Nuanced Controversy: Dissent and Its Cousins

William E. Chapman

Keynote for Long Island Presbytery

May 3, 2003

 

I want to thank Long Island Presbytery for the honor, as well as the challenge, of thinking with you this morning about Presbyterians and dissent. This invitation provided the necessary push for me to delve into this topic, and to scratch the itch which had been an increasing concern for me.

I’ll begin giving all of you a reading assignment: Paul Berman’s review on page 13 of the New York Times Book Review for April 27. Berman review two books on what is called the “war on terror,” one by Jean Bethke Elstain, the other by Richard Falk. While Berman has concerns about Elstain’s ethical analysis, he also points out some of her key insights relevant to today’s topic.

Mohandas Ghandhi taught the modern world how to protest non-violently. Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to teach Americans how to protest as citizens, rooted in his theological understanding of human nature. Their major point has seemingly disappeared, that non-violent protest is costly, and carries with it the willingness to accept whatever consequences may result.

Today=s topic illustrates how changes in the way we use words complicate our life together in a covenant community. As one reads the paper, one wonders whether the writer intends some difference between words like “dissenter,” “dissident,” “protester,” — and “trouble-maker.”

Dissent and protest are not simply Twentieth Century phenomena. You and I are called “Protestants.” reminding us that the Reformation began as a protest. We have forgotten that the root meaning of the Latin word, Aprotestare,@ is what one dictionary defines as, Ato call forth to witness.@^[1] The word originally had a positive connotation: that one=s beliefs were sufficiently strong for one to testify as in court B under oath, as it were B on behalf of a position considered to be worth the trouble. ADissent@ and Aprotest@ today are more frequently understood as indications of what one is against, than what one is for.

As we begin, note that Dissent and protest are what minorities do. Often these terms are used to refer to ways of shifting the balance of opinion on some issue or other, a way to accomplish change. Among Presbyterians we have traditionally understood these as safety valves for conscience. Thus, the group which, according to the Annotated Book of Order, uses dissent most frequently may surprise you: they are members of Permanent Judicial Commissions.

As a recently ordained pastor in one of the smallest congregations in Omaha Presbytery, I dissented and protested an action of presbytery regarding a statement opposing labor unions, and rallied a number of colleagues to sign the protest. The pastor of the largest church, with whom I had debated during the meeting, came to me afterward, put his arm around me, and said, AWere I younger, I likely would have agreed with you. You argued well.@ That continues to be for me an instance of dissent where disagreement on an issue actually deepened my relationship with a colleague in ministry, and our debates continued. There was a covenant sense between us that went beyond the issue, what those who wrote our historic principles called Aforbearance.@^[2]

 

 

This morning my remarks are organized into the following three areas:

A.     Three stories of Dissent and Protest among Presbyterians in each of the three centuries of our existence.

B.     Some theological reflection on dissent and protest.

C.     Some specific things I have learned about Presbyterian dissent and protest.

 

When I finish, there will be time for questions and comments at the end.

 

My first story begins in 1734 when Gilbert Tennet brought overtures to the Synod of Philadelphia relating to how candidates for ministry were examined relative to “evidences of the grace of God in them.” Synod’s response affirmed current procedure, and encouraged presbyteries take care that ministers “…are faithful in the discharge of their awful trust.^[3]

Mr. Tennet was not satisfied, continuing to press his case in various ways. The arguments grew more heated until in 1741 a protest document signed by twelve ministers and eight elders^[4] was misconstrued as a motion. In point of fact it was never moved, much less debated. It was paper laid on a desk, held “in retentis,” after which as the minutes read,

“…it was canvassed by the former protesting brethren whether they or we were looked upon as the synod. We maintained that they had no right to sit whether they were the major or minor number. Then they motioned that we should examine this point, and that the major number was the synod. They were found to be the minor party, and upon which they withdrew. After this the synod proceeded to business.^[5]

 

The issues protested against were how candidates were to be prepared for ministry; the scope of their examination, and whether Presbyterian pastors could preach without invitation in a church that already had an installed pastor. The result was what is called the Old Side/New Side controversy. One synod became two, with some overlapping presbyteries.

The path to reunion ended with the adoption of a plan of reunion in 1758. The best-known provision is the one which continues to be printed as a footnote to G-6.0108b:

That when any matter is determined by a major vote, every member shall either actively concur with or passively submit to such determination; or if his conscience permit him to do neither, he shall, after sufficient liberty modestly to reason and remonstrate, peaceably withdraw from our communion without attempting to make any schism. Provided always that this shall be understood to extend only to such determination as the body shall judge indispensable in doctrine or Presbyterian government.

