Back from Tulsa

Don, Jen and i got back from Tulsa on Saturday, dodging the storms. It was quite an experience and, just like at General Assembly, I operated on about 5 hours of sleep per night. Late afternoon is the most dangerous time. A little voice inside your head keeps saying, "Of course you can listen with your eyes closed." I don't think I ever actually dozed off, but I'm probably not the person to ask.
One evening I spent over an hour writing a blog but, just as I posted it, the wireless service in the hotel came on telling me that I needed to resubscribe because my 24 hours were up. An hour's worth of blog slipped quietly away into cyberspace, never to be seen again. Sorry, but I didn't have the energy to re-do it, and I didn't trust the service enough to try again another night.
The New Wineskins meeting was, in some respects, a rather odd mixture of reflective music, stirring preaching, and momentous decision-making. Michael Card led worship. I've been listening to his music for 25 years and he still has a beautiful voice. I have to say, however, that it won't take God long to number the hairs of his head. At one point he pointed out that he is bald because he was a breach baby. Not sure I buy that! His emphasis, throughout, was on lament, which I thought was entirely appropriate, a fitting counter to what could have been a grating triumphalism. I'm delighted to have met him, and his daughter. I'd no idea he is Presbyterian.
Various preachers led us through Ephesians Chapter 4 during the convocation, or, at least, that was what they were supposed to do. Jim Logan, bless his cotton socks, was as excellent as usual, but his homiletics professor would have frowned at him and reminded him to stick to the text. Carmen Fowler and David Henderson also did well. The one preacher I didn't appreciate was David Bryant, who was delayed by storms for 24 hours. He was slick, affected, uninformed about our circumstances and overly loud. He was everything I don't appreciate about supposedly evangelical preachers. He didn't stick to the text either.
Then there were several presentations, some in plenary, others in network groups or break out sessions. By far the most impressive was Rob Gagnon's interpretation of the 217th General Assembly. Insightful, witty, Bible-based, he was thoughtful and extremely helpful. His powerpoint presentation is now available at the New Wineskins site (I downloaded it then realised I don't have powerpoint on my laptop). There's also an audio recording of his presentation. It's well worth listening to. http://www.newwineconvo.com/
There was an excellent (if rather dry) presentation by an attorney on Church Property Law, and we were given a resource book by the Layman. I also enjoyed a seminar with a professor from Erskine College, Bob Pittman from the Knox Fellowship, and the Moderator of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. This latter (I forget his name) was a very impressive, humble man. He brought greetings but did not try to drum up support for a mass exodus to his denomination (though he had information available). He owned up to being terrified of the prospect of hundreds of PC(USA) churches defecting to his denomination, because they would be swamped. In fact, he said that it may be a case of the EPC joining us, given our numbers, and our emphasis on mission. The EPC has grown to abut 70,000 members since its birth with 12 churches in 1983, but it has not been terribly mission minded. He admitted that it has taken them a generation to get beyond moaning about the PC(USA). Another immensely helpful contribution came from Bishop Duncan of the Episcoplaian Church, the Bishop of Pittsburgh, who set our struggles within a much broader setting.
It was odd, those first few days, that the important business of the meeting was introduced, several times, in a very laid back way, almost as an afterthought. Dean Weaver has a wonderful way of saying "Oh, by the way... here's the revolutionary document we wanted you to see. Take it away and pray about it." For the first two days we were treated to vignettes like this. Then came the business meetings. You can read the finished article on the same, New Wineskins site. It took some hashing out, and I was getting very frustrated at the way in which the rules of debate were abused. You can't half-use Robert's Rules of Order. You either use them or you don't. Well, there are a few corners you can cut, but when it comes to the amendment process, not to use proper rules is to descend into chaos. We came pretty close once or twice. But the job was done. We are now an Association of Churches, and have set in motion a period of discernment which could lead to an exodus from the PC(USA). Despite what some may say, that is not schismatic. What is schismatic is for the denomination to break faith with the World Church and to abandon both its own constitution and the historic understanding of what it means to believe and behave as a Christian.
A great deal of work remains to be done. I covet your prayers.
Presbuteros

