wfn.org | [PCUSAnews] Interim specialist thrives on conflict

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Note #6062 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

GA00115
	
	Interim specialist thrives on conflict

	Has found too little at 212th Assembly

	by John Filiatreau
		
LONG BEACH, June 29 - The Rev. Richard Fouse (rhymes with house) of the
Cincinnati Presbytery arrived in Long Beach spoiling for a fight, so he was
disappointed to be assigned to a General Assembly committee "not involved in
a current controversy," Educational Institutions,  which he says he has
found "routine and uninvigorating."

	Fouse, a Presbyterian since seventh grade, may have been spoiled by his
previous experience at the Assembly, in 1982 in Hartford, Conn., when he was
on the Bills and Overtures Committee. The General Assembly had filed an
amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court on behalf of Bob Jones University,
"and the African-Americans and myself were not at all happy with that brief,
and thought the church was on the wrong side of the issue, so it involved
staying up all night and writing a minority report. It was very exciting."

	Fouse, who says he's "a little bit connected to the Covenant Network," said
he's interested in "all issues that will enhance the status and equality of
women in the church," and was opposed to an effort to move Presbyterian
Women to the Congregational Ministries Division (from National Ministries),
because "women were not consulted at all, and that's not in keeping with
Presbyterian fair process."

	He says he also was disappointed that the Assembly declined to deal with
the issue of whether homosexuals should be eligible for ordination in the
church. (He thinks they should be.)

	"What has bothered me," he says, "is that I go to worship here, and we sing
hymns and listen to sermons about unity, and the oneness of the Body of
Christ, and then I see people who are really angry and act in an
unChristlike way, whether on the left or the right. And people claim all
this Biblical authority, and sometimes it seems they're reading a different
Bible from the one I know.

	"We have to be able to disagree," he says, "without losing our willingness
to show respect to others."
	
	Fouse's journey to the ministry started when he was in the Navy in the
mid-1950s, when "a lot of Navy buddies started coming to me with concerns
and problems and hang-ups." He thought he'd be a professor, but a brief
stint at the University of Maryland "kind of got teaching out of my system."
A Presbyterian chaplain there suggested that he might go to seminary.

	"I said, 'Are you out of your mind? Ministers are weird people.' But I
agreed to try seminary for a year." Eventually he graduated from Pittsburgh
Seminary and went on to earn a Masters of Divinity at McCormick Seminary in
Chicago.
 
	Because he is by nature open-minded, spontaneous and inclined to "play it
moment by moment," and "never wanted to climb the hierarchical ladder,"
Fouse thinks he's perfectly suited to the interim ministry, which has become
his niche in the ministry.

	"I go to churches that are in conflict of some kind," he says. "I'm in my
fourth interim appointment following administrative commissions. The issues
generally have to do with pastoral-congregational conflicts ... and pastors
who get in trouble, who do stupid kinds of things."
	Fouse has been interim pastor of six congregations and says he has "one
more to go."
	"Then I'm hopeful that the numbers will crunch in a way that I'll be able
to retire," he says. "I thought my current pastorate (at First Presbyterian
Church of Fort Thomas, in northern Kentucky just across the Ohio River from
Cincinnati) would be my last, but because of the way the numbers crunched, I
just decided, I'll do another interim. ... Everywhere I go, they want me to
stay. My parishioners, except for about two people, really love me."

	Fouse says he isn't too deeply concerned about the fact that Presbyterian
churches around the country are declining in membership.

	"The (denominations) that are growing are popular meeting places for the
right people, and their worship is loud and exciting," he says, "but I don't
think they have the foundation and depth that I value in the Reformed
Presbyterian tradition. I think they are offering a sort of civil American
religion, and I think it's erroneous."

	He says the key to growth in the Presbyterian Church is a broadening of its
ministry to include people who now feel excluded.

	"I think we as a church should be expressing our Christian ministry in
life, in ways that are much more Biblical. We should be loving and caring
for the poor and marginalized in society, those that Jesus welcomed in his
ministry. ... We Presbyterians tend to be, you know, respectable and
upper-middle-class. We need to get out and care for people who are hurting.
We need to keep addressing human needs and pointing out our oneness instead
of building walls."

	Fouse is the moderator elect of Cincinnati Presbytery and will be installed
in September.  He is also the husband of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev.
Kimberly Buechner, who runs a geriatric-care management business, is active
in the church at the presbytery and synod levels, especially on women's
issues, and was an Assembly commissioner last year.
	
	In his spare time, Fouse is building a canoe that he intends one day to try
out in "the boundary waters of Minnesota," where he and his grown daughters
often paddle together.

	"The canoe I'm working on is made of western red cedar and Sitka spruce,
which is not easy to get," he says. "This project is wonderfully
labor-intensive."

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