Witherspoon gathering begins exploring
"whole gospel congregations"
a report by Doug King
[5-9-01]
Click here for an earlier
report on this project.
At the Witherspoon executive committee meeting in
Santa Fe, in September 2000, the group began shaping a major focus on
the notion of "whole Gospel congregations," as a way of
affirming the mission of the church as involving both service and
evangelism, both love and justice, both individuals and communities,
following the model of Jesus' own ministry.
Our latest meeting, May 3-5 in Claremont, California,
included a 6-hour session devoted to giving some definition to the
notion. Three people were specially invited to contribute some of their
own thinking to the process, and another 20 people joined us from the
community - mostly members or associate members of the Claremont
Presbyterian Church.
The starting point
The Rev. Kent Winters-Hazelton, a member of the Witherspoon executive
committee and pastor of the Claremont church, opened the session by
describing the background for the event:
The impetus for this gathering lies in our deep concern for the social
justice witness of the Presbyterian Church. Last fall, the Witherspoon
Society's executive committee was meeting when we received word of the
of the General Assembly Council's vote to prioritize the
General Assembly mission budget, based on the sole criteria of
evangelism and discipleship. We certainly affirm the importance of
evangelism and personal discipleship in our lives and in our churches.
But our faith also calls for a public discipleship, speaking the word of
justice to the powers and principalities of our world, and offering the
cup of hope to those disempowered by the destructive forces of
institutional as well as individual sin.
Too many critical issues were put to the bottom of the list of
priorities. The members of the Witherspoon Board began to envision a
campaign to remind the whole church of the rich gifts of grace offered
to our world - gifts that touch the whole of life, the material and the
spiritual, the institutional and the individual, the inward journey and
the outward journey. In short, we wanted to remind our sisters and
brothers of the whole gospel, and thus we began to talk about the Whole
Gospel Congregation campaign.
Our context
The first of our speakers was Dr. John Cobb, emeritus
professor at Claremont School of Theology and author of many books,
including Christ in a Pluralistic Age. Surveying our social and
cultural context, he pointed to three major features:
• The shift in our society to the dominance of
"market thinking," which assumes that we exist purely as
individuals, making rational choices in our own self-interest.
• Changes in our understanding of gender and
sexuality, which are leading to more acceptance of diverse sexual
patterns, except in many religious circles which demand clear
right-or-wrong distinctions.
• Multiculturalism, which reflects a shift from
integration as the way of dealing with differences, to an affirmation of
cultural variety and differences.
A positive vision
Dr. Douglas Ottati, Professor of Theology and Ethics at
Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, addressed the question, "Is
there a place for faithful progressive Christianity in the PC(USA)?"
Noting that "we need to offer a positive vision or visions,"
rather than merely reacting to attacks from the right, he asserted that
"we should be recognizably Reformed - not slavishly (which is unReformed!),"
but dealing with our rich and varied tradition. This points us toward
"an ethic of faithful participation in the world," based on
the conviction "that God meets us in every place, and that we are
to respond faithfully to God in every place."
Reformed roots for progressive witness
The third presentation was given by Dr. Jane Dempsey Douglass,
Professor of
Historical Theology, Emerita, at Princeton Theological
Seminary, and former President of the World Alliance of Reformed
Churches. Exploring "the historic roots for the progressive
witness," she described some of the strands of Calvin's strong
focus on the theme of justice, and concluded by describing a meeting of
the World Alliance of Reformed Churches not long ago in Debrecen,
Hungary. The gathering of church leaders from around the world agreed
that economic justice is not an issue we can choose to deal
with; it is essential to any proclamation of the Gospel today. This led
the body to issue a strong call for all its member churches to initiate
a process of reflection on issues of economic justice, particularly in
the matter of the global economy and the growing chasm between the
wealth of the northern hemisphere and the deepening poverty of the
South.
"Justice," she concluded, "is not something merely
derived from faith or implied by faith. It is an essential part of doing
faith. Therefore we cannot rely just on the old tradition, but must let
ourselves be reshaped by our wider [Reformed] family." There was a
strong sense in the group that this call from our sister churches merits
serious attention and commitment from the PC(USA) as well.
