This Presbyterian Church of Ours, a slim volume packed with a lot of information and wisdom, history and theology, and a great deal of dry wit, was first published 15 years ago. The author, John Congram, was then halfway through his leadership as editor of the Presbyterian Record. A good writer with a clean style and a crisp sense of humour, a dedicated Presbyterian, a minister, a pastor, a teacher – it was the perfect fit of author and subject.
While Congram was at the Record, June Stevenson was serving her own long career as editor of Glad Tidings for the Women’s Missionary Society. They are dear friends who share many interests and loves, though not necessarily in the same way or for the same reasons.
The Record asked Stevenson to talk to Congram on the 15th anniversary of his book. Here is their conversation.
– Andrew Faiz
June Stevenson: Susan Clarke of the WMS Book Room tells me your book continues to sell a steady few hundred copies every year. What does it feel like to be a best-selling author?
John Congram: That would be nice if it were true. I think the book is a long way from getting to that plateau, even in Canada. However, as a book aimed at a small constituency (the Presbyterian Church in Canada) it has done well. I believe its appeal lies in the fact that it was aimed at the lay membership in the church and it abounds with illustrations, many of a personal nature. One of my favourite authors, Frederick Buechner, said something to the effect that at its heart all theology is autobiographical.
JS: This book has come to be an essential handbook for congregations and individuals. I recommended that my session make copies available for elders so they can be more informed about what it means to be a Canadian Presbyterian and share this information with communicant members. It is also a valuable tool for initiating the unchurched into Presbyterianism. What was your purpose in writing this book, John?
JC: I hoped that when a person read this book they would come away feeling that they were proud (in a good sense) of being a Presbyterian and more determined to contribute positively to the best in our tradition.
I hoped they would feel good about our denomination and re-energized to participate in its life. We are an extremely tiny group of people both in the world and among the family of churches. It is easy for us to feel insignificant and to become defensive.
JS: That suggests the danger of becoming insular, which many have accused the PCC of being. What do you think about that, and where do you think the PCC stands today on ecumenical participation?
JC: If we are insular we don’t do a very good job at it. Studies indicate that among all mainline denominations, the Presbyterian Church loses more of its members to other denominations. If this is the price for being ecumenical we should be prepared to pay it.
It is true that immediately after Church Union in 1925 there was a real danger of our church becoming insular. Our church had experienced a great union of the various branches of Presbyterianism in 1875 so it was not surprising that it was a Presbyterian who suggested the various denominations work more closely together, a suggestion that eventually led to the union in 1925. I think I mentioned in the book that despite numerous attempts by some in the church to have us withdraw from ecumenical movements, like the World Council and the Canadian Council, these were always beaten back. In fact, today the Presbyterian Church, as it has done for many years, carries more than its fair share of responsibility in all of the major ecumenical groups and organizations.
I also hoped that the book would help folks recover some of the essence of the Presbyterian tradition, that our church at its heart is ecumenical and catholic. We are Christian first and only secondarily Presbyterian.
JS: How would you describe the “essence” of the Presbyterian tradition?
JC: Bob Reed (How to Survive Being Presbyterian) says, “Presbyterianism is a series of meetings occasionally interrupted by a worship service.”
The Presbyterian tradition at its best identifies with the one, holy catholic church, emphasizes God and God’s gracious action and decision in Jesus Christ, takes the Bible seriously but not literally. It believes that what we believe is important and that belief should be confessed. It is generous and gracious in spirit (sometimes I think too generous) but tends to be traditional and conservative in theology and thus does not change quickly. I like what the writer and Presbyterian minister, Eugene Peterson, has written: “I grew up virtually without theology but with a lot of emotion and conviction [in a Pentecostal church]. When I found myself in the Presbyterian Church I couldn’t believe what theology could do. In a year I read John Calvin’s Institutes through twice because I was so excited about having a theology – being part of Calvin’s church. It gave me a mental structure to account for other things. It kept emotions from being despotic and unhealthy. I experienced reformed theology as having a kind of cosmic quality – large and orderly.”
JS: What can we do to get away from the Scottish influence? It continues to haunt us today. A friend once said to me, Presbyterians are allowed to have sex, they just can’t enjoy it!
