nFOG: A polity “reboot”

The following article was originally posted by the Presbyterian Outlook on Tuesday, 21 December 2010.

Long ago, in a presbytery not so far away where I served as stated clerk, I attended what now is called the Fall Polity Conference. During a meal, the conversation turned to the Book of Order, and even though it was only a few years after reunion, a consensus emerged that something needed to be done. The Constitution, particularly the Form of Government (FOG), was growing increasingly larger with each amendment cycle.

Because of this and other stresses from our way of “doing church,” the 1989 General Assembly created the Special Committee on the Nature of the Church and the Practice of Governance. This was the start of a two-decade process that culminated in the approval of the FOG now before the presbyteries. Along the way, the Directory for Worship (1988) and the Rules of Discipline (1995) were completely revised, but the task of revamping the FOG was never completed. The current FOG is still 1983’s Plan for Reunion, as amended.

The work of the FOG Task Force built on the work of these past 20 years. Among the reasons for adopting this proposal are three that the Task Force has identified as most important:

1. This revision does a better job than our current Book of Order in connecting what we believe about the church with how we accomplish the church’s mission. The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity lays out in a single, well-organized document the basic ecclesiological and historical commitments undergirding our polity. The Foundations takes most of current G-1.000 – G-4.000 and reorganizes it by theme, using the Nicene Creed’s Marks of the Church (one, holy, catholic, apostolic) and the Scots Confession’s Notes of the Reformed Church (proclamation of the word, administration of the sacraments, ecclesiastical discipline).

2. This revision clarifies standards for the whole church. It reduces the amount of regulatory “manual of operations” language but retains what is important – the standards that guide the whole church in carrying out God’s mission at every level.

3.  This revision provides flexibility appropriate to each context. It allows sessions, presbyteries, synods, and the General Assembly to create, reorganize, or dismantle structures as needed without having to amend the Book of Order to do so. This flexibility makes the church more nimble as it seeks to adapt its ministry to the changing contexts of our world. It removes the one-size-fits-all requirements of our current FOG.

Over the past several years, an interesting phenomenon has occurred in Hollywood. New films described as “reboots” have revived many long-standing movie franchises.

In a sense, the proposed FOG is a polity reboot. Many of the “characters” are familiar — sessions, presbyteries, ruling elders, teaching elders, deacons, etc. The story is basically the same: “The mission of God in Christ gives shape and substance to the life and work of the Church” (F-1.01). Whereas the current FOG predetermines what much of that “shape and substance” is to be, the new FOG enables the church to dream and discover together what shapes to keep, and how to give substance to the new things God might lead us to accomplish together.

We commend the new Form of Government to the presbyteries, and urge an affirmative vote.

DANIEL S. WILLIAMS is pastor of Second Church in Staunton, Va., and was co-moderator, Form of Government Task Force (2008-2010), and vice moderator, Assembly Committee on Form of Government Revisions (2008).

IS F-1.01 OF THE FOUNDATIONS UNIVERSALIST?

The very first statement of the proposed Foundations of Presbyterian Polity reads:

“The good news of the gospel is that the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – creates, redeems, sustains, rules, and transforms all things and all people.”

To some, this statement appears to suggest that God is obligated to the salvation of every person, regardless of their faith or manner of life. Such a position is often referred to as Universalism, and it is not reflective of the theology of the Reformed tradition, at least as represented in the main confessional stream of our church.

But is this statement, in fact, universalist? The answer lies in the context.

First, let’s remember that this statement is not a confessional statement. The confessions that shape and norm our theology are found in Part I of the church’s Constitution, The Book of Confessions.

But it’s a fair question: shouldn’t the things we claim as “foundational” for our church’s governance reflect the theology of the church’s constitutional confessions? Does this statement meet that criterion?

This is where context matters.

The paragraph labeled F-1.01 speaks about God’s mission in the world – all the world, including its people. It affirms that the Triune God – Father, Son, and Spirit – is engaged in all aspects of all parts of the whole of God’s creation, and thus that there is nothing that lies outside God’s power and authority. It then proceeds to discuss the way in which God’s engagement with the world has been and is expressed. God liberates the people of Israel and calls them into covenant relationship. God is incarnate in Jesus Christ, who lived and died for the world, and who was raised to new life. God’s engagement with the world through Christ by the power of the Spirit brings into being a new creation – God’s “kingdom.” This kingdom is the same one that the prophets of the Old Testament described (see, for instance, Isa. 61:1 and following), the same one realized in Jesus (see Luke 4:1-4), and the same one we yearn for every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer (“…thy kingdom come…’). God’s engagement with creation is redeeming and transforming that creation so that all evil is banished and all shall be as God intends.

The context of F-1.01 is an affirmation of the sovereignty of God – a claim that no force and no amount of human evil has the power to thwart the will of God. It claims that the creation, redemption, sustenance, rule, and transformation of God’s creation is the sole province of God, and of no other. And, as anyone who has ever sat through an elder or deacon training class can testify, the idea of the sovereignty of God lies at the heart of our Reformed tradition.

