By Brad Isbell
My first floor speech at a PCA General Assembly was memorable only to me. To begin with, I was at a microphone at the back of the hall (a mistake ne’er to be repeated), and the audio delay from the house speakers back to the speaker (me) was significant and unexpected. I was rattled, and my speech was more halting than usual, which is saying something. The only good thing about my words was their brevity, but brief as they were, they failed to evince wit, a quality some minor playwright connected to brevity. What did he know?
My words were to no avail; they were unwelcome; they went unheeded. The 2018 assembly was for the thing I was against—a BCO amendment (ratified the next year) to remove the word grave as a qualification for elder in the orderly but variable book with the blue vinyl cover and three-ringed binding.
The description of the officeholders of the “E” variety in the PCA schema was changed from “grave and prudent” to “spiritually fruitful, dignified, and prudent.” The G-word was thought to be archaic, unclear, and somehow not winsome—too negative and dour by half. Of course, all adjectives are subject to subjective readings (no pun intended), but I thought “spiritually fruitful” was open to such a range of meaning as to be useless. I was sure that whatever missional buzzwords happened to prevail at any given moment would define “spiritually fruitful.” Back then, it was common to speak of “loving on people” and “loving them well” in a “life-on-life” way. I had no faith in the light and variable glossary then in use, or that the lingo was something up with which I could keep.
But mainly, I wanted to keep the word grave, connected as it was to gravity or gravitas—seriousness. Now, dignified is a good word, and it goes well with prudent, but in my book, grave deserved to stay. For one thing, it connected our polity language to the past. Ask yourself: Are the Scottish presbyterian brethren (pictured below) of a mere 165 years ago not the epitome of grave? I’ll bet few (if any) of them were noted for flagrant imprudence! They do not seem liable to reenact a scene from a stage play or mug for the camera.
Why have I now chosen to basically recycle a previous post along these lines? Well, as usual, it’s because someone sent me an internet link. Clicking on said link, I was greeted with what struck me as a bizarre sight, knowing that the link was to some sort of church website. It was not to the main home page of the congregation (whose denominational provenance was at first unknown to me), but to the always revealing “staff,” “leaders(hip),” or “officers” type of page. “This is weird,” I thought, “but it can’t be a PCA church.” Appropriating a famous line from Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was not a PCA church I was looking for, given the images before me.
My wife and others could tell you that I am famously and prolifically good at being wrong. My reputation is intact—it was a present-day PCA church in the USA, not one from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Two of three large photos of the “staff” showed them hamming it up as Jedi knights with plastic toy lightsabers; one person was wearing Yoda ears. My initial response was gravely and indignantly undignified.
I have often stated that a presbyterian church should be officer-led rather than staff-led. “Staff” usually denotes paid employees. Many large churches (and a few smaller ones) give the impression that the paid employees (ordained or not) are the sine qua nons for the church, a thing undoubtedly true of megachurches and many evangelical churches and for clericalist-sacerdotal churches. This should not be true of any presbyterian churches, where the biblical officers—presbyters (elders) and deacons—bear the responsibility of leadership.
Now, I know nothing of this unnamed church except what its outward-facing website shows me, but I’ve seen enough Star Wars movies to know that the people with the lightsabers are probably the true leaders. The church’s elders and deacons, who are listed but not pictured, probably don’t even have those wretched stormtrooper blasters that won’t even shoot straight!
In the words of Nancy Kerrigan, “Whyyyyyy? Whyyyyyy?”—why would you present your church staff (including pastors) this way? What demographic are you trying to reach? Who are you trying to impress, humor, or entertain? I don’t get it; I won’t get it; I might even refuse to get it if getting it seemed to become likely. To quote a Muppet from another late 70s movie, “They don't look like Presbyterians to me!” I don’t even like Muppets (or Ewoks, though I repeat myself), but Fozzie’s words are apropos:.
Having your pastors and paid staff clowning with toys as characters from a juvenile space western is undoubtedly a choice, just as a mullet haircut is a choice, or just as wearing flip-flops and shorts to general assembly is a choice. Christian liberty may certainly allow any of the above, but let’s return to some BCO words: dignified and prudent. Showing that we’re not stiff or emphasizing that we DON’T LOOK LIKE PRESBYTERIANS may be considered missionally necessary (therefore prudent?) or harmlessly fun by some, but is such an approach dignified for elders? Certainly it isn’t grave…but no longer has to be.
Back to the mullet: even the fanciers of the short-in-the-front, long-in-the-back male coiffure that won’t quite die understand (imperfectly) the concept of dignity. Apologists for the heinous haircut are wont to say “Business in the front; party in the back!” Do first impressions matter? We used to think so. When a church puts cosplay and silliness out front and up front, it’s fair to wonder what will eventually be found “in the back,” behind, and deeper down.
POSTSCRIPT: Astoundingly, a Chinese bootleg DVD of one of the Star Wars prequels rendered “Jedi Council” as “Presbyterian Church” in subtitles after a translation and retranslation. No one could make such a thing up.
Gravity may be the law, but levity should require a license.
Well said. I also notice frequent references to pet dogs in the church bios. Not children. Weird. Appreciate the note on blasters, I wondered if it was just poor trigger control, but I guess not.