JC: Bob Reed says that “many people have sex without guilt; many Presbyterians have guilt without sex.” Living in Toronto today, you still hear commentators lay the blame for almost anything that is bad or goes wrong in the city to “its Presbyterian past.”
I mention in the book how Lloyd Robertson was startled one morning to hear on the radio on his way to work a caller attribute everything evil in our city to the “white Anglo Saxon Presbyterians.” The idea that Presbyterians and especially the Scottish variety were glum and went around trying to spoil everyone’s fun has, of course, some basis in reality.
Presbyterians were leaders in attempting to maintain strict Sabbath observance in Canada. But, quite frankly, this has not been my personal experience with Presbyterians.
Luckily for those of us living in Toronto, distancing ourselves from our Scottish influences is not something we have to worry much about because it is simply happening with an influx of people from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia into our churches.
Indeed, if the Presbyterian Church is to have a continuing presence and influence in Toronto it will largely be because of these folks and the gifts they have brought to our denomination. I hope this will gradually happen throughout the whole church. However, as the saying goes, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. There is much that is valuable and should be preserved in our Scottish heritage.
JS: I can’t help but think of the situation with aboriginal peoples. As a church we did our best to follow current thought and government policy at the time but we failed as a denomination to significantly influence their ways, or to bring them to the Christian faith. There are only a handful of ordained aboriginal ministers in our church.
JC: You say, “We did our best to follow current thought and government policy.” But that, of course, was precisely our problem.
To me that is what the early Christian confession, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” is all about. We must be careful never to deify culture or government policy, whether right or left.
An additional question we must deal with is why, among all of the denominations, we seem to stand out in terms of our failure to attract aboriginal people into the leadership of the church. I have often puzzled as to why this is the case.
JS: The second strongest group within the PCC is the Koreans but they work more alongside rather than ‘within’ the church. What do you think?
JC: As you may know, I had a long-term relationship with a group of Korean Presbyterians in St. Mark’s, Don Mills. In the beginning they were on the roll of the English-speaking congregation. My dream was to eventually have one congregation with a team consisting of an English-speaking minister and a Korean-speaking minister working with one congregation.
That dream was never realized and eventually the Korean members established themselves as a separate congregation, largely I think, to compete with other Korean congregations in the city. However, they still continue to meet in St. Mark’s. I was moderator of the General Assembly when ethnic Korean congregations were given permission to set up two Korean (Han Ca) presbyteries on a trial basis. Although I didn’t have a vote I supported that decision with the hope that in the long run it would provide for greater participation in our church by our Korean brothers and sisters.
I think the jury is still out on that question. You may recall that ethnic Korean congregations were given the choice whether to remain with an English presbytery or join one of the new Han Ca presbyteries. At least one congregation chose to remain with an English presbytery.
Some were opposed to setting up the Han Ca presbyteries, feeling that once in Canada you should integrate into the church and that setting up separate presbyteries did damage to the unity of the church. However, at this point in our history, given cultural and language difficulties, it was difficult for Korean Presbyterians to fully participate in the presbytery and other courts of the church.
My experience with Korean folk, especially the younger generation, is that they very much want to integrate into Canadian society and this experiment will work out for the best in the end. It will be important for the non-Korean part of the church to constantly work at strengthening our relationship with our Korean brothers and sisters and not allow them to operate in isolation from the rest of the church.
JS: That brings me to the role of the PCC in the future. One of your comments to me in our earlier discussions was whether the PCC still has a role to play among the churches and in the world. Indeed, you asked, would it still be around when you finished writing the book? Upon what did you base that hope or sensibility?
JC: I think the problem we face, which most denominations face, is difficulty in presenting a credible and consistent witness to the world. I think we try to do and be too many things and as a result we are not good at much. We attempt to be all things to all people and it isn’t possible.
We have become homogenized. Unless there is some unique aspect to our witness and life (in the past we claimed it was a highly educated clergy and laity that presented a thoughtful and rational view of the gospel to the world) then I think there are good grounds to question whether our denomination has a right to exist.
