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PRESBYTERIAN
FALL 2018
presbyterian.ca
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LEADERSHIP
The Way Forward: Questions for the Church
By the Rev. John Congram, former editor of the Presbyterian Record magazine
During this last leg of my life I have had time to review my long life as a minister of the Presbyterian Church and editor of the Presbyterian Re- cord. I have asked myself whether I have contributed anything valu- able to my fellow human beings and wondered why during my time The Presbyterian Church in Canada has continued to decline. That has been particularly mystifying to me when I have seen so many talented men and women drawn into the service of this church.
In response to this decline a number of possibilities have been offered. Some say it is simply a re- sponse to the materialism and he- donism of our times. Others see it as simply the up and down cycles that the church in history has al- ways experienced. While others de- clare it is simply the price of being a faithful Christian denomination. I am sure that all of these explanations have some truth in them.
However, I have begun to wonder if we in the church have not in some measure been the authors of our own demise. Not because we have been unfaithful or foolish, although we too often are, but because of those things we treasure and love about our church. Let me give a couple of examples.
We pride ourselves in doing things “decently and in order.” Those who operate outside the box are looked upon with suspicion. To be a Pres- byterian one must be prepared to operate decently and in order. Add
to this the insistence that nothing should be done unless we can see it written in black and white in the Book of Forms. But where does this leave the role of the Holy Spirit who always seems to be initiating sur- prises and calling us to walk in new ways and paths? In our denomina- tion the Holy Spirit would seem to be the forgotten or neglected person of the Trinity.
Even more importantly, we have exchanged “faith” for “belief.” Sim- ple faith in Jesus Christ and a desire to be a disciple and follower of Je- sus has been exchanged for a list of required beliefs, whether contained in one of the ancient creeds or con- fessions or in modern social norms regarding such things as sexual ori- entation. In doing this, have we be- come like Esau in the Old Testament, exchanging our bir thright for a mess of pottage?
Or are we like the early Christians in Jerusalem who maintained that to be an authentic Christian one must not only have faith in Jesus but also be circumcised. Paul roundly con- demned these folk, declaring that faith alone in Jesus was sufficient to be considered an authentic Chris- tian. Have we, perhaps unknowingly, become like them in our generation? Have we placed too much empha- sis and invested too much energy in getting it right and believing cer- tain things and failed to nurture the spirituality that modern people often feel, have difficulty expressing, but do not find in the church?
We like to refer to ourselves as a confessional church. We rely heav- ily on the creeds and confessions of the historical church and often
forget that they are products of their times. In the early church creeds and confessions were barely known. The only one we can be confident about in the New Testament was the simple declaration, “Jesus is Lord.” It was several centuries later that creeds and confessions made their appearance as the church attempted to define what Christians should be- lieve or how we should respond to a perceived heresy in the church. I would argue that we should not view them as permanent features of Christianity for every time and age, nor should we require present day Christians to be tied to them in a slavish manner. They are valuable to see how some Christians responded to the issues of their times.
I appreciate Brian D. McLaren’s comment in his book, A New Kind of Christianity: “...the challenge of modernity was to prove that we’re right and they’re wrong. But I think
we have a different challenge in postmodernity. The question isn’t so much whether we’re right but whether we’re good. And it strikes me that goodness, not just right- ness, was what Jesus said was the real issue—you know, good trees produce good fruit, that sort of thing. If we Christians would take all the energy we put into proving we’re right and others are wrong and in- vested that energy in pursuing and doing good, somehow I think more people would believe we are right.”
I was recently asked to conduct the wedding of one of my nieces. In the course of our initial conversa- tion she offered the following, “My fiancé and I are not religious but we are spiritual.” In the past I have been sceptical of such asser tions, real- izing that to be spiritual today can mean almost anything. But I have be- gun to wonder if I have been wrong. Perhaps I have underestimated the activity of the Holy Spirit, who we claim is abroad in the world work- ing with believers and unbelievers. Instead of discounting claims about being spiritual I should instead see them as the promptings of the Spirit. I should take them more seriously as both a challenge and oppor tunity to help such folk enhance and nour- ish their promptings to be spiritual.
I think Henri Nouwen put his finger on it when he said, “I am afraid that in a few decades the church will be accused of failing in its most basic task: to offer people creative ways to communicate with the source of life.”
It is true that to be considered spiritual can mean almost anything. But at a minimum it should be seen as a form of protest against how people see much of what passes for Christian faith in the church today. It is also an expression of something that many feel is essential to human
life and the desire to express their faith in a variety of ways and still be considered an authentic Christian.
A theologian from my generation, Paul Tillich, described God as “the ground of our being.” Saint Paul, in attempting to engage the Athenians, told them that God was not far from any of them and that in fact, “In him [God] we live and move and have our being.”
My simple plea as we move into the future and attempt to engage the present generation is that we rely more on the guidance of the Holy Spirit and less on past traditions and practices. Presbyterian practice often seems to concentrate not on the Trinity of God but only on the Fa- ther and Son and neglect the Holy Spirit. Often we are suspicious and even fearful of those we feel rely too heavily on the Spirit, including those who speak in tongues. As a result the experimental in our faith is downplayed in favour of the histori- cal and doctrinal.
We sometimes decry fundamen- talism. But we are all fundamental- ists in one sense or another. That is, we hold certain beliefs we would not compromise on, ones we consider fundamental to who we are. My view would be that we be fundamentalist in as few areas as possible. I would like to take the position of the early Chris- tians who in their great variety were held together by their faith in Jesus as Lord, or as one person put it—we should be committed to Christ and for all else be uncommitted. By em- phasizing what people must believe to be a Christian rather than simple faith in Jesus and a commitment to follow him, we limit people’s free- dom to express what following Jesus means to them, while severely limit- ing any role for the Spirit. In fact it is basically this that we require of new members, faith in Jesus and a deter- mination to be his disciple. Perhaps this approach should be extended to office bearers in the church as well.
This would not limit the debates we have in the church, including the role of gay people in the church, but it would help to put the discussions in their proper perspective. The dis- cussions would be seen as issues about which Christians might disa- gree, but all of the faithful will still be recognized as full par ticipants and followers of Jesus.
W. H. Auden put it this way: “He is the way. Follow him through the land of unlikeness; you will see rare beasts and have unique adven- tures.” I wonder if our approach to the faith limits our ability to see rare beasts and have unique adventures.
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