It could very well be.  Out of committee the proposed amendment has to be approved by a majority of the presbyteries of the denomination.  This is unlikely, but this is getting farther into the heat of the General Assembly than some previous years.

SAN JOSE – A committee is recommending that the 218th General Assembly approve a constitutional amendment to strike from the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) language that restricts ordination to those who practice fidelity if they are married or chastity if they are single.

Instead, the committee – approving an overture from Boston presbytery – voted 41-11 on June 24 to replace that with a provision that those being called for ordained service “pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church.”

Each governing body examining candidates would need to establish “the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards,” the overture states.

The committee also is recommending that the assembly pass an authoritative interpretation declaring that interpretive statements the assemblies of the northern and southern branches of the Presbyterian Church made in 1978 and 1979 regarding homosexuality “and all subsequent affirmations thereof have no further force or effect.”

This is not a new thing and has been under scrunity as “Amendment B” for the past 10 years.  What is new is that other presbyteries than Milwaukee and San Francisco are challenging it and presenting overtures to amend it, or remove it from the Book of Order, the PCUSA constitution.  This could be sign of an increasing trend to change this part of the consitution.

Read this.  Like it or not, you are not only going to be an enthusiastic and idealistic minister of the gospel, you are also assuming the role of a COO of a non-profit corporation.  Carol calls it “stuff they don’t teach you in seminary” and to that I say “Aye”.

When you sit in your first session meeting listen, but take the reigns and let people know that you are able to organize and steer the ship into safe harbor if it needs to go there.  Don’t be tentative.  The long time parishioners, deacons and elders can smell blood in the water and some of them want to eat you alive.

Be gentle and operate with love.  But be stern and clear enough about how you want to do business with people.  People will have expectations of you that you will never meet.  They need to figure you out as much as you need to figure them out.  Things “Storm” then “Form” then “Norm” then “Perform”.  So learn to live with a little tension as things equilibrate.  And that will likely take you three years so stick with it until then - at least.  Don’t be a first-year pastor statistic who ends up working a Starbucks with no clue what to do with life anymore.

Remember the Three C’s:

• Be Clear - Don’t be ambiguous with what you say to people.  Be pragmatic with your language.  Think about how things will look if people actually do them.  Most of all, have a clear understanding of why you are doing what you are doing and suggesting.
• Be Consistent - Try not to show favoritism or too much attention to any one person or clique of people and use the same language to express your ideas no matter who is in the room.  This prevents gossip.  If you approach everyone in the same way, the gossip stops about you as soon as two people start talking about you behind your back (which they will do - that’s part of being a leader).
• Be Creative - Don’t let the current conditions stop you from thinking outside of the box, and learn to take some risks with people.  Try not to be overly zealous with your creativity to change things right off.  But be creative within the structures you are inheriting to stretch the resources you have in the best way possible.  Sometimes you meet what you think people’s needs are by creating a few needs with your own vision!  Think what do we want to do, how will we do it, and how will we know we have done it.  Sometimes action will tell you what you identity is.  So don’t let an “unclear vision” bog your decision-making down.

Kate Galli writes a nice piece in Christianity Today regarding two narratives of so many disillusioned 20 somethings and how they do not feel “nurtured” by current ecclesial structures. From the perspective of one such author:

Cunningham cites various New Testament passages that deal with early Christian communities. She mentions Matthew 16 a few times—where Jesus appoints Peter to be the rock on which the church will be built—as the biblical grounds for her understanding of church. Ultimately, though, she shies away from any notion of the church as an institution (the closest she comes is saying that the church should be “a permanent fixture in society”). Jesus, she says, “did away with institutionalized religion and instead championed a real-life faith where he hung out with his followers in a way that was perhaps reminiscent of Eden.”

