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FIVE EASY STEPS FOR TAKING EVANGELICAL CHURCHES

For EPs and Stated Clerks
For Immediate Release


1. Find Insiders. It could anyone in the church who is disgruntled; the larger the church, the easier (and more important) this is. You may even find an associate pastor willing to bad-mouth the Head of Staff, which is the fastest route to success. Because we’re liberals, take bonus points for siding with ultra-conservatives against more moderate evangelicals--no one will blame you for being liberal in that case. Besides, it doesn’t matter; all that matters is getting the property.

2. Establish Initial Cooperation. Be sure to say reassuring things like “We’re with you, Brother!” or “Hey, we know ministry is tough! We’re entirely on your side.” Remember to pray at all meetings, using traditional trinitarian language and whatever sentimentalisms fit the target congregation. Talk about “unity”--this is your foot in the door. Just because you have to be cruel doesn’t mean you can’t be sweet about it.

3. Identify (create) Conflict. A minor disagreement between two pastors, a slightly-offended female church secretary, old-time members, or 20-somethings--any of these can be your first tool. It is up to you to identify and name a conflict; then we can create an investigative committee “for the good of the people of the church.” From here on, it doesn’t matter what pastors and/or sessions say--they’re entirely irrelevant, as you’ll see.

4. Conflict “Resolution.” Drive a wedge between whatever two sides you can identify. It doesn’t matter if it’s between a 20-year-veteran pastor and a man hired out of a newspaper ad to pick up litter with a pointed stick--you put them on a level and keep them there. As long as there are two sides, then there is a need for an investigative committee, which we can morph into an Administrative Commission. Get the commission in and we’ve won! It may be helpful to call in a “consultant” to deal with the conflict. If you choose from one of the national organizations, pick from somewhere low on the totem pole, thereby increasing the chances of overlooking “family systems” and allowing us to put the crosshairs on one or more of the pastors. Someone has to take the bullet for conflict, and it won’t be the presbytery!

5. Declare a Stalemate. An Administrative Commission only needs to declare that the conflict is unresolvable. Now you can remove pastor(s) at will. You may lose up to half of the elders, but more likely than not, the congregation will fall back into conformity once their leaders are gone. Result: the denomination keeps the property, and seeks a new (and more obedient) pastoral staff to “lead” the church.

NWAC NOT ABOUT BREAKING AWAY

Be clear: The New Wineskins Association of Churches is not interested in simply breaking out of the PCUSA; to the contrary, we are trying to keep churches in--specifically, evangelical congregations. NWAC is doing something the denomination used to do several decades ago: helping churches to be the Church. NWAC is not about defiance, but it is a response to irrelevance, obstructionism and in the worst cases, incompetence.

My father is 90 years old. He is incredibly healthy in mind and body, but I still worry daily about his driving. Granted, I worried about his driving in 1976, but that was for other reasons; I was 16. If I am going to be in the car with him, I want to be the one driving. Yes, he has a great driving record and 74 years of driving experience to his credit, but still, I wonder, should he be driving? If the answer is no, how do I take the wheel? If yes, then for how much longer?

These are the NWAC's questions about the PCUSA. We have no thought of jumping from a moving car, but of changing drivers, or relocating the steering wheel to what was the passengers' side, like those Drivers' Ed cars. NWAC says we need both a steering wheel and pedals mounted for those who know where the church does (and does not) need to be going.

I love my dad, and someday I will have to take the wheel and help him get where he needs to go. If I do not, he might steer the car someplace very dangerous. At that point I will need to stop him from driving, and he will not like it. He may even tell me that doing so is "hateful" or "breaking up the family." Because I love him I will do it anyway.

No one loves the PCUSA more than those who are willing to do what is patently hard for its highest good. The denomination has been weaving on the road for many years. We run over construction cones and veer away from large trees at the last second. They may call it Peace, Unity and Purity, but it is madness. It is well past time to let some others take the wheel--preferably those who know what the Church is, Who her Lord is, and where she is supposed to be driving.

And if we can't just take the wheel (i.e., infiltrate the denominational bureaucracy--and be clear, we can't) then we have to find another way to steer the car.

