Some Characteristics of
Progressive Presbyterian Theologies:
Remarks for the Witherspoon
Luncheon (6/16/02)
Douglas F. Ottati
[posted 6-19-02]
This address is summarized and abbreviated in our report
on the Luncheon. We present it in complete form, as edited
by the author, and with thanks to him for the address itself, and his
help in preparing it for post and publication in Network News.
I started college in September, 1968. Five months
earlier, Martin Luther King, Jr. had been murdered in Memphis while I
worked the night shift at the Rustic Cabin Esso Station on Route 9W in
northern New Jersey. (Race relations were tense, and it would not be
appropriate for me to repeat here what my co-worker, Vinnie, had to say
on that occasion.) There was a war on in Vietnam, and two years later,
unforgettably enough for me, my draft lottery number would be 63. In
addition, just about everyone I knew at school, anyway, realized that
the availability of safe and effective contraceptives was making a real
difference in American life.
Now, in this volatile and also somewhat confusing
circumstance, plenty of people claimed to know what the church should
do, but very few seemed able to say why. The Confession of 1967 offered
a theological vision. It presented a theology of reconciliation in the
light of which one might interpret the times and say why
faithful people and communities might respond in particular ways. It
tried to do something that good Christian theology always tries to do.
It tried to say how and why certain actions and
stances constitute a faithful and present witness to the living God.
A Call for Theological Reflection
2002 is not 1968 (as I expect even fifty-something
Witherspooners will be willing to admit), although, once again, the
churches are in turmoil and there is at least something of a war on. One
difference is the present circumstance of the progressive wing in the
Presbyterian Church. We have not just now succeeded in getting the
Church to adopt a forward-looking, somewhat prophetic confession of
faith. Neither do we seem on the verge of expanding the Church's policy
and practice as to who may be ordained. Instead, by some lights, our
immediate prospects look rather dim.
The right has scored a significant victory this year
with the defeat of Amendment 01-A. The Confessing Church Movement as
well as various overtures to General Assembly are exerting right-ward
pressures on the denomination's self-understanding. Many of us know of
Presbyterian congregations that recently have been steered hard right by
pastors affiliated with Presbyterians for Renewal and other
organizations. And, of course, the prospect of judicial actions
threatens to drive more gays, lesbians, and heterosexual progressives
from the Church. It may even motivate some congregations to pull out of
the denomination and/or think seriously about the virtues of a broader
split.
What shall we do? Presumably, we need a strategy for
meeting judicial actions both now and in the future. Probably, we should
try to blunt their effectiveness in order to save conscientious persons
and congregations considerable pain. Possibly we shouldn't, so that more
Presbyterians may come to a more accurate understanding of just what
G-6.0106b really means. Surely, we should continue to press for a more
inclusive church. We should also raise and discuss questions about a
host of other matters, such as global interdependence, justice, poverty,
economic development, terrorism, security, civil liberties, human
rights, the appropriate use of military power, urban policy, capital
punishment, global warming, public transportation, and stewardship of
the environment.
And one more thing. As in the 1960s, we need to
reflect theologically. We need to build up some progressive theological
and intellectual capital if we are to criticize and to check the
faithfulness of our continuing witness, communicate it to others, and
represent our positions effectively in discussions and debates. We need
to generate theological visions that promise to indicate both how
and why certain actions and stances may constitute a present
and faithful witness to the living God.
Characteristics of Progressive
Presbyterian Theologies
Having said this, however, we run headlong into an
integral feature of the progressive wing of the Presbyterian Church,
namely, its inherent theological plurality. The right may pursue
theological uniformity. We don't. Indeed, it seems quite likely that
there will continue to be a variety of theologies associated with the
progressive wing - Process theologies, liberal theologies, Christian
realist theologies, liberation theologies, feminist theologies, black
theologies, womanist theologies, Minjung theologies, and more. It
therefore makes little sense to present a single theology for
Presbyterian progressives. Better to outline a few characteristics that
different progressive and Presbyterian theologies might share.
Here goes.
1. Progressive Presbyterian theologies will be
Reformed and ecumenical.
