Covenant Network conference sets new record
Focus is on the Church
by Gene TeSelle, Witherspoon Society Issues Analyst
[11-12-03]
WebWeaver's note: We've posted links to the
texts of all the addresses that have so far been posted on the
Covenant Network
website. You've find them as each presentation is mentioned in
this report.
This year's Covenant Network conference, held November 6-8
in the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, was the
largest so far, with about 600 registered. A number of churches and
ministers in the DC area and all the way to Baltimore participated in
everything from logistics to worship.
Food had to be served in three locations, one of them in a
neighboring church. It was prepared by Fresh Start Catering, an employment
for homeless and welfare recipients that offers them training in the
culinary arts; and there was general agreement about its quality.
A group of seminarians from Princeton attended, as well as
undergraduates from Coe College. (A seminarian asked, however, why there was
not more participation from these groups in worship -- and on the Board of
Directors.) There were 36 workshops in three sessions, dealing with a broad
range of issues. The Shower of Stoles contributed a number of stoles
reminding participants of those whose gifts have not been recognized in our
church.
Worship at the event continues to become more varied and
multi-cultural; this year it included the African-American choir from the
Sargent Memorial Church and the Gay Men's Chorus, in addition to organ and
brass. Several Scripture readings were done in dramatic style; new hymns
were sung; and a Taizé service was scheduled. Each service of worship was
translated into sign language by Miako Villanueva, giving additional drama
to the proceedings.
VARIATIONS ON A THEME
The theme of the conference was The Church We Are Called
to Be and To Become. Several of the speakers and preachers, recalling the
many changes that have occurred in the past, expressed apprehension about
telling the church what it ought to be. This statement of caution was made
in order to loosen up our thinking as we affirm that God has already
enriched the church by calling GLBT persons, that the church still has far
to go, and that it will learn to enlarge its welcome.
The most explicit discussion along this line was by
Patrick Henry,
Executive Director of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research.
Using Yogi Berra's dictum that "the future ain't what it used to be," and a
somewhat more dignified version of the same point, Newman's reminder that
"to live is to change," he evoked many examples of changing interpretations
of the past and the hearing of voices, especially women's voices, that have
not been heard before. Thus he championed a certain "tentativeness" or
"indirection" in approaching both past and future; like Lewis and Clark, he
suggested, we cannot simply click on Mapquest. The Bible is not so much a
blueprint but a set of clues about where to look.
Ken
Kovacs, pastor of the Catonsville [MD] Presbyterian Church, picked up a
phrase from George MacLeod, "a chaos of uncalculated love," and took as his
text 1 Cor. 2, especially v. 10, "the Spirit knows the depths of God."
Chaos, he suggested, is not the opposite of order; it is a source of
novelty, and GLBTs may have heeded the Spirit of God even when the church
has not. The closing hymn used the words of Brian Wren, "Live tomorrow's
life today."
Similarly Bruce Reyes-Chow, pastor of a new church
development in San Francisco, talked about the "post-modern" situation,
characterized not by organization but by "organized chaos." There is little
continuity in jobs, residency, and all too often marriage. In a situation of
constant interactions, what is needed is not organization, not a plan, but a
posture that is "confident in belief," able to say "God" and
"Christ," and open to the unexpected. It means being ready to welcome GLBT
persons, but also, because we cannot claim finality in our judgments, being
ready to welcome their opponents.
In much the same vein
Moderator Susan
Andrews told of her experiences in a variety of churches this year,
seeing the need to be not only multi-ethnic but multi-cultural, and now to
include not only African Americans and Hispanics but immigrants and
refugees. GLBT persons belong to this mix, too, "because together we can
become more than any of us alone." She also sounded a note of caution: the
situation will not be "feel-good" but will be full of tensions. Even our
talk about the "peace, unity, and purity" of the church is likely to uncover
the tensions among these three values, giving us a "trichotomy" and inviting
us to be "purposely paradoxical."
Jana Childers, Professor of Homiletics at San Francisco
Theological Seminary, preached on the exhortation to reunion and
reconciliation in 1 Jn. 1, "that our joy may be complete." This is what we
desire, but it may not happen this side of eternity. In the meantime there
may be no happy ending, only happy people, in moments that are signs; and
that they happen at all is a miracle. The anthem that followed was a setting
of a text by Nita Pollack, with lines that "fighting only shows where we are
weak," that hate means "competing for a power that belongs to no one," and
that "peace comes from sharing our lives with one another."
Somewhat more affirmatively,
Barrie Shepherd,
retired minister of the First Presbyterian Church in New York, preached on
the man born blind (Jn. 9:1-12). Some ask who is guilty; to them the world
is "a vast crime scene" in which we seek the source of our troubles, and the
brunt of this "blame game" usually turns out to be marginal people whom few
dare to defend. Others move out toward the "terrifying beauty" of the world.
The cross and justification, he emphasized, mean not only forgiveness but
transformation, and he quoted Nietzsche's complaint that Christians "ought
to look more redeemed." The responsive reading after the sermon came from
the Reformed Church of Africa, with contrasting declarations that "this
is not true" -- "that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination,
hunger and poverty, death and destruction," "that we are simply victims of
the powers of evil that seek to rule the world," or "that we have to wait
for those who are especially gifted . . . before we do anything" -- with
other declarations that "this is true," quoting statements in
Scripture that tell how God's love comes near and calls all.
During the final altar call for gifts to the Covenant
Network, Jon Walton, Shepherd's successor at New York First, recalled that
Bishop Gene Robinson, when asked by the press about the crisis he was
causing in the church, said that the church has always been in crisis, and
that this crisis is bringing us to a better place.
