Awhile ago while looking through the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Order (BOO), I ran across this section:
G-3.0401 Called to Openness: The Church is called
- to a new openness to the presence of God in the Church and in the world, to more fundamental obedience, and to a more joyous celebration in worship and work;
- to a new openness to its own membership, by affirming itself as a community of diversity, becoming in fact as well as in faith a community of women and men of all ages, races, and conditions, and by providing for inclusiveness as a visible sign of the new humanity;
- to a new openness to the possibilities and perils of its institutional forms in order to ensure the faithfulness and usefulness of these forms to God’s activity in the world;
- to a new openness to God’s continuing reformation of the Church ecumenical, that it might be a more effective instrument of mission in the world.
I think this is an important section of the BOO that I don’t hear all that often. There are a few things in here that I find very promising and hopeful, and I’d like to touch on those briefly.
Openness to the Presence of God
This is an encouragement to continue to be open to the presence of God, wherever God may be. I don’t think we allow God to surprise us enough these days, and while many of us like to think we’re open to experiencing God in new ways, I don’t know that we really are. Of course, this goes both ways. I also need to be open to the presence and Spirit of God being in places that I may not want to go, or with people who I may not agree with.
Inclusive Membership
We indeed need to continue to have an openness when it comes to the membership of the church, and to committing ourselves to being a community of diversity. As we live in an increasingly multicultural world, our churches should also be representative of that, not homogeneous gatherings. I like that language: providing for inclusiveness as a visible sign of the new humanity. As we continue to bring God’s radical love and grace into the world, it should lead us to a place where we are more accepting, more loving, more open to the ways in which God works in all people.
Openness to the Possibilities and Perils of its Institutional Forms
As we continue to move more and more into a post-denominational Christian world, I think we certainly need to keep this in mind. Yes, there are possibilities for the institutional church – there are ways in which it may still serve to be a tool for effective change in the world. However, those possibilities continue to decrease, and more and more, people are becoming aware of the perils of denominational and institutional structures. I don’t know that people in Louisville necessarily are, but clearly people today have issues with institutions. Institutions were once extremely effective in bringing about the kingdom of God in the world; it could be argued they do not have the place in society anymore. What does that mean for the future of the institutional church? Clearly, there is some future. There are still millions of members, millions of dollars. But I’m just not sure how much stock future generations will put in these institutions.
New Openness to God’s Continuing Reformation of the Church
As someone who is invested in this presbymergent conversation, this is clearly something we presbymergents care deeply about. It is our hope, as loyal radicals, to be those who stay on the inside to work to bring about creative, emergent expressions of our historic faith. The Presbyterian sense of the church reformed and always reforming comes into play here. Again, as I’ve mentioned before, we have done a great job of being Reformed, but have not allowed much creative room for the continual reforming that needs to take place. Yet here is our cherished and hallowed Book of Order, calling Presbyterians to be open to God’s continuing reformation of the church – God’s continuing challenge to the status quo of Presbyteries and to the ways things have always been done.
I can foresee myself reading this section at some Presbytery meeting in the future, trying to sway the “old guard” to be open to the movements of the Spirit in our midst. It’s unfortunate that us younger Presbyterians will have to fight for these types of changes, when they’re right there, in black and white print, in our Book of Order.
Cross posted at pomomusings
About Adam Walker Cleaveland
Interesting post. The question I would ask is this: “What are the genuine perils of our institutional forms, as opposed to those facets of them which are simply banal and largely irrelevant?”
Mike
Good musings Adam – I guess I would go along with Mike in wondering what changes we need to make to our institutional church. I am working on a doctoral project of incorporating emerging church elements into a mainline church. I would like to think that the institutional church will hang in there; I am a proud Presbyterian after all. Changes certainly have to be made – but beyond what the politicans tell us. There is a world view that needs to be challenged. That’s where parts of the BO like this section can help. We are given permission to speak out and call into question those habits and thoughts that only serve the status quo and not following Jesus.