Such theologies will stand in a living tradition with
roots in the work of John Calvin and others - a tradition that insists
on the priority of God's Word, even as it remains open to wisdom and
insight wherever they are found. As did Heinrich Bullinger in his Second
Helvetic Confession, progressive theologies will reject narrow
interpretations of isolated Bible passages, holding instead that genuine
interpretation
is gleaned from the Scriptures themselves (from the
nature of the language in which they were written, likewise according
to the circumstances in which they were set down, and expounded in the
light of like and unlike passages and of many clearer passages) and
which agrees with the rule of faith and love, and contributes much to
the glory of God and human salvation. (1)
Presbyterian progressives will receive church
tradition with critical respect. Like the writers of the Scots and
Westminster Confessions, they will note that creeds and confessions
edify the church, help us to identify errors, and give public confession
of faith to generations following, but they also will recognize that all
such statements are fallible and that none are to be taken as rules of
faith and practice. (2)
Again, progressive Presbyterians will understand
themselves as heirs to an ecumenical tradition that has produced
multiple theological treatises, confessional documents, liturgies,
polities, and churches from the sixteenth century to the present day.
They will recognize that we Presbyterians are members of a wider
Reformed family of churches and subtraditions. This is why they will
accept significant plurality within Reformed Christianity, and why they
will recognize that there is more than one way of being Reformed.
Moreover, as Protestants who historically have counted the Apostles' and
Nicene Creeds among their valued but fallible standards, Presbyterian
progressives will look upon themselves as members of a wider Christian
family. They will recognize that there are a number of ways of being
Christian, e.g., Roman Catholic, Methodist, and Lutheran, and they will
assume that the best Reformed theologies learn from conversations with
representatives of other Christian traditions.
Finally, Reformed and ecumenical progressives will
recall that, in addition to scripture and tradition, Calvin himself
appealed to classical philosophers as well as to standards of
"natural equity." (3) They will
note, too, that he referred to "science as God's gift," and
that other Reformed thinkers, such as the Puritan, Jonathan Edwards, had
similarly high regard for both science, and "natural
conscience" or "the moral sense."
(4) The reason, as Calvin maintained, and as we also should
insist, is that "all truth is of God."
(5)
2. Progressive Presbyterian theologies will be
theocentric and worldly.
They will be God-centered or theocentric because, like
Calvin, Edwards, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Abraham Kuyper, H. Richard
Niebuhr, and the rest, they will point to God and God's reign and they
will encourage us to be faithfully responsive to God and God's reign.
They will affirm that, first and foremost, we belong to God, that the
earth is the Lord's, and that we are not our own.
Interestingly, however, progressive Presbyterians will
be worldly precisely because they cannot say or think the universal,
all-governing God who comes to us in Jesus Christ without also saying
and thinking world. They will affirm that no reality, person, community,
or situation - no part of life or corner of creation - lies beyond the
ever-present governance of the Creator-Redeemer disclosed in Jesus
Christ. This is why they will reject easy divisions between sacred and
profane. Instead, they will encourage us to look for the faithful God
who meets us at every turn and to respond to this God in the midst of
things - in the marketplace, the school, the factory, the hospital, the
sea, the voting booth, the army, the farm, the faculty, the sports
stadium, the church, the city, the town, the Congress, the forest, and
the corner bar.
Such a worldly Christianity, while it appreciates the
deeply personal character of genuine faith and piety, inevitably will
reject merely privatized or interior spiritualities in favor of a
robustly public presence and witness. Indeed, as progressive
Presbyterian congregations endeavor to faithfully form the people of
God, they will return again and again to the question of calling and
vocation in its distinctly Protestant form. How can the ordinary life of
production, reproduction, and statecraft, the world of work, family, and
civil government, become the locus of faithfulness to God and to others?
3. Progressive Presbyterian theologies will be
Christ-shaped and capacious.
Jesus Christ is good news for sinners, for the poor,
the outcast, and the oppressed. Jesus Christ crosses barriers and
boundaries in order to bring renewed and abundant life. Relying on this
particular clue to the disposition of the God who creates and governs
and bears all things, we arrive at a summary statement: in Jesus Christ
the all-governing maker of heaven and earth comes to us as Redeemer.
Jesus Christ means that the great God of glory who creates all things is
the good God of grace who redeems. Jesus Christ means that God is
faithful. Recall that the ancient creeds link the maker of heaven and
earth with redemption in Jesus Christ. The basic theological point is as
elegant as it is simple: the event of Jesus Christ indicates that the
God who creates redeems and the God who redeems creates.