NWAC is for all those churches who love the PCUSA, but can't allow the old guard to steer any longer. We are strategizing for change with a captial C, which means we want a new way of doing church (thank you PUP), not another church or denomination. NWAC is for all the churches that have become too nervous to trust Louisville to steer us according to the Word of God. NWAC is for those who feel a little ashamed that we haven't acted sooner or more decisively in these matters.

NWAC is building in to the PCUSA new pedals and a new steering wheel. Enough is enough.

GOING TO TULSA and AN END TO DENOMINATINOAL NARCISSISM


Good people say “we love the Presbyterian Church,” but this is a tad naive. We all know (don’t we?) that our love is reserved for the Body of Christ–the Church invisible–spread out through time and history and present (at least) in every denomination, including the PCUSA, praise God, but these expressions are disingenuous because they are about us. Presbyterian pride is a sin when it holds up the mere form–our local club–and speaks of it as though it were the whole Body of Christ.
Truth be told, we know we are in decline and flawed–both of which are okay if we are simply honest about it and admit it freely–but most don’t, and when they do they are called nasty names like “negative,” “pessimistic,” or “The Layman.” Is it either polite or helpful to ignore our flaws? Is the “prophetic voice” only allowable on the left? Whenever denominational flaws are aired, we are met with aloof dismissiveness, the same look we get when we suggest we should spend more time praying and reading the Bible.
Rather than awakening our collective consciousness to change, we sacralize our dysfunctions through sentimentalizing our weaknesses. It is like the mutt we so love, despite her three legs and bad breath. We accept our flaws with a smirk and a shrug, which is gracious enough, but let’s be clear: denominational affection is not enough; the PCUSA needs a flea bath and a thorough de-worming. Anyone who loves the denomination per se is like the goose that fell in love with the goose-shaped boat. It is unseemly for any Christian; it is denominational narcissism.
The PCUSA is in love with itself and wastes away in front of the mirror. “I love and am so proud of the PCUSA” may be our final words. Sad, too, because no one (least of all Christ) asked us to love a denomination.
The evangelical status quo calls us to “keep in there, stick with it, and get active.” This simply does not work; it has been not working for at least 20 years. “Stay/Fight/Win” is now a lose/lose proposition. The only win for the PCUSA (either side) is to change/change/change, but we may not have the emotional intelligence quotient required for self-change.
From Birmingham to San Diego to Seattle to Ft. Lauderdale, even moderate evangelicals now talk about “going to Tulsa,” which is literally about attending the New Wineskins Convocation, but is fast becoming a catch phrase for “we’re sick and tired of the PCUSA as it is, and unwilling to ‘wait-and-see’ any longer whether it will straighten out.”
The New Wineskins conference in Tulsa gives all Presbyterians a chance to break away from denominational narcissism–the infatuation with their own image. We must renew by looking solely to Christ as the one to complete our faith, rather than trusting the belabored legislations and social awareness committees of a dying behemoth.

LOSS OF DENOMINATIONAL IDENTITY



PUP is legally, word-for-word conservative, as it should be.
The PUP report is legally conservative. The constitution reads well-enough, but the function of the PCUSA in relation to its constitution has been given an official, authoritative loophole in recommendation #5.

For evangelicals, this is a hole in the boat; for liberals, it is progress.

I for one don’t care to be in a boat with someone who keeps pulling the plug every time you turn your head to fish, but we now spend more time replacing the plug and bailing than we do fishing.

We could reform and reorganize–some already have and others are planning to do so–in the hopes that the next generation will build healthier denominations, or we could just continue on in our very flawed, very divided and double-minded denomination.

Denominational identity is obsolete; it is like product loyalty to your old brand of cigarettes. Being a Presbyterian, up and against being a Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran or Catholic gains us nothing in either mission or evangelism. Its former, elitist, “ivy league, upper-middle-class” appeal is long dead, which is too bad, because at least that appeal drew people into the pews.

The Presbyterian identity is gone, either lost or otherwise transformed. The “appeal” is now lost in a flurry of mixed messages, and whatever people are hearing, it just isn’t working; it hasn’t worked for 20 years. Denominationalism per se is dead, at least for the PCUSA. Most younger already Christians get it–these are same ones who have never seen a cigarette commercial. To them, Presbyterians means “deeply flawed, deeply conflicted, but with a really interesting past.” We’d have as much luck getting them to join the local Lions’ Club. The Shriners have more drawing power with those red fezzes and little go carts they braid around in local parades. Compared to the PCUSA, the Shriners are really cool.

