Worship.
Worship on Tuesday took place in the plenary hall. The practice of worshiping in the same
place where the assembly does its business is a good one… in theory. It will probably work better for the
rest of the week, when the plenary is in session. But on Tuesday, worship featured a relatively small number
of people, scattered across a huge space, with most sitting in the back. In other words, it was what we
experience in far too many of our churches every Sunday. The excellent Korean choir was situated
on bleachers way off to the right.
And those of us not right up front had to view the proceedings on TV screens.
An
excellent sermon was preached by Lark Labberton on Matthew 7:24-8:10. He talked about the need to back up our
words with our touch, that is, real actions. We’re been celebrating the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper at
every worship service, an innovation of former Moderator Neal Presa, and something
I am finding very moving and spiritually nourishing.
Parliamentary Hell.
I
slipped in to watch several committees on Tuesday, finding all of them mired in
inconsequential discussions of procedure.
That is, not addressing the substantive issues they are here to address,
but spinning their wheels in mind-numbingly boring technicalities of motion-
and amendment-making.
Parliamentary procedure is supposed to facilitate the fair making of
group decisions. Today it seemed
to stifle many attempts to actually discuss anything. Instead of having conversations, committees were hamstrung
by the rules.
This
of course is the Presbyterian
disease. It’s like we don’t really
care what gets done as long as it is
done the right way. We have this
faith in procedure that seems to think that if things get done the right way it
somehow guarantees that the right thing will get done.
It
is also discouraging to observe how many of the commissioners in committees were
using their laptops to play games while all this parliamentary wrangling is
going on. (Solitaire was most
popular, though at a distance it is difficult to distinguish from
FreeCell.) Before huffing about
irresponsible commissioners, I want to suggest that if we are boring them to
the degree that they seek some way to more fruitfully pass the time, this is a
problem. It's like they don’t even care
about the intricacies of procedure.
Imagine that! Maybe if we
could figure out how to get to the substantive issues commissioners are here to
discuss, they would be more engaged and actually pay attention.
One
of the handy ways out of this mess is to make a motion to refer. This has the twin benefit of avoiding
conversation entirely – except the lengthy debate about whether and to whom to
refer something – and making it look like a committee is making progress on its
agenda, when really it is avoiding
its agenda. If it refers enough of
its assigned work, a committee could even finish early!
The
Presbyterian bureaucracy is an efficiant machine in this regard. Well-dressed officials from Louisville and
Philadelphia have years of experience in making impressive presentations about
their particular corporate entities; it is easy for them to impress the newbies
who make up most committees. “They
look like they know what they’re doing; why don’t we just let them handle this?” is the
sentiment. So the tendency is to
refer matters to the guys in the suits.
This
is what I saw happen regarding the overture to divest from fossil fuel
companies. The committee did not
discuss for one second the matter they were sent here to discuss. They politely listened to the advocates
and witnesses, then decided to refer the whole matter to the Mission
Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) group, which was set up years ago in
an effort to encourage the Capitalist institutions in which the church invests
its money not to act like Capitalist institutions.
In
this case the Capitalist institutions in question are among the worst on the
planet: oil, coal, and gas companies.
The committee was convinced that divestment was unwise because it is
important for us to maintain a dialogue with such companies. If we sell our stock in them, we lose
our place at the negotiating table.
Although what we have to talk about with such enterprises escapes
me. The devotion to and effectiveness of these companies at pillaging, destroying, and poisoning God’s creation is legendary. Just sitting at the same table
with them is to give the finger to the simple
Lord Jesus who walked lightly on the earth.
What
are we supposed to suggest to them in these negotiations with, say, Exxon-Mobil? “Please stop producing fossil
fuels”? Seriously? Because that is the only thing we could
possibly and morally have to say.
How
can we continue to preach the gospel with our mouths and reject the gospel with
our money? How can we support the mission
of local churches by means of income derived from companies whose work daily
contradicts, undermines, and cripples that very mission? Should we do evil that good may
result? Does that work?
No comments:
Post a Comment