A View from the Pew of One Emerging Presbyterian Woman on the Recent GA

Here is a letter from one of my loyal Presbyterian readers in California and an avid Emerging Church conversationalist. She wrote this letter to Bruce Reyes-Chow, our new moderator, in response to a post he wrote Can we agree to disagree about homosexuality? She expresses well what I hear others saying. (Name is withheld, but if you want to hunt it down in the comments, you're welcome to.)

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Hi Bruce. I'm grateful that folks had the sense to elect a younger moderator with the sensibilities you seem to have (not trying to sound rude, it's just that I haven't heard of you before…). May God bless you and your work. Since you have a blog and have asked for input, here goes.
 
The commenter above who said that most PCUSA people are not at the extremes is correct. Not only that, but it's my experience that most PCUSA people don't even have the denominational structure/leadership on their radar screens. Except for dust-ups that come from hearing about what happened with the latest hot-button issue at the latest GA, the denominational workings are *totally irrelevant* to the average congregant. We  therefore have a *functionally* congregational ("Baptist"?!!) polity in terms of how we actually do what we do in any given congregation. There are two reasons the PCUSA has held together as long as it has, and I think they would apply to the other Presbyterian iterations in this country, if I understand the history aright. One is that there is some sort of agreement on the constitution and what it means to abide by it by those in leadership on the presbytery level, even with all the tension. The other is that there are (still) lots of Presbyterians who are loyal to the denomination and derive their identity from being Presbyterian. (Neither one of these is a bad thing, although the latter sometimes is carried too far, imo.)
 
Now we are asked -yet again- to vote to amend the constitution. We have already done this, as another commenter has said, at least twice in recent memory, with the same results both times. Therefore, istm that the message is clear:  the majority in the middle of a mainline denomination does not want the constitution amended on this matter. I think an amicable, gracious split would not be the worst that could happen; it would surely be better than the unamicable ones of the past. In that case, since the majority wants to abide by the constitution as it is, it would seem to me that it is incumbent upon those who have tried and failed to change it to leave, with their property and pensions, and form their own constitution that they can abide by.
 
You speak of faithfulness. If we call ourselves Christians, I agree that it is important to be faithful, first of all to Jesus:  the incarnate God/man who lived, called people to the Kingdom of God (as 1st C. Jews understood that idea), was crucified and died, and bodily arose on the third day. I have difficulty with the concept of ordaining people who deny that Jesus is both God and Man and that he was bodily resurrected after having been dead. That is what marks Christianity out from all other religions; indeed, it is the only explanation for the existence of Christianity at all. I'm not going to presume to judge about anyone's eternal destiny- that is God's business only- and I know we're all over the map in our theological understandings. But istm that that needs to be the first order of faithfulness in our leadership if we're going to call ourselves Christian. We have "fudged" on this one for a long time, at least 40 years.
 
WRT "the hot-button issue", most Presbyterians I know hold to what has been the teaching of Christianity from the beginning:  1) Jesus accepts everyone. (Acceptance in and of itself is not the issue. Demonizing or otherwise belittling same-sex attracted people is just plain wrong.)  2) Overseers are to be faithful to one (other-gender) spouse if married and celibate if single. No one attempting either one of these avenues of faithfulness would say either is easy; but neither are they impossible. (Slavery and ordaining women are not comparable, in terms of our being "more enlightened now", because there were early Christian voices against slavery, and the only voices against slavery until very recently have been Christian; and in the early years of the church there were ordained women, especially to the diaconate, for a significant amount of time, and women have continued to serve  even in the years when women's ordination was lost. Divorce might be comparable, but even so it is still considered to be a sin, or at least a grave failing.)
 
I come to this discussion from "the outside". I was not raised in the Presbyterian church and have been a member for only 8½ years. Though I have been a part of several Christian traditions, I am not a church hopper; in 52 years, I've made two church changes because of conscience, and the rest because I've moved to a different town. My husband and I will probably move again within a few years, and I don't envision myself continuing as a Presbyterian. I live in a small town, so my church options are limited. I love the people in my PCUSA congregation. They accept me and help me serve where I am gifted and called, and they seem to think I help them too. They hold generally to theological understandings I can agree to in good conscience. That is why I am currently a Presbyterian.
 
I am otherwise pretty ambivalent about the denomination. Because of the way the P. church governance is set up, it does feel mechanistic and moribund, and sometimes it looks like the leadership, even "down to" the presbytery level, is about power struggles, if not on the ordination issue, then others. That's the down side. The up side is that the PCUSA supports many who are faithful to Jesus and care about people, who do a great deal of good in their communities and all over the world. 
 
I am not an inerrantist, but I do believe words have meanings. I feel like most of those who are for ordaining non-celibate gays and lesbians have been trying to pull the rug out from under the feet of most PCUSA-ers, especially in instances of using the same words but changing their meanings.
 
I think the emerging conversation is one of the best things happening in the global church, and I'm very glad the PCUSA is a significant conversation partner in its US expression.
 
Thanks again for listening.

D.