A DIALOGUE
Richard Mouw, president of Fuller, and Barbara Wheeler,
president of Auburn, are by now frequent discussion partners. They agreed on
many things, including caution against what Mouw called "the split P
phenomenon," the tendency of Presbyterians to divide when there is
controversy.
Mouw defended Reformed orthodoxy. While he acknowledged
the importance of the social witness of liberal Protestantism during the
1960s, he insisted that the issue of homosexuality is different. And while
he acknowledged that many of the biblical passages about same-sex relations
are difficult to interpret, he remains convinced that Romans 1 is a clear
prohibition. As a good Calvinist he cautioned, however, against selfishness
and self-righteousness, exemplified in a man who in one breath praised the
ringing affirmation in question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism, "I belong --
body and soul, in life and in death -- not to myself but to my faithful
Savior Jesus Christ," and not too many minutes later expressed resentment
about taxes that took away "his" money. Mouw acknowledged that many
"straights" are "likely to be crooked," and said that all of us, together,
need to come to the cross without resolving our differences.
Wheeler took as her text Hebrews 11:13-16 and suggested
that Christians are still "strangers and sojourners," seeking a new
city rather than returning to an old homeland. They should gratefully be a
"company of strangers," "strangers locked in covenant," who stay with each
other and affirm each other's gifts despite tensions and difficulties (she
alluded to the early church, in which there was certainly tension among
Peter and James and Paul).
For Wheeler, change is not "capitulation to a libertarian
culture" but a heeding of God's transforming call. The church should show
the world, she said, that there are other ways to resolve conflict than
bloody warfare -- should be, then, "a provisional demonstration of what God
intends us to be."
In the ensuing discussion, the issue of separation was
broached. A gay seminary student expressed the conviction that he would lose
if conservatives cannot endure a church that permits ordination; his current
dilemma, he said, is that either he loses the possibility of ordination, or
he loses his conservative brothers and sisters. Another person pointed out
that no separation can be "clean" and "gracious"; worse than the pain of
staying together would be the pain of splitting, leaving many raw wounds.
Doug Nave expressed the need to think about future generations of children
baptized in our churches; he went on to say that, while it might be more
comfortable if strident conservatives left the PC(USA), they would have GLBT
children, stranded in a church with no one to speak for them.
Mouw pointed out that the Reformed Church in the
Netherlands permits gay ordination but makes a place for a network of
conservative churches that disagree. "There are models," he said, even
though the solution is difficult to articulate. He cautioned against
becoming Congregationalist in our polity; but there is clearly a need for a
more open-textured church.
Another person asked whether it is possible to be both
liberal and evangelical. Mouw seemed to think No, saying that these are
concrete historical movements that have been at odds with each other. But
Wheeler pointed out that Harry Emerson Fosdick and Henry Sloane Coffin
identified themselves as "liberal evangelicals" without any difficulty.
There was a fruitful discussion of a point made from
another person in the audience, that the debate is often phrased as one
between being (sexual orientation) and behavior (which is
regarded as a moral abomination by conservatives). Both Wheeler and Mouw
acknowledged that this has become a stereotyped and incoherent opposition,
needing much more discussion in light of the fact that we are "fearfully and
wonderfully made" (Ps. 139:14).
THE ISSUE OF "TIMING"
Chris Glaser, in the opening sermon, took the text about the woman bent
over because of a "spirit of Satan" (Lk. 13:10-17); he compared the woman
with the church in its current position. In the pericope there was
controversy about timing, he pointed out, between Jesus and the
rulers of the synagogue, just as timing has been an issue in controversies
about slavery, civil rights, women's ordination, and the peace movement.
After the sermon there was a responsive reading from the PCUS "Declaration
of Faith" to the point that "we must not countenance within the church and
its institutions the inequalities we seek to correct in the world."
The issue of timing was raised repeatedly. During the last
ten minutes of one plenary session there was a fascinating succession of
insights. One participant pointed out that inclusiveness has been an
imperative since the New Testament, and we are in a situation like that in
which Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail,"
reprimanding those who counseled more waiting. One person, an avowed
lesbian, expressed her misgivings about the annual debates over deleting
G-6.0106b, saying that it had come to feel "abusive"; it might be
preferable, she said, to think strategically. Chris Chakoian rose to express
her gratitude for all the roles that are being played. Mary Jane
Patterson brought the session to a rhetorical high point that was applauded
loudly when she suggested that "the issue must be brought before us year
after year, until God gives us the answer."
Let me add my own editorial comment to this. It seems
clear that "moratoriums" have not worked; the issues are simply not
discussed except by those who are strongly motivated on one side or the
other. The issue needs to be brought before each General Assembly, for it is
the General Assembly that has educated the church about the issues. That
does not necessarily mean that it should send a constitutional amendment to
the presbyteries each year. But it does mean that each General Assembly
should consider the issues carefully and speak for itself. The possibilities
certainly include an authoritative interpretation removing previous
authoritative interpretations (see more below); also adoption rights,
inheritance rights, domestic partner benefits for non-clergy employees of
the PC(USA), and so on.
If there is to be genuine discussion, it must be of
several different kinds: Bible study, listening to personal
stories, asking how we should get along with each other as
Presbyterians. There is, furthermore, a key role for moderates, who
must keep insisting on discussion; otherwise they will simply continue to be
a passive "market" for opposing advocacy groups.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
The policy of the Covenant
Network, stated on September 29, is to await the report of the
Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church, drafts
of which will be released in 2005. In the meantime the Network urges that
discussion continue, especially in the presbyteries, to prepare the church
for change. The goal is that the Assembly in 2006 will approve an amendment
to delete G-6.0206b and that the presbyteries will do the same.
In the interim, the Covenant Network's goals are