F-1.01, then, is a statement about the sovereignty of God. It is not a statement about salvation, and especially not about individual salvation. When the confessions speak about salvation, they do so under headings such as “Election” and “Predestination.” These confessional statements (which, by the way, are not in universal agreement themselves) continue to govern what we mean by salvation of individual persons.

But even though F-1.01 is not about salvation per se, we should not conclude that God’s election of those whom God calls is unrelated to God’s engagement with humanity and creation. We are saved not so that we might enter into some special status or blessedness, or so that we might escape life in the world, but precisely so that we might be engaged with God in the ministry of transformation of the world. In a memorable paragraph, the Confession of 1967 expresses this idea:

“To be reconciled to God is to be sent into the world as his reconciling community. This community, the Church universal, is entrusted with God’s message of reconciliation and shares his labor of healing the enmities that separate God from men (sic) and from each  other. Christ has called the church to this mission and given it the gift of the Holy Spirit….” (C’67, BoC 9.31).

There is, in other words, a direct connection between God’s engagement to transform people and creation, and the calling of the church and all believers to be witnesses to and participants in God’s reconciling and transforming work. This is the point of the second paragraph of F-1.01:

“The mission of God in Christ gives shape and substance to the life and work of the Church. In Christ, the Church participates in God’s mission for the transformation of creation and humanity by proclaiming to all people the good news of God’s love, offering to all people the grace of God at font and table, and calling all people to discipleship in Christ….”

The Scriptures tell us that in Christ God embodied the Kingdom; offered himself in water, bread, and cup; and called together a community of disciples whom he commanded to love one another. Just so, the Church by its life reflects God’s engagement through its proclamation of the good news, its offering of the sacraments, and its disciplined following of the way of Christ. If being “saved” has meaning in this life, surely this is what it means. That is why F-1.01 concludes with these words:

“…Human beings have no higher goal in life than to glorify and enjoy God now and forever, living in covenant fellowship with God and participating in God’s mission.”

Moving ‘standards’ into manuals?

Flexibility is one of the main features of the proposed new Form of Government (nFOG).  Our current FOG grows out of a movement throughout the 1970’s to reorganize the Presbyterian Church according to generally-accepted business principles and practices of the time.  Some would argue this movement was the beginning of some of the challenges we have faced as a denomination, as our one-size-fits-all polity has become more detailed and regulatory.  (For instance, see the “Travail of the Presbytery” by Joe Small.)

The new Form of Government seeks to free the church from the increasingly restrictive box into which we have placed ourselves by:

1. Eliminating many of ‘named’ entities from the constitution.  (This should not be confused with removing them from use by church councils).
2. Moving many of the structures and processes currently detailed in the Form of Government into council manuals.
3. Maintaining the essential responsibilities (‘standards’) of the church in the constitution.

Some raise concerns about this, fearful that sessions, presbyteries, and synods will be overburdened by the task of creating these manuals.  However, all councils above the session are already required by the current FOG to have these manuals (G-9.0405).  Many sessions, while not under this requirement, likewise have manuals.  The task of updating manuals on a minimalist implementation – maintaining the current structure by moving into manuals what is currently in the Form of Government but not in nFOG – will not be all that complex.  The Handbooks at the end of the nFOG proposal give guidance for what needs to be done in this area.

Of greater concern is the confusion some are creating about what exactly will need to be transferred into these manuals.  At least one group is contending that nFOG involves transferring ‘standards’ into manuals, and, as a result, these standards will now vary from presbytery to presbytery, resulting in confusion and much litigation, overwhelming our judicial commission system.

It is important to understand that the nFOG proposal is not about transferring ‘standards’ into manuals, if ‘standards’ is defined as the essential principles of Presbyterian polity that unite us in governance.  The task force was specifically charged with preserving these essentials of polity, and is one of the reasons why the proposal contains a section called “Foundations of Presbyterian Polity,” a separation first called for by the 1989-1993 Special Committee on the Nature of the Church and the Practice of Governance.  The intent of the nFOG proposal is to remove as many items that aren’t ‘standards’ so that the actual ‘standards’ stand out more distinctly.

What will be moved into manuals are items that should have been left to the discretion of sessions, presbyteries, etc., all along – the structures and processes by which the standards, responsibilities, or principles of our polity are implemented. What these councils are responsible for doing does not change under nFOG.  How they carry out these responsibilities, and who or what entity performs them, is up to the body to determine – not the constitution.

