A REFORMING FAITH FOR A CHANGING WORLD

May 21, 1989
8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Worship Services
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
Mark 7:1-8

"You leave the commandments of God, and hold fast human tradition."
~Mark 7:8 (Inclusive Language Lectionary)

Abraham LincgIn, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower,
Wiliiam Jenning Bryan, Norman Thomas, John Foster Dulles: John Wanamaker,
Andrew Mellon, George Westinghouse, Thomas Watson, Frederick Weyerhauser,
Louis Severance, Cyrus and Nettie McCormick... McGuffey, whose readers
define an era in education, Poet Marianne Moore, Karl Menninger, publishers
Gilbert Hovey (National Geographic), Henry R. Luce (Time), DeWitt
Wallace (Readers Digest); Justices William 0. Douglas and Tom Clark;
Generals Stonewall Jackson and George MacClellan; J. Howard Pew and John
Glenn and Arnold Palmer and John Dancy and Mr. Rogers and Dean Rusk
and Catherine Marshall and Orel Hershiser... all of them intentional
Presbyterians, like salt of the earth, leaven in the loaf and on occasion,
light in the darkness.

Be ee ae ‘ May 21, 1789, thirty-four Presbyterians
met in Philadelphia and decided that they were a national organization..
the Presbyterian Church. They represented 420 congregations scattered
throughout the new nation and its frontier. Together they were the
largest, best educated, most orderly church in the new world. They had a
strong sense that they were a part of the new era in world history which
was coming to pass with the birth of the American Republic, and so they
dated the documents from that meeting, not May 1789, but "In the thirteenth
year of the Independence of the United States of America.” They had been
there from the beginning. Two Presbyterian churches, established in 1640,
were already nearly 150 years old in 1789.

Post fdr
Today, Meryw2r™ress, éhe 11,600 congregations wh Tal comprise oye
Presbyterian Church (UWS.A.}) amenerementherinip that’ evete—bdbsen
Bicente saat Tondlyy Che by celebrating the satrai oat
Lords—Supper. VWeede=sso if, a world which is radically a +s,

pas bupenrntherworbdvwnter (Pad teabby~andetsustibos cs

are, almost everyone agrfées,\no longer at the center of things. tasty AM;
weeks JimeMagazinenteat ied majon.apticle “ThosenMasmbinethiudedsatchigh <4
expLored=tte ii Mili Waniitar-eoratimobservers8P~ofow0tl itty

fd

The old establishes churches are declining in feal numbers and
perhaps influence. Even i you don't agree with the doom-sayers wha
predict that at the current te of decline the Jast Presbyterian will
expire sometime in the second\decade of the péxt century... everyone agrees
that things are different today from the day”a few decades ago when the
~Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church was on the cover of Time and
President Eisenhower took time off\to help the Presbyterians dedicate a new
office building in New Vork city X ?

I submit, in a way I hope isfrot overly parochial, that the role of
mainiine churches \in general and /the Presbyterian Church in particular, is
critical, worth be g/eoncerne Zabout. I ‘also submit that the past can
teach us about the “ture. A so back to e history books because, as
Steven Spielberg tahtalizin ty suggests, it may be "Back to the Future," a
future in which thére simp must be Presbyterians around to analyze it,
challenge it, argue with Aft, deliberate over it, and ceJebrate it.

eufosctaquicklal” Our spvrq bey ne me
Bub-first the story... Itebegimsainathe 16th Century when an exiled
ench lawyer, a partisan of the Reformation, stopped overnight in Geneva,
Switzerland, and was persuaded to remain and reorganize the churches and
the city. His name was John Calvin and his radical notion of church, state
and the individual included the absolute sovereignty of God and therefore
the limited sovereignty of every other authority. Calvin said two things
about the individual: one ~- we are sinners, against which no one has ever
successfully argued, and second - that in spite of sin; the conscience of
the individual is sacred. People need and should have rights - and also
education. Finally, Calvin believed in the intersection of faith and life
in the world, in the city streets, marketplace and body politic. Because
he understood human nature so honestly, Calvin distrusted all authority and
thought that the best guarantee against the abuse of authority was
education and a political system of checks and balances.

