“Moderator, its not Presbyterian.”
A Commissioner, speaking on a motion to allow laity to administer communion.
Tuesday was a long day. Many of us arrived at the conference centre—a university gymnasium—at 8 a.m. for worship. We left at 10 p.m., after a day of motions, amendments, speeches and all the other joys of General Assembly. Different groups of friends and tablemates decided to go into Sydney to share a bite, a beer and reflect on the day. That proved a challenge to find an establishment still open. There was a chain restaurant in a strip mall with its generic atmosphere. Many other places are closed or were about to close. Most kitchens are closed by eight.
On another evening I took a walk down Charlotte Street, one of the main drags downtown, at 5 p.m. Everything along six blocks was closed. That includes the ones closed permanently. To call it a sleepy town would be to suggest a certain level of energy not discernible to my eyes; though I know there is a vibrant life in homes, in the kitchens and back yards. (They don’t call ’em Cape Breton kitchen parties for nothing; of course it sucks to come from away.) Once a mining and steel town, Sydney, Nova Scotia (population 24,000), has been in an economic tailspin for decades. Folks keep moving away, further and further west in search of work. Those still in town are charming, helpful, filled with stories. They have a wonderful lilting speech which marks them as distinct from the rest of Canada. Here on this very pretty island time seems to have stood still.
But it hasn’t of course. Time never does. A waitress in her 20s said she had gone to Halifax for five years for school and to try her hand at a music career only to return and find many chain restaurants and box stores had set up shop. There are stretches of the main highway which are generic in character—big stores, golden arches. But they look awkward and alien. Much of established business is smaller in size; not quite Mom and Pop, but not boxy. Still, it was in the Subway restaurant that I saw the “Think of Sydney first” sign. It may be a chain, but was likely owned by a local. (And one of the few places downtown to get a bite in the late evening. Even the hotel restaurants close early. The one night we drove by the casino, it was closed by 10. Like the box stores, it is not organic to the culture and feel of Cape Breton; more a Hail Mary-attempt at some form of economic revival.)
This is a town in transition. Whatever identity Sydney had is morphing into something else; but it’s not there yet. It may have been in transition for decades, I don’t know, but there is definitely something unsettled. I played with a 3D-TV at Future Shop and wondered who in town would be buying one. The unemployment rate is around 16 per cent; twice the national average. Sydney and Cape Breton have plenty of colourful yesterdays, but it is hard to see a bright future. The largest Ceilidh fiddle in the world is at the harbour, a hopeful tourist attraction, but it looks lonely with very little around it.
At the hotel I saw a Korean couple discussing their Cape Breton tour with a front-desk clerk. They asked him about this site or that, and his response was always, “I’ve never been there.” The major attraction is the Cabot Trail with its magnificent vistas, but that means people drive through and around. The arrival of several hundred Presbyterians stretched the island’s resources. We love the people, we marvel at the landscapes, we leave behind a few dollars we hope will help and that’s it.
This is a long way of saying I thought Cape Breton, with its strong Scottish heritage still evidenced on the tongue, was a fitting place to hold the 136th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Though I am much more hopeful for the future of our church; if we can plow through the present. We too are in transition, and this year’s assembly was yet one more that slowly inched us into a new identity.
**
“Moderator, it’s not Presbyterian.”
The reader will accuse me of indulging in clichés, but the commissioner who uttered this in exasperation did look like those portraits that line the halls of Knox College, Toronto, complete with mutton-chop sideburns and a thick Scottish/Cape Breton burr. It felt as if he had come back from the distant past to remind us who we were.
Most in the room did not agree with him. Another commissioner, when the debate was revisited a few days later, reminded the court that lay leadership has been debated for a century. It has heated up again the past couple of years and the sentiment of two assemblies in a row seems to favour allowing laity to serve communion. If and when this ever happens, it will be a new shade in the identity of our church.
So, in uttering my favourite line at this year’s assembly, the commissioner from Cape Breton inadvertently named the thing that has been dogging the church for a decade at least: An Identity Crisis. Who are we? What does it mean to be a Presbyterian? Is our identity based on theology or culture? And which culture? And what of those others in our midst (like me!) whose culture and worldview is strange?
Many of the debates this year were recycled from previous years: biennial assemblies, lay communion, regional staff funding, staff wages, Supersessionism (!) and other interfaith issues. Behind all of these debates are the questions of process and theology. We are questioning our own culture as a church and asking of ourselves how we should do things and what it is we believe. We are placing the church in our current context.
The past few years we discussed the uniqueness of Christ. It was a brief stop on the process of reimagining our identity; a way of checking in and making certain we haven’t drifted too far from the core. With that in place, we continue on our quest. Perhaps it is our polity, perhaps it is our culture, I’m not sure how much of each, but our process raises the whole church together. If a subject takes three years of debate, that means nearly a thousand commissioners have had a hand in thinking it through. If we had the same set of commissioners year in and year out we would, arguably, move the agenda faster, but not as deeply and widely across the denomination. As I joked to a member of the Committee on History: It is much more difficult to watch history being formed minute by minute, than it is to study it from a distance.
But, I’m a journalist whose job it is to watch history unfold. An even though the process at General Assembly can sometimes be excruciating, sometimes absurd, sometimes surreal (ask anyone who was there about the Stole Debate of 2007!), it is always fascinating. I feel I am watching the birth of something; but at my fifth consecutive assembly I fear all we’re experiencing is Braxton Hicks contractions.
**
“Moderator, it’s not Presbyterian.”
At around the same time we were meeting in Cape Breton, the Anglican Church was meeting in Halifax. There’s a denomination in crisis; particularly over issues of sex and sexuality. They are under a great deal of pressure from within and without to deal with the “homosexual issue.” And this year they settled for a slippery compromise: they affirmed local option without calling it local option—that is for dioceses to deal with “sexual discernment” at their own discretion, without changes to church law.
