I. The 212th General Assembly
a) Key Issues
The 212th General Assembly was certainly a victory for
conservatives in terms of their long-term strategy of using sexuality as
a wedge issue for reorienting the wider church. But it also showed signs
of theological moderation and even cautious support for certain
progressive concerns, and this may reflect the church's increasing
unease with the conservative agenda. Key aspects of this agenda were
rebuffed, for example on the anti-abortion front. The church also voted
to reaffirm the embattled Women's Ministries program area in approving
the GAC review committee's generally positive report.
Of course, the main focus for the conservatives was
the issue of holy unions. Their effort was significantly reinforced by
the recent national Permanent Judicial Commission decision to uphold
local jurisdiction on this issue. The resulting GA decision to ban holy
unions is consistent with the tide of conservative policy-making on
sexuality issues in other mainline churches, although the margin of
victory was much narrower in the PC(USA) than was the case at this
year's General Conference of the United Methodist Church.
The ban on holy unions, while very narrowly passed at
the GA level, drives the conservative wedge deeper in ways that go well
beyond the issue. Should it pass in the presbyteries and become part of
the church's constitution, the ban will have multiple effects. It will
have a chilling effect on the practice of holy unions in the local
church, of course, but it will also contribute to the institutional
strength of the renewal movement more broadly. Like Amendment B, a
constitutional ban on holy unions vests the wider church and its
judicial apparatus with a particular exclusionary agenda and with a
responsibility to profess and enforce this agenda, thereby undermining
the integrity of the church through a distortion of its authority. In
effect, the church becomes an appendage of the renewal movement.
As a collateral effect on the mobilization side,
moreover, the ratification process will undoubtedly serve as a momentum
builder for the gay ordination vote at the 213th General Assembly. Win
or lose, the holy unions' vote in the presbyteries benefits the
conservative movement on Amendment B. If the presbyteries vote to ban
holy unions, reaffirming Amendment B will appear to be the final
threshold for a conservative realignment of the church, a huge
motivational plus. If the ban doesn't pass, the more reactionary dynamic
of preventing the church from moving back in the direction of
inclusivity and freedom of conscience will be just as effective during
the buildup to the 213th GA.
Next to holy unions, the most significant victory for
the right in Long Beach was arguably the approval of Overture 74, which
was pushed by Presbyterians Pro-Life and was sent to the GA from Donegal
Presbytery, a conservative stronghold. Overture 74 mandates that the
General Assembly's most recent action on an issue is the official policy
of the church, and therefore binding on the agencies and programs of the
church. Designed as a weapon for conservatives to "rein in"
the national staff, as the Lay Committee puts it, this overture is
fueled by a kind of zeitgeist majoritarianism that is profoundly
unreformed and non-Presbyterian.
This overture could be used in myriad ways to limit
the church's ability to sustain its social justice traditions and its
historical consciousness against the sway of conservative retrenchment
that is currently gripping the church. It is a perfect example of the
right's agenda of institutional control in the service of their vision
of the church. However, the most important effect of this overture may
be in how it contributes to the growing self-censorship in the national
offices and programs of the church on progressive issues. This is often
the most effective kind of control, because it is not direct.
b) Sola Scriptura
Several GA decisions reflected skepticism about the
conservatives' authoritarian perspective as it relates to theology and
the Bible, but the growing emphasis on theology and the Bible should not
be underestimated in the long term. One overture, 00-21 from
Northumberland Presbytery, called for an elevation of scripture in the
life of the church. The rationale for this claimed that "what we
need is a purely unashamed declaration of our dependence on the Bible as
the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ and the final rule
of faith and practice."
It is important to note that this overture, while
rejected by the General Assembly, is broadly consistent with the
Southern Baptist Convention's recent revision of its Baptist Faith and
Message to prioritize scripture as the only source of knowledge of
Christ. The goal here is to marginalize understandings of faith that
incorporate cultural and historical perspectives, and the political
thrust is unmistakable. It is within this revitalized biblicist
framework, posed as a "countercultural" effort much like that
proposed by leaders of the Presbyterian renewal movement, that the
ordination of women is now being denied by the SBC.