The core christology is that Jesus Christ, the
life-giving word, demonstrates and discloses that God is faithful and
that we are recipients or beneficiaries of the divine goodness. Thus, as
Reformed Protestants, we believe that we are saved neither by our
actions nor our beliefs, but by the grace of God alone. We affirm this
because we believe that the free grace of God is an expression of who
God is, because we believe that grace is simply the faithful
Creator-Redeemer being the faithful Creator-Redeemer. Now, you may ask, why
do we believe something so magnificent and magnificently compelling as
this? The answer is because the event of Jesus Christ shapes our picture
of God.
This is the big deal about Jesus, and it is
a big deal. But it is not an exclusive deal and, in fact, it drives us
toward increasingly inclusive and capacious reflections. Jesus Christ
discloses the faithful and gracious God. This is why we are slow to
limit the scope of salvation. This is why we do not say that only the
morally conscientious, or only the profligate, or only the wealthy, or
only the poor can be saved. This is why we do not say that only the
black, or only the white, or only the red, or only the brown, or only
the yellow can be saved. This is why we do not say that only the male,
or only the female, or only the gay, or only the straight, or only the
celibate, or only prolific can be saved. This is why we do not say that
only the Methodist, or only the Baptist, or only the Catholic, or only
the Lutheran, or only the Presbyterian, or only the orthodox, or only
the heterodox, or only the Jew, or only the Christian, or only the
Muslim, or only the Oglala Sioux, or only the Hindu, or only the
Buddhist, or only the secular humanist can be saved. It is also why we
do not say that only the earthlings, or only the residents of our solar
system, or only the inhabitants of the Milky Way can be saved. Instead,
we only insist on this: the Lord of the universe, the Real, the faithful
and dependable God who comes to us in Jesus Christ, redeems by grace
alone.
4. Progressive Presbyterian theologies will be
realistic and hopeful.
Like theologians from Augustine to Calvin, Reinhold
Niebuhr, Judith Plaskow, and Mary Potter Engel, they will affirm that
sin is a radical, multifaceted, and universal corruption of what we are
equipped and sustained to be. The human fault means derangement,
constriction, and brokenness. This is why Presbyterian progressives will
recognize the persistently destructive tendencies of persons,
communities, and institutions. This is why, with the Puritan John
Cotton, they will harbor a realistic appreciation of the need for
checks, balances, restraints, and the limitation of all powers. And this
is why, with contemporary theologians, such as John deGruchey and Dirk
Smit, they will uphold a prophetic insistence on social and political
criticism.
Nevertheless, grace abounds. Grace means
rearrangement, enlargement, and restoration. Grace means the
transformation of life and its deliverance from diminution to abundance
and renewed possibilities. This is why Presbyterian progressives will
also recognize the perennial promise of shifting circumstances, persons,
communities, and institutions. This is why they also will harbor hopeful
appreciation for efforts at sharing power, at associating individuals as
participants within interdependent communities, and communities as
participants within wider communities and interdependent structures.
Grace abounds. This is why, despite routine injustices, massive
starvations, destructive arsenals, horrifying holocausts, and terrorist
attacks, progressive Presbyterians will refuse to relinquish hope.
At this point, and in the light of recent events, I
might add my own belief that, among the more difficult matters facing
the progressive wing of our church today, is the task of developing
genuinely realistic and hopeful understandings of civil government, the
nation-state, and international politics. For example, will we develop
appropriately critical but also appropriately informed and appreciative
interpretations of military service, or shall we (rather dogmatically)
refuse even to consider the actual functions of a well-trained,
civilian-controlled military in today's world?
5. Progressive Presbyterian theologies will be
ecologically inclined and humane.
Taking note of the work of innumerable scientists, but
also the work of biblical commentators, such as Claus Westermann, and
theologians, such as Joseph Sittler, Grace Jantzen, and Larry Rasmussen,
Presbyterian progressives will envision God's creation as a single,
vast, and dynamic ecology of which we humans are a part. They will
picture humans as creatures enmeshed in the same web of relations and
interdependencies that includes other creatures. They will recognize
that, like other animals, humans are embodied creatures who depend upon
the quite physical blessings of generativity and life. They will reject
the anthropocentric assumptions that we humans are sharply unlike all
other creatures and that Earth is simply created for our benefit. They
will also reject the modern economic doctrine that nature merely
furnishes inert raw material for human manipulation and production.
Instead, they will note that the vast cosmic ecology is not centered on
the isolated well-being of any single creature or species, and that
there is both value and integrity to its dynamic interrelations.
