Commentary
Amendment 10-A: Same song, new verse
By Carmen Fowler, The Layman, September 20, 2010
For the fifth time the General Assembly has asked presbyteries to ratify an amendment to the Book of Order’s Form of Government, Chapter 6, paragraph .0106, sentence b.
The current text is the most defended paragraph in our constitution. It reads:
G-6.0106b. “b. Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.”
The proposed text would strike and replace the current standard with the following language:
“Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life (G-1.0000). The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation (G.14.0240; G-14.0450) shall examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office. The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003). Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.”
What’s the difference?
- Responsibility shifts from individual to judicatory: Currently, it is the individual called to office in the church who is held to the standard of a life lived “in
Carmen Fowler obedience to the Scriptures and in conformity to” the church’s confessional standards. If amended, the individual would be free from all express standards and instead, the governing body would become responsible for applying standards to individual candidates. - Local option replaces national standard: Currently all sessions, in relationship to elders and deacons, and all presbyteries, in relationship Ministers of Word and Sacrament, share one national standard. If amended, literally everyone would be free to do what is right in their own eyes.
- Guidance replaces obedience: Currently, the express standard is that each and every ordained officer in the PCUSA “lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church.” If amended, language of “obedience” and “conformity” is replaced with “guided by.”
This third concern amplifies a recurrent question being faced by Presbyterians and other mainline Christians in the 21st century. The question is one of authority.
We learned at this year’s GA meeting that Phyllis Tickle’s book, The Great Emergence, is having a powerful impact on the thinking of denominational leaders. Tickle is a lay minister in the Episcopal Church and self-described “scholar without portfolio” whose expertise in religion is not formal but a result of her service as the founding editor of the Religion Department of Publishers Weekly. She spoke at more denominationally funded events at GA than any other single speaker. Tickle spoke to a capacity crowd at the GA’s breakfast on July 4 and on additional occasions to executive presbyters, middle governing body staff and others. Her message is important to understand because her perspective has been adopted by the denomination’s Stated Clerk, Gradye Parsons, who freely quotes Tickle as an authority on the shifts taking place in the American religious and cultural landscape.
Why bring up Tickle in a conversation about G-6? Because she makes the point that as “religion is a social construct,”[1] every 500 years the same primary question demands to be answered: “where now is the authority?”[2]
Last posed in the days of the Reformation, the answer for Protestant Christians has been sola Scriptura. According to Tickle, that authority has been vanquished Related Story
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and Christianity is searching about for a new answer to the question. To quote Tickle, “Luther’s principle of sola scriptura, scriptura sola” is “little more than the creation of a paper pope in place of a flesh and blood one. And even as we speak, the authority that has been in place for 500 years withers away in our hands. Where now is the authority? circles overhead like a dark angel goading us toward disestablishment.”[3]
Living in the context of a world bereft of authority, Tickle notes that two other questions now beg to be answered. First, the question of the nature and meaning of human life; and second, the question of how one can “live responsibly as devout and faithful adherents of one religion in a world of many religions.”[4]
If the Scriptures are just myth and Jesus is just a glorified guru, then humanity is not created imago Dei, life is not purposed by God, and Christianity’s Christ is not the way, the truth and the life, but a way among many.
Friends, this is not Christianity in any cognizable form. This is nihilism.
There may be those who are ready to abandon the Bible, the historic confessions of the church, the veracity of Christ’s redemptive act upon the cross, His resurrection and ascension, but I am not among them.
I am also unwilling to abandon my calling as a part of Christ’s Church whose primary mission is to evangelize and disciple people of every tribe and tongue, sharing the good news that God made us, God loves us, God wants us, God saves us, God instructs us, God conforms us to the image of His own Son and gives us the inheritance of eternal life that rightfully belongs to Jesus alone.
Some may be seeking a new answer to the question of authority for faith and life, but I find that the answer of the Reformation works well if we actually live into it with submission, humility, obedience and candor. If you agree, vote “no” on the proposed Amendment 10-A when the opportunity presents itself in your presbytery.
But be forewarned, if Tickle is right, we who cling to the authority of the Bible and the sole saving nature of Jesus Christ may very well find ourselves disestablished.
[1] Tickle, Phyllis. The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why. Baker Books, 2008, p. 33.
[2] Ibid. p. 45.
[3] Ibid. p. 46-47.
[4] Ibid. p. 73.