assembly pronouncements that seek common cause with non-Christian ideologies in lieu of engaging them with gospel truth. The denomination labels its constituency “children of Abraham,” thereby removing the stumbling block whose name is above every name and promoting a lowest common denominator religion.
The PCUSA’s working theology finds its expression in secular courts of law, where presbyteries that have alienated their congregations over issues of faith and ethics redefine the “tie that binds” as a claim against their property.
Recent decisions by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the “Supreme Court” of the PCUSA, reveal the fruit of this denomination’s ersatz theology. Defying the very constitution that it was sworn to uphold, the court finds no fault with a seminary professor’s same-gender proclivities and a practicing lesbian’s fitness for ordained office.
Here we have Exhibit A in the case against a denomination whose official theology and working theology are at war with one another. Biblical standards for one’s sexual behavior continue to be affirmed in principle (G-6.0106b remains in the constitution), but they have been denied in practice (GAPC Remedial Cases 219-08 and 219-11).
Tinsel talk
In the approaching General Assembly (July 2010), Presbyterians will be encouraged formally to jettison their once authoritative but now largely eviscerated constitution. Having shelved Scripture and the Reformed Confessions, the assembly will consider a proposal to follow suit with the Book of Order. The Form of Government Task Force (FOG) recommends downgrading what is left of that book to a collection of operating manuals that allow each presbytery to do what is right in its own eyes.
The only exception to the laissez-fare nature of nFOG’s proposal is its insertion of new language that requires congregations to pay financial assessments from higher governing bodies, and that facilitates the denomination’s rapid takeover of churches judged delinquent.
History’s bone yard abounds with police states that, having lost their moral authority, sought to control their people with coercion. Such tactics further alienate those who know that true authority is never authoritarian.
General Assembly officials applaud nFOG as a softer, kinder and gentler way of being together, and as a plan to restore PCUSA’s authority. That’s tinsel talk, verbiage employed by those who embellish a tree that was cut from its root. Any arborist will affirm that a tree in such condition cannot survive, no matter how bright the twinkle that adorns its twigs.
Tree house technology
What is amazing in all of this is that there are those who know the tree cannot live but insist on clinging to it for shade. As the 2010 General Assembly approaches, tree house plans are surfacing from evangelically inclined but institutionally shackled Presbyterians.
Presbyterians for Renewal is promoting a cocoon-like 17th synod wherein like-minded folk may huddle. If Synod 17 is envisioned as a launching pad for propelling Presbyterians toward a more faithful future – either inside or outside the current denomination – it might merit serious discussion. But the proposal as written includes neither reform nor exit plans. Instead, it eschews both options, declaring that reform is futile and leaving is “Biblically unfaithful.”
Other ideas abound. A California Presbyterian suggests a two-synod model wherein the right hand may observe what the left hand is doing … from a distance. nFOG proposes a cacophonous celebration of diversity, wherein congregations and presbyteries may disperse, each choosing its own karma. Some voices prefer a five-synod structure, and some want no synods at all.
Superficial solutions will not bring life to the PCUSA. Enhanced merely by structural improvisation, this tree will fall, delivering a crushing blow to those who could not (or would not) get out of its path.
The Rev. Parker T. Williamson is editor emeritus, consultant to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, and an honorably retired PCUSA minister.