JS: John, you, personally, have a long and varied history in the PCC: Your ministry has included five charges, followed by being Record editor for 14 years. You have served on numerous committees of the national church … etc., etc. You are in the business of ministry. You came from a rather humble background, that is not to say that the offspring of Wingham don’t achieve fame, as with Alice Munro, yet I would ask what really makes you ‘Presbyterian,’ and not something else?
JC: Sometimes, especially in groups of Presbyterian ministers, I have broached the question of where they would find a home should the Presbyterian Church cease to exist. The United Church, as many might expect, has never been the most popular response. Some said they would seek a home among the Lutherans, a few others with the Anglicans. For me, I think I would look to some branch of Mennonites. Perhaps it is because my experience with them has always been positive, like working with them in a storefront ministry in Hamilton. But I also think that, in many ways, the approach of the modern Mennonite resonates with what is best in Presbyterianism.
Although, as I recount in the book, it was an accident (or some might say providential) that I became a Presbyterian; I have always felt comfortable in the Presbyterian Church. The most important paragraph in my book is the last one. I think it sums up why I have been happy to remain a Presbyterian all my life.
JS: I’d like to play devil’s advocate here and push some buttons. Is it possible a new and updated book on our church might include some dialogue, if not actual argument on current theological thinking? Take the Record‘s Theology 101 series. In his first article, Two Kinds of Knowledge (March 2009) Rev. Dr. Joseph McLelland deals with religion and science. He says, “… Science must assume order but cannot explain where it came from. If a scientist tries, he becomes a philosopher – or theologian!” He later says, “The Bible teaches that the universe is created, but its account of how this happened is not science or history but Saga (Genesis 1-11).” I know that many persons in the pews are struggling with these issues and are not satisfied with what the church has to say.
JC: I think that what you say is true of people 50 years and older. However, my sense is that younger people are less interested in the question, “Is it true?” than they are in the question, “Is it relevant?”
Young people I know want to know if what the church says and does has any relevance to their everyday struggles and life. Sadly, many conclude that it has no relevance. As a preacher and teacher I always tried to place high value on relevance, otherwise, it seemed to me what we did was only sound and fury, signifying nothing. Many of the ‘successful’ churches in Canada and the mega-churches in the United States draw huge crowds of followers, largely, I believe, because they seek to speak and act in a relevant way. We may sometimes decry their fundamentalist approach to the Bible but we should learn from their practical approaches. Brian McLaren makes this point in his book, A New Kind of Christian.
On the other hand I think you have come up with a great idea for the Record. Why not reprint the articles in Theology 101, provide a study guide to come with them, and make them available to study groups in the church? This could also be made available online.
JS: In the same article, McLelland speaks about how religion can learn from science: “Just as the geocentric (earth-centred) cosmology was displaced by the heliocentric (sun-centred), so the new map of the universe of faiths must shift from a Christianity-centred to a God-centred picture.” These are radical thoughts for a Presbyterian, at least in written form. Is there a place in a book of this kind for exploring current thought? In fact, do you think Presbyterians will ever be able to consider a ‘God-centred’ universe? I suppose this conflicts sharply with one of our most sacred tenets that Christ is the head of the church and it is a slippery slope from there on?
JC: I have always felt that there is a place in the church for the honourable heretic. People who question and push the boundaries are invaluable in the church. By honourable I mean they are sincerely exploring the issues.
One time I said that our purpose in the church is to raise the dead, not simply to raise hell.
However, sometimes the line between the two is extremely fine and easily crossed. When I was considering becoming the editor of the Record, I consulted Al Forrest who had been editor of the United Church Observer. His words have always stuck with me. “The purpose of the editor of a church magazine,” he told me, “is to provide the loyal opposition.”
I must say that I don’t see the conflict you perceive between a God-centred universe and the proclamation that Christ is the head of the church and, I would add, of the world as well. We are, after all, a monotheistic religion, and our allegiance is to God who we see through Jesus Christ. Sometimes we deify Jesus in a way that makes him replace God in our theology.
