Cheery ACSWP tackles
many of the world’s ills
Commentary by James D. Berkley, The Layman, January 27, 2009
BERKELEY, Calif. – The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) of Presbyterian Church (USA) convened on Thursday afternoon, January 22, at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (an Episcopal seminary) just a block from the University of California campus in Berkeley. This was the third ACSWP meeting since the last General Assembly, and the committee evidenced a mixture of hopefulness and concern in the early hours of the three-day gathering.
Most of the committee’s work was largely approved by last summer’s General Assembly, and that gave the committee a sense of empowerment to insert its particular ideology and materials into the wider church. However, the concern shows up in the committee’s continual lament that it does all the work and yet no one seems to pay much attention. ACSWP raises up a partisan flag, but few salute.
The committee’s papers regularly fail to take into account the values and basic theological wisdom of most Presbyterians – those without the committee’s self-styled liberal erudition. It appears that the members think that everyone from Presbyterians to heads of state to military and business giants ought to embrace the committee’s pronouncements on any number of complex and perplexing matters – and praise the committee for providing the sustenance for their moral and political lives.
Several printed studies and papers are nearing readiness for distribution on such matters as mental illness and a Social Creed for the 21st Century. Another paper on voting rights was out prior to the November election, and the committee was hopeful that it was perhaps heeded in some quarters to make for a fairer election. Slight anecdotal evidence seemed to cheer committee members along those lines.
Biennial General Assembly approval of the committee’s many overlong, overwrought and overlooked papers has served to stimulate more ACSWP production, so that now the committee is busily moving toward a handful of new papers for the 2010 General Assembly. Much of the next year will be spent grinding out several more obscure documents for the General Assembly to consider, probably fail to understand in all their ramifications and yet most likely approve in 2010.
An Obama epiphany
This meeting in particular found the committee in fine mettle because of the recent inauguration of President Barack Obama. The general euphoria was subtle, not the high-octane rejoicing of a Democratic victory party. But a heady sense of chumminess with the new administration seeped out at least a half-dozen times in first-day reports on various items. Obviously the ACSWP expects its brand of politics to be in the ascendency during this current presidential administration, looking to get the welcome and the ear of the president’s advisors in ways never expected or even attempted during the Bush administration.
In item after item, staff members such as Chris Iosso or Vernon Broyles kept referring to President Obama being “open to the mainline voice at a level not seen in the previous administration,” or there being “considerable resonance by the Obama team” on a given issue. Broyles spoke of an Office of the General Assembly immigration attorney, Julia Thorne, being in “a group meeting with Obama’s people on immigration reform, so we’ve had a voice in that circle.” He noted that Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons has “met with Obama’s Middle East team.” Obama got mentioned in relation to new “green jobs” for employment. Special confidence in Obama was even credited with helping smooth over the Smithfield Foods labor dispute with slaughterhouse workers, which ACSWP has been following closely.
The ACSWP agenda for the following days included updates on studies on AIDS/HIV, gun violence, a theology of compensation, immigrant detention and the nature and value of human life. The committee also expected to tackle issues of education, racial justice, economic decline, war in Iraq and Afghanistan, war in Gaza, overcoming violence and “constructive ecclesiological elements.” And that was just the beginning!
On a darker note for committee members, ACSWP will be gritting its teeth as it faces undergoing a special review by the General Assembly. Such reviews can sometimes lead to that dread institutional term “reorganization”—often a prelude to big changes in an organization or even the end of a program.