What I found most interesting was the wording of the document tabled on the floor of their synod:
There is a strong sense of fatigue and weariness when it comes to this discussion and a strong sense that, despite this, something must, at this time be said.
There is a strong sense of needing to get unstuck—to do or say something— but nothing that would provoke the wanton breaking of relationships. Many are deeply frustrated with the time we spend on this use and number of years the conversation has been going on—others are more patient—but there is a sense that regardless of this, we need to take some sort of step. This is a paradox and we recognize this is where we are.
I love the honesty of this language: “We are tired of this, we are tired of our ennui, we need to move on and deal with more important stuff. Can we just do that please?”
**
“Moderator, it’s not Presbyterian.”
Perhaps it’s our polity, perhaps it’s our culture. For many the two are intertwined and it is increasingly impossible to pull them apart. This year, assembly discussed a lot of issues that had been passed on from previous assemblies; and then passed on again to the next ones. Several new motions from the floor—to plant 10 new churches or missions each year for five years; to change the standards for ministers coming to the PCC from other denominations—were also passed on to future assemblies.
But, a motion that was expected by some to be heated—annual vs. biennial assemblies—passed without any debate in favour of the status quo.
The way I read it, we may not be ready to move forward on any decision, but we don’t want to rush the process either. Its all so very Presbyterian—careful, considered. All Braxton Hicks perhaps, but as every mom knows, sooner or later that baby will want out, one way or another. What’s left is to decide the process of birth.
I don’t want to further grind this troublesome metaphor, but we all know there is one horrible outcome if the process is delayed or botched. And I suppose that is the fear of many: The world moves too quickly for some, not fast enough for others. As Presbyterians, we seek to find the balance between those two extremes, but in compromise we risk the danger of losing the church itself.
Of course, it would be unfair to say nothing happened at this assembly. Some important work was done. We affirmed the work being done in the church and by the church. We affirmed some of our stalwart members who have served honorably for years. We prayed together. We broke bread together. We affirmed old bonds, created new ones. We laughed together. All of these things are good; and all are healthy for the church. The meeting itself is a good thing.
We also revisited a horrible chapter from our past and attempted to make amends with Rev. Gordon Williams whom the church had once rejected as a “savage.” It was a difficult evening and there were enough in the room who felt insulted by having their noses rubbed in the church’s sins. “Sucks to be you,” is one response to those intransigent folks.
However, a more useful response requires a great deal more subtlety. Understanding, absorbing, internalizing and praying over our sins is an important process to our own redemption as an institution and as individuals. The truth and reconciliation process is one that has long proceeded on the corporate level of the church. It has not seeped enough to the pews. There are very important issues here of teaching, training, leading that expose a disengagement between the Presbyterian Church in Canada and its pew members. Perhaps even its clergy.
For most of us, our primary loyalty is to our congregation. This is human nature; we seek out community. By which I mean, our congregation, our local church, provides us with direct human contact. Presbytery is distant and for most folks its hand is seen only when there are problems in the local congregation. The denomination is further still, theory to most folks sitting in the pews. The constant struggle for every denomination, for every corporate structure, is to send its mandate and teaching out to every member.
The truth and reconciliation process of the Presbyterian Church has not made it to the pews. There is a failure of communication. Perhaps even a failure of leadership. These are two key issues and the denomination needs to face them. But let me be clear, by communication and leadership I am not speaking of departments and department heads at national offices. I am speaking once more to the tangle of our polity and our culture; of how we do things and of how we talk about the things we do.
Where is our leadership? Does it come from national offices? From the colleges? From the various committee? Does it come from General Assembly? If we were to poll the members of the church, for whom would they say they are waiting to lead them? (Christ, of course, some might say, but we don’t have to wait for him, he’s constantly here and with us. The question is directed specifically to the health and identity of the denomination.)
**
“Moderator, it’s not Presbyterian.”
Thursday was another long day at General Assembly. We got out after 8 p.m. By now we were wired-tired. There was much to talk about, a lot of steam to blow off. But still the same problem of where to congregate. There were several dozen of us at one restaurant. We said to the staff: There are a lot of us here, and many others in the city whom we could call, and all we want to do is to commune with each other over a beer. But staff and management wouldn’t budge. It had nothing to do with the laws and everything to do with their habit. Not polity but culture. At 10:30 we were out on the streets.
We congregated in groups on the streets—laughing, giggling, telling bad jokes. Old friends and new. It was fun. But it was cold and we were tired. By eleven we were headed home—which may have been a mixed blessing. Just before I fell to sleep my last thought was, I’m never going to another General Assembly. My heart was heavy, I was depressed. I am one for whom the church is moving too slowly and it caught up with me.
The thought passed by the morning. Breakfast and another sederunt before we caught our planes back home. We had packed already, for many their bags were in storage areas at the college or at their hotel. And on the assembly floor there was a renewed vigour to get through the business. Nobody seemed rushed. We were here, we were having an important meeting—there were amendments to standing motions and a new motion or two.
No matter what had happened—or not—all week, regardless the seemingly frustrating process, commissioners took their task seriously. They were gathered to do some work. And work they did, to the end. And they’ll do it again, next year and the year after. I know that commissioners read their very thick binder; that they think about the issues. They come with open minds, ready to learn, they listen carefully to the debates. They take their role seriously. That for a week they are able to find the universal from within their own local congregational concerns.
And yet … And yet, I wonder, if there was to be an exit poll on leadership, the commissioners would recognize themselves as the ones responsible for developing the denomination’s identity.
