rebuilding the presbyterian establishment: a comment, part 1

There has been much ado in various circles in the PCUSA regarding an essay by Dr. William (Beau) Weston entitled Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment. I wanted to offer a comment on the document also from the perspective of an Elder in the PCUSA, and as one who has been but a call from ordination as minister of word and sacrament for some time now. What I want to do is balance the comment with points I think that we should take seriously, as well as challenge what I think are poorly articulated assumptions that are in demand of data and research to support. I am not convinced that these are assertions that we can support given the various data and published materials in the field of secularization theory which I can assume Dr. Weston is familiar given his post as a professor of sociology at Centre College. Part 2 will form a set of critical questions that the essay suggests, but does not offer any significant substantiation to be persuasive in my judgment. If you are only interested in where that will go, scroll to the end here! But my wish is that we can look at both sides critically as not to toss the baby out with the bath water.

1) In general, Weston favors a church establishment where expertise and merit are the predominate measures of who is fit for leadership rather than characteristics such as gender, race, age, or sexual orientation. From his argument, the latter has been the predominant structure of authority in the PCUSA and has thus mitigated the expertise of those who are most fit to lead. That is to say, just because you are female or of color does not therefore mean that you are fit to lead. Quite true. Quotas for representation should not be seen as immutable political structures that ought to remain after a certain time at which the political body deems them to be unnecessary. To put it another way, once those outcomes of equality for which representational quotas were designed to alleviate are met, those structures should be changed to meet new needs, or disbanded after recognition of a job well done.

2) Weston also favors smaller bureaucratic structures that are more conducive to a changed society in which mobility is easier, population densities have shifted, and congregational demographics have changed over time. It is an axiomatic truism that as political bodies once designed to connect congregations namely, the presbyteries, grow, the possible relationships between churches, pastors, elders, deacons, and members of different congregations will get weaker unless the bureaucratic structure is made smaller. Smaller presbyteries and the elimination of synods would seem to be in order to be more efficient and cultivate stronger relationships.

The practical question is: How often have you had congregational "mixers" with other churches in your presbytery? With smaller presbyteries such connections are easier to form and the relationships less diffuse. This does result in a clearer power structure and leadership. It is why mega-churches live and die by small group leadership, why universities live and die by the output of the colleges and departments, and why a national system of education should be resisted due to its inherent limitations.

3) There absolutely is a problem with denominational loyalty and studies from Ammerman, Wuthnow, Wills, and others on congregations and denominations confirm this point. This is perhaps a critical point of agreement that I share with Weston. By and large people of mainline denominational affiliation persist not due to theological or confessional commitments that the tradition requires. They persist due to the relationships they form within the congregation. For them, it is about friendships first and the questions of salvation second.

For Weston the question of loyalty is critical. Through the 1960's and 1970's in particular, there was a rejection of essentially all established political authorities for various reasons not important to unpack here, or for Weston to have unpacked in his essay. Be as it may, the critical point is that Weston proposes that the loss of consent to structures of authority, which is the definition of Establishment in the essay, are a critical variable in church decline and mitigation of its effect as an authoritative structure in the American culture.

This makes sociological and historical sense. If we look at France as an example, as Martin convincingly argues in many publications, the political establishment and the ecclesiastical establishment of the Catholic church were inseparably fused up to the French revolution. What happened in this situation is that tyranny of the state and all of its problems so fused to the religious establishment resulted in an Enlightenment in which the people, in terms of their religion, rebelled for a freedom from belief as belief in the Church was the same as belief in the state. In the 1960's in the USA the white, male, Protestant establishment was virtually omnipresent in various centers of power. If rejecting of the state establishment over issues of race, gender, war, etc. was to occur, it was only natural that such an association would be made with the religious centers of power that were legitimated by many of those same Protestant, white, affluent men. It is clear that the former structure of the Establishment was deconstructed and delegitimized in the era of protest.

4) Finally, organizations cannot persist without a clear center of power. Even organizations that claim a form of deregulated, democratic, egalitarian polity will eventually develop a hierarchy and a center of power if they are to persist. Alternatively the organization will spin off various often conflicting centers of power that each claim equal say, but none of whom can appeal to a structure to regulate the differences. This is I think the conclusion of Weston as a justification for a re-committal of the establishment as a core to regulate what is, in his view, a rather confusing and only nominally connected set of factions that exist outside of Presbyterian political structures of legitimation rooted in this egalitarian premise.

Next, I will cover some criticisms. First, I do not think that these political and structural problems are the main reasons for denominational decline and the evidence simply does not show this in various studies on secularization. Second, I am not sure that re-establishment with the larger, richer congregations (aka. the tall steeple church) is a strategy that keeps focus on core theological issues to do with the Kingdom of God and classic mission of the church. Third, I am not convinced that reaffirming the Westminster Confession as the central and core standard is necessarily in keeping with the Book of Order, theologically sound, or even in the best interests of the PCUSA as an heir of the Reformed tradition. Fourth, I am not convinced that this is the best strategy if we are to be sensitive to the Word of God in Scripture which calls us not to re-establish what has been the most politically expedient in the past, but calls us to serve the Kingdom of God as the Body of Christ.

Related posts:

1. god is not in the temple
2. we were born to be loved