Hanky business
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, July 1, 2008
Commissioners in the General Assembly’s Committee on Mission Coordination and Budgets were winding their way through a labyrinth of reports when a young woman burst into tears. “I am so upset,” she wailed. “I just don’t think I can continue …”
Nearby colleagues proffered hankies to the damsel in distress with pleas that she not succumb to the predicted emotional paralysis. After all, her pain was everyone’s pain.
Not so, she shouted, pointing to a male across the room who had offended her “gender.”
“I’m sorry,” stammered the accused. His apology was generic, as he wondered aloud what indelicacy had so seriously slandered her.
With that contrition, the lamentation ceased.
Two days later, the General Assembly was viewing a video ministry clip. Following the presentation, an indignant commissioner announced that she would vote against the youth program because the clip did not include pictures of African Americans.
An embarrassed committee chairman tried to mollify the complainant. There were plenty of African Americans in the full video, she said. The assembly was only seeing a segment.
Confessing the editors’ sin of ethnic insensitivity, she said future presentations would be more inclusive.
Later that evening, a tearful teen accused the assembly of “dismissing” the opinions of its youth. Before each vote is taken, the assembly asks youth delegates to register their advice on electronic keypads. The tally appears on giant screens in the assembly hall. The complainant said the advice was removed too quickly, proving that the assembly doesn’t care what its young people think.
Meanwhile, multiple hankies were brandished at Presbyterian same-gender weddings in Pasadena, San Francisco, and in a hotel adjoining the General Assembly Convention Center.
“I kept wiping tears from my eyes during the wedding,” said Michael Adee, executive director of More Light Presbyterians.
Sobs are no stranger to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender lobby, whose practitioners have perfected the art of crying on cue. Veteran General Assembly observers know that one cannot get through a round of committee hearings undrenched by a torrent of tears.
Once known as a thoughtful expositor of Reformed faith, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has descended into a pool of emotional blather. “Theology Matters,” the slogan of assemblies past, has been replaced by “Whimpering Matters.”
Entitlement assumptions drive commissioners wearing chips on their shoulders throughout the assembly.
Pre-assembly training sessions offer lessons in linguistic decorum. Eschewing the discipline of debate, trainees are encouraged to avoid giving offense. Do not say that another person is wrong, but that the person’s assertion makes you “uncomfortable.”
There is a word for this “it’s all about me” condition. It’s called narcissism, and its roots are found in the Garden of Eden. By enthroning the self, denominational leaders have denied the sovereignty of God, rejected His Word and trivialized His Church.
Considering the Presbyterian prognosis, legitimate tears come to mind:
“And when Jesus drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying ‘Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
The Rev. Parker T. Williamson is editor emeritus of the Presbyterian Lay Committee.