As if Eden was all that successful. Primitivism is nothing new either. The door towards what “once was” will always swing around. The problem here is that “hanging out” with God is not a proper relationship to God at all. Yes, that includes the man Jesus. Galli rightly holds fast to the notion that the way that we organize ourselves is not something formed in a vacuum. As Galli says:

Yes, we’re Americans. We multitask all day long. Efficiency is one of our top cultural values. I, too, am pragmatic. I’d like to use Sunday morning to worship God, to get a few pointers on how to improve my relationship with Jesus, and to reconnect with community. But every Sunday, the first words heard at my institutional church are, “Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” And I’m reminded that we gather weekly not to hear a practical talk on how to better live out our faith or to provide a venue to tell our friends about Jesus. We gather corporately to worship God, to celebrate the redeeming work of Christ on the cross, and to remember that our lives are not about us.

That preaches. It is not just about jettisoning the organizational structures of the church as much as reforming what is already there to respond to cultural needs. However, even when the church is effectively responsive to those needs it cannot be beholden to those needs as if the needs of humanity are constitutive of the community of faith.

What is missing with these “disillusioned” is a sense of sacred reality - that one common thread that holds every and all religions together. The sacred reality of God built the foundations of the church through a risen Lord, not the Jesus people walked with and rejected - including the apostles! What is missing in many churches is a profound sense that Christians are called to do something special in the world and mediate the goodness of God to all of creation. If you are a 20-something reading this, this goes way beyond “hanging out” with Jesus. Jesus is the resurrected Lord, not some chap at a poetry reading you meet over a nice scotch or a strong cup of coffee.

The image of Jesus as an “average Joe” is about as destructive as any influence in the church today. Worship is a sacred activity where humanity is related to God through Christ in a special and sacramental way. The Eastern Orthodox get that. They always have. Protestants are effectively killing the relationship between the sacred and the human because we don’t want that profound distinction. Yet without it, the church ceases to be what it was founded to be.

I was deep in the movement in evangelicalism of “Buddy Christ” from college through seminary. What I learned over time is that this Jesus is not the one whom we worship in our creeds. He has nothing to do with that. Strangely, as my social perspectives and overall theological perspective became more liberal, I became more sensitive to the profound distinction between Jesus the risen Lord and the cosmos and all that is in it. Even though Jesus is “with us” until the end of the age, it seems that we too often confuse the phrase “with us” with “is us”.

The Jesus we worship in the Church is the Pantokrator - and if he is not, he needs to be. It’s not enough to capitalize “Him” when you are really just talking about your next door neighbor or drinking buddy, or would rather Jesus play that role. Protestant churches are bereft of images that remind them of the distinction between the sacred and profane - they are not nourished by that difference on a regular basis as when you walk into the nave of an Eastern Orthodox chapel. Protestants forget, or perhaps are not aware that they are to function as the very icons of God in the world and that this theological foundation for lack of these images. They are the image bearers and media for God to communicate not only his love and grace in Christ, but to communicate the sacred reality of who God really is.

But it seems that people do not want to bear that important responsibility whenever they recite the Apostles’ Creed. That Creed begins, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth…” Or in God’s speech to Job we can be reminded with these words, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding,…” When we want Jesus to be “our nurturing friend” and that takes precedence over Jesus as Lord, we are not understanding - still! Why do people do that? It’s safe. It’s something that can be manipulated and controlled. It is something that can be ignored. It does not disrupt or challenge. That is the heart of what idolatry means and it is why the Garden of Eden was a profound failure for humankind.

I hate and despise love songs to Jesus in the “contemporary” praise and worship circuit. It’s such a “me, me, me” kind of theology where Jesus sounds like a love who is “cool” and “relevant”. Yuck. I almost feel gross singing these songs when in a contemporary worship setting. Jesus looks like a distant relationship that looks just like a boyfriend or girlfriend who finally “completes us”.  All I have to do is compare it with John Wesley’s hymns and you can see the difference.

Reminds me of this diddty from in Amos:

Will not the day of the LORD be darkness instead of light,
Even gloom with no brightness in it?
“I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
“Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
“Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
“But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Now that preaches.

So I was singing my own verse from a praise and worship song that I just made up. I hope you enjoy.