 

Few of us today know that this footnote was the second of eight articles for the reunion of the synods of New York and Philadelphia after the seventeen year separation. The third article goes on to say, “…that any member or members, for the exoneration of his, or their, conscience, shall have the right to protest against any act or procedure of our highest judicature because there is no further appeal for redress.”^[6] The present G-11.0401 regarding permission for ministers to labor in presbyteries other than where they were members approved by both bodies was yet another consequence of that controversy.

Charles Hodge in his Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America published in 1851 characterized the situation 110 years earlier as follows:

In relation to the act about the examination of candidates, they [the excluded group] first adopted a modification, then proposed one expedient after another for a compromise, but refused to give up. As the other party thought that they could not, with a good conscience, yield, a division became inevitable, and it therefore took place, though not in the Christian manner in which the article just referred to afterwards provided for.^[7]

 

Hodge goes on, with a warning I think contemporary Presbyterians need to hear:

 

This schism, however, never would have taken place, neither party would have been so unyielding, had they not, in a great measure, lost their confidence in each other, and become embittered in their feelings.^[8]

 

What a sad conclusion to a part of our history too seldom pondered.

The second story began when Rev. Albert Barnes published a sermon “The Way to Salvation” just before he was called to Philadelphia’s First Presbyterian Church in 1830. Philadelphia Presbytery devoted four days to considering whether this sermon was theologically appropriate for a member of their presbytery. Presbytery finally voted thirty to sixteen to approve the call. The minority appealed to synod, which upheld the vote. Various strategies kept the Barnes issue alive with various other matters complicating the situation as it continued to disturb the church. The 1834 General Assembly ruled that the charges against Barnes were based on “inferences drawn from isolated passages of his publications,” and “urged charity and forbearance” in such instances. (Aside: The recent decision of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission in the so-called Morrison case from Redwoods Presbytery uses similar language when it ruled, “a hunch, gossip, or stereotype is not sufficient ground to compel a governing body to make further inquiry.”^[9])

The minority’s response to this ruling was a protest signed by thirty commissioners. Jacob Harris Patton, in his 1900 book A Popular History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America^[10] notes that the protest was rejected for its lack of what the Book of Order now calls “decorous language”, or as he put it

This paper was couched in such terms that the self-respect of the assembly demanded it should not be received. It censured that body for refusing “to discharge a solemn duty enjoined by the Confession of Faith, and loudly and imperiously called for by the circumstances of the church.”^[11]

 

This characterization is chilling in its similarity in tone as well as content to the recent attempt of Metherwell to reconvene the 214^th General Assembly.

Those who had protested the 1834 decision called a convention just prior to the 1835 General Assembly in Pittsburgh, following a year of agitation. Forty-one presbyteries sent representatives, with persons from another thirteen presbyteries attending. The convention drew up a list of grievances which was then presented to the General Assembly. This list was a modified form of the previous year’s protest. This time, the more conservative group had a small majority. The result was the abnegation of the Plan of Union of 1801 as well as the excision, or cutting away of the synods of Western Reserve, Utica, Geneva, and Genesee.

This dispute of 1837-38 engendered yet another division in 1861, which led Lefferts Loetscher to title a chapter covering the mid-nineteenth century, “One Church Becomes Four.^[12]” It was not until 1983 that this rupture was overcome, at least in structural terms.

 

Today’s third story takes us into the 1950’s and California. Los Angeles Presbytery requested help from the 1952 General Assembly regarding what were called

…differences which have arisen to trouble this Presbytery, the merits of both majority and minority points of view among us, the constitutional question involved, and the mind of the whole Church touching those aspects of polity and discipline which are in question.^[13]

 

At that time, Los Angeles Presbytery included what is now the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii. The controversy was whether professors who belonged to Los Angeles Presbytery and taught at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena should be considered to be in good standing.

I came across this document in preparing for today. I had been unaware of the report of a commission appointed to respond to the request in 1953, finding it to be amazingly relevant in dealing with today’s topic. For example, the first paragraph of the Preamble provides a summary of today’s topic:

The problem which has been laid before this committee is not a new one. It has troubled our Church before, under several other forms. In one sense it has troubled the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, more than it has any other Reformed or Presbyterian body in Christendom. The very nature of the American scene, from the colonial era until now, has promoted the ideal of the greatest possible freedom of thought, expression and activity in religion. At times this idealistic freedom has promoted hyper-individualism, sectarianism, and other irresponsible and self-assertive movements. At other times it has fostered a type of Christianity almost unique in Christian history, a Christianity which, while loyal to certain age-long traditions of Christian doctrine, life and work which have made for what we call denominations or families of Churches, has still refused to become sectarian and has claimed for itself the freedom of being loyal to the highest ideal of a transconfessional, supra-denominational allegiance to one God in Christ and one Church of Christ.

