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18-November-1998 
98380 
 
    Covenant Network of Presbyterians Vows to Carry On 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
DENVER- Despite the overwhelming defeat of the constitutional amendment it 
was created a year ago to support, the Covenant Network of Presbyterians 
(CNP) vowed at its second annual gathering here Nov. 5-7 to continue to 
represent what co-founder the Rev. Robert Bohl called "the strong majority 
of the Presbyterian Church." 
 
    More than 350 people filled Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church 
here, seemingly undaunted by the rejection of Amendment A - the commonly 
called "fidelity and integrity" amendment - by the presbyteries last 
spring.  In a spontaneous vote that moderator the Rev. John Wilkinson of 
Chicago called "democracy in action, folks," the group unanimously 
reaffirmed the CNP "Call to Covenant Community." 
 
    According to CNP executive director Pam Byers of San Francisco, "more 
than 1,650 Presbyterian ministers, 200 sessions and thousands of other 
Presbyterians" have signed the call. 
 
    CNP co-founder the Rev. John Buchanan announced plans to "continue to 
express our helpfulness and our hopefulness with a clear vision of our 
future in faithfulness to Jesus Christ." 
 
    Those plans include an organized lobbying campaign at next year's 
General Assembly in support of its positions on various issues; a 
CNP-sponsored luncheon at the Assembly to attract supporters; the creation 
of local CNP chapters; the "monitoring" of cases in the church courts 
around ordination standards and the provision of "moral, legal and 
financial support to officers and sessions ... challenged under the new 
provisions of the church's constitution"; and the publication of a number 
of theological papers on various issues, such as Christology, mission and 
theological education. 
 
    Thus the stage is set for a continuing struggle for power and influence 
in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) between the CNP and its counterpart on 
the other side of the ordination issue, the Presbyterian Coalition, which 
held its annual gathering last month in Dallas. 
 
    But like the Presbyterian Coalition's leaders, CNP leaders sounded a 
conciliatory note in what  often has been a vitriolic debate over the last 
two years as the PC(USA) has addressed constitutional standards for 
ordination.  "The Coalition is not the enemy," Bohl said.  "The enemies are 
uncontrolled anger, dislike of other people because of their beliefs and 
arrogance.  There is room in this Presbyterian family for all of us and 
we've got to learn to love each other," he said. 
 
    And though the issue of the ordination of gay and lesbian Presbyterians 
to church office dominated small group discussions and informal 
conversations, the formal program of the conference included addresses by a 
number of church leaders on broader topics under the theme "Living 
Faithfully in the Church When We Disagree." 
 
    In his sermon that opened the conference, General Assembly moderator 
the Rev. Douglas Oldenburg cautioned against "simplistic answers that belie 
the complexity of many of the issues we face in the church today." 
Instead, Oldenburg said, it would be refreshing for church leaders to 
follow the example of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20, who, when faced by 
overwhelming foes, admitted to God, "We don't know what to do." 
 
    The church, Oldenburg said, must remember "that Christ binds us 
together in the face of all our differences and dangers" and confess to 
God, as Jehoshaphat did, that "our eyes are fixed on you."  Such reliance 
on God, he continued, "frees us to make decisions when we are paralyzed by 
fear of making wrong decisions and frees us to make partial decisions even 
when we know they're not perfect ... because God is still with us even when 
we're wrong." 
 
    The Rev. Jack Rogers, soon to retire as vice president of San Francisco 
Theological Seminary, carried that lesson further in his address, 
describing how the Presbyterian Church has changed its position on three 
issues: slavery, the role of women in the church and divorce and 
remarriage. 
 
    In all three cases, he said, the key to the church's change in position 
was a change in the way the church interpreted the Bible.  As the church 
has moved from the literalistic and legalistic intepretation of the Bible 
that was predominant in the early- to mid-19th century to a 20th-century 
reading of the Bible that takes into account the "cultural context" and 
"spirit rather than letter" of the scriptures, "dramatic changes have taken 
place on these three issues," Rogers said, "and nearly all Presbyterians 
agree that the changes were positive." 
 