Parker Williamson placed overture 00-21 in his
"top ten" list for the GA, and it was echoed politically in an
overture from Santa Barbara calling for a "study of abortion
focused solely on explicating the biblical witness in a manner faithful
to the Scriptures . . . ." This overture was also rejected, but the
underlying thrust cannot be ignored. Clearly seeds are being planted to
increasingly reframe the wedge issues--ordination, abortion, feminism,
etc.--as matters of biblical and confessional authority alone. This
marks a convergence with the tactics of the right-wing takeover of the
SBC.
c) The Conservative Effort
It seems clear that the level of conservative
coordination at the GA was higher, with more financial support, than
that of the liberal groups. The Presbyterian Lay Committee's
expenditures for their pre-Assembly event (with William Bennett) alone
probably outdid the combined GA budgets of the liberal groups. The
Forum's expansive off-site set up had the feel of a campaign
headquarters compared to the far more improvisational, and frankly
disorganized, efforts of progressives.
For the second year in a row, the Presbyterian Renewal
Network, spearheaded by the Presbyterian Forum, held a two day
"pre-assembly forum" to prepare commissioners for the GA. Key
leadership from the renewal movement was on hand for this event,
including Parker Williamson, Terry Schlossberg, Bill Giles (executive
director of the Coalition), Alan Wisdom (Presbyterian Action), and
Sylvia Dooling. Julius Poppinga, the chief legal strategist for the
renewal movement, appeared on video with commentary on judicial
proceedings and the issue of holy unions. Also in attendance was
Winfield Casey Jones, a pastor from Texas who ran unsuccessfully for
Stated Clerk in Long Beach with 17% of the vote.
While the pre-assembly forum concept is extremely
significant politically--it is this kind of effort that can potentially
weld together a conservative bloc solid enough to "win" a
General Assembly--the practical return on this effort thus far is hard
to measure. Only about fourteen commissioners went to the forum this
year. Significantly more commissioners attended the renewal movement's
evening strategy sessions at the GA, however, whereas the liberal groups
did not work with more than a handful of commissioners at their evening
sessions.
Renewal organizations sponsored a battery of special
events and daily sessions designed to mobilize commissioners and shape
the GA votes on key issues. Daily noontime briefings sponsored by
Presbyterians for Renewal, coupled with evening strategy sessions held
at the Renewal Network's complex, provided commissioners with a steady
stream of information and assistance focused on the progress of
particular issues through committees and on the plenary floor.
Among the most notable of the special events was the
Lay Committee's well-attended pre-Assembly event with William Bennett,
icon of the conservative culture wars. This event highlighted the
PC(USA)'s responsibility as a source of "judgment" against the
cultural decay of American society. On the anti-abortion front,
Presbyterians Pro-Life sponsored an event featuring the views of
Scottish theologian Thomas Torrance. Illness prevented Torrance from
attending the GA, and his talk was delivered by Gerrit Scott Dawson,
pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lenoir, North Carolina, formerly
the pastorate of Parker Williamson. The talk focused on Jesus's status
as an embryo before he was born: "In becoming a human being for us,
he also became an embryo for the sake of all embryos . . . So, to take
no thought, or no proper thought, for the unborn child is to have no
proper thought of Jesus himself as our Lord and Savior."
Other special events included a luncheon presentation
by anti-gay reparative therapy advocate Joseph Nicolosi sponsored by One
By One, the main purveyor of "ex-gay ministry" within the
PC(USA). One by One also issued a public declaration for the GA that
listed "homosexual behavior" along with rape, incest, and
pornography as forms of sexual "anarchy."
