Whatever happened to loving one another?

In early February, 45 pastors of large churches wrote an open letter to their denomination. All the pastors and churches involved are a part of Presbyterian Church USA. The letter outlines a litany of the problems of the denomination. They see their denomination in a downward spiral that can only lead to death.

Attached to their letter is a white paper that carries an outline of what needs to be done in order to rejuvenate their denomination. The signers of the letter and the pastors, who concur, have invited all like-minded people to a gathering in late August in Minneapolis. Those who gather will attempt to determine the next steps of action.

At every national gathering of Presbyterian Church USA in recent years, ordination of openly gay persons to the ministry of word and sacrament has been debated and a vote has been taken. Support for ordination of gay persons has been gaining, but still does not yet represent the mind of a majority of Presbyterians. However, there are few people who believe the present turmoil among Presbyterians is about ordination of gay persons. The real dissention is over 100 years old and will not go away.

In some ways, Presbyterians are having the same experiences as are United Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Mormons and Baptists of every kind, including Southern Baptists. They are losing members. The dynamics show up in statistics. In the case of Presbyterians, baptisms are down by half from their 20th century peak. That simply means that young people of childbearing age are deserting Presbyterian churches at rates similar to other denominations.

For the 45 ministers who are speaking out, the key issues go far beyond acceptance of gay and lesbian persons. It is about theology and basic beliefs.

A hundred years ago, Princeton Theological Seminary, which is related to the Presbyterian denomination, was the focal point of the greatest theological debates that have ever taken place in America. It was out of those debates that American Fundamentalism was born. Presbyterians have always been a confessional/creedal church, but at Princeton the Christian Faith was refined into the five fundamentals of Christianity.

The 45 Presbyterian ministers who have issued their challenge to the denomination are calling the entire denomination back to the core beliefs of the five fundamentals.

A part of the Princeton debates centered on the development of critical/historical reading and interpreting of the Bible. A new crop of Bible scholars were insisting that the Bible be read not as a holy book, but as a book written by human beings in a historical context. The Bible was more than a nice devotional book; it was a book that was to be read with a critical mind and eye. This flew in the face of those who insisted the Bible was the divine word of God and not subject to the rules of interpretation scholars applied to other ancient literature.

Another key part of the debates centered on Darwin’s hypothesis about evolution. Critics saw, and many still see, evolution as a direct assault on the Bible creation stories and Christian faith itself. In the history of the debate, the trial of John Scopes in 1925 in Kentucky is the great marker in the history of the disagreement. Scopes was a high school biology teacher and was tried for teaching evolution in a high school class in direct violation of a law in the state of Kentucky. The Scopes trial brought evolution to the public’s attention. No religious scholar could escape the issues raised by evolution.

Evolution speaks of the ongoing, developing nature of life, but even more, evolution speaks to our understanding of God. All static understandings of God goes away. Even God is evolving and changing.

These two debates from the early 20th century have not and apparently will not go away.

A third factor is influencing the current struggle for the control of the Presbyterian Church USA. All of us, but especially younger Americans, are a part of the communications age. With the growth of our great computer networks, no one lives in isolation. Everyone is our neighbor, and we are talking to one another as never before. The letter generated by the 45 Presbyterian clergy to American Presbyterians hit our communication networks and is now in the hands of everyone who might be interested. I suspect that the coming Presbyterian squabble will become very public.

From my own reading of the white paper, it is clear that the 45 Presbyterian clergy anticipate leaving Presbyterian Church USA to form a new Presbyterian denomination that will be united in theology and practice. There is a huge problem. Local Presbyterian churches do not own their own property. All Presbyterian church properties are owned by the area Presbytery. The net effect is real. A Presbyterian pastor can take his congregation out of the denomination, but they must leave the church property behind.

It is worth noting that one of the proposals of the 45 is that all property be given to the local congregation.

As I read the white paper, I wondered how all this could be happening. How did correct theology and who owns the property become so important? I thought following Jesus was about loving, serving, giving, kindness, and peace making.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His e-mail address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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