Jesus you’re awesome,
It’s really cool the way you saved me.
Jesus your riches,
Are better than the best diamonds.

You came to me in the dark of the night,
And saved me when I was lonely,
You came to me and rescued me
From the darkness of my night.

You’re such a great King.
You’re really awesome.
You’re better than rings.
It’s to you I sing.

And I sing to your love.

Jesus you’re awesome,
It’s really cool the way you saved me.
Jesus your riches,
Are better than the best diamonds.

You give such great hugs.
I sing to your love…for me.

PROPOSAL

Narrative

I have been involved in and witnessed many debates over homosexuality not only in the forum of its relationship to society in general, but its characterization and association in the life of the Church. Scholars on many sides have presented careful expositions of their own positions in relation to Scripture and the various traditions and theologies within the history of the church.

However, many of these studies are rather ignored in water cooler talks and in often whispered breaths in our congregations. This does not mean that people do not read them. It means that even when read, the conclusions are often ignored due to a personal discomfort with the outcomes. It also means that one’s own experience often trumps whatever those conclusions might be.

The result is that in most debates, one’s personal commitment intervenes and effectively blocks an objective engagement of the arguments. What I have witnessed are a lot of dishonest conclusions even when plausible objections are rendered against a certain view. The debate is then cut off due to altogether irrational reasoning strategies that result from personal adjudication rooted in experience rather than evidence.

What we often do not do from various personal motivations is test our own often deeply personal assumptions and boundaries about reality and engage such processes with the willingness to change. Or, if we are not willing to change at a given moment in time, we tend not to be honest with the reasons why. Often this is because the “other side” whichever it is, places an unfair demand on the opposition to capitulate. The message is that if you do not change now, then we should go our separate ways. Or you could take Brian McLaren’s strategy of not talking about it for a while. But if one thing is clear about McLaren is his intentional lack of clarity as somehow inherently a good we need to observe. I find that has little to no use.

For instance, the idea of two men having sex is gross to many people. It is hard to get past that image no matter what any other evidence is presented. On the other side two people who are even in a monogamous same sex relationship cannot see past it if Scripture and the intent of the passages that deal with same sex relations clearly forbid it. For the former, the argument will usually boil down to “scripture is clear” even when it is not. For the latter, the argument comes down to “scripture does not address our situation” even if it very well might.

Intent

I would like to do something different here. I would like to propose hypotheses related to this issue where we do not look at it with personal interest or experience as a motivation at all, but bracket out personal commitments on either side of the issue and engage it on as rational a basis as possible. What I would like to do is propose hypotheses from the perspective of affirming homosexual relationships and see where the debate comes out. It might end up at stalemate and that should be OK since we are not here adjudicating polity. The reason for coming at it in this direction is that the affirmative hypotheses are the source of the discord which is a fact regardless of one’s position in the matter. It is the affirming position that is new in the church.

I want to do this because I think we can work with the issue better. Whatever your take on homosexuality, one thing that we need to agree on is that division in the church is clearly not an effective witness of God’s continuing act of reconciling the world to himself. Laying effective groundwork by being honest is a good way to do this in my estimation.

Format

The primary question is this: On what bases is our position on the affirmation and/or negation of homosexuality made plausible and legitimate?

Here is a proposed format:

1. A series of blog summits following a general agreement on the hypotheses rooted in the above question that will be tested. There will be one of these a month starting the third week of May through the third week of August.
2. The goal would be to have an essay that seeks to affirm the hypothesis and one that seeks to falsify it. In the spirit of fair and balanced dialogue I would recommend that the position you choose to take would be the one that you are most likely to currently disagree with in an effort to try to affirm it.
3. At the close each participant would offer a personal concluding statement that takes into account their own theological, biblical, and traditional assumptions that inform their view with a reflection on how those assumptions are both plausible and legitimate.
4. There would be no attempt to “sway” people to consent to a given view. The goal is an open and honest engagement of the issues in order to lay bare our assumptions for the good of reconciling the church. Moreover, we may not find a hermeneutic that can effectively adjudicate a balance between the two positions. However, an effective groundwork can at least be established.
5. I will post an index of the summits as a separate page unless there are objections.
6. I would also consider the contributions of the summit to send to a publisher if all participants would be in agreement. Lulu.com is also an option for this, but if the contributions are stout enough, I think we might be able to do much better. Naturally this introduces another level of risk, but I think one well worth it for the good of the church.