My favorite passage in the Book of Order is what comes right before the section about new forms of openness. G-3.0400: “The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk
of losing its life . . .” The reason for new openness to both the “possibilities and perils institutional forms” and to “continuing reformation” is to be more true to God’s holistic mission in the world. The reason we have to fight for the changes that are needed is that parts of the church are turned in upon themselves and see institutional change as the death of the church. The beautiful thing about G-3.04oo and following is that it recognizes the church itself may have to die to be resurrected.
I’d be really interested in hearing specific ways that ministry has been hindered by the Book of Order. Notwithstanding the common complaint that our polity is too “institutional”, I find the BoO to be really rather flexible in its guidance, as this post indicates. I think that it is congregational culture, far more than the BoO, that hinders mission and ministry. The BoO just becomes a convenient scapegoat.
Can anyone give me any examples where you were restrained by the BoO from doing ministry?
I wonder what openness means to our LGBT brothers and sisters. How can the ECM engage this issue? What part can those gathered here play in answering our call to openness?
It is my hope to emerge from the theology and praxis of yesterday and to practice genuine openness to this community.
Are we humane in our exclusion of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in freely serving te church with their gifts?
We are all restrained by the BoO in this matter.
Ryan – thanks for your comment re: LGBTQ brothers and sisters. In my mind, all of our talk about “openness” doesn’t mean much until we’re gutsy enough to actually MEAN it and to actually PRINT it, so that sexual orientation becomes a non-issue.
I’m confident that years down the road (I don’t know how many….) it WILL be a non-issue, and the church can move on to bringing the kingdom about in the world today, and not being solely focused on individuals’ private sexual lives.
Sadly, those days are not here yet…
I wish more folks would fight for the rights of GLBTQ members of the body. If one suffers we all suffer. I hope justice is delivered soon.
I am probably being naive here, but I see a contrast between traditional church and emergent movements. In the traditional style, you agree on a bunch of doctrine and then decide you can be friends. In the emergent style, you become friends first and then try to figure out what you believe.
If members of Presbymergent are quick to jump into the multi-decade sexuality-ordination fray, that would seem to bypass the hope that emergent relational thinking brings to the party for loving each other despite these contentious issues.
I do not understand the ECM to be the place “you become friends first and then try to figure out what you believe.” That would insinuate that one engages the conversation absent any cultural formation. To me the ECM is about reclaiming the culture around us and being Christ-like to our context.
This combined with my understanding of the ECM as a missional related posture (asking ourselves, how can we serve in ways that we are not today?) demand us to encounter a new openness to the presence of God in the Church and in the world, to a more fundamental obedience, and to a more joyous celebration in worship and work. This also reveals a new openness to the churches own membership, by affirming itself as a community of diversity, becoming in fact as well as in faith a community of women and men of all ages, races, and conditions [sexuality in any form arrives here], and by providing for inclusiveness as a visible sign of the new humanity [ergo, the Kingdom of God]. When we seek to live in this fashion
Hope is alive in the endeavor to be Christ to each other in the midst of the difficult issues. The ECM does not seek to make easy the tension that exists between grace and judgment, sin and forgiveness, divine and profane. Can hope be bypassed when God is present? I do not think that demanding justice for GLBTQ brothers and sisters is at all a vehicle for “despite” anything. Justice demands that the human condition be overridden by the divine judgment of grace and forgiveness. Love and acceptance does not breed tolerance. Rather love and grace breeds transformation and it is transformation that Jesus the Christ offers to the church. The PCUSA proclaims Jesus as the head of the church and the ultimate authority. Therefore love and grace be the ruler of the ECM. Openness be our plea. Service be our answer. Service absent judgment and pride. We are all in the same boat…
On a side, it is foolish to seek to end conflict. We must mediate conflict and dialog to find consensus and seek to serve all, strive to love all.
I checked out G-3.0401 in the searchable Annotated Book of Order at http://www.pcusa.org/oga/constitution.htm and found this note:
Amend Rejected (1998, 163, 16.0171, 623): Rejected adding language affirming openness to diversity of ministries of Presbyterian groups and relationships between church structures and such groups. Part of report of Special Committee on Relationships of Accountability.
