I was privileged to be one of the 3000 Presbyterians that gathered on 30 June for the 220th General (i,e., national) Assembly in Pittsburgh. As we worshipped together in the opening communion service that Saturday there was a mood of anxious expectancy, some might even say dread. A common recognition that resonated continuously was the fact that the denomination has changed dramatically since the last Assembly two years ago and there were frequent references to churches having been given “gracious (and in some cases, as in Kansas City, not so gracious) dismissal”. The outgoing moderator, Cindy Bolbach, unable to stand because of recent cancer treatments, preached forcefully and received a standing ovation for her courage and strength in adversity. She had spoken at the last Assembly on the lowering of the paralytic into the house where Jesus was healing the sick and had said that, like the patient, the denomination was paralysed. Now, presumably having now enacted Proposition 10A that opened ordination to non-celebate homosexuals, she said she was changing the application. This time, instead, she focussed on the process by which a person is brought to Jesus and the risks that have to be taken to show the compassion of faith which she described as “the heart of the gospel.” We must, she concluded, get beyond “categorizing people and every habit of labelling people.” She cited San Francisco Presbytery as a body where toxicity had been transformed into “a place where people can see Jesus.”
The Assembly then set about to elect a Moderator. The candidates had already been introduced at a luncheon arrangted by the Presbyterian Outlook and in short five minute campaign speeches they gave their pitch. They represented the spectrum of the PCUSA both geographically and culturally. The very process, seeming very democratic, has meant that as the denomination has balkanized there are none of the strong and seasoned leaders of yesteryear which, cynics affirm, leaves 100 Witherspoon St Louisville, the denominational headquarters, firmly in control – or so I was told by a knowlegable observer who had no theological axe to grind.
The first candidate to speak was Randy Branson, a small town Texas pastor for most of his ministry and whose platform was twofold: to show more appreciation and respect so thhat our witness is not weakened in the world and to create a new relationship between the Assembly and the local congregation. He referred to a minute he had recently uncovered of a 1907 meeting of the Southern Church held in his congregation in Graham, Texas, which featured prayer, Bible study, and missionary advance, presumably in contrast to today. Neal Presa, a dynamic young Philippino who serves a suburban church in northern New Jersey then spoke emotionally of his parents being on the point of divorce when he proposed to his wife and how they had reconciled and drew lessons from it for the church, drmatically saying that, now together, they had travelled 8000 miles to be present, He asked whether the denomination was going to use “our faith as a means of mass destruction.” “The real challenge the churches are facing is whether we are open to the limitless possibilities of God’s future and to seek the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The third candidate, Sue Krummel, with her husband an executive presbyter near Chicago, started with the question “What were we thinking when we agreed to come here?” and commented, in the understatenent of the evening, that “there is just a little pressure on us.” The the final candidate, who alone took a carefully nuanced position against legitimnizing the solemnisation of gay marriages by Presbyterian clergy, was Bob Austell who did two years at Gordon Conwell before transferring to Princeton. Austell concluded the presentations by saying that he was “a pastor, a good news pastor” and came from a Presbytery (Charlotte) that had lost ten churches in the last year and was forced into major staff downsizing and which he was now bereft of many friends.
It took four ballots late into Saturday evening, to elect Neal Presa as Moderator. There was however dissension over his choice of a Vice-Moderator when it had been revealed that she had, as a pastor in Washington DC where same sex marriages are legal, signed the wedding certificate for a lesbian couple “out of pastoral concern.” It appears that this will be an ongoing theme for the entire Assembly as the issue of definining marriage (eliminating the reference to man and woman in the liturgy and even for some the standards) gives evidence of being highly divisive. In speaking to many commissioners I hear them saying that this will be “the straw that breaks the camel’s back” causing even more churches to leave and necessitating a whole restructuring of many presbyteries. We will see – stay tuned.