If you have concerns over copyright we can work something up to establish a good faith agreement to ensure that your intellectual property is protected when your content is posted on this site. (By default, if you post anything to a site for which you have no license, it defaults to a dual ownership between the license owner and the producer.)

Would anyone be at all interested in taking a risk here to engage the debate the summer?  Post your interest here or use the contact form if you wish.

A few months ago I listened to a fascinating series of lectures by Yale professor Carlos Eire entitled “A Brusque History of Eternity“. In the three lectures he presents his “brusque” history focusing on both the philosophical and socio-cultural developments of the notion of eternity and its implications for the Western world. At the end of the second lecture, he discusses that a major change in the weltanschaunng after the Reformation is a distinct division between the realm of the eternal, infinite, and immortal with that of the physical and material conditions of our existence. He couched this in terms that Berger uses in The Sacred Canopy. I found the similarity to be rather uncanny. Here is Berger’s quote:

At the risk of some simplification, it can be said that Protestantism divested itself as much as possible from the three most ancient and most powerful concomitants of the sacred - mystery, miracle, and magic. This process has been aptly caught in the phrase “disenchantment of the world”. The Protestant believer no longer lives in a world ongoingly penetrated by sacred beings and forces. Reality is polarized between a radically transcendent divinity and a radically “fallen” humanity that, ipso facto, is devoid of sacred qualities. Between them lies an altogether “natural” universe, God’s creation to be sure, but in itself bereft of numinosity. In other words, the radical trascendence of God confronts a universe of radical immanence, of “closedness” to the sacred. Religiously speaking, the world becomes very lonely indeed (pp. 111-112).

As Berger goes on to argue, this split between sacred and profane is a major source of secularization in modernity. With him, and Eire, I would venture an hypothesis that the analysis gives us a two-edged sword in how modernity develops from then on to today. On the one hand, this truly allows for the development of modern science since the cosmos can now be seen as as object that can be studied on its own right. There are no gods, as it were, to worry about when one investigates natural phenomena. On the other hand, by segregating the cosmos from God and eternity in such a radical way, the intimacy of God is eschewed because it is made to be less accessible than before. God’s unknowability takes precedence to God’s revelation in the created order. Hence the dissolution of the Book of Nature that we read in so many medieval spiritual texts like the Cloud of Unknowing. That is to say, via negativa mitigates the efficacy of via positiva to know God.

I should also note that Herbert Butterfield in his classic text The Origins of Modern Science argues this same phenomenon, although in rather different terms. Modern science as it developed in the late 19th Century would have not been possible had it not been for this clear distinction between world and God that Protestantism had introduced into the shape of modern Christianity. Following this, revivalism, spiritualism, romanticism, and the aesthetic nature not only of God, but of morality tried to inject this magic back into the popular ethos about God, truth, beauty, and goodness.

It is easy to see the connective tissue with our current debates between atheism and religion. One side would rather have this sense of magic and mystery forever excised for the good of humanity. The other side also sees its mission to re-inject that dimension of the cosmos for the good of humanity. But in a more specific context, I wonder how well Protestant churches give people a sense of the bridge that the church is here to construct between God’s eternal, invisible, immortal hiding place and the raw stuff of our phenomenal experience? To drill this even further, those churches that are quite intentional about building this bridge, for whom are they building it and are they building it with the true intent of spreading the love of God and the love of neighbor to change the structures of how people understand the stuff of the world in which they live and so, transform the way that people inhabit it?

(This post follows quite circuitously starting here, followed by a direct reference to the post here).

