Witherspoon Conference Septembe

Witherspoon Conference
September 16 - 19, 2007
Part 2

For an index to all our reports on the conference

Reports from the Witherspoon Conference
BECOMING NEIGHBORS:
An Invitation to Global Discipleship

A Witherspoon conference on global mission and justice

September 16 - 19, 2007, Louisville, Kentucky

The second installment

by Doug King [9-25-07]

Monday afternoon

The New Social Creed

The latest draft of the New Social Creed that is available online (from November 2006) is available on the website of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy.

We have posted previously a number of essays by Gene TeSelle on the Social Creed, including ...

	Some Background on the Social Creed (Sept. 2004)
	The "Social Creed" of 1908: Some Background (Nov. 2006)
	The 'Social Creed' after a Hundred Years: Time for a new Social Awakening
	There are many other articles on that page, as well >>

We are fast approaching the hundredth anniversary of the so-called Social Creed of the Churches, which was adopted in 1908 at the founding of the Federal Council of Churches. It was a dramatic statement by what we have come to call "the public church." Currently the Methodists and the Presbyterians, as well as the National Council of Churches, are looking ahead to an appropriate commemoration. One central element in that commemoration is the drafting of a new, updated version of the Social Creed, responding to the new concerns of the 21^st century.

To help us think about this important new statement, a panel of three people, all of whom have been involved in the Presbyterian drafting team, helped us understand the process and the content of the draft. After some question-and-answer exchange, the Rev. Roberto Jordan, a pastor from Argentina, was invited to offer his perspective in light of his experience in the drafting of the Accra Confession, which was intentionally written for the World Alliance of Reformed Churches to reflect the perspective of the Global South on today’s issues.

Panelists (from left) Chris Iosso, Gene TeSelle, Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty

The panel consisted of the Rev. Dr. Christian Iosso, a long-time Witherspoon member who is now the Coordinator for Social Witness Policy of the PCUSA, the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth L. Hinson-Hasty, Assistant Professor of Theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, and the Rev. Dr. Gene Te Selle, Witherspoon’s Issues Analyst, who is Emeritus Professor of Historical Theology at Vanderbilt University Divinity School.

Chris Iosso opened the discussion with some background about the project. Perhaps most important, this New Social Creed is to be ecumenical, serving both to expressing and to build consensus within the ecumenical movement. He added that the Presbyterian team is preparing a booklet which will give some background for understanding the Creed and its phrasing.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) began its participation in the process with an action by the 2004 General Assembly approving a Commissioners’ Resolution which was proposed by two commissioners who represented roughly the two "ends of the theological spectrum" in the church. It was passed strongly by the Assembly as a whole. The 2006 General Assembly adopted an interim report of the Social Creed Resolution team. It is slated for final consideration and action by the 2008 Assembly.

Iosso explained that virtually none of the content of the Creed will be new to Presbyterians. For some members of the National Council of Churches though – especially the Orthodox churches – this is a new venture. They have been particularly concerned that the Creed have a clear theological framework, which is provided in its Trinitarian structure. For these churches it has also been important to make clear that this statement is not "a Creed," which would have very high status for them, but a Social Creed, with its standing limited by that extra word.

Gene TeSelle, who has written extensively on the Social Creed over the past couple years (most recently in an essay entitled "Time for a New Social Awakening") outlined some of the context in which this statement is being shaped. There are, he said, important differences between the setting in 1908 and that in 2008. "Then" the major social development was the rising industrial economy; "now" we face the realities of the post-industrial era and a global economy. A century ago the church operated within what could be assumed to be a largely "Christian society." Today "Christianity is on the sidelines" of the social and political life of the nation. In 1908 there were two major political parties, each including a large measure of diversity within its ranks; today the parties are each quite homogeneous, and the divide between them is wide.

He noted also that the team considered many issues which are very important in today’s world, but which they understood as less central to U.S. society, and therefore did not try to address.

The 1908 Social Creed was drafted in the midst of a long-running struggle for social reform, which began after the Civil War with the rise of an industrial economy, and accompanying protests against the evils that arose within that system. That phase, he added, did not see much real change, but it did show that alternatives could be offered to the existing social system.