Consider this example.  Presbyteries are responsible for determining who its members will be, which involves the validation of ministries.  Under the current FOG, this task is performed by the Committee on Ministry, guided by the standards in G-11.0403.  Under the new Form of Government, the presbytery is still responsible for determining who its members will be, but nFOG stops short of requiring the presbytery to have a Committee on Ministry to do this work.  Many presbyteries likely will continue to have a C.O.M. – at least, for the time being.  (Some are already beginning to move towards alternate ways of doing this work, despite the requirements of current G-9.0902a and G-11.0500.)  However, regardless of the structure employed and the process followed, the decision will still be made according to the constitutional standards of the church, in nFOG G-2.0503a, which is essentially the same standard as in current G-11.0403.

The reality is, one of the standard reasons given for opposing nFOG – that the ‘standards’ of the church will be moved into manuals and thus will vary from council to council – is a substandard understanding of what the document actually proposes.

nFOG and Ordination Standards

I still remember the event vividly. During my first meeting in August 2008 as a new member of the Form of Government Task Force, I was pulled aside and given a secret decoder ring that enabled me to locate all of the triggers that had been hidden in the proposed Form of Government that would allow the overthrow of the ordination standards of G-6.0106b (G-2.0104b).

Of course, there was no such encounter, and there are no such rings. Yet, in some quarters, the idea persists — the proposed Foundations of Presbyterian Polity and new Form of Government currently before the presbyteries for their affirmative or negative votes will in some way be used to invalidate G-6.0106b/G-2.0104b.

The new Form of Government has never been about the ordination standards issue. That was one of three areas in the existing Form of Government the task force could not change. Two were declared to be off limits by the 217th General Assembly (2006): ordination standards and the property trust clause (G-8.0201 / G-4.0203). The third area is the exceptions paragraph for former PCUS congregations in G-8.0701 (G-4.0208), which itself specifies it cannot be amended. The reason for the exclusion of the first two issues is that they are often before the Assembly on their own, as the ordination standards issue currently is via Amendment 10-A.

Nevertheless, some continue to posit theories of how the new documents, if adopted, would be used to overturn the ordination standards, should Amendment 10-A fail. Far from creating the context where the ordination standards could be overturned, the proposed Foundations and FOG are actually stronger than the current document on this issue.

The ordination standards “conspiracy theory” usually begins with the use of the word ‘governance’ in F-1.0403.  The task force used governance (“the act, process, or power of governing”) merely as a synonym for the current language. The current language in G-4.0403 uses the phrase “decision making.”  In both documents, the church is required to guarantee “full participation in … decision making / governance.”

Are there any limits to this guarantee? The answer to this is obviously in the affirmative. Immediately following the above sentence in F-1.0403 is language that is not in the current FOG: “No member shall be denied participation or representation for any reason other than those stated in this Constitution.” If Amendment 10-A fails and nFOG passes, the current ordination standard will remain as a constitutional reason for limiting participation or representation.

Despite this, some believe “fidelity and chastity” could still be undermined, because it would be in conflict with F-1.0403. Because the latter is in a section called the Foundations, it would trump the later standard in the Form of Government – a scenario that was aired before the Assembly Committee in 2008, of which I was Vice Moderator. But it is a scenario much older than that, one that reached the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) in Session of Londonderry vs. the Presbytery of Northern New England (213-02). In this case, a session declared G-6.0106b to be inconsistent with G-4.0403, and announced its intention to, in essence, not be guided by the former because of the latter. In rejecting this policy, the GAPJC said the following:

“It is not unusual for a document such as our Constitution, written at different periods of time and under different circumstances, to exhibit tensions and ambiguities in its provisions. Nevertheless, it is the task of governing bodies and judicial commissions to resolve them in such a way as to give effect to all provisions. It is not within the power of any governing body or judicial commission to declare a properly adopted provision of the Constitution to be invalid. The only appropriate avenue to change or remove a provision of the Constitution is through the process for amendment provided within the Constitution itself.” (213-02, pages 4-5)

This decision is an authoritative interpretation (AI) that has guided ordaining bodies in the implementation of our commitments to inclusiveness and our standards for ordination. Under nFOG, it will be more that an AI — it will be a constitutional principle. In F-3.03, the relationship between the Foundations and the rest of the constitution is clarified:

“Provisions of any part of this constitution are to be interpreted in light of the whole constitution. No provision of the Book of Order can of itself invalidate any other. Where there are tensions and ambiguities between provisions, it is the task of councils and judicial commissions to resolve them in such a way as to give effect to all provisions.”

As can be seen, this language arises directly out of the Londonderry decision. There is no need for any litigation on the relationship between F-1.0403 and G-2.0104b. Even if a council or commission believes them to be in conflict, they must be resolved in such a way that gives effect to all provisions.

Clearly, the proposed Foundations and Form of Government do nothing to change or otherwise threaten our current ordination standards. The only way to change them is the way pointed to by the above GAPJC decision, by the amendment process.

Do not be confused by those who try to muddy the waters on this issue. Simply repeating the same old contention does not make it true. Under nFOG, there is no way for an ordaining body to ignore its responsibility to give effect to all constitutional provisions.

Dan Williams, Co-Moderator, Form of Government Task Force (2008-2010)