Two days ago, I opened an envelope from Louisville to find a copy of a new occasional paper from the Office of Theology and Worship: William Weston’s Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment. I cringed. Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment? So I began to read, and my fears were confirmed. “It is time to rebuild the church’s Establishment,” he writes. “Decency and order require it.” (p.12)
Weston’s thesis is this: The anti-establishment attitude of the 1960s is what led to the decline of the denomination. Our preoccupation with political correctness (“a straightjacket for the church” p.12) has removed from power the “tall-steeple” pastors who should rightly lead the denomination, and thus contributed to the PC(USA)’s lack of influence and authority in society. The solutions: remove representation rules, “abolish all the current advisory delegate categories”, and reinstate the core of tall-steeple pastors who lead the Presbyterian Establishment.
How much longer will we continue trying to preserve Christendom? This paper seems to me to be an example of the church failing to rightly interpret its context: Christendom is over, and the national structure of the denomination is never going to have the authority it thinks it once had. Weston certainly does have some ideas which would benefit the church: actual parity of ministers and elders, smaller presbyteries, smaller (or non-existent) synods. But the very term “Presbyterian Establishment” connotes a desire to preserve the institution for the institution’s own sake. Do any of the suggestions in “Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment” really help the church adapt to its context in the mission field of post-Christendom North America? Are there better ways to renovate the PC(USA) than by re-roofing a building whose walls are crumbling?
About Chris Brown
Bonhoeffer once commented that God had not given the American church a reformation (No Rusty Sword). His point was that American Christianity does not understand itself as part of “the Church” as it prefers denominational affiliation, praxis, and polity, over “catholic” and confessional considerations for identity and life in the world. This post has called me to reflect in two ways.
First, there is an emerging reality of post-denominationalism in the North American context. For whatever reason, people are becoming less and less interested in denominational affiliation and are considering other factors for the community choices they make. In my own context we have 100 or so households participating in our missional experiment out in the suburbs of Philly. 34% of our community grew up Roman Catholic, 19% grew up Presbyterian, and 8% grew up with no religious affiliation at all. Going down the line, 11 more traditions are represented. Our folks are not looking for a denominational logo but an authentic encounter with God, God’s people, and God’s mission in the world.
Second, in a global, plural, and interconnected world, it would seem to me that one way we can be faithful is to deconstruct denominationalism and participate in reconstructing catholicity and ties to the local/global church. This is a confessional and sacramental endeavor as we seek to understand ourselves in theological/ecclesiastical terms and not in political ones. We therefore should not be asking, “How can we reestablish the PCUSA?” On the contrary, we should ask, “What connects us and how does that form us in our local/global expressions for being the church today?” Or, “As Presbyterians what does it mean to belong to Christ in the larger global context? How are we called to practice faith and life in our particular contexts?”
Hey Chris,
I think this is yet another example of how we are failing as a denomination to live up to our ordination vows. One of the commitments we make when we are ordained as elders is to “serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.” The crisis we are facing is a crisis of imagination. We literally cannot imagine a different, less insitutional, more missional kind of church. Alan Roxborough addresses this very issue when he talks of the differences between “continuous” and “discontinuous” change. We are in a time of rapid, discontinuous change where the old “tried and true” ways of doing things are no longer useful in helping us chart a new course. What is needed are new communities, such as yours and many others, that will relentlessly and recklessly pursue the Kingdom of God and thereby demonstrate the sheer folly of trying to “Rebuild the Presbyterian Establishment” God with God and know my prayers are with you!
p.s. Would love to hear your story sometime since I am about to embark on this missional church planting journey myself in about a week…
My first reaction is to walk away from the denomination. Do I want to be a part on an establishment? Do I really want to fight another battle in a place where my voice is not particularly valued.
I have been at the denominational doorstep for a few years. Hell, I am not sure if I have ever really walked in long enough to wash my dirty clothes and pilfer the fridge.
In my opinion this “paper” is another shining example of the creative vacuum and the sin of human pride in holding a system/machine above the beautiful and diverse flow of the Spirit.
I wonder how many more papers will arrive before the denomination actually gets a pair and starts to invest in creative ways to live as a worshiping community. I hope the denomination lets go of the reigns before we sink future into obscurity. Hey but we will have decency and order as we move farther from the worlds greatest needs.
I gesture towards a friends “Masturbating Church.” What a bunch of self-gratifying faith finders are we. Shame on us. Shame.
Wow. Again, I kinda hate to comment not having read the paper, but “tall steeple pastors ruling the denomination???” I know there are some wonderful tall steeple pastors out there, but I don’t think it’s fair or right to pass the mantle on to them just because of the height of their steeple, if you catch my drift.