I wonder if that rejected amendment was an attempt to restore “Chapter IX Groups” (now called “Affinity Groups”) to the BOO? Regardless, it sounds to me like the 1998 GA commissioners placed an intentional limit on the degree of openness with which they were comfortable.
Something doesn’t seem right, here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’m disturbed by the whole notion of there having been a Special Committee on Relationships of Accountability. Fear and distrust have been bywords in our denomination for too long.
I share the deep desire of Adam and Ryan for GBLT brothers and sisters in Christ to experience full inclusion in the body. The church is shamed by offering no better language or frameworks for understanding these alternative orientations than the world has offered–and actually has lagged behind the world in this regard.
However, I take a different tact in terms of process. Ryan asked, “Are we humane in our exclusion of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in freely serving te church with their gifts?” I question the premise of this question. It’s actually demonstrably true that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters *are* serving the church with their gifts, both in ordained and (to a much greater extent) non-ordained capacities. Adam followed Ryan’s question with his hope for BoO changes that make sexual orientation a non issue. I believe what you meant to say is that we should make GBLT sexual practice a non-issue.
Now we’re talking about sexual activity outside the covenant of Christian marriage. If the PC(USA) puts in print that we will ordain persons with GLBT orientations who are sexually active, then we’ve created a real problem: This thing called the covenant of marriage that is affirmed from Genesis to Revelation has been totally sidestepped for the sake of being missionally progressive. That denigrates the meaning of my own marriage vows with my wife. That’s not okay. The first issue that must be addressed by the church, then, is homosexual marriage. We should not be ordaining people into ministry at any level who are not practicing their sexuality within the bounds of covenant marriage, because that is categorically condemned in our Scriptures.
A further note concerns Ryan’s comment that he looks for “…a community of women and men of all ages, races, and conditions [sexuality in any form arrives here]…” Really Ryan? Sexuality in any form? What about pedophiles? What about bestiality? What about promiscuous behavior under any orientation? Certainly none of these classifications places a person beyond the grace of the living God, but we would be abrogating our calling as God’s people if we told the world that it was okay to have sex with kids and dogs. I want to minister to pedophiles in my church, but including them in the body doesn’t mean affirming their sexual desires or practices.
Please help me out if I’ve misunderstood anything you’ve said. I truly long to love and walk with all of God’s children, and for all people to participate in the mission of God. But we must be careful in how we pursue that.
Yes Matt I condone sex with children and horses.
It is my hope to remove the stigma of sexual behavior that is not heterosexual. I do not support the promiscuous use of sex.
It is careful pursuit that has castrated Christianity in America. When will we get courage enough to live a faith that is not tethered to money and the need for power.
Ryan,
I’m sorry to hear the sarcasm in your reply. I, however, was being serious. Are there any sexual behaviors that are not heterosexual that you would not support, even if they were not promiscuous? Do you have no response to my concerns about ordained people having sex outside of marriage? These are deeply serious matters that require more than courage and flippant remarks.
Matt,
You heard nothing in my reply. You did read sarcasim in my response. I am sorry if I offened you in my respopnse. I indeed am serios about the issues that are facing the church.
You ask if there are any sexual behaviors that are not heterosexual that I would not support. Yes is my answer. I would not support anything outside of consentual adult monogamous relationships. Animals cannot concent therefore I am against them.
I am not looking for stuff to stand against. I am looking for people to serve.
About your sex outside of marrigae…we need to allow same sex marriages.
I am a flippant man. I have no care what you believe of me. I know who I am and where I stand. Please save judgement for another day. As for courage, it is easy to have courage on line. What courage do we exhibit in our lives to serve God and walk humbly as we care for the poor.
Blessings to you Matt.
Your brother in Christ, Ryan
Thanks, Ryan. I think that’s the starting place for this discussion–the question of whether the church can marry homosexual couples. The ordination thing follows that.
Blessings to you as well.
Is it not a matter of can rather an issue if the church should marry homosexual couples?
The church doesn’t marry anybody. People marry one another. The church can witness and pray for the union or not, but marriage happens in places where the church is not, and the church the church still calls it marriage.