    The tension between holding on to traditional beliefs and being open to 
changing understandings of scripture is well exemplified in the confessions 
of the PC(USA), said the Rev. Cynthia Campbell, president of McCormick 
Theological Seminary.  "The confessions, taken together, assert that 
[theological] boundaries are needed, but with considerable latitude within 
them," she said.  "Together our confessions point to our traditional 
beliefs, but with a spirit of openness, as new confessions attest." 
 
    The "underlying affirmations" of the confessions make "conformity" to 
them - the current requirement for ordination in G-6.0106b - difficult, 
Campbell said.  "We believe in an ongoing process of discerning God's 
ongoing revelation that God is with us," she explained. 
 
    And because God is continually with us and therefore continually 
revealing God's self and will to us, she added, "We believe that none of 
our attempts [at biblical interpretation or confessional statement] can be 
final or complete or infallible - only God is God." 
 
    Therefore, said the Rev. Fred Holper, professor of preaching and 
worship at McCormick Theological Seminary, "the way forward for the 
Presbyterian Church is abandoning `all or nothing' solutions" to conflicts 
in the church. 
 
    Citing the principle of the "theological `et' [Latin for `and']," 
Holper said arguments over which factor in the "peace, unity and purity" 
admonition in the church's constitution is most important leads the church 
astray.  "The `theological "et"' says that you cannot get the right idea if 
you separate the individual words," he explained.  The three must live in 
the same kind of dynamic tension Campbell alluded to. 
 
    "Most of the ordination debates have come from concern for purity," he 
said, "and some on both sides have said schism is preferable to surrender - 
so where do we find either peace or unity in that solution?  We cannot 
assert that one of the three is more important than the others." 
 
    In the current conflicted - some say polarized - environment of the 
Presbyterian Church, "Reformed theology has good reasons to value both 
conservative and progressive impulses," said Douglas Ottati, professor of 
theology and ethics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. 
 
    In a world in which "our identities often are rendered precarious by 
constant pressures toward compromise and eclecticism," he said, "the 
conservatives are right: We need to attend to our received tradition and we 
ought to be especially concerned about the intentional formation in persons 
of a distinctly Reformed piety and confession." 
 
    At the same time, Ottati continued, "we shall not be faithful witnesses 
if we neglect the meaning of these convictions in our own time and place." 
In this sense, he said, "the progressives are right: We should be 
especially concerned to interpret theologically and engage faithfully the 
intricate and expansive interdependencies that characterize our 
contemporary world." 
 
    Conservative and progressive "impulses are mutually dependent aspects 
of the same thing," Ottati concluded.  "The progressive impulse to relevant 
engagement cannot survive apart from the conservative impulse to maintain a 
distinctly Reformed confession which leads believers to envision and 
imaginatively interpret the world as God's commonwealth." 
 
    And conversely, he said, "the conservative impulse to foster and guard 
the integrity of a distinctly Reformed confession cannot maintain itself or 
come to completion without leading to the progressive impulse to envision 
the contemporary world as God's commonwealth and relevantly engage it." 
 
    Constructive engagement, not schism, must be the way forward for the 
Presbyterian Church, concluded Buchanan in his conference-closing sermon. 
"The church is God's alternative vision to conflict and division," he said. 
Preaching from the "great banquet" parable in Luke 14, Buchanan said "the 
host will not be satisfied until all are present and every seat is filled." 
 
    Science and religion are converging in a common understanding that all 
creation "is a seamless web," he noted, "and whether we like it or not, 
Scripture tells us we are all - all - the body of Christ.  We are not being 
asked to consent or like it - we're being told by God that this is the 
truth, like it or not." 
 
    As participants prepared to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, 
Buchanan concluded, "God's reality breaks through in spite of us." 
 