The church's main charistmatic group, Presbyterian
Reformed Ministries International, sponsored a spraise and worship
service and contributed to the focus on homosexuality by distributing an
inflammatory wedge-issue tract called Same-Sex Unions and the PC(USA):
A Biblical Response to the Gay Theological Agenda. Among the
dangers cited by PRMI in warning against holy unions is the
encouragement of other "sinful behaviors--like incest, adultery,
having sex with animals and pedophilia." Last summer PRMI targeted
women, launching a campaign of "spiritual warfare" against the
Women's Ministries program and related special interest groups.
d. The National Picture
While the church is clearly moving to the right on key
wedge issues, one does not yet see a strategic focus on the national
committees and offices of the church, at least not consistently. The
main thrust of conservative control in recent years has come through its
shaping of GA votes and through pressure exerted on the national offices
as GA policies continue to shift the church to the right.
Conservatives have successfully targeted positions on
the Permanent Judicial Commission and the Advocacy Committee on Women's
Concerns in recent years, of course. This is symptomatic of what the
right is capable of and should not be underestimated in the future.
Syngman Rhee's appointment of Lay Committee board member Rebecca McElroy
to the vice moderatorship may be a case in point. While Rhee has
persuasively defended his decision as a personal expression of
denominational reconciliation, the broader question of the renewal
movement's increasing access to national power, as exemplified by the
McElroy appointment, should not be ignored. Certainly there is cause for
legitimate concern when a fiduciary representative of an organization whose mission has been to subvert and sow division within the
church is suddenly accorded status as a symbol of enduring unity within
the church.
Comparatively speaking, the 212th General Assembly did
not represent a turning point of the proportions attained by
conservatives at this year's General Conference of the United Methodist
Church, but it was certainly a step in that direction. The GA's ban on
holy unions undoubtedly strengthens the renewal movement's wedge-issue
influence on the political direction of the church. At the same time the
very issue of holy unions has served the renewal movement well by
widening the framework for authoritarian theological reorientation in
the broader life of the church.
Conservatives are necessarily going to cut a different
swath toward power within the PC(USA)'s annual decision-making cycle as
compared to the three and four year cycles of the other major
denominations. Their impact has more or less depth in any given year,
but what is important is the cumulative erosion that is taking place. By
that standard, the conservative bid for power in the PC(USA) is clearly
gaining ground. It is critical to recognize this before the situation
becomes terminal.
II. Growing Conservative Presence
a) The Authority Factor
A major shift in the conservative agenda has taken
place in the last five years. Since 1996, with Amendment B, the right
has been able to mobilize the church in an authoritarian institutional
vein. In the early 1990s, with the controversies surrounding Keeping
Body and Soul Together and ReImagining, or going back a little to
the late 1980s, with the prophetic analysis of Christian Obedience
in a Nuclear Age, the right-wing mobilization against social
justice was reactive and built by fomenting among the laity a sense of
betrayal by the national church. With Amendment B and now the ban on
holy unions approved at Long Beach, we see a different institutional
dynamic, whereby the General Assembly's decision-making is not reactive
against the denomination, but proactive in bringing denominational power
to bear against the local church.
As the denomination drifts rightward on the issues,
the connectional obligations of the middle governing bodies and local
churches have become the focus of many in the renewal movement, in
contrast to their historic agenda of undermining connectionalism through
para-church activities, financial boycotts, and political attacks
against the national offices and programs of the church. It is no
surprise that as the renewal movement gains influence in the church and
as its agenda becomes codified, the populist veneer that has
characterized its attacks against the national church for so long is
fading rapidly in favor of a focus on the church's constitutional power
to enforce uniformity. This interplay of pseudo-democratic rhetoric with
an anti-democratic agenda lies at the heart of modern authoritarian
movements. Not coincidentally, the Coalition's task force on church
discipline, which was foregrounded at their last annual Gathering in
1999, is clearly a defining initiative in their overall strategic
effort.
The reactionary attacks against denominational
programs will continue as well, because that is what sustains the social
base of the renewal movement within its wider institutional agenda. Of
major concern in this regard is the continuing attack on women's
ministries and women's theology in the church. Having rooted out
ReImagining, the right is now questioning the institutional status of
Presbyterian Women. This focus on the moderate PW shows that, despite
the storm and fury over alleged heresies in women's ministries, the
right's underlying agenda is to undermine women's institutional power in
the church, not heresy.
