A Response to Mel Morganstein
Sometimes, the unfortunate consequence of the indiscriminant use of a shotgun in close quarters is the unintended wounding of one’s friends. Such is the case with Mel Morganstein’s editorial, Presbyterian Church USA Wants to Declare Israel an Occupier of “Palestine.” The nature of Mr. Morganstein’s unfortunate broad brush attack on Presbyterians would be clear and equally offensive even to him if he were simply to substitute “the Jews” everywhere in his missive that he describes “the Presbyterians.” By providing some clarification regarding the nature of Presbyterian history and its form of government, I hope to clear some of the smoke out of the room rather than fan the flames.
Let me acknowledge at the onset that I have been a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) for nearly twenty years, so it is my denomination that he attacks. However, although Mr. Morganstein begins by calling out the PCUSA specifically, he proceeds to lambast “the Presbyterians” in general, invoking the broad history of Presbyterians in various specific contexts to decry our conduct throughout our history in general. In so doing, he engages in the same “very bigoted fit of ‘stonecasting’ [sic]” to which he objects.
First, the PCUSA is the largest but certainly not the only Presbyterian denomination in the United States. Along with the PCUSA, there are the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the Associate Reformed Presbyterians (ARP), and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). These denominations hold varying degrees of emphasis with regard to key doctrines, but in general, what they share is a common history, heritage and form of government. As with the varying levels of government in the United States, the purpose of these levels of government is to address mutual concerns regarding the church’s mission at the most appropriate level.
With regard to Presbyterian government, it is necessary to describe its general workings in order to understand why Mr. Morganstein’s piece is so objectionable. Presbyterian polity operates in the same manner as the federal republican form of the United States government. It is a government of “presbyters” or elders. Each congregation is governed by a session comprised of elders elected by that congregation, moderated by an ordained Minister of the Word and Sacrament. This person is generally the pastor of the congregation, who is not a member of the congregation but of the next level of government, the presbytery, a local judicatory the size of several counties. The congregation likewise is a “member” of the presbytery and elects commissioners (persons representing the congregation who are free to vote their respective consciences as opposed to delegates who must vote as directed) to attend meetings of the presbytery, generally three to four times a year. Commissioners from the presbyteries are then elected to attend a biennial meeting of the General Assembly, the national governing body. (The PCUSA also includes an intermediate governing body called a “synod,” that addresses regional matters, but for the purposes of this discussion, I will leave that out of our discussions.)
With regard to specific doctrinal positions of the PCUSA, this form of government is designed to make it extraordinarily difficult to make arbitrary changes. The PCUSA is a “confessional” church, which means that it declares its faith and beliefs by means of several historical confessions of faith assembled in a Book of Confessions. Its form of government, its style of worship and its disciplinary processes are defined by a Book of Order. To change either of these constitutional documents requires, not only the approval of a biennial meeting of the General Assembly but of the majority of the presbyteries (in some cases a supermajority), voting after the general Assembly’s approval, much like the process needed to amend the Constitution of the United States.
The paper to which Mr. Morganstein objects does none of this. Each meeting of the General Assembly stands on its own for that specific stated meeting and any called meetings that may arise infrequently between the stated meetings of General Assemblies. For a General Assembly to adopt a position paper regarding any topic, be it abortion, the Middle East or any number of contentious issues, is for it to speak only for itself, i.e., that group of commissioners, meeting at that particular time, and NOT for the entire denomination. Thus, to condemn the PCUSA as a whole or its leadership as a whole, among whom I am numbered, is simply to be ignorant of the nature of Presbyterianism in general and the PCUSA in particular.
The PCUSA absolutely is NOT “asking its members [i.e., the people who sit in the pews] to approve a statement next month calling for Israel to withdraw from the ‘illegal occupation’ of the West Bank and Gaza, and for the US to halt all military and economic assistance to Israel,” as Mr. Morganstein alleges. A study committee appointed by the 218th General Assembly of the PCUSA is asking the 219th General Assembly, a specific group of commissioners, assembled at a specific time, in a specific place, i.e., from July 3-10, 2010 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to approve a report that advocates certain positions that both Mr. Morganstein and I hold to be “very bigoted” and abysmally ignorant of the region’s history. However, said report speaks only for those who authored it and for those who vote to approve it (if this actually occurs) and no one else. Indeed, it is a specific tenet of Presbyterian church order enshrined in the PCUSA Book of Order that “God alone is Lord of the conscience,” and no ecclesiastical governing body within that denomination can compel individual belief in any position to which the individual conscience objects. To suggest that this paper defines Presbyterian belief about this matter is to adopt a view of Presbyterianism that, if applied across the spectrum of Orthodox, Conservative and Reformed Judaism in the same manner, would rightly result in one being labeled a bigot and an anti-Semite.
With regard to Mr. Morganstein’s assertions regarding the supposedly sordid history of Presbyterians regarding the oppressed, he resorts to the standard and illegitimate tu quoque line of attack used in debates throughout the ages once one has extended beyond the limits of reasonable argument and then proceeds to attack the morality of one’s opponent instead. Ordinarily, it is liberals who elevate hypocrisy to the level of the unforgivable sin, but clearly this means of tarring and feathering one’s opponent has gained currency among conservatives as well.
But to address his accusation, one may scratch beneath the surface of any saint of the church and easily find a sinner, so Mr. Morganstein will find that the church’s history, much like the history of the Jews whom many of us consider our brothers and sisters, is at best a mixed bag of faithfulness and faithlessness. Most assuredly, some Presbyterians were complicit in the violence perpetrated by the Protestant English against the Catholic Irish, as well as in the displacement of Native American populations. But in the same vein, there were and are Presbyterians even today at work in peacemaking efforts in Northern Ireland, and it was Presbyterians who marched in solidarity with the displaced Cherokees along the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.
It is always a risky venture to inform oneself solely by what one reads in the newspaper. News outlets, including Pundit House, have a story to tell, often with a particular narrative arc, so we must always be cautious about reading news within our own bubble. I agree with Mr. Morganstein that, “The leaders of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) need … to be historically and biblically correct, rather than being ‘politically correct!’” However, we could all learn to heed his wisdom about “… learning that one should not go about casting stones, particularly when you don’t know what you’re talking about, and when have a lot of dirty linen in your hamper and skeletons in your own closet,” Mr. Morganstein included.
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