Something big is happening to the Church–not just the PCUSA–but worldwide Christianity. An explosion of growth with an expansion of diversity of form. It includes forms unseen or disregarded since the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Gnostic Christianities that worship God as the Father of Jesus Christ who is The Light, radically-applied koinonia on the small scale in small groups and house churches, independent congregations willing to live and die in a natural institutional life-cycle–these are spreading the world of denominations (and denominationalisms) into obscurity and obsolescence. Wildly varying communities of faith organized according to their preferred interpretations (many of them bad, in our opinion), yet seeking to follow Jesus at the center, remain on the increase, not the decline, as with the old mainlines.

I suspect we will see an increasing fragmentation of “acceptable” interpretations–an explosion of micro-denominations in the small group and house church movements that will have less and less in common with each other and the rest of Christianity other than the true essentials. Why should we expect the Church to grow into unanimity? We may have had a dream that Jesus would unify His Church by combining denominations in growing consensus (and by the way, what an utter joke our ecumenical groups have been, WARC, NCC, etc.), but it seems more likely that God will unify us by spreading out our denominations so thin that they cease to exist. What remains will be a world of Christianity unified by essentials-in-practice. It doesn’t matter what we say we believe; what matters is how we serve, how we do outreach, how we worship, and how we organize ourselves. Putting it in the Book of Order doesn’t make it happen: that’s a lesson we Presbyterians know by heart.

The PCUSA can lead in this change. We have no consensus. We have no ideological unity, just a few points in common. We do the most drastic ecumenical work every year within our own walls. The PCUSA is an ecumenical body. We are all about ecumenism because we can’t agree on anything. We are two, or four, or a dozen denominational spirits under one moniker.

If the denomination doesn’t really matter (and let’s be crystal clear here: it doesn’t matter), then there is no better reason to break away than to just stick it out in spite of disagreements. By breaking away we simply risk the repeating denominational history when we ought to be busily shaping the wildly-diversified, post-denominational, wirelessly-connected Body of Christ. The history of doing church by denominations is closing quickly; we must invest aggressively in the new ways Church will be done in the next generation.

Being divided and double-minded as we are, we are off to a good start. The move is not to purify the PCUSA (which isn’t worth purification), nor to preserve its better qualities only to ossify them in new denominations (which will be equally flawed within ten years), but rather to get out of the denomination business altogether.

The PCUSA should coordinate and strategize for its own deconstruction. “But wait,” you say, “that is what we have been doing for 20 years!” No, the fault of the church is that it has been working so hard to preserve its own life, it can only lose it. Perhaps all hope is not lost; perhaps God wants us to become the first denomination to become more than a denomination: a mission-enabling, worship-enabling, study-enabling network. Do we need to break away to make that happen? No, we are on that course already, albeit too slow for some and too fast for others.

JOURNAL: 217th GENERAL ASSEMBLY


http://web.mac.com/noela/iWeb/My%20Site/217th%20GA/Archive.html

DR. ROGERS' GOOD RESEARCH AND FLAWED ANALOGIES

Dr. Jack Rogers, in "Jesus: The Bible, and Homosexuality," provides a wealth of research into Presbyterian scriptural use and abuse through the ages, but unfortunately pours his good research into a string of flawed analogies. While we respectfully honor his painstaking research and helpful citations, we also stand in utter amazement at how he fails to see himself and his own arguments in the very mirror he holds up to the rest of the denomination.

In Chapter 2, "A Pattern of Misusing the Bible to Justify Oppression," Rogers recalls one James Henley Thornwell--a name to be remembered by all Presbyterians concerned with homosexual rights--and the arguments he used to justify the immoral practice of slavery. Thornwell (as Rogers teaches us) sought to justify slavery through at least four principles (all quotes from pp. 21-22):

1. Ask: Does scripture directly[literally] condemn slavery? No.
2. Remember: Slavery is no new thing, it has existed for ages in the world and church.
3. Ask: Do scriptures indirectly condemn slavery? (No, argues Thornwell, and for which Rogers comments: "An evil practice of ancient Near Eastern culture, recorded in the Bible, was thus allowed to overrule the central teachings of Jesus).
4. The particulars of scripture take precedence over the general principles. "Unless something is expressly prohibited, it can be done."
5. Natural law argument: Whatever the majority of people accept as true is natural.

