“It has outlived its usefulness. It is beyond repair. There have been too many near disasters. It’s not worth the time, effort and resources needed to keep it going. We don’t need it anyway.”
Does this sound like the debate raging over Space Station MIR? Or is it the kind of talk you hear about the PCUSA?
No analogy is perfect; the parallels break down at some point, but this much is clear: both MIR and the PCUSA face changes in their components, in their mission, in how they are provisioned and how they are peopled.
And the debate will go on. “Why keep trying to work with people who speak a different language? Why do they have so much trouble lining up with the Sun for their power supply? Maybe some have been around the MIR project so long they’ve stopped believing in Gravity. Can’t we do better on our own?”
With all the negative talk, one can easily lose sight of the reasons for carrying on. Someone has to say, “Wait a minute, have you thought of this?”
For now, let others worry about Space Station MIR. Let us think about the PCUSA. What makes it worth our while to put time, effort and resources into it? What is there to work for beyond Amendment B, or is it A?
The answer is, plenty. Consider:
- The PCUSA is a major repository of the Reformed Tradition, of Reformed theology at its best. It is not the only repository, and perhaps not the primary one. But to read Chapters I, II and III of the Book of Order is to realize that here we have a priceless treasure that has been entrusted to us to cherish, to preserve, and to pass on.
- The PCUSA best exemplifies the ideal of shared ministry between professional clergy and informed laity.
- The PCUSA honors the principle of accountability, not just in theory but in practice; pastors to sessions, sessions to congregations, both to presbyteries, and an established church court system. Is it perfect? Of course not. But try to find a polity that is better conceived and more time-tested.
- The PCUSA has faithful professors in leading seminaries throughout the land. These faculty members and scores of committed students constitute an invaluable resource.
- The PCUSA is central to the call to ministry of thousands of its pastors. The completion of their careers within the denomination is profoundly related to the full realization of that call.
- The PCUSA is similarly related to the Christian identity of vast numbers of its members. As a friend put it, “If our church were to leave the denomination I would feel as if I had been orphaned.”
- Last on this list (which is surely incomplete and has not touched on property ownership, pension rights and other material advantages) is the relationship between the PCUSA and Presbyterians the world over. The Presbyterian Church of Korea is a source of spiritual energy and missionary vision that inspires and challenges us all. We may well need it more than it needs us, but clearly we have an obligation to stand by our overseas brothers and sisters in the faith, to maintain the globe-encircling tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.
As noted above, there will continue to be changes in the PCUSA. No institution is static. Hans Koning, writing in the Atlantic Monthly (September 1997), concludes his observations about the changes in western culture during the twentieth century thus:
The changes presented to us, or put over on us, … come from our near neighbors, our fellow men and women. They can be turned to the good or to the bad. They are not fated.
Their perimeters must be our common decision?
These words are apropos to what faces us in the PCUSA. We can let ourselves be frustrated by what is taking place; we can give up; we can resign to it; we can try to flee from it. But none of these reactions is worthy of those who are called according to God’s eternal purpose.
Our resolve, our purpose, must be to call all Presbyterians to faithfulness—faithfulness to Jesus Christ as the Scriptures bear witness to Him; faithfulness to the Scriptures as the Word of God written; and faithfulness to the Constitution of the PCUSA insofar as it remains faithful to our Lord and to the Word of God.
Think about this.
This article first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 3, No. 5 (Sep/Oct 1997).
