Concluding Unhelpful Postscript
May 4, 2009
I am grateful to my friend, Phil, for his vigorous response to my earlier posts on the C of S. I hope this response will clarify some matters.
First, I concede that the death or doctrinal collapse of the mainlines is in no one's best interest. We sectarians all shelter somewhat under their wings in the wider culture. Also, I concede that knowing when to leave a mixed denomination is difficult. Both Phil's points are valid; though neither is relevant to my earlier posts.
Second, I am not sure that homosexuality is the watershed claimed. Phil is a far better exegete than I, but Romans 1 seems to me to teach that homosexuality is actually a constitutive part of God's judgment. It is because God has been rejected that He hands people over to such a thing. Homosexuality is thus the outward demonstration of a longstanding rebellion against God. By the time homosexuality hits the public sphere in the church, the watershed is long passed, and the battle is virtually over.
I also know that the men I recognise on the petition are not homophobes. Willie Phillip, one of the guiding hands behind the petition is an outstanding guy and friendly acquaintance of twenty years standing -- ever since he lent me his dangerously decrepit VW Beetle to take the church kids bowling in the late 80s. The other names I recognise command universal respect. But the petition nonethless plays to the liberals, who can, once again, say that evangelicals have a particular obsession with homosexuality.
Now to the changes in the C of S. When institutions change, the change can often be (from the public perspective) rapid, dramatic and sudden. Usually, however, such rapid public change is preceded by a long period of internal, incremental change up to the moment when a `tipping point' is reached. Such was the case with the Southern Baptist Convention. It went conservative in the 1980s --but only after nearly three decades of internal change in which key committees fell, one by one, under conservative control.
No presbytery just wakes up one morning and, out of the blue, declares `I'm going to ordain a practising homosexual today.' As every presbyterian knows, our church courts change very, very slowly. So the question to ask is: how did the C of S come to such a pass? The answer, in part (and I stress 'in part' -- I am interested here only in the evangelical dimension), lies with the policy of William Still and his followers, which was essentially built on the notion that the courts of the church could be conceded to the liberals as long as the evangelicals were allowed to keep preaching the gospel from their own pulpits. This was the very antithesis of the Southern Baptist policy and ironically, meant that, while the baptists acted like quasi-presbyterians, the Stillites acted like Independents.
The policy worked well for the big C of S churches -- e.g. the Tron, Gilcomston South, Holyrood -- who were large enough to keep the hawks from George Street at bay; what it meant, however, was that the smaller churches, the anonymous evangelical pastors, and the lowly ministerial students candidates frequently came under huge pressure from presbyteries. Since my first post, I have heard from one old friend who, as a student, was roasted in a presbytery on the gay issue while the evangelicals present literally sat in silence; another who was told by an evangelical leader to ordain a woman elder against his conscience because women's ordination was not the hill to die on. Both have since left the C of S, at considerable personal hardship. I also recall in Aberdeen in the late 80s a friend being rebuffed from the C of S ministry for affirming that Jesus walked on water (`"what use is that to the parent whose child has just drowned?" was the withering response from one presbyter); and I remember as a teacher at Aberdeen in the late 90s being told by an evangelical student that his pastor had advised him to keep shtum on the gay issue in his presbytery interview so as to get through, at which time he could then lay his evangelical cards on the table. Maybe my posts are `unhelpful' -- though I suspect Phil flatters me here by granting them more importance than they deserve -- but more unhelpful has been the policy which abandoned the courts of the church to those with whom the evangelical disagreed. My posts have cost no-one their livelihood.
The policy of ceding church courts to the liberals has proved disastrous. I feel for friends caught in the crossfire in Aberdeen but, as I said earlier, a petition is too little too late. These battles are not won by petitions which have no ecclesiastical status; nor are they won by preaching to the converted at large Reformed conferences or to congregations of the faithful in the big C of S churches. They are won by the nasty, brutish, hard labour of fighting in the church courts, face to face, toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball, with those who would seek to take over session, presbyteries, synods, and General Assemblies for evil.
Speaking up for a student being blasted on the gay issue at a presbytery is hard; standing shoulder to shoulder with a fellow evangelical being beaten up for refusing to ordain a woman is hard; being a missionary to Saudi Arabia or Iran when your church back home tolerates men who have imams praying from their pulpits is hard. Signing a petition, on the other hand, is very, very easy.
