In many ways the response to the General Assembly's call for Unity in the Midst of Diversity conferences is like Jonah's response to God's call to go to Nineveh. He did not want to go, neither do many of us. From what little evidence is available, it seems safe to say only a small portion of our presbyteries are planning Unity in the Midst of Diversity conferences.
I resonate with William Saum's reminiscence of General Assemblies focused on "great issues confronting the church and the world." I lament with Saum that little at this year's Assembly reflected the enthusiasm of last year's cutting-edge report from the Church Growth Task Force, "Hey, I am doing a new thing . . . . Do you get it?"
That's the question I have been asking all my pals since I read the wonderful article in Sunday's paper by Henry Allen. He is a professor at the University of Maryland. In his honors seminar on meaning and culture he asks students with whom they identify in those classic cartoons: Wile E. Coyote or the Roadrunner?
Soon, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will begin as new round of conversations with the Episcopal Church, focusing on the recognition of their office of bishop and our office of elder. We should make this an opportunity to clarify and strengthen our understanding of the eldership, for the sake of life within the Presbyterian Church.
While a gay legislator addressed a recent political convention, a delegate held up a sign which read, "There is a way out." The intended reference was that gays and lesbians can simply change by becoming heterosexuals. Regardless of how one feels about that advice, the phrase itself provides wise counsel for Presbyterians. Although caught in a seeming interminable struggle over the ordination of gays and lesbians, there is a way out for the Presbyterian Church (USA).
I fear for the soul of our church. I fear because I believe I am seeing a fundamental premise of our polity thwarted, with a resulting fragmentation and conflict that may tear us asunder.
The fundamental premise to which I refer is that a person will always vote his or her conscience.
No, I'm not talking about declining membership figures or any kind of financial or staffing questions, budgets or bureaucracies.
The 212th General Assembly, which met in Long Beach, Calif., gave graphic and depressing evidence of the shocking way in which our Presbyterian Church has "shrunk."
"The spectacle presented by the indecent squabbles of priests of most denominations, and the unfairness and rancor with which they conduct their differences utterly repel me . . . . The Church's hand is at its own throat . . . . The Master of the New Testament is put out of sight."