                     "A Call to Covenant Community" 
                  the Covenant Network of Presbyterians 
 
    As disciples of Jesus Christ and members of the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.), in reliance on the promise of God's grace, we make the following 
affirmations about our faith and our church: 
 
    We affirm faith in Jesus Christ who proclaimed the reign of God by 
    preaching good news to the poor, binding up the broken-hearted and 
    calling all to repent and believe the good news.  It is Christ whose 
    life and ministry forms and disciplines all we say and do. 
 
    The church we seek to strengthen is built upon the hospitality of 
    Jesus, who said, "Whoever comes to me I will not cast out."  The good 
    news of the gospel is that all - those who are near and those who were 
    far off - are invited; all are members of the household and citizens of 
    the realm of God.  No one has a claim on this invitation and none of us 
    becomes worthy, even by sincere effort to live according to God's will. 
    Grateful for our own inclusion, we carry out the mission of the church 
    to extend God's hospitality to a broken and fearful and lonely world. 
 
    The people of God are called to be "light to the nations."  As God's 
    people, we have a commission rather than a privilege.  We believe that 
    the place of the church is in the world and for the world: living the 
    good news, proclaiming grace, working with others for justice, freedom 
    and peace.  Thus Christian faith has an inevitable public and political 
    dimension.  Because we believe that God is at work in culture and 
    community beyond the church, the church need not be afraid to look and 
    listen for God's voice from outside its own sphere. 
 
    The words of scripture provide life and nourishment; as the psalmist 
    says, they are desirable, delicious, sweet.  The Bible is the evidence 
    of God's long, patient and persistent relationship with communities and 
    persons of faith.  It is the one true, reliable witness to God's 
    self-giving in Jesus Christ.  The process of discerning God's Word in 
    the words of scripture depends on the faithful reading of the Bible by 
    those who seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  We are committed to 
    the ongoing task of finding in scripture God's call to live out the 
    Christian life in our day and time.  We embrace gifts of scholarship, 
    research and dialogue as we seek to understand the Bible's relevance to 
    the ever-changing needs of the world and to circumstances which 
    scripture does not explicitly address. 
 
    We seek the gift of unity among all who confess the name of Jesus 
    Christ as Lord.  Unity is Christ's prayer for those who would follow 
    him, "so that the world might believe."  We hope to maintain communion 
    fellowship with all whose lives are guided by the Christian creeds and 
    by the confessions of Reformed faith.  We pledge to strengthen our ties 
    to those who are at risk of being excluded by recent legislative 
    actions of our church.  We also want to live in unity with those whose 
    views are different from ours. 
 
    Because nothing in life or death can separate us from God's love, we 
pray that the issues before us will not separate us from one another. 
 
Therefore we covenant together to: 
 
    *  Welcome, in the name of Christ, all whom God calls into community 
       and leadership in God's church; 
    *  Reach out in solidarity and compassion to all who are wounded or 
       excluded by recent legislative actions of our church; 
    *  Continue to be faithful to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 
       supporting its mission in Christ's name to God's world; 
    *  Reaffirm our denomination's historic understanding that "God alone 
       is Lord of the conscience" (G-1.0301) both for ourselves and for 
       those with whom we disagree; 
    *  Trust sessions and presbyteries to ordain those called by God, 
       through the voice of the church, who are "persons of strong faith, 
       dedicated discipleship, and love of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord" 
       and whose "manner of life demonstrates the Christian gospel in the 
       church and the world" (G-6.0106a); 
    *  Seek pastoral and theological solutions to division in the church; 
    *  Maintain dialogue, study, and prayer in the spirit of Christ with 
       those with whom we differ, seeking to understand the deeper roots of 
       our disagreements; 
    *  Seed God's will for the Church through the presence of Christ, the 
       study of scripture, the guidance of our historic confessions, and 
       the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit; 
    *  Encourage officers and governing bodies of the church to join us in 
       this covenant. 
 
    As we covenant together in Christ, we commit ourselves to encourage one 
another through prayer, counsel, and mutual support, through times of 
challenge, controversy, and hope. 

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