 

The years have shown that a Church which wishes to remain loyal to the ideal of a cause greater than itself and partly or wholly beyond the bounds of its ecclesiastical jurisdiction, can often be exploited by groups or by individuals. This exploitation may be motivated by well-intentioned though undue zeal for some special cause, or it may be deliberately predatory. Either way the right of that Church to a life and work of its own is challenged by the threat of being made a mere tool for some passing "great cause" which is in reality narrower than the denominational Church even while it professes to be broader and greater. From time to time the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America has been forced by circumstances to address itself to this problem.

 

Unfortunately, in each instance the Church has come up against these serious controversies quite unprepared. It has, moreover, quickly found that the problem had very deep roots and many serious complications. The solution sought and found has, then, ever been a pragmatic one aimed at solving no more than the unavoidable issues involved in the specific case.

 

Note that deep-rooted, complex issues have been addressed and resolved pragmatically. Our polity, especially our disciplinary process, operates in this way. Our commitment since 1797 “…that a majority shall govern,” as well as “…that a larger part of the church shall govern a smaller” (G-1.0400) means that the probability that a dissenter will affect the denomination is slim indeed. The 1953 statement notes that,

Majorities have done grievous wrongs in our Church-(e.g. the exscinding Acts of 1741, and of 1837; the Testimony Against Doctrinal Errors of 1837; the Gardiner Spring Resolutions, 1861;)--of which the Church later was sincerely repentant.

 

There is even a paraphrase of the Westminster Confession (6.175) in the report:

A majority vote represents that which most of the members there assembled believe is the will of God in this matter. They may err, it is true. But, it is also true that the minority may err. It is of the very essence of the Presbyterian Church's faith that a majority of Christians are more likely to understand the will of God aright than are a minority.

 

The committee offered guidance for presbyteries as they implemented the practice since 1758 of granting ministers permission to labor outside the bounds of presbytery. They also proposed some changes in the Book of Order, which required presbyteries to elect a “Committee on Ministerial Relations” which specific responsibilities. The current name is “Committee on Ministry.”

One final quote from the 1953 report introduces the second section of my presentation, theological reflection, with reference to John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion:

The trouble comes, as John Calvin wrote long ago, not when Christians disagree, but rather when some Christians from inconsiderate zeal for righteousness immediately pronounce that no true Church exists unless perfection is found within it. (Inst. IV, I, XIII). He continues, "But though this temptation sometimes arises even to good men, from an inconsiderate zeal for righteousness, yet we shall generally find that excessive severity is more owing to pride and haughtiness, and a false opinion which persons entertain of their own superior sanctity, than to true holiness, and a real concern for its interests. Those, therefore, who are most daring in promoting a separation from the Church, and act, as it were, as standard bearers in the revolt, have in general no other motive than to make an ostentatious display of their own superior excellence, and their contempt for all others." (Inst. IV, I, XVI). And further Calvin continues, "To pious and peaceable persons [Saint Augustine] gives this advice: that they should correct in mercy whatever they can; that what they cannot, they should patiently bear, and affectionately lament, till God either reform it and correct it, or, at the harvest, root up the tares and sift out the chaff. All pious persons should study to fortify themselves with these counsels, lest, while they consider themselves as valiant and strenuous defenders of righteousness, they depart from the kingdom of heaven, which is the only kingdom of righteousness. For since it is the will of God that the communion of his Church should be maintained in this external society, those who, from an aversion of wicked men, destroy the token of that society , enter on a course in which they are in great danger of falling from the communion of saints." (Inst. IV, I, XVI.)

 

This line of thought challenges our unfortunate habit of separating theology from polity. It seems to me that many Presbyterians forget that we are a covenant community, what Paul called the “new Israel.” Like Israel of old, we continue to struggle with God and one another in our attempts to be faithful. Our devotion to Jesus Christ is the root of our covenant with one another. Thanks to Charles McCoy and J. Wayne Baker’s book, Fountainhead of Federalism: Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenantal Tradition, we have an opportunity to appreciate anew how our Presbyterian sense of covenant commitment, as well as much of our American constitutional arrangements, are indeed both rooted in the Reformation understanding of how society works best.

It is important to differentiate the covenant of membership from baptismal or national covenant. Covenants imply certain responsibilities. When one concludes that one’s conscience is at variance with a covenant community, it is time to consider whether one should continue within the community. Dissent and protest are often indicators of conscientious discomfort with some position or statement some part of our church has articulated.

