On the Co-Moderators of the PCUSA, and the Problem of Reformed Ecclesiology

Yesterday was a history-making day in the life of the Presbyterian Church (USA).  For the first time in its history, we have co-moderators who will be sharing the moderatorial responsibilities.  To add to it, the first co-moderators in history are two very qualified women: Rev. Jan Edmiston, associate executive presbyter for the Chicago Presbytery (L) and Rev. Denise Anderson, pastor of Unity Presbyterian Church in Temple Hills, Maryland (R).  I had been following the Q&A session prior to the vote, and have been very impressed by their answers, their energy, their savoir faire, if you will.  The Presbyterian Church (USA) is blessed to be represented by these two great women.

Of course, a pervading question that continues to dodge everybody at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church is the fact that many congregations are leaving due to differences on theology.  All candidates for the moderatorate, and I suspect many pastors present at the General Assembly too, struggled for a good answer because the fact is that we don't really have a very good answer from the Reformed tradition.  Moderator Anderson gave what I think was perhaps the most Reformed response, which is that she does not have too much problems with conservative churches leaving if they feel that leaving allows them to better serve Jesus Christ, who is head of the Church.  

But therein lies the problem. 

The Reformed tradition has been a very Christocentric tradition, which is not necessarily bad.  The problem is that Christ is not above contest.  That is to say, the central Christological question of Jesus - "Who do you say that I am?" - continues to dog the church.  Christ plays, as Eugene Peterson puts it quite neatly, in ten thousand places.  It is this "playability" that makes Christ belong to so many around the world.  Christ is healer, Christ is Redeemer, Christ is Savior, Christ is Lord, Christ is Prince of Peace, etc.  These different, and perhaps at times contradictory, images of Jesus the Christ is not a Christological negative.  Rather, it is very much positive, for Christ is the image of the church's fullness, its catholicity.  The richesse of Jesus Christ lay in the fact that God in Jesus Christ is Father to the fatherless, Mother to the motherless, Friend to the friendless, Savior to the oppressed, Champion against the oppressor, and so much more.  The Church's difficult task is to live up and into this fullness, by the grace and help of the Holy Spirit.  More often than not, we fail.  And at times, the failure is unbelievably gross. 

"Who do you say that I am?"

That is a very difficult question.  And the fact is that sometimes, our answer conflicts in ways that really matter.  The place that LGBTQ peoples have in the Church is a very classic example of that.  Nobody doubts that Jesus the Christ is Love, and that this Love is a love that embraces all peoples.  But in the Scriptures were some passages that explicitly take issue against people with LGBTQ orientations.  Now, of course, one easy move would be to simply dismiss those texts as irrelevant, but I am wary against such moves.  After all, what stops White supremacists from dismissing texts for diversity as irrelevant?  The way forward with difficult passages is to reflect more critically with the best of biblical and theological scholarship, and not to resort to a Jeffersonian fundamentalism that cherry-picks the bible for what we like and excises what we do not like.

But here, we do not have a higher ecclesiastical authority to motivate Reformed Christians towards deeper engagement with the texts and with theological thought.  The Reformed tradition is an ecclesiological orientation "from below", and because of that, it places a high value on the ordinary Christian.  It is not the priest or the minister who is the locus through which grace is administered, but it is Jesus the Christ who graces all of us, and empowers us together to do God's work through the church.  Historically, this has resulted in serious attention being given to education.  The University of Geneva, the University of Edinburgh, Harvard University, Yale University, and Princeton University are some of the great institutions of the world that have been founded thanks to this particular influence from the Reformed tradition.  But the grace that God gifts us with is not a cookie-cutter grace; it is a grace that is interpreted through the lens of our own cultures and experiences.  

This is further complicated by yet another feature of Reformed ecclesiology, which is its confessionality.  Reformed Christians confess certain matters as a matter of staking their Christian identities upon the gospel.  The Belhar Confession, for example, confesses that the gospel unequivocally provides no space for racism.  Yet, the truths that are confessed must be contextualized across different cultural traditions.  The visible apartheid that the Reformed churches at Belhar confessed against (i.e. the Apartheid regime in South Africa) is a call for American Reformed churches to confess the invisible apartheid that comes in the form of the "New Jim Crow", and other racial injustices in the United States. 

But confessions also pose a new challenge.  By their very nature, it draws a red line between right and wrong, Christian and un-Christian.  Belhar, for instance, draws a thick red line separating Christian theology and practice from racist theologies and practices.  To be Christian is to convert, to use a different language, from racism.  "Racist Christian" is an oxymoron.  This is a powerful tool for Christian witness when the church faces real and grave evils.  But unlike the Roman Catholic Church, or even the Anglican Church, where evils can be declared from the top of an ecclesial hierarchy, perceptions of these evils are difficult to manage.  Consider, for instance, how the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan would regard (mainland) Chinese encroachment into Taiwanese affairs to be evil because it violates the Taiwanese God-given right to their land.  This may be a resource for Native American Presbyterians who have been historically evicted (usually with serious violence) from their given land.  But most Presbyterians in the United States may balk at returning the Native Americans' rightful land back to them.  After all, many Americans would be giving up land that they themselves have rightfully acquired... how are we to atone for the sins of our ancestors when we were not responsible for them?  

All this to say, confessionality and contextuality make unity a difficult proposition.  Hence, Moderator Anderson may be right that the only peaceful way forward is not to force a unity, but to relinquish the power to compel it.  Catholicity in the Reformed tradition has always been rather loose, but if we don't remember the ties that have and continue to bind us together - namely, Jesus the Christ - then we lose not just our catholic identity but, like the Roman guards who tortured, nailed, and then pierced the body of Jesus, we dis-member the Jesus who was supposed to be the catholic head of the Church.  It is remembering the Christ that holds us all together in an embracive and at times discomforting unity that enables the Church to re-member Christ and itself.  

It is a messy embracing, and of course, it takes some time to figure out.  The co-moderators had to figure out how to divide up the speaking duties right out from the start of their moderatorial tenure!  But the Spirit continues to vivify us and to encourage us as we figure it all out.  Therein lies hope for the church.