Chris, any way folks can get a look at this paper? I too am concerned by some of the nuances it appears to suggest and would like to read it for myself. I don’t want this same sort of thinking to further the mess we’ve already done very well at getting ourselves in to…..
Well I read the paper and my concern is one that I have had with sessions in the past, we have to be reminded that the church is not a business, the PCUSA is not a corporation and shouldn’t be run like one. How does climbing the corporate ladder make a tall steeple pastor more qualified? Whatever happened to being called by God into leadership? Do we still believe that the Holy Spirit speaks to the church through the will of the majority? I do not want to see our denomination switch to a hierarchal model.
There are a lot more small churches then there are large churches and some ministers feel called to small church ministry and are not just there because that is all that they can do. I find the paper somewhat insulting.
Tall steeple? What big churches have tall steeples anymore? “Big parking lot” is more like it.
The paper seems to underestimate the considerable informal authority that pastors of the King Kongregations in a given Presbytery already have.
I’m also not sure that the skill-set developed during the process of a career rising through the ranks pastorship necessarily translates well into serving churches that operate more locally or have radically different–but equally legitimate–models of ministry. While I don’t doubt there are some pastors out there with the gifts to see that role in the light of servanthood, the desire to homogenize or approach smaller churches as franchise opportunities for the motherchurch would be too hard to avoid.
Steve – The paper is available online on the PC(USA) website at http://www.pcusa.org/re-formingministry/papers/rebuilding.pdf. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts after you read it.
I read the paper last week .. it’s taken me a few days to calm down enough to comment rationally on what was there. I agree this is a misguided attempt to re-establish the church of the past, not follow God’s lead to a church of the future. It reminds me, again, how so many people have specific picture of successful church … a large, programmatic congregation, with a big building (and a huge parking lot?) … oh, and a typically male mid-career pastor.
We ought never be about preserving or re-establishing a denomination. We do, however, need to figure out what part of being Presbyterian is most valuable as we move into the future.
Does that report really make that case well? I’ve skimmed it (thanks for the Link), and my mind is going around in circles. Christendom is over. Decentralization and the loss of connectionalism is in. As a denomination, we can’t agree on what we believe, can’t agree on even standards that define us.
I’m lost in amazement.
Chris Walker
http://www.evangelismcoach.org
I just finished reading the paper and I’m still in shock. Weston may be a scholar, but he’s giving no citations (biblical or otherwise) to support his points. Why would the Office of Theology and Worship copyright and issue a lengthy essay that belongs in the op-ed section of The Presbyterian Outlook?
Earlier in this thread someone called Weston’s paper insulting. I agree. I would add further that the concluding section, “Let the Chips Fall Where They May” (pp. 29-31), is particularly offensive.
I’m a dyed in the wool Presbyterian, baptized on Reformation Sunday back in 1964 by a minister who would likely fall into Weston’s “Establishment Presbyterian” category. I haven’t been in touch with that minister since seminary, but my experience of him then leads me to believe that he would find Weston’s overall premise and proposals to be as questionable as I find them.
Where does Weston get off suggesting that we need to recreate a “good ol’ anything” network of insiders to run the denomination? I guess he never read Acts 2, or else he read it and didn’t absorb the fact that the Spirit has already been poured out on all flesh — male and female, young and old — not just the “Establishment”. How can he possibly suggest that the incarnation of Joel’s prophecy begun at Pentecost is in any way indecent and disorderly?
And why, may I ask, do we have to settle with the PC(USA) being primarily Caucasian? Or that only heterosexuals need apply for leadership?
This is the only denomination I’ve ever truly known, though I have a great respect for many other denominations in which I have friends and colleagues. I can’t imagine myself being anything but Presbyterian. Yet I can’t stomach the idea of reverting to the mindset West champions. We’ve chased off too many good people — members and leaders alike — fighting against the new things God has been working in our midst the last 50 years. Turning back the clock 50 years won’t bring them back, nor will it bring us new ones.
Oooooo, there’s a whole lot more I could say, but I think I’ll follow Wendy’s lead and take a few days to cool off.
A quick note, in case I’ve misled anyone who hasn’t read Weston’s essay:
Weston doesn’t mention Acts 2 or Pentecost. (He doesn’t mention any scriptures, for that matter.) He does, however, decry the “egregious” allowance of Youth Advisory Delegates (YADs) at GA. He also decries any need for “affirmative action quotas” in governing body leadership, whether for gender or race.
The centerpiece of Acts 2 is “what was spoken through the prophet Joel”: the pouring out of the Spirit upon all God’s people, regardless of distinctions. The Pentecost experience is what drives the whole notion of the Body of Christ and the priesthood of all believers. All are called to ministry. All have a part to play in the mission of the Church.