New Wineskins

Well, we're off to the New Wineskins meeting in Tulsa, tomorrow. ("Only, twenty four hours from Tulsa" - who sang that? Gene Pitney?) Three of us are going from Lake Jackson. I must confess to going with soome trepidation. Even though I was in on the birth of New Wineskins, at one of the Presbyterian Coalition's Y'All Come meetings, in Denver, I believe, I've kept my distance for a while. First, because I was finishing up my D. Min, and second, because a lot of the stuff they were doing seemed unrelated to the struggles in the denomination. It was all about "what if," dreaming about what a more biblically faithful churchmanship might look like. Which is fine. But some of us were more involved in attempting to renew the denomination from the inside. At that time, I believe I was having some success, working with the Evangelism and Renewal Team in New Covenant (chairing it for three years) we managed to get about a quarter of the churches in the presbytery involved in a program of renewal and transformation, led by Stan Ott, from Pittsburgh. So, while New Covenant was becoming more open to evangelical initiatives, I was in the thick of it. I like to think we have had an influence for good. But at the same time, in other parts of the country, evangelicals were being increasingly ostracised and marginalized. The New Wineskins folks kept going. I suspect that, in Tulsa, we will hear the fruits of their deliberations, and that we will be nearer to schism than ever before. There are about 110 churches that have endorsed the New Wineskins Constitution, including Lake Jackson. It has no authority, except as a teaching document. But I think that it may be the start of a movement to declare that the PC(USA) has gravely erred and is now beyond the bounds of orthodoxy. It may be the beginning of a split. I'm not sure that I'm ready for that, at least, not until there is a greater consensus about what the new Authoritative Interpretation means, or when it has been tested in the church courts and found failing. It is strange that the Layman is now coming out with materials supportive of schism. Who knows what the coming months may bring? I'm anxious that we should be prayerful in seeking God's gracious will in all of this, and that we should not try to run ahead of the Spirit. But, then, I don't want us to be left behind either! There will have to be a great deal of prayer and study in the coming months as, together, we seek the will of Christ.
Presbuteros

Cabrera

I've just finished reading The Prisoners of Cabrera by Denis Smith. It's an interesting little book about French prisoners of war, captured during the Peninsula War, when Wellington was marauding around Spain and Portugal. Several thousand French troops were taken following a particularly inept manoevre by their leaders at the battle of Bailen. They were held, for a time, in an old fort, then left to rot on prison ships, old hulks, stripped of their masts. Eventually, however, the majority of them were moved to Cabrera (Goat Island) in the Ballearics, and left there. There was no hope of rescue by sea, because the Royal Navy had a squadron in the area keeping Napoleon's Mediterranean fleet bottled up. They received minimal supplies, weekly from the Spanish island of Majorca, but often the supplies were late, hindered by bad weather or political in-fighting. Over a period of about five years, twelve thousand Napoleonic soldiers, mostly French and Italian, were placed on the island. Over half of them died, mainly of a combination of malnutrition and preventable disease. When, eventually, they were returned to France, the vessels that carried them bore the Bourbon flag, the newly-restored monarchy against which many of them had spent their youth fighting in the name of the Revolution.
What strikes me most forcibly about the story is the ability of ordinary people to commit horrible crimes against natural law. The people of Majorca were overwhelmingly Christian, as were their Spanish overlords, and the British who prevented escape. Individually, they would never have countenanced leaving fellow-human beings to die on a barren rock, almost entirely devoid of shelter with only minimal supplies of water. And yet, that is exactly what they did when they acted politically. The Majorcans blamed the mainland Spanish for foisting this expense on to them; the Spanish blamed the English for not repatriating the soldiers, as had originally been agreed. The English blamed the ineptitude and corruption of the Spanish authorities. To a degree, they were all right. But they were also all wrong. Nothing could justify the neglect, the lack of basic human compassion, to which the soldiers of Cabrera were subjected. The people were largely blind to their fate, just as we are blind to some of the truly awful situations in our world today, such as in Dafur.
Perhaps, then, Calvin was correct to remind us of the corruption of the human heart, and of our tendency towards evil. Left to our own devices, we are capable of anything. That's why our trust must, ultimately, not be in a human institution, no matter how well-intentioned. Our trust must not be in ourselves, either, since we too are marred by the Fall. Our trust can only be placed, legitimately, in God. He is the only one whose love is untainted by self-interest.
Presbuteros