Thornwell's arguments to justify immorality bear a point-for-point correlation with the pro-homosexual enthusiasm!
Rogers is correct about Christians misusing scripture to justify sinful behavior, but how on earth can he miss the perfect reflection with his own--and others'--attempts to justify homosexual behavior? The chapter needs to be rethought and rewritten with the title: "A Pattern of Misusing the Bible to Justify Immoral Sexual Practices."

The progressives argue exactly as did Thornwell. In the above examples, try replacing the word "slavery" with "homosexuality" and see where we stand! Evangelicals stand with the abolitionists--those who appeal to the word and spirit of the text to denounce a culturally-accepted practice. Western culture's embrace of homosexuality is identical to the old South's embrace of slavery. The justifications are exactly the same.

Rogers further reminds us (p.33): "Abolitionists within larger denominations, following the principle 'no fellowship with slavery,' often withdrew to form new antislavery churches." and "Yet other abolitionists grew tired of the mainstream churches' failure to condemn slavery. For example, a leading New England abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, was deeply disappointed when his own pastor, Lyman Beecher, refused to endorse the immediate emancipation of slaves, calling the idea 'commendable, but misguided.'"

Pro-homosexuality Presbyterians like Rogers sincerely believe they merely practice compassion and mercy by the promotion of homosexual behaviors. To love the people you must love the sin, is the effect of their logic. This too is commendable, but misguided. Rogers et. al. are seeking to justify a practice that has clearly been denounced as sinful by the whole Church--worldwide, spread throughout history--in a unanimity that is nearly perfect.

All Presbyterian should hope to be remembered in these present conflicts as having learned from our Abolitionist heritage. In the matter of justifying homosexual behavior, we must stand with the Abolitionists, not Thornwell.

THE OLD INFORMATION SYSTEM IS DEFUNCT

It used to be one large ice shelf–Presbyterians with their diversity of opinions and positions–and the whole shelf maintained integrity and stability through a system of organized connections we called governing bodies. These governing bodies constituted our specific information system by which the whole shelf remained stable and ideologically well-integrated. There was a left side and right side with members seeking to add weight to their respective positions, but all enjoyed the sure undergirding of a stable shelf and a reliable information system to keep them connected in spite of differences.
At some point, the ice shelf broke and split into diverse fragments--small ice floes--and the stability of each floe no longer depended upon the whole shelf, but each fragment required its own local organization to remain balanced and afloat.
Since 1983–perhaps earlier–the PCUSA has endured the same cultural fragmentation as seen in all of American life. The increasing belief in the virtue of diversity, increasing isolationism for individuals and families, the loss of volunteer and civic organizations, the dramatic shifts in ethnic populations--all attest to this increasing fragmentation that affects both culture and churches. Culture wars has become a household term, indicating that diversity has its shadow side as well. The PCUSA currently manifests these culture wars most clearly in the areas of gay rights, abortion rights, and to a lesser degree right and left party politics.
The PCUSA saw its heyday of effectiveness in the unfragmented age, when the information systems were defined by institutional models and these were operative and useful. “The Presbyterian way of doing things” always referred to “connectionalism”--our dependency upon our institutional model to solve problems and provide for effective ministries.
The information system represented by the denominational structures is of increasingly questionable value in the new world of fragmentations. The denominational structure is an insufficient information system to connect the floes. A new information system is needed. The challenge is to reconnect the fragments which have already established their own local stability, lashing together as many of the floes as possible without threatening either their effectiveness or their internal integrity. The challenge to unify the fragmented floes raises several crucial questions:
If the floes have local integrity and balance, then why bother trying to reconnect them?
If some of the floes refuse to reconnect, then do we simply let them go and let them be or do we take the floe by rights and send its members swimming?
If present information systems prove (as they have) inadequate to the task, then what new information system(s) can supercede the old, institutional model?
The PCUSA is today diverse indeed. Its churches or presbyteries are like independent ice floes seeking their own balance with only nominal connections beyond the local level. The cherished connectionalism of our past functions as neither glue nor oil–it neither unites us nor provides increasingly effective ministry in any meaningful degree. Those who continue to tout the denomination’s institutional virtues express either a sentimental loyalty based on the past or remain in denial of the very real fragmentation.