Yes, some are called and gifted to lead in ways that others are not. However, the Presbyterian Church long excluded women and minorities from leadership based on the belief that they were neither qualified nor called to serve. Even Weston admits in his essay that the exclusion was sinfully wrong, though he makes no effort to unpack the issues behind that belief. Simply stated, the exclusion was rooted in prejudice and the desire to retain power.
Similar prejudice and desire for power have kept LGBTI from leadership, though it looks like that might be changing within a few years, God willing.
Having just come from the Synod of the Sun’s annual Synod Youth Workshop, I can honestly say I hope and pray that Weston’s appeal to withdraw the voice and advisory vote of YADs from GA will fall on deaf ears.
And another thing: I’ve never been known to keep “quick” notes short
I’m saddened that the denomination put this out. I hope that there will be other papers to counter this one.
Am I right in reading that he really thinks the road to relevancy is that our leadership become MORE white, privileged, old, and male? If he thinks that giving the power to the big steeple pastors is our solution, then he is surely excluding women, since they only make up about 3% of this group.
And his insistence, which seems to verge on a crusade, to exclude the young is downright frightening.
The thing that confuses me most is that Weston is a sociologist. Shouldn’t he understand that with the giant wave of people born after 1980, and the passing of the boomers, our country is on the brink of becoming much more diverse and young? And… I know Dr. Weston loves the center… but it’s about to become a lot more progressive. The center might be moving to the left.
It sounds like he’s advocating for an establishment that looks like him–male, white, privileged. I hope he doesn’t succeed. But if he does, I guess it doesn’t matter too much, because there will always be passionate service happening on the fringes. You know… the same place Jesus liked to do his work.
Some people just hated what my generation (I’m 61) was doing in the sixties and seventies. I think our attacks on hierarchy and tradition scared the hell out of them. In the political realm, a lot of them became neo-cons like Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc. in an effort to undo what the bulk of us were doing. To me, Beau Weston is one with the neo-con crowd. Like them, he remembers and wants to recreate a past that didn’t exist. He forgets the racism, sexism, ageism and other realities that were controlled by top-down hierarchies he extols.
My first reaction is a need not to exaggerate Weston’s impact. The fact that he can get this piece published doesn’t mean he can get it enacted. There is too much water under the bridge. We aren’t going back to the older, white, male dominated world for which Weston yearns. It is a dinosaur that is slowing dying. It will take another couple of decades to disappear completely. But make no mistake. It is dying.
Inclusion is here to stay and the younger generation will take control of the church just as my generation did when we were in our late thirties/early forties. Nothing can stop it.
Obama’s campaign gives some glimpses of the nature of leadership for the future. It will not be rooted in connections (who knows who, e.g Hillary & Bill) but in vision and empowerment. As we always do, most of the church will only cautiously follow this trend after it is well established. But you can already see it starting to happen.
Dr. Weston can spin his fantasies of hierarchies recreated. But it isn’t going to happen. Evolution is an irresistable force and we are evolving beyond hierarchy to newer ways of expressing authority personnally and as communities.
Wow. That’s all I can say right now. There is too much in this to respond to, so I’ll be posting about this on my own blog in the next week or so. My goodness.
So those are the people who will do the best running this denomination?
I wonder if Weston ever ponders why there aren’t any youth in the church. Goodness, could it be that it has something to do with people who have his opinion about youth…?
Wow. I will definitely be posting more about this later…
But the very term “Presbyterian Establishment” connotes a desire to preserve the institution for the institution’s own sake.
That’s only the case if the word “establishment” sets off alarms in your head. You, my friend, are part of the anti-establishment establishment. GASP! Get rid of PC behavior?! NO!!
The church ought to be established in the world, “Christendom” or not.
Weston unwittingly reveals the real problem with the PCUSA. A paper that purports to be all about authority in the church DOES NOT MENTION the authority of Jesus Christ. Even if Weston is completely right that the structures he describes are better than the current structures, it matters not: until we take seriously that Jesus is Lord and head of the church, all of our actions will be completely and utterly irrelevant, even counterproductive. The church structures are supposed to be a way for us to discern and obey God’s will, not a way for us to rule the church for our own purposes. We need to get on our knees and repent of our desire to control the church for our own purposes.
Who’s “me”? Is that Weston?
1) As an Interim Pastor, one of the things I have to keep shouting at churches ad nauseum is that: “It’s not 1956 anymore! It will never be 1956 again! And that is a good thing!” Weston, on the other hand, seems to lift up the church of the 1950′s as some kind of model to be emulated or returned to. It is hard to imagine any institution renewing itself by returning to the values and structures of the 1950′s.
