THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
E. C. Case, Editor
The Twenty-seventh General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America is
history.
To say this, however, is not the same as to say that there was anything
historically significant about this meeting, or that anything of historical
significance has or will come out of it.
The Twenty-seventh General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America is
history in the same way that this morning's breakfast is history, though
probably with even less by way of consequence or importance.
As these things go, this Assembly moved about as smoothly as any of them-and
we have seen most of them (only the Los Angeles and Dallas Assemblies have we
missed). The total time spent in the plenary 'business' sessions of the
Assembly came to less than 20 hours.
Some-probably a majority of those in attendance-see this as a good thing.
For them the speed with which the 'business' of the Assembly is dispatched is a
sign that the PCA is coming into maturity-that the church is now past, well
past, the contentious debates of the denomination's formative years. The course
has been charted and the time has come to kick back and take our ease in Zion.
The professionals, firmly in the saddle in the various program committees and
agencies, have things well in hand. The machinery is well-oiled and purring
like a kitten. On this basis, there would probably be wide-spread agreement
with the sentiment expressed by this year's moderator, Tom Leopard, who was
quoted as saying, 'I think we've got a very healthy denomination. The Lord is
blessing.'
To be sure, there are a few minor glitches in the machinery of
denominational bureaucracy. The budgets of some of the permanent committees are
under subscribed-some of them quite seriously. It does not appear that the
ambitious goal of establishing 2000 churches by the year 2000 is going to be
met (we have not heard much about that of late, anyway). And the overall
smoothness of Assembly operations is still occasionally disturbed by such pesky
irritants as Presbytery overtures and personal resolutions (which suggest, from
time to time, that all is not as well in Zion as the institutional leadership
would like for us to believe that it is), or long lines of commissioners
waiting to affix their signature to a dissent from some action of the Assembly,
or protests (which are so disliked that great lengths are now gone to in order
to attempt to deny commissioners this privilege, and we are treated to
school-marmish lectures about how 'disappointing' it is that some commissioners
presume to dampen the 'good spirit' of the Assembly by insisting upon clearing
their consciences by this constitutional means). But these, as we say, are
relatively minor irritants, and given the ingenuity that has been displayed
thus far in reducing the potential for any serious or significant debate on the
floor of the Assembly, it may well be that some means will yet be devised to
eliminate these flies in ointment.
What has happened, of course, is that the meeting of the General Assembly
has been reduced to an irrelevancy. These annual 'get-togethers' are little to
do with the real work of the church. As one of our friends has observed, 'They
wanted a convention, and they've got one.' Indeed, it may be questioned whether
the meeting of the General Assembly of the PCA has as much significance and
influence in the setting of policy as the Southern Baptist Convention does in
establishing the agenda of that denomination. And as if the situation is not
bad enough already, this year's Assembly voted to explore the possibility of
joint meetings of the highest 'judicatories' (Somehow that word just does not
seem proper in light of what the General Assembly has become; all the judicial
cases are now handled by the Standing Judicial Commission which, as far as
these cases are concerned, is the General Assembly.) of several Reformed
denominations in a sort of national synod, which, of course, would mean that
there would be even less time for dealing with issues that should be addressed
by the Assembly.
But then, as a practical matter fewer and fewer issues are even addressed by
the Assembly. The policies and programs of the PCA are, for all intents and
purposes, set and carried out by the permanent committees-in reality, by the
staffs of these committees-with minimal, and ever-decreasing input from the
Assembly itself. The reports of these committees to the Assembly consist of
glowing testimonies of what great successes are being achieved and what great
impacts are being made and what great things are being done and what great
challenges are yet to be taken up if only the churches will provide the funds
and 'trust them' to carry out the work. The Committees, or their staffs, do
pretty much what they want to do. They report what the Assembly wants to hear
and what they want the great unwashed to know. Unless something like the fiasco
in the mission work in Salt Lake City (you may recall that this created a bit
of a stir at last year's Assembly), or the matter of having a woman speaker
exhort men and make application of Scripture at a church planters' conference
(which was the faux pas that had the MNA damage control crew doing
their spin routine this year)-unless something of this nature is somehow
brought to light, the permanent committees and their staffs are free to go back
to doing their own thing until they have to put together their dog and pony
show for the next meeting of the Assembly. Once in a great while, a committee
of commissioners charged with the examination of the work of one of these
permanent committees will display a little streak of independence, and call the
committee and its staff to account for something; but if the issue is one which
the permanent staff feels strongly about, you can expect them to roll out all
the big guns in an effort to get the action of the committee of commissioners
reversed. The Assembly will be treated to the 'trust' massage, and if that does
not work, there will come stern warnings about the dangers of trying to
'micro-manage' the work of the committee and its staff. In other words, 'We are
the experts, and all we need from you is money.'