From 1900 to 1920, a number of major reforms were put into effect. This happened largely with the help of a few major leaders, including Robert LaFollette (a Republican), William Jennings Bryan (Democrat), and Theodore Roosevelt ("a maverick"). Mass circulation periodicals helped to raise the pressure for reform.

In the years that followed, it became clear that legislative programs "couldn’t do everything." At the same time, Christianity saw a growth of fundamentalism and Pentecostalism, which gave evidence that social reform could not meet all of people’s needs.

TeSelle commented that the Social Creed overlooked a number of urgent concerns of its time, including race and racism, and the women’s movement. Yet, he added, leaders of the women’s movement saw legislation for "the protection of women" as the best progress they could hope for at the time.

He concluded by pointing out that many Christians outside the "Social Gospel" movement have always been aware of the social dimensions of the Gospel. Jim Wallis’ "Covenant for a New America" represents a significant evangelical movement of social concern. Catholic bishops have for years been issuing statement about social issues – particularly about the dignity of labor and the importance of participation in decision-making. "We may differ over the wedge issues – sexuality, gun control, abortion, and such – but we agree on much more," he said.

Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty began by citing a favorite blooper in one of the student papers she received, when a student described the importance of faith being based in ethics by writing, "Faith is liberating when it is rotted in its own ethical teachings." And so, she said, the new creed is a reminder of our need to be rooted (not rotted, we trust) in our ethical teachings.

"The Social Gospel was great and it has formed many of us," she said, "but the authors of the Social Gospel were formed by their own setting, too." Thus Walter Rauschenbusch took twenty years to decide whether he should support women’s rights.

The movement, after all, was led largely by white, middle-class men, people of privilege. But many of them were in fact aware of that, which made a great difference.

Our denomination, she added, is predominantly white, well-educated, and Republican. So, she went on, "We’re great at making statements ... but my concern is not just what we say, but what we will do in response," and how we will relate with the people outside our usual circles.

Hinson-Hasty went on to outline her two major concerns about how this creed "can be enacted."

First, she said, real change will come only in and through local communities and congregations, and helping this creed to take root in those communities will be a challenge.

And second, "we must find ways to listen to the people most affected by the problems highlighted in the creed." We live in "an apartheid economy," she said, and we must not simply propose for others, but rather listen to them.

This led her to challenge the conference participants "to listen to the people most affected" by the issues dealt with in the creed. "Look around this group," she said. "Who else needs to be in the room? How are we going to take seriously the concerns of those evicted from their homes, those being deported ...?" She expressed the hope that this creed might lead us toward more creative forms of service, for "this creed will only live not in our words, but in our actions."

The panel discussion elicited numerous comments from the group. One participant said there seem to be many of the same points raised in this document as in the one drafted 100 years ago. "So," she asked, "what’s changed?"

Don Beisswenger commented that the draft document is basically aiming at "reforming the present system, but we need more than reformation." As an example he cited efforts to reform the racism in education with the "separate but equal" doctrine, which quickly showed itself unable to challenge the basic problems of racism.

Trina Zelle said that if we affirm these principles, we must also confess that ways in which we betray them. Chris Iosso noted that he and Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty are editing a book or prayers to accompany the New Social Creed.

Roberto Jordan then offered some sharp observations from his vantage point as a participant in the drafting of the Accra Confession, and his place as an Argentinian resident of the "Global South."

A few of his opening points:

"I missed the word ‘justice’ in the final paragraph." (Indeed, it hardly appears in the whole document.) Saying that "that is implied" is not enough, since "implications depend on who’s doing the implying." Beyond that, he asked about what exactly are the aims of the document.

"I missed any reference to the media of communication and ‘the colonization of minds’" that is being carried out under their dominance.

He called for some clear "dividing line" between the "people of good will" ("Good will is very ambiguous!" he added.) and the people or powers that stand against them. He raised this concern again a few moments later, saying that "you haven’t mentioned what causes these problems."

He continued with a few other concerns about the document, including the fact that it affirms interdependence and solidarity, without ever making clear our readiness to be changed by the other persons with whom we stand in solidarity. "There’s a paternalistic attitude here," he said – "doing for others, not with others."