2) More helpful than relying on folks who have been able to play the “market” of the current system, it might be more helpful to find our leaders on the margins and fringes of the church. In other words, we might be better led by people who are used to being in the minority, who know what it’s like to struggle with survival, who have learned from experimentation, who understand postmodern culture, have actually done evangelism, etc.
3) There is little or no theological content or influence in Weston’s plan. The fact that we are disciples of a particular Lord — Jesus Christ — and what that entails doesn’t appear to have any bearing on his conclusions for the form of the church. After all, Jesus was crucified by the establishment.
4) Finally, while he misses the single, firm foundation of Westminster, and wishes we had a similar foundation today, Weston does not say what that should be. And the foundation often determines the superstructure. I wonder what confessional standard he wants to have. Then there is the question of whether these detailed statements of faith aren’t hopelessly Modern documents anyway, irrelevant in our postmodern age.
Weston makes this statement near the end of the essay “The establishment is not a special interest group”. I think this clearly defines his perspective. He is part of the establishment group so he is trying to define it as the only special interest group that is not a special interest group. A much more egalitarian “structure” seems to be the direction of the future not less of it.
Wow. If this a strong view from Louisville on how to halt the decline of the denomionation, we are worse off than I could have imagined.
Wow, such humorlessness. Am I the only person around here who enjoys contrarian arguments?
A couple of specific reactions to some comments upstream:
No, Weston is not a neo-con. He’s a Democrat. A Google search can turn up that information pretty quick.
And, I happen to like hierarchy, and so do you, I imagine. In my home, we don’t take a vote about whether or not the kids get to run with scissors. We would do well not to conspire in a sham agreement that hierarchy is awful, but have a genuine conversation about the merits of various forms of hierarchy.
More generally, I’ll just copy and paste my reactions from my blog on this subject:
“Look, Emergent people. Lighting candles and constructing prayer stations does not a movement make. Or a church. Or a denomination. Movements needs institutions to sustain them for the long haul, and institutions need good leaders (An Establishment?!) as well as periodic, fresh injections of movement energy to prevent them from ossifying. It is a symbiotic relationship.
If a new church is emerging, the question is, Where and How are you going to mine the talent that will help nurture these impulses long enough so that they can truly bear fruit? Weston’s answer is, The talent is right under our nose, but our bureaucratic structures don’t allow for that talent to be tapped.
That’s the argument. It’s not an argument about going back to the past. Now support it or refute it, but don’t freak out over the word “Establishment” and knock down a strong man.
Or at least lighten up, and learn to crack a wry smile at contrarian arguments.”
Was it a humor piece?
In fairness to Weston, this took a lot of imagination. It was actually a very creative sociological approach to those wanting to maintain a connectional church. It may be emergent to reject structures, but completely independent churches have a world of problems of their own, and independence is a fundamentally American value, not a biblical one.
Jim Miller
Glenkirk Church
Marvin, thank you for naming the main point:
“If a new church is emerging, the question is, Where and How are you going to mine the talent that will help nurture these impulses long enough so that they can truly bear fruit? Weston’s answer is, The talent is right under our nose, but our bureaucratic structures don’t allow for that talent to be tapped.
That’s the argument. It’s not an argument about going back to the past. Now support it or refute it, but don’t freak out over the word “Establishment” and knock down a strong man.”
My argument is not about who is the best pastor or elder for your congregation, but how can be best lead the whole national denomination. We need to diversify the base from which our natural leaders emerge. We will not get there by pretending that we do not need national leaders, or that anyone could run the denomination just as well as anyone else.
Frankly, I’m glad the paper was published. We’re all about conversation, aren’t we? In conversations, people say all kinds of things. And if the listeners are discerning, they (as St. Paul put it) “Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.”
I know a few “tall steeple” pastors. Some are good pastors and others aren’t. But one thing is true, they have the organizational skills and depth of denominational experience that I don’t have (and don’t want, for that matter). They’re good at leading large groups of people. They tend to be smart, too, which means that they know that not all churches can and should operate like the ones they serve. On the other hand, there is sometimes an arrogance that comes from “success” (numerically, at least) and a disdain for whatever is small or inefficient.
One of the things about the biggies is they get it and don’t get it at the same time. They read all the same books that we do and talk about the same concerns. They get it. But then they try to solve every problem with a program. They don’t get it.
I’m glad the idea was voiced. I think we’ll gladly reject it. But the fact that it has been verbalized means that there’s a conversation going on that will hopefully lead to something that will serve future generations in a way that the current order of things certainly can’t do.
Great article! Keep up the great job writing!