A theological issue facing us today is how we understand the church. I propose a designation presented by German New Testament scholar Gerhard Lohfink, which is the church as a “contrast community.” Rather than adopting a sense of community from natural or political groupings, a contrast community is one where people that “…really lives in accordance with the social order that God has given it, a social order that stands in sharp contrast with those of other nations.”^[14] As we become more aware that we need one another, we will be less likely to let our differences within the community of faith dilute our witness to the Lord of the Church., This is especially important considering those beyond our community. Let us learn that disagreements between us are after all less critical than our mission to bear testimony to the love and justice of Jesus Christ.

For example, we might pay attention to a comment by Nancy Bedford in her article, “Little Moves Against Destructiveness,” based on her experience in a middle-class church near Buenos Aires:

…people who consciously try to live in Christ-like ways not only find themselves wondering how to discern what to do and what decisions to make as individuals and as part of larger groups, but also – particularly if they are involved in the theological task – begin to realize what tenuous, ambiguous practices both theology and discernment actually are.^[15]

 

The title of her article alerts us that whatever dissent or protest we make is, in the last resort, likely to be a “little move.”

At the same time, we need also the reminder of Barbara Kingsolver in her essay responding to September 11^th:

It=s a fact of our culture that the loudest mouths get the most airplay, and the loudmouths are saying that in times of crisis, it=s treasonous to question our leaders. Nonsense. That kind of thinking allowed the seeds of a dangerous racism to grow into fascism during the international financial crisis of the 1930's. It is precisely in critical times that our leaders need most to be influenced by the moderating force of dissent.^[16]

 

Her warning is even more significant as we reflect on how strongly our government, as well as many citizens, sought to stifle a dissent from anyone during the Iraqi conflict. We still as people of faith need to be civil.

 

Let me suggest five personal conclusions:

1.                  American Presbyterians have been dissenting for nearly three centuries. Letters to The Presbyterian Outlook suggest that controversy is something which emerged in our fellowship since reunion or some other mid-Twentieth Century date. The fact is that we Presbyterians love to argue about our life together. We take our church so seriously that we get emotional about our differences. But we need to discipline our fascination.

2.                  There are three persistent hot-button issues in our history: how to prepare and evaluate candidates for ministry; how to regulate the life and work of ministers; and what does and does not qualify as Presbyterian mission. In the various controversies, adversaries cite various biblical and theological rationales. As the 1954 report on the Los Angeles memorial noted, the problems are deep and complicated. We need to remember that the treasures of faith always come to us in earthen vessels.

3.                  Style trumps content. Newton’s third law of motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, seems to apply when seeking change. Zeal often tends to distort the focus of the concern. Distortion also may lead to replacing rhetoric for reasoned advocacy, which in turn makes reconciliation increasingly unlikely. As my mother would have put it, once one climbs on a high horse, coming down becomes increasingly difficult.

4.                  As G-1.0100d reminds us, “Jesus Christ is the hope of the church.” Consequently, one seldom noticed peril of advocacy is forgetting who we are. When our cause, our group, our platform becomes preeminent, we are at the boundary of the community of faith. Barry Goldwater was wrong: extremism in any cause is a sin.

5.                  A corollary is: “Be gracious, thoughtful, faithful in how you dissent.” My hunch is that it is seldom merely what we are deeply concerned about, but more, how we present our case. When dissent becomes obsession, it loses any likelihood of having a positive effect.

I will close with reference to the end of Berman’s review in the Book Review where he challenges both authors on specific points. His last sentence is:

The whole purpose of books like these is to provoke you into working up an outlook of your own – and here are two books that are wonderfully useful for provoking new thoughts of every kind, even a few never intended by the authors.

 

As we shift to opportunities for dialogue for the rest of the day, may this be so..

Nuanced Controversy: Dissent and Its Cousins

William E. Chapman

Keynote for Long Island Presbytery

May 3, 2003

 

Outline

 

Introduction

1. Three episodes of dissent:

1.      1741-53: Old Side/New Side

2.      1830-38: Protests to Divisions

3.      1953: Professors vs. Los Angeles Presbytery

2. Theological Reflections:

1.      Calvin: “when Christians disagree” [Institutes Book 4, Ch 1, 13, 16]

2.      Covenant concern

3.      Church as contrast community (G. Lohfink)

3. Personal Conclusions:

1.      Three centuries of Presbyterian dissent.

2.      Three focal issues: mission, candidates, ministers

3.      Style trumps content.

4.      Jesus Christ is the hope of the church. (G-1.0100d)

5.      “Be gracious, thoughtful, faithful in how you dissent.”

 

Assignment: Paul Berman, “Listening to Terrorists,” New York Times Book Review, Sunday, April 27, 2003. Page 13.