In one sense, of course, following Copernicus and
Darwin, such reflections represent only the latest displacement of
humans from center stage. But it would be a mistake to underestimate
their humane promise. For, by recognizing the ecological creatureliness
of humans, their interconnectedness with nature, as well as their
placement within an articulated and dynamically ordered world,
progressive theologians will find themselves in a better position to
understand the embodied character of human life (something the churches
often have had a difficult time acknowledging, let alone valuing or
celebrating), as well as the relationship between our distinctive human
capacities and our distinctive responsibilities to care for the Earth.
That is, a more forthrightly ecological inclination will put us in a
better position to appreciate and enhance not only the well-being of
other creatures, but also the well-being of the only persons and
societies we know - the kind who live and move as physical beings within
a wider ecosystem on which they also depend.
Another Call for Theological Reflection
Progressive Presbyterian theologies will do well to be
Reformed and ecumenical, theocentric and worldly, Christ-formed and
capacious, realistic and hopeful, ecologically-inclined and humane. We
could go further, but I expect that you get my main point. We
Presbyterian progressives find ourselves today in a protracted period of
ecclesial conflict within an increasingly challenging global
circumstance. In this situation, we need to show grace and care for one
another. We need to register our conscientious disagreement with our
church's restrictive position on ordination. We need to raise questions
about and discuss a host of other matters from globalization and justice
among nations to urban sprawl and global warming. But we also need to
engage in faithful reflections. We also need to theologize if we are to
criticize and to check the faithfulness of our continuing witness,
communicate it to others, and represent our positions effectively in
discussions and debates.
Let me be as clear as I can. Today, I am calling on
the progressive wing of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to do something
that some people may find boring and beside the point. I am calling for
us to engage in the discipline of sustained theological reflection and
discussion in sermons, adult classes, session meetings, Presbytery
meetings, informal study groups, conferences, seminary classrooms,
continuing education events, and more. I am calling for us to put
theological discussion and reflection on the front burner and leave it
there. This past year, the Witherspoon Society has sponsored conferences
on C-67 and the Book of Confessions. Good. We should continue
to study and discuss the confessions. But while we're at it, why not a
study group dedicated to exploring Reformed theology, or the
relationship between God and world? Why not a conference on Christian
views of other religions, or on theological foundations for a realistic
and hopeful understanding of civil government? Why not a class on
creation in the light of new knowledge about the intricate
interdependencies of our planetary ecology? And, while we are at that,
why not put together some lists of suggested readings, and why not
commit ourselves to reading at least two good quality books in theology
and theological ethics per year?
2002 is not 1968. But you will perhaps allow me to
close with the modest hope that 34 years from now someone will stand
before a gathering something like this one and say that, in 2002, during
a time of challenge and uncertainty, the progressive wing of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) didn't wallow in its disappointments. It
didn't fold its tent. It didn't give up. It didn't retreat, and it
didn't surrender. Instead, it stood fast. It re-committed itself to
making a faithful witness in season and out. And, as a part of this
re-commitment, it took up with renewed seriousness and zeal the
time-honored and timely discipline of theological discussion and
reflection. It tried to do what good communities of theological
discourse always try to do. It tried to say how and why
certain attitudes, actions, and stances constitute faithful and present
witness to the only and living God.
Notes
1. The
Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part I Book of
Confessions (Louisville, Ken.: Office of the General Assembly,
1991), 5.010. Hereafter, BOC, 5.010.
2. BOC, 3.20,
6.175.
3. John
Calvin's Sermons on the Ten Commandments (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Baker Book House, 1980), pp. 151-166. John Calvin, Institutes of the
Christian Religion, Edited by John T. McNeill (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1960), 2.8.1; 4.20.16.
4. Calvin, Institutes,
2.2.15. Here, Calvin also writes, "If we regard the Spirit of God
as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself,
nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the
Spirit of God. For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem,
we contemn and reproach the Spirit himself." See also Jonathan
Edwards, Scientific and Philosophical Writings, Edited by
Wallace E. Anderson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 353. The
Works of Jonathan Edwards, Edited by Sereno E. Dwight (Edinburgh:
Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 1:133-135.
5. John
Calvin, The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians
and the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, Translated by T.
A. Small (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1964), pp. 363-364. Calvin
makes this statement in commentary on Titus 1:12. "From this
passage we may gather that it is superstitious to refuse to make use of
secular authors. For since all truth is of God, if any ungodly [person]
has said anything true, we should not reject it, for it also has come
from God. Besides, since all things are from God, what could be wrong
with employing to His glory everything that can be rightly used in that
way?"