— syqnsee

One of his most ardent disciples was a Scotsman, John Knox, who took
Calvin's ideas back to Edinburgh. And as Calvinists always do, he
challenged the autocracy and the whole political establishment, including
Mary Queen of Scots; and ultimately built those radical Presbyterian ideas
into the soul of the nation and the Church of Scotland which is
Presbyterian.

They came early to the New World... 1620. The Puritans were English
Calvinists, dissenters from church and state. The Scots and Scotch-Irish
from Northern Ireland came at the same time and established the Kirks on
Long Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware. They brought with them
their distrust of authority, but also their notion of God's sovereignty and
individual rights, their commitment to education and their intention to put
their religion to work in the public sphere, not simply in their sparse,
lean and very cold churches. They were strong partisans of the American
Revolution. They recognized the spirit of Calvin in the rhetoric of the
Declaration of Independence. Over in London the whole thing sounded like a
Presbyterian rebellion... One of our ministers rushed into his church and
ripped pages out of the hymnbooks to use as musket wadding and said "Give
‘em Watts, boys," referring to Isaac Watts, hymnwriter.

5/21/89 2

The group that met in Phildelphia in 1789 understood that it was time
to think anew. The presiding officer was John Witherspoon, President of
the College of New Jersey at Princeton. To show his support of the order
which was emerging, Witherspoon and several of the others had stopped
wearing their wigs in 1776. Thirteen years earlier he had signed his name
to the Declaration of Independence, just two blocks down the street, the
only clergyman to do so.

Witherspoon preached the sermon, then presided as the Assembly
elected one of its own as Moderator, John Rodgers. Historians sometimes
like to note the similarities between Presbyterian Church structure and the
Federal Government. In fact two years earlier, in the same city, meetings
were held just two blocks apart in which the concepts were hammered out
which resulted in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the structure of
the National Presbyterian Church. The central issue for both groups was
the matter of authority: who gets it, how it is to be exercised and how
limited or controlled. Both chose a strong central authority, but limited
by checks and balances and local autonomy: neither a monarchy, king nor
bishops, which they had enough of, nor a pure democracy ~ but something in
between, a Republic.

And then the Presbyterians went to work. They appointed a few
missionaries to organize churches on the frontier: they commissioned
several representatives to open discussions with other Christian churches,
they had a fierce argument about a hymnal, they discussed the schools and
colleges they had founded and they composed a Ietter to the President of
the United States, George Washington. Calvinists that they were, they
presumed not only to speak to their congregations, they spoke for the
church to the world, always very risky business. “We ought not to forget
our consequence in the Republic," they said. It is one of our traditions.

Presbyterian values have been like seasoning in the larger context
. ma 5 .
of American culture. We have never been as prominent numerically as we

were in 1789 ¥ but we have always been a critical minority, a lively source | )

i ra of flavor fer the rest of the culture: (he SsOoVte of wy CIM. CUAAA. + !
\ poe br? ~Education, for instance. It had its source in our early notion that
Va va lay people should not have to depend on anyone to tell them what was in the

Bible, so it was imperative that people read and understand. Calvinists

dominated both private and public education, founding two-thirds of all the

colleges and universities prior to the Civil War: Harvard, Yale,

Dartmouth, by New England Congregationalists, and by the Presbyterians

themselves: Princeton, Lafayette, Hampden-Sydney, Washington and Lee,

Stillman, Lewis and Clarke, Davidson, Maryville, Wooster, Lake Forest, CUNY
Wabash, Hanover, Monmouth, Muskingum, Macalester... Many state — + \

universities were started by Presbyterians: University of Delaware, pred FO

University of Tennessee, Miami University, University of Michigan. yr WY ae
0

~The deliberative process as a fairly dependable way to establish
consensus and thereby the basis for responsible people to live together.
Presbyterian Ethicist, Don Shriver, said in a discussion of the abortion
debate, and the other ethical dilemmas lurking in the near future such as
genetic engineering, that we must recover the tradition of careful
deliberation and compromise ~ instead of the currently fashionable approach

5/21/89 3

of confrontation followed by shouting at one another through bull horns,
utterly unwilling to grant that the other side's position may have some
merit.

