Who the Heck Knows What day it is...

Now' let's see. It's Monday.. I think.
Yesterday I went Methodist! We were supposed to split up and worship in local congregations, but I was picked up (at 8.15 am) by Virgil and Betty Coleman's daughter Lin and her husband Brian to go to their church. It was wonderful. Nobody cared a hoot about the Presbyterian General Assembly. Some of them had, however, read about the $150 million gift we received at GA and wondered whether we were interested in doing mission work among the Methodists. I even got to go to Sunday School, and toured their newly extended facility which cost them a round $10 million. It doesn't sound much when you say it quickly. After a Father's day lunch I got back to business at GA. Amazingly, some of the committees were still working. In fact one, Ecclesiology, the one dealing with the PUP report, worked until 10.30 pm for three days. Even then they hadn't finished, and apparently had to push some time in today between plenary sessions. Of course the PUP report was the main deal, with a rearguard action being fought by conservatives who were consistently defeated by about the same margins. A final resolution, to refer the report back, was also defeated. It will come to the floor of Assembly tomorrow late morning.
There was a big ecumenical service on Friday and a huge gathering last night, that was apparently very good, but I couldn't go. In the end I was flying round Birmingham trying to find a Kinko's open so that we could make some stickers. I'd had this idea. Logic and sound theology hadn't worked for the Trinity report in the committee, even though we won the arguments. Thay didn't bother answering most of our points. So, thought I to myself, why not try emotion instead, or rhetoric. So, a couple of us dreamed up a campaign comparing the Trinity Report to the Da Vinci Code. I got 800 stickers printed that said "Break the Trinity Code". Then, I found out that the youth loved it and the older folks thought it was disrespectful and dangerous. They thought that we would turn people off by being too "in your face." We persuded the guys presenting the minority report to let us do it, and to distance themselves as they thought appropriate. Of course, the YAD's (Youth Advisory Delegates) had a field day, and the older ones retained their Presbyterian respectability. The point was not that the Trinity Report was as deceptive as the Da Vinci code, but that if words are used without proper thought they are dangerous. We were to have a good example of the folly of slippery language just this morning, but more of that in a moment.
I went to the Coalition Dinner last night, to hear Dr Jim Edwards speak (he wrote the book on "Is Jesus the Only Savior" that some people studied recently in Lake Jackson). He did a good job describing the cultural captivity of the mainline church, how it bows to the pressures of the age, then reminded us that, sometimes God's people have to be faithful for centuries before the church is renewed. The first part of his speech drew considerably more applause than the second half. I then went to a strategy meeting put together by the renewal network. Again, the YAD's (and the ladies) mostly laughed at the stickers, and saw the joke. The guys didn't.
This morning I was up at 5.30 am so that I could go to the Presbyterians for Renewal breakfast, where Richard Mouw was speaking. He's the president of Fuller Seminary, and a Presbyterian. There were a lot of people there, but it's funny how the different renewal events have different atmospheres. This was far less raucous, with lots of very nice, earnest people. The Lydia scholars, female evangelical seminarians suported by the renewal movement, were honbored, as were a couple of missionaries who had served faithfully in Iran, Pakistan and somewhere else, then Richard Mouw spoke. He's a very engaging speaker. Well worth listening to. I've bought his latest bok "Calvinism in the Los Angeles Airport" about relating the Reformed faith to contemporary culture. He told us that he had just got back from Regent where, as the only Calvinist in the room, he'd had to calm down a bunch of Pentecostals. Now, in Birmingham, his job was to warm up a bunch of Presbyterians! I ddn't hear the end of his speech, but he did an excellent job of calling us to biblical faithfulness in a time of rapid societal change.
Then, it was into the plenary session, with about 1500 people in the room and huge jumbo-trons at the front. We'd had some preparation for this, but it's still very difficult not freezing up when you hear a voice booming out from the speakers, and you realize that it's yours, and you see a face on two 20 foot screens, and recognize that it's you! The Theological Issues and Institutions report came up early. We'd approved a motion calling on Presbyterians to make Bible reading an integral part of their decision making and their discipleship. It passed, easily, which surprised me a little. Then came the Trinity eport, and the moment of truth. The majority report was discussed and a crucial amendment was added changing the recommendation from "that the report is approved" to "that the report is received." Received is the lowest level of acceptance, and is usually used for routine matters, maybe for the calendar, or for something that doesn't really matter too much. A few other helpful amendments were presented and accepted, significantly weakening the report. After that, the minority report was presented and perfected (amended until the question was called). After that is the pivotal point of the debate, when the moderator asks, "Shall the minority report become the majority?" I looked across the hall from where I was waiting to speak, and we had advocates from the minority team at every microphone (there are 9 of them) including some young folks who had been terrified at the idea of speaking only the day before. Somehow or other, I got to speak last. I pointed out that even the doxology, which we had sung that morning during the installation of the Vice-Moderator, had been rewritten to exclude the name of the Father. Though I say it myself, I thought it was pretty powerful. Then the question was called, and the vote was taken. Sadly, I have to report that we lost 240-227, with 4 abstentions. However, we had pushed them as far as we possibly could, and the Trinity report that came out was far, far weaker than the one that was originally presented. We can live with it, and it will probably die quietly on a shelf now, except for those crackpots who will try to write liturgies based on its ideas.
After lunch, business continued with only a few points of dispute. We approved the production of a new sexuality curriculum for youth which we said must reflect Biblical values, and the view of the Assembly that marriage is to be regarded as between one man and one woman. It passed by a 2:1 margin. I was pleased, and not a little surprised. It looks to me like the whacko progressives have been concentrating so much on the PUP report that they have not organised themselves very well for other items. Ordinarily, the call to Bible reading would have been contested, and the curriculum vote would have been a major talking point. They weren't even terribly well organised for the Trinity Report. Anyway, on two separate occasions they tried to reopen debate on the curriculum by moving that it be reconsidered. At first, a lady from New York got up and whined that business had been moving too fast and that the moderator had declared the motion passed because no one was prepared to speak against it, and that she had been struggling from her seat. Of course, she wanted to advocate for literature that was sympathetic to "alternative lifestyles." Then, someone pointed out that the vote had been taken by electronic ballot, and that her story was completely bogus, so she was ruled out of order (she should have been thrown out...) Later on, someone else forced a vote for reconsideration, but it was defeated by a huge majority, so I think the attempted deception during the first attempt scuppered any chance they had.
Of course the big test will be tomorrow. Every indication is that the PUP report, which will lead to absolute anarchy in the church when every Presbytery and Session decides for themselves what is essential for ordination, will come to the floor of the Assembly unchanged. Unless someone's motion from the floor succeeds, we will not vote ad seriatim, that is, we shall have to vote the whole thing up or down with one vote, instead of taking it in parts. Goodness only knows what will happen if it passes. Some will walk out immediately, I'm told. We will have to wait and see.
There was a worship service tonight in celebration of the anniversay of the ordination of women. No disrespect, but let someone else celebrate. I ned a little snooze... just five minutes of course.
Presbuteros