As its agenda shifts in the direction of institutional
uniformity and enforcement, the right's growing influence in the church
is rooted in an organizational shift that has seen the various renewal
groups increasingly coordinate their efforts. This is not to say that
coordination is new. Presbyterian General Assemblies have seen
significant cooperation among renewal groups since the mid-1970s. But
with the development of the Presbyterian Coalition in 1993, and, coming
out of that movement, the Presbyterian Forum in 1997, there is a new
level of coordination. The very fact that the Coalition is separately
incorporated and has its own staff, while drawing on leadership from
various sectors of the renewal movement, shows that the renewal groups
have begun to take things to another level of organizing.
b) Theology Matters
In gauging the growth of the renewal movement, it is
important not to underestimate the Coalition's cooperative theological
effort, namely its declaration Union in Christ. This coalition
process almost had the feel of an historic confessional movement and is
very similar to what is happening in other mainline denominations,
particularly the United Methodist Church with its conservative
"Confessing Movement."
Church historians would surely agree that efforts on
the order of the Coalition's Union in Christ have political
implications and in certain cases an overt political charge. One thinks
of the Barmen Declaration, for example. In fact, the Barmen Declaration
is sometimes cited by renewal leaders as an analogy for their movement.
Despite the obvious historical, cultural, and theological inaccuracy of
this analogy, its political thrust is unmistakable.
Union in Christ represents an attempt to
define the theological and ecclesiological terrain of a burgeoning
"true" church--evangelical and exclusive in its thrust--within
the shell of the dying "false" church--the church in its
national offices, agencies, and programs, as well as its progressive
constituencies on the issues.
The Coalition's accompanying "strategy"
paper may be where all the action is in terms of the question of
institutional control, but the theological work is just as important.
That's the map of the thinking--the theological framework, the
confessional self-consciousness, and the biblical hermeneutics--that is
going to define and communicate the various efforts at institutional
change and control in the future.
As noted above, overtures and resolutions reflecting a
strong confessional undercurrent, one aimed at reformulating the
authority of scripture, doctrine, and confessionalism within the life of
the church, are beginning to surface. This is beginning to reframe
issues of justice to potentially devastating effect in the long term.
III. The Image of Unity and the Reality of
Dialogue
If one thing stands out from the Long Beach General
Assembly, it was the strenuous effort to project an image of enduring
unity within the church. This growing effort was very persuasively
encapsulated in the rise of Syngman Rhee to the moderatorship, and is in
many ways a positive thing, not least of all because it sets into relief
and marginalizes the more extreme elements of the conservative agenda.
On the other hand, it also creates a situation where
progressive issues and ideas can be equated with the conservative
extreme, using a "plague on both your houses" view from the
"center." The problem with this is that the progressive issues
are actually far closer to the center of the church biblically,
theologically, and historically. As society has moved to the right in
the last twenty years, the real center of the church, and indeed of
democracy itself, has been marginalized as the "left," while
what is claimed to be the center is actually the right.
Absent a critical understanding of this wider
historical context, "unity" is not simply a public relations
myth, as the far-right "irreconcilable impasse" advocates
would contend, but potentially a platform for the conservative movement
in its long-term work. The theme of unity can accommodate the ongoing
rightward drift of the church, while at the same time proscribing as
divisive any attempt to challenge this rightward drift. But the real
division lies in the fact that this mainline church is being severed
from its own core traditions by the right, or more accurately, by a
growing center-right dynamic in the life of the church.
The days are clearly over when a Eugene Carson Blake
could simply show the Lay Committee's ultraconservative founders the
door when they pressed him about the direction of the church. But
contrary to the right wing's claims, this does not mean that the church
is becoming more "democratic." It simply means that, as an
effect of the right's disproportionate influence in terms of money,
organizing, and communications, the church has become more and more
accommodating of its anti-democratic agenda.
