I have been trying to describe, to my satisfaction, how I feel about the near future of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Here is what I came up with. It is still a work in progress.
Although I have never divorced a wife or been divorced by my wife, purely as an act of imagination I have developed this story. It is based on the book of Hosea.
I married the United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 1960 after I memorized the Shorter Catechism and was examined by the session and then before the congregation where I was given a question at random and recited the answer from memory. I was twelve years old. It was not for another twelve years that I understood the full merit of the Calvinism I had confessed. This was the Reformed Bride I married. The substance of the covenant was the exposition of the Gospel found in Westminster Calvinism.
This understanding fit my experience with God. My conversion at first felt like I found Jesus and chose him to be my personal savior. One day, I realized this is not what happened. God found me, pursued me, and defeated me with his love before I ever understood the sovereign nature of his rich mercy. Some faithful minister presented the sweet Gospel to me and God's Spirit prepared mind and soul. “How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.” Now I take comfort in knowing that I married God, in Christ, and not God in the Presbyterian Church. "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness."
It was this Ecclesiastical Reformed Bride I married – the one who honored God as He is revealed in the Bible and explained in the Reformed Tradition. She was pure and our marriage showed every sign of mutual enrichment. She changed, she said to me, “One day, I will publicly betray our marriage vows. I have a lover that I desire to bring into our marriage.” I watched with great anxiety as she pursued many lovers but as yet she had not given herself fully over to any of them. However, she remained open to adultery and danced with carnality. That fact alone grieved me deeply for over forty years. Our relationship strained its bonds for a long while. I couldn’t break the covenant founded in 1960 when I recited the Catechism because we once cherished this truth together. She grew cold to that exposition of the Gospel. She even grew to hate it. She belittled it, denied it, and found other ways of confessing with Words more suitable to her lust toward the things of this world. My heart had to face the truth that she despised what we once loved.
She is now prepared to consummate her adulterous infatuation with the god of this world. With this final blow, it seems she has finally embraced her lover. She is fully divorcing herself from me. She is now utterly cold to me, and, alas, I to her. My heart is broken. I grieved a love we once, for a short while, enjoyed. (Maybe it was never real?) That love is gone. I believe it is doubtful it can be restored.
My hope is that, as in the story of Hosea and Gomer, God will restore to us the passions of our youth. Perhaps she will say `I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now.' I now see that God has show the world the lewdness of our Church.(Hosea 2:10 (RSV) 10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.)
What I feel is grief. I mourn the loss of a once true wife who has played the whore and joined herself to a devilish lover who destroys all who lay with him.
3 comments:
Gary,
You always seem to be able to give words to the concerns, hopes and fears I have in ways that I cannot. Thanks for this post. I do believe that the Hosea and Gomer analogy is fully appropriate...
We are going to have to used to the notion that for most practical purposes the denomination no longer exists. Gone is any agreement over confessional language; gone is any agreement of what constitutes mission; and gone is any trust in the central institution. The impending passage of 10-A and NFOG are the nails in the coffin. You imagery from Hosea is apt, but I would suggest one from the time of the Judges- “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”
The good news in this is that the congregations are very much alive. Led by faithful sessions they engage in worship, evangelism and mission. They serve the communities that God has placed them in with integrity. People do not join the PC(USA), they join the local congregation in which they have found a warm welcome and have encountered the Good News of the Gospel. This is where ministry happens. This is where discipleship happens. This is how it has always been, from the time Jesus started with 12.
The worst thing that can happen to the PC(USA) is not dissolution, it is becoming irrelevant. If the denomination devolves to the to a place where all that is holding us together is the Pension Fund and Property Clause, then it will be right and just that it goes the route of the Laodicean church. Our task is to make sure our congregations do not go down that primrose path. May God bless you in your ministry today.
Gary, of all the things you said the one that hit me hardest was that you have grown utterly cold to the PC(USA). Me, too. I have become what I despised in my 20's: a 50-something pastor who focuses his energy on the congregation he serves. Presbytery and national events seem irrelevant at best; destructive at worst.
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