Who Are Our People?’
Parker T. Williamson, Executive Editor,The Presbyterian Layman, April 16, 1999
John Howard Sanden, Perry Wooten and fellow Presbyterians:
Thank you for according me the privilege of addressing this distinguished Carnegie Hall audience. Although I know only a few of the personal pedigrees represented here tonight, I am confident that you are a distinguished group, for I am speaking primarily to Presbyterians, and that fact alone declares that you come from exceedingly good stock.
From Perry’s generous introduction – confirmed now by my dialect – you know that my native habitat is somewhere south of Carnegie Hall. I don’t mean 45th street: I mean the truly deep South. People of the region in which I dwell tend to assess a stranger’s worth only partially on the basis of that person’s portfolio. In the South, genes and chromosomes count. It is not at all unusual for the hostess at a social event to ask of a newcomer: “And just who are your people?”
That is the subject before us tonight. Who are our people? Who are we? What does it mean to be Presbyterian? For a few moments I would like to recall something of our heritage, to reflect upon contributions made by the great Presbyterian Reformed tradition to the theological, political and moral character of this country.
Then I will, regrettably, note how far we have fallen away from this great character-forming witness, how we have squandered our inheritance and abandoned our fiduciary responsibility for the faith of our forebears.
And finally, I want to share with you some signs of hope – a glimpse of the Reformation that even now is gaining momentum in our church and across our land.
Make no mistake about it: we are engaged in a struggle for nothing less than the soul of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The issue that confronts us today is a full-blown identity crisis in which different voices — very different voices — respond to the question, “Who are we/who are our people?”
The power of the Word
Who are we? We are a community of Christians who emerged out of the Reformation. In essence, that means that we are a people of the Word. We live and move and have our being around the Word of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life …”
Remember that passage? Remember also these phrases from Genesis that demonstrate the life-giving power of God’s Word: “And God said let there be light … and there was light … And God said let the dry land appear … and it was so … And God said let us make humankind in our own image … and it was so … and God saw that it was very, very good.”
The generative, effective power of the Word: Remember what Isaiah said about it? “Behold, I send forth my Word and it shall not return to be void, but shall accomplish that for which I purpose it.”
And then this from the Gospel of John: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. And we beheld his glory.” There it is: the generative, creative Word of God, appearing in and through and inextricably entwined with creation: Jesus Christ, Lord of the universe.
And how do we know of this Word of God that created the heavens and the earth? How do we know of this Word of God Incarnate, dwelling among us, full of grace and truth? We know it because of the Word of God written – the Bible, a book unique among human inscriptions. Its authorship transcends anything we humans can imagine or do.
The Word of God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, whose presence engendered the Word of God written: This is the touchstone of who we are as a people. We are a people of the Word of God.
Historically, our Presbyterian heritage experienced its birth in Scripture and its rebirth at the Reformation, the rediscovery of God’s Word. Distressed by the fact that the church of the Middle Ages had wandered from the Word and had become a fat, bloated, worldly institution; distraught by the fact that the church – now separated from the life-giving Word – had become enslaved to a culture that, like a parasite, sucked out its very life. Grieving over the fact that the church had become an empty shell, still bearing the symbols, ceremony, ritual of faith, but no reality, the Reformers issued forth a clarion call: Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone — We rest our authority in nothing less than the Word of God.
A seamless reality
The Reformers understood the Word of God to be a seamless reality. The Word of God Incarnate, that historical person named Jesus of Nazareth is of the same essence as the Word of God that created the heavens and the earth, they said. And the Word of God written is of the same essence as the Word of God Incarnate. Each manifestation of God’s Word bears witness to the truth of the other. They are inseparable.
And thus if we respond to the song of culture, preferring philosophy, psychology and sociology to Holy Scripture, it is not simply a book that we will have abandoned, but the very presence and reality of God himself. If we abandon the Word written, then the Word Incarnate becomes a counterfeit Christ, a Christ of convenience, a Christ of our imagination, a Christ of our own making, a golden calf Christ whom we fashion in our own image.
It is not without significance that when Moses brought God’s Word down from Mount Sinai, he found a people who – in the absence of God’s Word – were dancing around a god of their own making. Apart from the Word of God written, we lose our moorings, our focus, our character, our very being as the people of God. This Word of God written is our link with the One who breathed into us the breath of life. Apart from that Word, we and the institutions we create become lifeless lumps of clay.
Our forebears, our people, our spiritual ancestors believed that with all their hearts. So they invested their linguistic skills into translating the Word. They invested their resources into a new invention called the printing press in order that the Word might be widely distributed. And they invested their lives into the educational enterprise, believing that all people must be sufficiently educated to read and know God’s Word. And they launched a worldwide missionary movement to proclaim the Word.
“We commit the life of the mind to the service of God,” said our Presbyterian forebears as they established educational institutions in the new world. They insisted on an educated clergy, a clergy that could teach the people from God’s Word. So they established “Log College,” which was later to be named Princeton University. They established what was later to be called our public school system, in order that all people could know the Scriptures. And what were the textbooks in these early schools? McGuffey’s Readers and the Holy Bible. Thus education – public, Bible-centered education -was a major contribution of our Presbyterian forebears to American culture.
Political contributions
The second great contribution of our Presbyterian forebears was political – for they were the impetus and the fuel behind the great movement toward Constitutional government in the Western world. The Reformers had a solid understanding of human nature. They knew from Scripture that human beings are made in the image of God and are therefore capable of self-transcendence. But they also knew from Scripture that sin is a universal human condition. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us and all parts of all of us – particularly the will – are distorted by sin.