As the very helpful discussion proceeded, it became clear that this Social Creed is aimed to achieve a new kind of common ground among the wide range of churches in the National Council of Churches. To achieve that goal, the drafters have been striving to avoid language that would create resistance, and terms like "justice" and "dividing line" are seen as likely to do just that.

As we saw the next day in discussions of the Accra Confession, words and ideas that may seem absolutely appropriate and necessary in a global or "Global South" context may be viewed as very negative – perhaps even inflammatory – in the U.S. context.

More on that later.

Monday evening worship

Doug King [9-26-07]

Our time of worship on Monday was centered on the celebration of Communion, in what worship leader David Gambrell called a "Word and Table Service."

The service opened with a responsive reading of Micah 6:8:

God has shown us what is good.
What does the Holy One require?
To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.

Roberto Jordan

The Rev. Roberto Jordan preached the sermon, taking the conference theme seriously by challenging us to think in new ways about "Becoming Neighbors."

He began by telling a little story of his arrival in the U.S. earlier that morning, after his overnight flight from Buenos Aires. On arrival in Dallas he was greeted first with a computer breakdown in Immigration. Once that was fixed, the immigration officer asked his to go to a side room. "There’s a bit of nervousness when these things happen," he said. Apparently other "Roberto Jordans" had made his name a matter for suspicion, so his bags had to opened, and all that. "So I entered with a bit of fear," he said. "We live in a world that plays the game of closeness, but really there is suspicion and fear. So the call to be neighbors is also a call to denounce the things that keep us from being true neighbors."

He turned to his text, from Paul’s Letter to the Romans. It was written in a time of empire, "of globalization such as never before." The Emperor was the Lord, "so when Christians talked about Christ as Lord, the Emperor got nervous." And Christians were called atheists because they did not put their faith in the Emperor.

So Paul called on Christians to proclaim their faith, their loyalties – a Yes to God and a No to the Empire. They must not be overcome by the Empire, but be transformed, learning to discern the will of God, which is always different from the Emperor’s will.

To become true neighbors, he said, we must be willing to reveal who we really are, not just the people the Empire wants us to be. We fear doing that! But from the moment of baptism, we are members of a body, a community, and who each of us are is defined by who we all are together, as members of that body.

To be neighbors, then, is to be shaped by our sisters and brothers in the community of faith – with no person being above another person, no nation being superior to another nation. Each of us has a different function, different gifts, and it’s that variety of gifts (and our respect for each other’s gifts) that makes the church a dynamic movement rather than simply an institution. Only when we begin to practice this kind of "closeness" with those who are different from us will we be truly practicing neighborliness.

So, he said, we have to learn from God’s gifts, without ever denying those gifts given to others. That is God’s invitation and challenge to us: to discover that we are different, without needing to fear those differences. "This is hard to do," he warned. "This may mess people up. But sometimes being messed up is the only way to be redeemed."

Only through the painful process of becoming neighbors, he concluded, can we find the way to integrity, and a new, right way of living in this age of Empire.

See the full text of Robert Jordan’s sermon >>

The Rev. Roberto Jordan of Argentina, a participant in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches assembly, and one of the drafters of the Accra Confession, serves as pastor of a congregation in Argentina. He is president of the Reformed Church in Argentina.

Becoming Neighbours

a sermon by the Rev. Roberto Jordan

Witherspoon Society Conference
Louisville, September 2007

[9-26-07]

Romans 12: 1-8

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Prayer:

God, help us to walk in the boots of the miner, the shoes of the trader, the moccasins of the trapper, and in the sandals of Jesus Christ the Master, and to see others as he would see them. Amen.

Canada: Aboriginal prayer from the far north. A procession of Prayers. John Carden, WCC, Geneva, 1998.

In a world such as ours today that lives under a pretence of “closeness,” but which in reality is torn apart by distances, inequalities, injustices and distrust, the call of the Conference this year of “Becoming Neighbours” is at the same time a challenge to overcome all that hinders this call, and also a form of announcing what is not but what should be! We may be – I emphasise: we may be – close to some, but there is a long way to becoming truly neighbours. In this search we recognize that closeness is not the same thing as being neighbour, and so the haunting question of the lawyer in Luke 10: 29 still resounds: Who is my neighbour? There have been many answers to this question, and the story of the Good Samaritan cannot be surpassed, even though it is still very much ignored.