~The intersection of religion and life, there from the beginning.
It is expressed in a centuries' old pattern of doing good in the world -
which by some odd logic is spurned today so that "do-gooder" is a criticism
rather than a compliment... Presbyterian hospitals, nursing homes,
residences for the elderly, 28 Presbyterian homes for children in trouble.
We are "do-gooders."

-~And of course, that matter of "God alone as Lord of the
conscience";... It has often made us dissenters. Calvin and Knox were
dissenters; they did not live easily with the establishment. One of our
earliest preachers was thrown in jail for preaching in New York without a
license and we've been doing it ever since. Elijah Parish Lovejoy was a
Presbyterian editor of a St. Louis newspaper, burned out by a pro-slavery
mob and later killed by another mob in Alton, Illinois for his anti-slavery
editorializing. Henry Van Dyke risked his prestige and reputation by
voicing a lonely protest against the Spanish-American War. Bill Coffin did
the same during Viet Nam. No Presbyterian my age or older was not asked at
least once during the sixties if he/she would ever engage in civil
disobedience and often lost career opportunities, because in conscience no
son or daughter of John Calvin can ever say "no" to that. Gitan-Boesak's
challenge to apartheid ePeshaps the most serious one of ail begefise it is
based on a learly ¢ A¥inist fouldation which;“after all the e dnomic,
sociological arnd-geo-political arguments have been aired, simply cannot
accommodate ,itsel fa.to a system inWhichsauthority and powepy is exercised by
20% of the”people over the 80% who have n® rights.

-Aud because we know about sin — including our own — a long standing
value has been-toleration, openness. We are willing to admit our mistakes,
a refusal to take ourselves too seriously, because we know in cur hearts
that God alone is sovereign. Even at our most belligerent we never claimed
to be the only church, the only answer to the truth, or the only way to
worship or express the faith.

[F sivnie that the world needs_those values which have been born and
nurture y the Presbyterian family -) which brings me to the recent Time
Magazine article [5/15/89], "Tho ainline Blueg,") andthe-face"that-we-
heve—lest hat [we “are not, apparently, what

we used to be. £ We frave, of fours¢, been/ wri ging ofr hands oyer e gad
state of religi rom ine yan ing ao/ucif mary he sfaow’ ft xen
York and fing intauteh nly Acted the “declinihg s¥Yate ereligig and
the abounding sf i :

hg ews

Tihe-sotemtrty-noted=thatlhe are down 25%, the United Church of
Christ 20%, the Episcopalians 28%; even the Methodists are down 18%. Our
best minds are exploring the change. Inadd ition. On6hdme=Mapreties fhe
Lily Foundation is funding a major study of the decline of mainline 7
religions. tentér-Marty-tshelpiuiby suggest ing=that-maybe=wexhaven!t=—
chattged~so~nuch-as~the~oul-ture has” thangedaround“use=<=icex.-that=the
neitistrean~of..the..cuLture.has..moved..and--thatwto.beckadthiud-to=<0ur-owne.,

5/21/89 4

identity we should not be obsessed with finding the new mainstream so that
we can dive back into it.

We have lost members —- a million in twenty years; but there are two
facts about us which are important to acknowledge. The first is that since
1960 Presbyterians have not been having enough babies. Some of us have
done our duty, but currently we aren't coming close to replenishing the
supply of Presbyterians by birth, nor does it seem likely that we will or
should. That isn't true for everyone in the Christian family. Not making
new Presbyeterians, lowering the birth rate and limiting population is an
honored Presbyterian value.