First, I concede that the death or doctrinal collapse of the mainlines is in no one's best interest. We sectarians all shelter somewhat under their wings in the wider culture. Also, I concede that knowing when to leave a mixed denomination is difficult. Both Phil's points are valid; though neither is relevant to my earlier posts.
Second, I am not sure that homosexuality is the watershed claimed. Phil is a far better exegete than I, but Romans 1 seems to me to teach that homosexuality is actually a constitutive part of God's judgment. It is because God has been rejected that He hands people over to such a thing. Homosexuality is thus the outward demonstration of a longstanding rebellion against God. By the time homosexuality hits the public sphere in the church, the watershed is long passed, and the battle is virtually over.
I also know that the men I recognise on the petition are not homophobes. Willie Phillip, one of the guiding hands behind the petition is an outstanding guy and friendly acquaintance of twenty years standing -- ever since he lent me his dangerously decrepit VW Beetle to take the church kids bowling in the late 80s. The other names I recognise command universal respect. But the petition nonethless plays to the liberals, who can, once again, say that evangelicals have a particular obsession with homosexuality.
Now to the changes in the C of S. When institutions change, the change can often be (from the public perspective) rapid, dramatic and sudden. Usually, however, such rapid public change is preceded by a long period of internal, incremental change up to the moment when a `tipping point' is reached. Such was the case with the Southern Baptist Convention. It went conservative in the 1980s --but only after nearly three decades of internal change in which key committees fell, one by one, under conservative control.
No presbytery just wakes up one morning and, out of the blue, declares `I'm going to ordain a practising homosexual today.' As every presbyterian knows, our church courts change very, very slowly. So the question to ask is: how did the C of S come to such a pass? The answer, in part (and I stress 'in part' -- I am interested here only in the evangelical dimension), lies with the policy of William Still and his followers, which was essentially built on the notion that the courts of the church could be conceded to the liberals as long as the evangelicals were allowed to keep preaching the gospel from their own pulpits. This was the very antithesis of the Southern Baptist policy and ironically, meant that, while the baptists acted like quasi-presbyterians, the Stillites acted like Independents.
The policy worked well for the big C of S churches -- e.g. the Tron, Gilcomston South, Holyrood -- who were large enough to keep the hawks from George Street at bay; what it meant, however, was that the smaller churches, the anonymous evangelical pastors, and the lowly ministerial students candidates frequently came under huge pressure from presbyteries. Since my first post, I have heard from one old friend who, as a student, was roasted in a presbytery on the gay issue while the evangelicals present literally sat in silence; another who was told by an evangelical leader to ordain a woman elder against his conscience because women's ordination was not the hill to die on. Both have since left the C of S, at considerable personal hardship. I also recall in Aberdeen in the late 80s a friend being rebuffed from the C of S ministry for affirming that Jesus walked on water (`"what use is that to the parent whose child has just drowned?" was the withering response from one presbyter); and I remember as a teacher at Aberdeen in the late 90s being told by an evangelical student that his pastor had advised him to keep shtum on the gay issue in his presbytery interview so as to get through, at which time he could then lay his evangelical cards on the table. Maybe my posts are `unhelpful' -- though I suspect Phil flatters me here by granting them more importance than they deserve -- but more unhelpful has been the policy which abandoned the courts of the church to those with whom the evangelical disagreed. My posts have cost no-one their livelihood.
The policy of ceding church courts to the liberals has proved disastrous. I feel for friends caught in the crossfire in Aberdeen but, as I said earlier, a petition is too little too late. These battles are not won by petitions which have no ecclesiastical status; nor are they won by preaching to the converted at large Reformed conferences or to congregations of the faithful in the big C of S churches. They are won by the nasty, brutish, hard labour of fighting in the church courts, face to face, toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball, with those who would seek to take over session, presbyteries, synods, and General Assemblies for evil.
Speaking up for a student being blasted on the gay issue at a presbytery is hard; standing shoulder to shoulder with a fellow evangelical being beaten up for refusing to ordain a woman is hard; being a missionary to Saudi Arabia or Iran when your church back home tolerates men who have imams praying from their pulpits is hard. Signing a petition, on the other hand, is very, very easy.
