Office of the General Assembly:
blind to evangelism, big on change
Commentary by James D. Berkley, The Layman, March 24, 2009
The Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) must prefer to work in obscurity. COGA has no Web site of its own per se, and the Office of the General Assembly Web site provides only scant information about COGA meetings or work. The committee does not even bother to post its meeting information on the Presbyterian Church (USA) online calendar, a requirement now that, ironically, COGA convinced the 218th General Assembly to direct every denominational entity to do.
In October 2008, a lone report did come out about the fall COGA meeting. It was not an independent news story, but rather self-generated publicity. “[Stated Clerk Gradye] Parsons shared a draft of the vision statement for the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) for the next four years,” wrote Sharon Youngs, OGA Communications Coordinator. The draft read:
Empowered by the Holy Spirit, the Office of the General Assembly will encourage the Presbyterian Church (USA) to be a people of hope—seeking together the mind of Christ, working for justice and mercy in the world, and participating in God’s continual reformation of the church.
Since the statement is apparently still in draft form, one might assume that Parsons would be open to friendly suggestions on how to perfect it. That proved not to be the case. When I provided ample explanation of several weaknesses in the vision statement, Parsons responded superficially and then when pressed concluded, “I think we will keep the Vision Statement as it is for now.”
Three problems weaken Parsons’s draft vision statement for this key denominational body: Careless composition, the exclusion of evangelism and the nurture of novelty.
Careless composition
The draft begins with a grandiose claim that is not Parsons’s intent. Yet, as the sentence remains constructed, the claim stands that the Office of the General Assembly is definitely “empowered by the Holy Spirit,” as if it had some divine power not given to mere mortal committees.
When confronted with the awkwardness of the draft’s immodest claim, Parsons assured me of good intentions. “No, we do not presume any special power from the Holy Spirit,” he replied. “We are trying to say that our ability to hope and encourage that hope is found in the Spirit and not in our own devices.” His intent sounds excellent.
The problem arises in the distance between what Parsons was trying to say and what he did write. The two are at odds. He could have written something like “Relying on the Holy Spirit’s lead and not our own devices…” or “Seeking to minister in the strength of the Holy Spirit…” as I suggested. But instead, Parsons held on to his faulty construction, which is equivalent to saying “Since we are empowered by the Holy Spirit….” That is not what he meant, but that is what he would not edit.
Evangelism excluded
There appeared to be a simple omission in the statement: evangelism. Presbyterians have been weak on this central Christian task for decades – so weak that now it easily can be forgotten. So I pointed out to Parsons that it had been left out and he’d probably want to include it to balance the strong plug for justice, a similarly important task.
Wrong. Parsons excluded evangelism on purpose. “I am always promoting Presbyterian evangelism,” he noted, and that’s true from my experience with his work. But not here, not in the Office of the General Assembly. “That is in GAC’s mission,” Parsons argued, “and to avoid structural confusion, we did not include it.”
I was stunned by that blithe claim. According to Parsons, the General Assembly Council is supposed to handle all the evangelism, and logically, then, the Office of the General Assembly would concentrate on the justice work of the church. And ne’er the twain shall meet? Why would it cause “structural confusion” for the Office of the General Assembly to be evangelistic, rather than simply to purvey justice and mercy?
I wrote Parsons that his odd division of labor would find little support in the Book of Order or in popular understanding of our polity. “Wouldn’t both branches find their differences along other structural lines?” I asked. “And wouldn’t both branches need and want to embrace both evangelism and justice – the Great Commission and the Great Commandment? Isn’t it instead that OGA is about ecclesiological matters, and GAC is about mission matters; the OGA about the structure, the GAC about the work?”
My reasoning fell on deaf ears. Parsons has partitioned off evangelism to some other church body. It is evidently not the business of the Office of the General Assembly to help the church “be Christ’s faithful evangelist” (G-3.0300(a)). And thus the Office of the General Assembly has a deficient vision statement.
The nurture of novelty
Latin is not the strength of many of us, nor is it apparently the strength of the Office of the General Assembly. But this I know: Continually changing willy-nilly is not what is meant by the Latin Reformation phrase translated “Reformed and always being reformed by the Word of God.” “Reformed” is not the same as mere “changed,” but yet something like “changed and always changing” seems to be the thrust of the draft vision statement. The OGA is apparently intent on promoting continued change in the PCUSA.
This potential difficulty in the draft vision statement is more subtle than glaring. Here are my comments to Parsons:
Do you really want to give such a strong indication that change is on the front burner? Forty percent of Presbyterians self-label as conservatives, those who want to preserve/conserve (and perhaps return to) the theology and practices carefully handed down to us by our forebears. And yet, the OGA would presumably be about “continual reformation of the church” (make that altering what we believe and practice) and “seeking together the mind of Christ” (as if we’re still groping to find what many of us believe has been delivered to us in Scripture).
Nineteen percent of Presbyterians label themselves as liberals or progressives—those who seek “progress” in overturning established beliefs and practices. This vision statement appears to be written for a fifth of the church that would like to direct the other four-fifths.
Parsons replied, “‘The continual reformation of the church’ is not based in any one ideology. I get letters from many people on all sides of the church praying for renewal. That is the reformation we are speaking to.” So then why not call it “renewal,” rather than playing to the progressives’ “always reforming” theme of incessant change? Well, using “renewal” would probably make some people uneasy—about 19 percent of the church.
According to the Organization for Mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), one of the major responsibilities of the stated clerk – and thus of Gradye Parsons – is to “preserve and defend the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and support the decisions, actions, and programs of the General Assembly” (IV B 2 b). Aggressively angling for change sounds like failure to “preserve and defend” the Constitution against all that would assail it.
For some time now, many have sensed that the Office of the General Assembly would love to push novelty upon the church: a new Form of Government minus clarity and specificity; a new way of doing business (so-called discernment) that relies on opinions and feelings more than facts and Scripture; and, most likely, diminished ordination sta
ndards. This vision statement subtly stokes such hunches, due mainly to what is left out: a clear, resounding resolve by the Office of the General Assembly to uphold rather than tinker with the belief, polity, and practices handed down to us from stalwart generations of Presbyterians who preceded us!
Is the draft final?
One cannot easily determine if (a) the draft has already been approved, (b) the draft requires COGA approval or is simply announced, or (c) if COGA will be considering the vision statement at its March 24-25 meeting in Louisville. Since COGA doesn’t put its information such as meeting times, agendas, reports and minutes on the web, such questions go unanswered.
If, however, the draft is not yet final or irrevocably adopted, and if COGA were to take up the matter, COGA members would do well to read the draft vision statement with a critical eye, seeking to make the statement first say what its drafters intend it to say, and then ensuring that the statement says what is truly the vision and responsibility of the Office of the General Assembly.
And please post the final document on your Web site so Presbyterians get a glimpse of where your vision is leading us.