JS: I would even challenge you on a particular statement from the book. On page 53, in relation to God’s sovereignty, you say, “We do not have a spark of immortality in us.” Is that not the same as having a spark of the divine within us, and don’t we all have that which moves us towards becoming one with a Supreme Being? Is the nature of humankind not divine and that relates to how God longs for us to be with God? As Pamela McCarroll says in Where in the World Is God?!, another article in the series Theology 101 (March 2010): “… our essence reflects the divine image – humans as God made and intended us to be.”
JC: For me there is a big difference between saying that God placed God’s image in us and that each of us has within us a piece of the divine. Over the centuries there has been much debate as to what the image of God in us is. For me it is simply the potential to love and be loved in a way that enables us to be fully human, not divine. To quote a church father, “God’s glory is man fully alive.” If there is a spark of the divine in each of us that would mean a part of us never dies. The Bible contends we really do die and return to the dust from which we were originally made. God then resurrects us.
JS: I will let you off the hot seat by pursuing more ‘Presbyterian’ thoughts. One thing that became particularly clear to me from your book was just how much importance Presbyterians place on the mind and education. John Vissers in his March 2009 article in the Record, Teaching the Teaching Elders, emphasized how Calvin thought that the people of God needed to know their Bibles. Vissers says that “we are living at a time when the church … needs [a learned leadership] who can articulate biblical faith clearly, credibly, and compellingly …”
When I came into the Presbyterian Church in the mid-70s I was encouraged by that thinking. My personal journey has been strengthened and enhanced by study and reflection. I like to think that Presbyterians bring to the table their own conclusions, reflecting thought, prayer and study. It seems to me that some of the religions that place more emphasis on ritual lose this kind of personal understanding. Any comment, John?
JC: I think we all need to do the things you suggest. However, the process should never be an individualistic process. Calvin taught that in our attempts to understand the Bible, for example, we should listen to what the Holy Spirit is teaching us through the words of scripture, but we should also test this out by what other passages in the Bible teach, by what our contemporaries in the church teach and by the history of Christian thought.
This is what Richard Mouw, in his book, Consulting the Faithful, describes as the wisdom that dwells, and here he quotes Cardinal Newman, “deep in the bosom of the mystical body of Christ.” We may wish that it was otherwise but all of our relatives in the church, including some who disagree with us and others we don’t like, must be in on the process of discerning God’s will for our lives.
JS: There are current issues with which our church, and others, has been dealing: homosexuality for one. Is there a place in a book of this kind for current thinking as opposed to the church’s stand on the issue?
JC: Perhaps a chapter on important social issues of our time like the question of homosexuality would have enriched the book. However, I had a limit on how large the book could be placed on me by the publisher who, while interested in the subject, wanted to produce a book that could be sold for a profit. It would have been difficult to do justice to even one of these issues in a book like this. But again this might be a worthy project for the brains at the Record such as I have suggested with Theology 101.
JS: Most mainline denominations are facing declining membership today. Our society is searching for meaning in other aspects of living. Personally, I am not discouraged. I believe in Presbyterianism. The Presbyterian Church is, for me, the place I want to be. How do you feel about that, and what is your prediction for the future of the church?
JC: Sometimes I have been asked how I can preside at the funeral of a well-known reprobate. I always reply that I am able to do this because I am a Presbyterian. As such I always reserve the first and last word about anyone’s life for God.
I am not in the business of determining the ultimate destiny of anyone. I think I would say the same thing about the Presbyterian Church. Its future is in the hands of God. My task is to be as faithful as I can which sometimes includes being a questioning presence in the church. Sometimes
I think our church is suicidal, such as when it fails to consider seriously cost in terms of personnel and the cost of yearly assemblies. As a result, I sometimes get discouraged but I never despair.
JS: Finally, John, you said to me that the last paragraph in the book is for you the most important one. You wrote, and I cut this down to the essential thought, “Within its life, I have been given the freedom to use my gifts, and to fall on my face. Its people have supported me in difficult times and celebrated with me in good times. …Finally, a host of loyal and loving friends in this church family have taught me the truth of Martin Luther’s word: if God is our father, then surely the church is our mother. In her arms I have discovered life.” What would you say about that 15 years later?
JC: I would say, Amen.