This being the case, it is not surprising that criticisms of the committees
and agencies of the denomination are not well received. Thus, for example, it
is obvious that the Mission to North America Committee and staff does not
appreciate being called to account for the strange things that are being
reported in some of the home mission works under their oversight. Of course,
from a certain perspective, this is understandable. When you are several
hundred churches under the Y2K goal of 2000, you cannot afford to be overly
concerned about things like the regulative principle of worship, or doctrinal
integrity, or the place of women in the church-especially when your target
group is the Yuppie baby-boomers who have shown themselves noticeably hostile
to anything that might conflict with their self-indulgent view of life in
general. They try very hard to give an appearance of being the 'servant' of the
church. But when potentially embarrassing questions are raised about their
operations, it pretty soon becomes clear that the only oversight they want is
the annual pat on the back and the monthly check in the mail.
Another example is Covenant College, a principal contender for the prize as
the biggest embarrassment to the PCA, and a loose cannon which the denomination
would be far better off without. Whether it is a matter of pornographic art
work displays or allowing their choir to participate in the Roman Mass, the
powers that be at CC have let it be known that they do not wish to be troubled
with having to answer for such things to the rubes who have not the benefit of
breathing the rarefied atmosphere atop Lookout Mountain. As is the case with
Covenant Seminary, the college administration generally instructs the Assembly
on who they want elected to their board. Perhaps they should simply constitute
their board as a self-perpetuating entity and skip the pretense of Assembly
oversight altogether. Yet, despite their dismissive attitude toward the
concerns of those who should be their natural constituency, they express
surprise that many in the PCA would just as soon commit their college-age
children to the tender mercies of Behemoth U. (In this connection, we strongly
recommend an article by Pastor Douglas Wilson, 'Why Evangelical Colleges
Aren't,' in the September, 1998 issue of CHRONICLES magazine.)
These examples are cited, not because MNA or Covenant College are perceived
by us as operating in a manner essentially different from the other
'committees' and agencies of the PCA, but because the reports of these two
entities at recent meetings of the General Assembly provided ready examples of
what we see as a major problem of attitude, not only on the part of these
agencies, but on the part of the Assembly itself, the majority of which has
evidently either bought into the argument that they really have no business
giving too close attention to what is being done in their name, or else they
actually believe that they are carrying on as true Presbyterians.
What it has come to in the PCA is this: We do not have a General Assembly in
the historic Presbyterian mode. What we have are several General Assemblies-one
operating as Mission to the World, another as Mission to North America, another
as the Committee on Christian Education and Publications, another as the
Administrative Committee, and another as the Standing Judicial Commission.
There are at least these many General Assemblies in the PCA, each of them
severely delegated, each of them having virtually undisputed control over the
area of the work of the Church with which they are concerned. Additionally, we
have these boards of directors for Covenant College, Covenant Seminary, IAR,
Ridge Haven, the PCA Foundation, etc. What calls itself the General Assembly
is, practically speaking, nothing more than a meeting of the patrons of these
several real General Assemblies. It does not even resemble a meeting of the
stockholders of a corporation, because the stockholders of a corporation would
be a great deal more likely than the so-called General Assembly of the PCA is
to hold the feet of the directors and staff to the fire.
In one respect, however, the PCA does resemble a corporation -- namely, in
that it commands about as much affection on the part of its constituency as
General Motors or Coca-Cola do from their stockholders.
It was common among our Southern Presbyterian forefathers to speak with
great devotion of 'our Southern Zion.' An inbred devotion to that ideal was the
occasion of a great struggle for many in 1973, who were loath to break with
that 'Zion' even though it had long since ceased to be anything even remotely
resembling the church that had once been. Many hoped that the PCA would be a
restoration of the old Zion. It was to this, according to her 'Declaration to
All Churches' adopted by the first General Assembly, that she aspired. We said
that we would be 'intensely Presbyterian.'
What we have become is intensely pragmatic. We are the Presbyterian Church
in America, a Corporation, complete with a trademark -- or whatever those
initials are supposed to be now-which we are far more willing to contend for
and defend than any of the historic distinctives of our polity and doctrine.
We sing, sometimes:
I love thy kingdom, Lord,
the house of thine abode,
the church our blest Redeemer saved
with his own precious blood.
Beyond my highest joy
I prize her heav'nly ways,
her sweet communion, solemn vows,
her hymns of love and praise.
It is hard to love a corporation. There is not much in the way of 'sweet
communion' to be found in such a setting. Perhaps that is why some in our midst
consider it a thing of little moment to simply walk away and join or form
another group. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why our several separate
little Assemblies have such a hard time getting the churches to subscribe their
budgets. Perhaps that is why congregational benevolences in the PCA runs about
double what is given in support of Assembly and Presbytery causes. Perhaps this
is why so many ruling and teaching elders do not bother to attend General
Assembly meetings, or why they spend so much time in the display area or close
to the coffee and donuts. There is not that about the PCA which inspires much
in the way of devotion. Could it be that this is because there is not that
about the PCA which really resembles the Church?
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