A rethinking of how moderates and progressive can
unite against what is happening to the church is critically needed at
this point. The prevailing models of dialogue and reconciliation with
the right are not without value by any means, but the implementation
needs to be better informed about the reality and agenda of the
conservative bid for power in the church. Otherwise these apparently
neutral models become an avenue for the right, because the reins are
more or less firmly in their hands at this point. They control the
dialogue in ways that falsely represent the center of the church, so
that the historic center of the church is marginalized despite the
"common ground" framework of the dialogue. The truth of the
matter is, a realistic assessment of what is happening points to the
need to go beyond dialogue.
IV. Where to go from here
Analysis such as that offered above is vital, but we
also need a clear sense of direction for the near future as we seek to
affirm the Presbyterian church's commitment to inclusivity and social
justice. Two steps are critical at this point: (1) gaining and
disseminating knowledge of the structures and impact of the conservative
renewal movement, and (2) organizing to confront its challenges to the
Presbyterian tradition and the democratic values of our society.
a) Knowing the Opposition
There is a critical need for further historical
research as well as ongoing monitoring of conservative mobilization in
the church. The Presbyterian Information Project, based in Scarborough
Presbyterian Church in Scarborough, New York, has developed to support
research on the right and its influence within the church. PIP's diverse
national leadership and its more than 200 members across the nation are
united by a growing concern about the fundamental lack of information on
the renewal movement among mainline Presbyterians.
The publication of A Moment to Decide has
been an important step toward meeting these needs. It has attracted wide
attention by addressing the needs of moderate and progressive
Presbyterians--the historic center of the church--who have seen and felt
their church being undermined from within by right-wing politics, but
have not had the knowledge they need to be able to answer this challenge
to their faith concretely and systematically.
Judging by the enthusiastic response so far, from so
many diverse precincts of the church, IDS's efforts will not go in vain
in the PC(USA). But how the church's survival as a mainstream
institution unfolds will depend upon the efforts of groups like the
Witherspoon Society to process and communicate the kind of information
IDS has set out to provide. This must be done in a way that leads first
to strategic thinking about the issues and structures at stake in the
church, and second to an organizational revitalization that can
seriously and systematically mobilize resources and power to defend the
church.
b) Rising to the Challenge
The level of organizing must be raised beyond
single-issue defensive tactics to a more holistic and long-term approach
to the church as an institution. In this regard, the Witherspoon Society
brings the advantage of a broad, historical outlook on the church. While
"single issues" such as gay ordination remain critically
important for the health of the church, the concern and energy
surrounding these issues should be channeled into broader structures
that can at once represent the various concerned constituencies on the
issues while at the same time working at a more general level to effect
long-term change in the church. Not least of all there needs to be a
broad-based effort to engage and challenge the conservative renewal
movement and its agenda for the church.
Challenging the right is necessarily a political
process in the end, but it needs to be undergirded by a comprehensive
educational engagement at the middle-governing and grass-roots level.
Undoubtedly, a revitalization of the church's public theology and
ecclesiology will be necessary to communicate the scale of what is at
stake in relation to Presbyterian traditions. Looking beyond the
church--but from the perspective of the church--it becomes clear that
what is at stake in the effort to defend Presbyterianism's inclusivity
and integrity is the integrity of democracy itself. There is much more
at stake socially than any one issue within the church can possibly
encapsulate. Thus, the horizons for framing the issues must be greatly
expanded.
IDS launched its Denominational Studies Series, the
first installment of which is A Moment to Decide, in order to
expand the horizons beyond uninformed, and therefore ineffective,
dialogue on the issues, toward a deeper understanding of what is
happening to the church as an institution. The mission of the series is
to provide the critical research that is needed to empower moderate and
progressive Christians in their efforts to understand and respond to the
conservative renewal movements in their respective denominations.
Grounded in a growing body of knowledge about conservative power, a
passionate revival of the church's historic traditions of welcoming
equality and freedom of conscience may yet prevail in this struggle for
the soul of mainline Protestantism.
Click here for information on
ordering the book, A Moment to Decide.