The cther fact is that we are old. We've been around a long time.
Our churches are old, in old neighborhoods, *fudd-of-aging.-peoples And
that, by some ironic twist ef logic, is not only not celebrated, but
condemned as failure. There are many declining Presbyterian churches in
urban areas. They have given their lives to the spiritual nurture of their
neighborhoods which have changed very dramatically. They are still there,
with declining numbers, aging congregation and leaking roofs. Pinme=madesan Lond
unflattering and I thought unfair comparison between a downtown 2B “Tf 16 nat Oe aA
Presbyterfar-church~in-Pasadene~in-wirtcir-80-elderty~peopte-worshipped-and a ft OVP”
bobming~sub -ban-Ghunch..of-the-Nazarene-on—the=elve“0f town, Whatewe the Chto “
forget=is that he dear aging Presbyterian congregation was there, Lar db we
faithfully caring for its members and its neighborhood, for decades; rt
Presbyterian churches were there centuries before the new, fast-growing
churches were even born and Hat it is part of our values to remain there.
The 80 aging parishioners in downtown Pasadena are important. They are
ours. They should have a church. So we will remain there and in the
changing, declining neighborhoods, faithfully in ministry, creating
programs to deal with a variety of human needs that simply don't exist
anywhere else. And it will drain our resources to do it. May I suggest
that instead of criticizing, instead of regarding declining urban
neighborhood churches as failures, we should be cheering for them, thanking
God for them, and regarding them as great successes - if the criteria of
success is something other than big numbers, big budgets, big buildings.

May we be reminded, en-this- ennrrensaniies Of one of the most
difficult lessons for anyone who loves this wonderful entrepreneurial
culture of ours, namely that the church of Jesus Christ is not called to be
successful, but to be faithful, whether or not that means successful: may
we be reminded that sometimes failing, by the culture's standards, means
succeeding by our Lord's standards, that our Lord himself was crucified,

not elected Chancellor of Jerusalem; that the whole point seems to be
redemption through suffering, strength through weakness; and that when

God's people start allowing the world to set the agenda and to define what
success means we have fallen into a very serious trap of idolatry; for
which the prophets of Israel had a very graphic description: “whoring after
Babylon," they called it.

In the meantime it is tempting to look to the past only.
Presbyterian journalist, Vic Jameson warns that, "It is safe to say that
every generation since Adam has looked back wistfully at the good old
days." [Presbyterian Survey, June 1988] The fifties, for instance, before .

5
5/21/89

Civil Rights and Angela Davis and the turmoil and stress of the sixties.

Sur teat —todey—coutt nit —be~ehearer—or-thettopic. Dut Sod cwdia sO A

bok Ghiedt — tHe be hand»,
Jesus knew the re igious ition of.-tlie past... about ritual hand-

washing. He chose to break withAt. When the drthoddx rel igtonicte

challenged hin-he put it véry plainly. "You leave the commandment of God

and hold fast to human traditions."

There is within the Gospel of Jesus Christ a permanent discomfort
with the status quo, the establishment, the "tradition," even religious
tradition. It is part of the genius of Presbyterianism, even while it is
celebrating its own tr ditions, to know that, and therefore, to lean into

the future with hope. cen MCULIALHY une

The Time article ended enigmatically and wrongly, I thought.

It said: “Perhaps, then, mainline churches are being cast into a
role... not unlike that of the European refugees who are known to history
as Pilgrims and Puritans." That was right I thought. If we were mainline,
we are better suited not to be. We are, by nature, a minority, always
Slightly at odds with the establishment, always proposing a counter--
culture, an alternative value system. :

But then, this conclusion... “Unlike their 17th century predecessors,
they have no New World to conquer." ~

That is wrong. Part of who we are as Presbyterians in this culture
is a people who are not interested in conquering, but are absolutely
committed to living faithfully and thoroughly in the New World that is most
certainly emerging.

We have work to do. We have new churches toe build and old ones to
love and nurture.

We have declining churches and big, healthy, growing churches and
there are still three million of us.

We have the grace to laugh at ourselves and the Maturity to know that
God's church can never be a pious enclave.

We have a tradition of passionate love for God and God's world and
God's Kingdom of peace, and justice and compassion and freedom.

We have a lot going for us. Even though you and I won't see it, my
strong sense is that there will be plenty of lively, contentious, caring
and bright Presbyterians around to celebrate a Tricentennial, and that a
goodly congregation will be sitting right here, on May 21, 2089... in the
313th year of the Independence of the United States of America.

5/21/89