In trying to answer such a question, I turn to what the apostle Paul writes in the letter to the church in Rome. This is a church living in the centre of the Empire, at a time of globalization never seen before, sustained by the Pax Romana. The Empire was all embracing, and nothing could exist outside the empire: the Emperor was lord, the Emperor was supreme. It is then that Paul writes about the understanding of mission and grace, indicating that the true Church can only be structured in the dynamism of the Spirit and not of the Emperor; that renewal will come not from personal acceptance of the powers of the empire but rather from the experience of grace¹. It was an Empire that was soon to begin its destructive persecution of the church under the accusation of “atheism”: Christians did not believe in the gods of the Empire; they believed in another God.

In this chapter 12 of the letter to the Romans, Paul calls the people to state in unambiguous terms what their priorities are: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” A “Yes” to God is at the same time a “No” to the gods of the Empire and to the supreme god, who is the Emperor himself. Christians must not commit to the schemes of the present time, rather be transformed, renewing their minds to a new vital reality. This renewal is centred in discernment: judge and decide in each situation what God’s will is²; it is different from the Emperor’s will. We should not confuse these two.

The world we live in lives in the power of a new Empire, which certainly has its influence on the life of all people; but can this world set the agenda, when the agenda is blatantly against God’s will? What is it that should transform us? What is it that should shape our lives? God’s grace should shape our lives rather than the structures of the world even if these structures use God’s name to sustain their ideology.

And God’s grace directs us to a new reality: we are part of a community, a body. Of course we are individuals, each with our characteristics and our differences, but we are individuals who are part of the one body in Christ, and as such what each of us is should integrate what we all are: Unity which does not impose uniformity. Rather, it is unity and integration which discover diversity with a sense. The rich diversity of gifts are to be used in ways that promote unity rather than discord,⁴ this is where we are called to live out what “becoming neighbours” really means.

Being neighbour has two dimensions to it: micro, which refers to those we have closest to us, the nearest. But it also included the macro dimension, which is what comes closest to the theme of this conference, as it refers to the widest, the global community, people and nations. Too often we have concentrated on the micro dimension, concerned abut those we have closest, but in today’s world we are also challenged by the macro. How do we become neighbours within the global community? The pattern to follow is the same one as when we think of closeness.

It is in this text that Paul provides us with a new paradigm of being church, which relates to both the micro and the macro perspective of Christian Community and which is one of the main threads of the Accra Confession.

We are not to think ourselves more highly than we should, as over other people: a neighbour cannot obligate others to live according to his or her vision and life-styles, imposing one standard over others. One part of the body is not more important than others; we do not all have the same functions – we have different gifts.

Raúl Sosa points out that the great contribution of this text – and I would mention it is a contribution particularly relevant to our Conference theme – is that it points to a church much more related to movement than to institution. One where “acceptable worship is the result of both personal and community life which is transformed into liturgy (= service) and consecration to God.”⁵

“Becoming Neighbours” invites us to renewal instead of defence of structures, to witness rather than to architectural definitions. God challenges the church to be a body under the guidance of the Spirit. This is what the Reformation has indicated as semper reformanda. On the whole we are very poor in this regard, and that is why our prophetic voice is so tepid and tends to protect our structures, be they ecclesiastical, political, cultural, racial, educational, rather than our neighbours.

“Becoming Neighbours” is the invitation to a new spirituality; it does not come easily. We have to work at it, and in this new paradigm we have to be able to learn from the gifts God has provided to other people. We must be able to integrate those with the gifts we have received, not annulling others, not imposing over others, but as different parts of the one body. Then and only then will the new vision set out in this text be part of our transformed reality and not only a dream that we only imagine. Let’s work on becoming neighbours under the guidance of the Spirit. Please don’t delay; there are others on this same way and so, together, we all become the new community of the Body of Christ, we become neighbours.

Notes

¹ Raúl Sosa. La renovación de la iglesia. Cuadernos de Teología –IU ISEDET, Buenos Aires, 2006.

² Ulrich Wilckens. Romanos; Ediciones Sígueme, Salamanca, 1989

³ Paul J. Achtemeier. Romans; John Knox Press, Louisville, 1985

⁴ Idem

⁵ Raúl Sosa, idem.