And what is the political implication of this reality? We dare not give absolute power to anyone. Thus the great movement away from monarchy and toward republican/democratic forms of government. Thus the struggle between your firebrand ancestor John Knox (the trumpet of the Lord) and Mary, Queen of Scots. Presbyterian/Reformed theology led political thought to devise institutions that maximize human freedom (allowing the self-transcending image of God to flourish) while dispersing power in order to provide a check on human sin. Theologian Reinhold Neibuhr expressed that principle well when he said that man’s capacity for good makes democracy possible; but man’s capacity for evil makes democracy necessary.
Presbyterian leadership in events leading to the American Revolution was so visible that the event became known among British circles as the “Presbyterian Rebellion.” But Presbyterian participation in the American Revolution was not merely an eighteenth century Woodstock. Not on your life. For the reformers’ propensity toward democratic forms of government was not without reservation. The peasants’ revolt had horrified Martin Luther. The French Revolution and Jacobian excesses were frightening to followers of John Calvin. Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, the mob can be as dangerous a despot as the monarch. Thus our forbears, based on their scriptural understanding of human nature – pushed not simply for revolution, but for the establishment of Constitutional government. We shall be a government of law; not a government of men, they said. We who are a people of the Word written, shall order our communities, our bodies politic, under written law. And no leader will be exempt from the law – it shall be universally binding. All of us – especially our leaders – shall promise to obey and defend the Constitution.
The great Reformed/Presbyterian Tradition bequeathed to our society a Scripturally-based system of thought that provided both dynamism and order. There was the vigor to chart new courses, fully embrace the missionary enterprise, build new churches, influence the social order, initiate reform and social change … but also the stability the comes from a people anchored in the Word – the Word that not only sends forth but also gives form and substance. Dynamism and Order: the impetus to push the boundaries, but also to live under the rule of law, these were our forbears’ great gifts to the American body-politic.
A seismic shift
The Presbyterian Church (USA) grew rapidly from its inception through the 1950s, building churches, dispatching missionaries throughout the world, making a major and decisive impact on centers of American values. But as it made its impact upon the world, it also began to pay greater attention to the world. Increasingly, it mattered to Presbyterian leaders what the world had to say. And over time, the Presbyterian Church succumbed to the philosophy – first stated by the World Council of Churches – that “the world sets the church’s agenda.”
As the 1950s drew to a close a seismic shift occurred in the life of our denomination. It’s leaders embraced the post-modern notion that there is no objective reality, no universally valid truth. There are only “truths,” opinions and preferences. With that notion came the fall of Scriptural authority. Now the Bible was one opinion among many, and an outmoded, culture-bound opinion at that. What took its place was a palpable narcissism in which the individual was deified. Self-expression became a matter of ultimate importance. Sin was no longer seen as a force within us that alienates us from the will of God. It was now seen as an external reality that presses down upon the individual, inhibiting the free and glorious expression of the true and virtuous self. Sin was seen as an oppressive system, a socio-political, economic system that keeps me from being all that I can be. Conversely, salvation was redefined as liberation, a political act of overthrowing the forces of repression, setting me free to be me.
Motivated by that philosophy, Presbyterian Church leaders joined movement politics with a vengeance. There was hardly a cause that we didn’t love, so long as the cause promised some form of liberation. Find us a victim, and we were ready to rail against the system that enslaved her. Race rights, women’s rights, earth rights, welfare rights, animal rights, prisoner’s rights, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered person rights, children’s rights, the right to die – the list went on and on, with church leaders riding the crest of a movement until it began to wane, then jumping to the crest of another. We took to the streets in the heady, euphoric march of cause-driven politics.
Mesmerized by entitlement
Many of these egalitarian movements did have at their core an injustice that required the attention of the Christian community. I, myself, was involved in Martin Luther King’s civil rights struggle in the South, believing that my black brothers and sisters should have access to opportunities that I as a white person took for granted. But in their pursuit of these causes, the concern of church leaders during this period became less and less a matter of obeying the mandates of Scripture. They were mesmerized by entitlement, inclusiveness, diversity, tolerance, equality, a cacophony of notions that culminated in the nonsensical notion that all ideas are equal.
From the book of Judges we have a passage that describes with exquisite accuracy exactly the circumstance in which we found ourselves: “And there was no king in Israel, and every person did what was right in his own eyes.” In such a context there is no room for truth. There is no room for standards. There are no benchmarks by which one may measure alternative notions. We are bereft of any tool for knowing the difference between good and evil. In fact, there is no good and evil, only choices, choices from a smorgasbord of equally valid options. We are encouraged simply to do whatever makes us feel good, whatever expresses our supreme individuality.
Come on in to the big tent. Celebrate diversity. Enjoy your own liberation, knowing that there is room inside this tent for everyone, everything, and every notion. All ideas are welcome so long as none are judgmental. Viva la difference!
‘Justice-Love’
With the authority of Scripture now out of the way, Presbyterian Church (USA) leaders were free to make sweeping accommodations to culture. And that is the context in which our human sexuality debates were born.
In 1991, a high-level committee appointed by the moderator of the General Assembly, who had packed its membership with liberals, brought forth a document called the “Human Sexuality Report.” That document set forth a new benchmark for determining right and wrong in the arena of sexual relations. The principle, called “Justice-Love,” was essentially a call for mutuality. If two adult persons choose to engage in sexual behavior – no matter what its form and whatever partners they might be linked to in other contexts – the behavior was deemed morally appropriate. Adultery is OK. Homose