A couple of days ago I wrote a piece on a recent article published in the American Journal of Sociology which argues that conservative religious belief is a contributor to the substantially lower median income among conservative Protestants have compared to the rest of the American population. As the author writes, “Low rates of asset accumulation and unique economic values combine to reduce (conservative protestant) wealth beyond the effects of demographics.” The thrust of the argument offers a substantial explanation for how religious belief can reinforce wealth inequalities. The article argues that the poor will tend to stay poor. The other question is if the rich tend to stay rich. Either way, religion has a significant effect on the level of persistence in a given socio-economic constituency.

So what does this have to do with the church? The theology of your church may be justifying and contributing to socioeconomic inequality rather than helping to solve it. This was my initial thought and I want to unpack that a bit more here.

The question has to do with what a church actually is. Paul used the metaphor of the Body of Christ in his first Letter to the Corinthians.

But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, ²⁵that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

The church is made of of people who believe in the saving power of a risen Lord. It is the church which has received this saving power to act as the physical representative of the living Lord. The church is that physical entity which is not only a symbol of the saving power of Christ, but is the very means by which God continues to enact and perform acts of grace and love in the world. First God was incarnate in Christ. Now God is incarnate in the church.

This is what would be called a rather “high” ecclesiology since it makes the church an image bearer of God’s being and the church therefore functions as a means of grace. The church is therefore more than a symbol and sign of God’s grace, it is the very conduit for that grace to be effectual in the world. As Paul writes in some of his most beautiful and vivid language in the Second Letter to the Corinthians where he changed his tone dramatically from the first letter:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,^* not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In Christ God reconciled a world that had missed the mark and needed to turn back to the true God as had been the case in so many instances in the past. But it is clear that Paul does not believe that this work of reconciliation, the very work of God in Christ, was done. “God is making his appeal through us” as a continuing act of reconciliation. So where is the seat of this continuing activity of God to reconcile the world? It is the body of Christ which is the church. The church is therefore a communion of ambassadors, representatives of the Kingdom of God on earth. It is the job of the church to have its feet firmly planted in the contingent whims of a suffering world and the world that resides in eternity. The church is the bridge to perfection in God.

The question is how many people in the church understand their role in this regard and what it actually entails. It is clearly not about public displays of piety and massive light shows to attract people in the buildings to raise funds to maintain buildings to attract more people to come in the door. So if not that, what?

To whom did Jesus minister? Who actually listened to him when he spoke of forgiveness and love? Who truly received his messages of accountability and judgment? Was it the people who were proud of their beliefs and status among the people of God? No. It was the fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes, lame, blind, lepers, and vile people of society. These are the ones who heard, believed, and truly received his reconciliation. These are the ones who understood that Jesus was there to reconcile them to God and make things right in their lives. They knew that it would not come without a price, but the dividend would be sight not with their eyes, but with their heart, mind, and soul invaded and purchased with the blood of God’s love for them. Jesus did not condemn those he saved, he simply fed them and they ate.

Jesus disrupted the boundaries of the order of his time. He revealed the tentativeness and fragility of the structures that people had established. With Jesus there were no safety nets that humans could construct.

How well does the body of Christ live up to this standard? How often do we freely welcome the outcasts and sinners of this world? Do we condemn them before they are allowed into the “holy of holies”? Do we tell them they may break bread with us, but only if they adhere to certain conditions of our own fragile laws and weak apprehension of God’s reconciling act through us?

The article regarding religion and wealth essentially tells us that the church legitimates the things that Jesus disrupted including inequality of wealth among its members. It legitimates inequality and suffering and I would venture a good guess that it also legitimates mediocrity and comfort. If the church is the means for God to enact this work of reconciliation in the world, who is being reconciled and how is the church doing this work? As affiliations and numbers shift in the United States, perhaps more mirrors are needed in our churches. Look at yourself in the mirror as you pray. Is the image you see in front of you an icon of God’s work of reconciliation in the world, or do you see an idol of the things of the world that legitimates division, inequality, and mediocrity?