The ARP church is a hotbed of passive aggression. It's not that we don't fight--we just don't do it openly. Instead, we plot behind our smiles and prayers. Underneath our relative civility, we have the same resentments and disagreements as everyone else.
I'm no different from the majority of my colleagues. I hate conflict too. Small denominations are like small towns--we know that the person we are angry with today will be in our face forever. So we avoid saying things that are upsetting. Often I keep my opinions to myself.
This passive aggression is not entirely bad, mind you. Being unwilling to discuss differences meant that we were willing to tolerate a wide range of people . It has also meant having a long run of blessedly boring synods. But it is also the reason be hind the glacial speed of change in our little family.
The Erskine Synod on March 2 shattered that. Synod may have been civil, but it was not unifying--not by a long shot. One side ran over the other side in a way I haven't seen in thirty years.
Of course Erskine needs to be fixed. There are teachers and administrators who have no business being there. They do not fit with the stated purpose of the college. Some of them have participated in a "culture of intimidation." there have been shocking reports form Erskine regularly for all the decades I've been coming to Synod.
But there is an arc to this story. Erskine has been moving in a good direction. In the Seventies, most of my professors at the seminary denied inerrancy. One seminary professor even told me that he saw nothing wrong with homosexual ordination! A former chaplain once gave a talk (I really can't call it a sermon) in which he told more about his personal doubts truth of the Gospel. Over the years, I have watched the denomination and the Synod become more and more in line with Biblical Christianity and for that I am glad. The same goes for Erskine. Current students are receiving an education that is considerably more Christian than I saw in the Eighties and my daughter saw in he Nineties.
Our denomination has moved slowly, but it has moved. Erskine has moved even slower, but it has moved, too. It is possible that it will not get any better, but I cannot believe that--not with the people I know who are on the board and teaching at the school, I cannot believe it has been headed backwards.
But the school wasn't changing fast enough for the majority of our presbyters. We decided as we approached the end of a decades-long process to push harder and faster--to finish the job quickly with ruthless efficiency.
"Ruthless efficiency" has never been a distinguishing characteristic of our little denomination. Our church has been soft, friendly, and slightly disorganized. But frankly, I've never been a fan of ruthless efficiency. A ruthlessly efficient God would have given up on me years ago. God did not create a world that worked with ruthless efficiency but with glorious chaos and endless diveristy. One of he benefits or our lack of ruthless efficiencey is that we have taken a charitable approach to those with whom we disagree--even those in our own denomination.
We have tolerated people with suspect ideas, but they were not so far out as to not be Christian brothers and sisters. Those on the left who have been uncomfortable have mostly left. They left because they no longer felt at home with the increasingly conservative atmosphere. One of the few places where we can find some of these people is at Erskine.
We could have fired the Erskine board years ago. We could have removed specific board members. But we did not, partially because we knew the mess it would become, but also because of concern to treat respectfully those with whom we disagree.
The people who have run Erskine in the past, the people who have invested their lives, hearts and money in the institution do not want to go quietly.They are using their means and influence to cause a whole lot of trouble to resist. I doubt if they will succeed, but they will leave a big hole in the intitution. What a surprise. We now have law suits, court orders, and a faculty and student body who are at each other's throats.
In reaction, the temperature of the denomination is rising. One note on Facebook suggested we should excommunicate the entire board for ignoring the injunction in I Cor 6 not to take church matters to a secular court.
Taking a brother to court is a form of violence against a brother. But so is using political manipulation to force others to do our will. Church discipline without love is violence, too. And I didn't see much love in the way the commission and other members of the Synod have behaved. Sorry, I wish I could say otherwise. Taking an adversarial approach to the board of Erskine while not informing them of what they were going to do until the very last minute was condescending, to say the least. We cannot do that as a Synod and then wonder why they resent it. I understand that those who have engineered this have done it out of sincere conscience. However, as Paschal famously said, men never do evil so freely or cheerfully as when they do it out of conscience.
Let me go back to where I started. We ARP's are notorious passive-aggressives. If the board is a mess, then who's fault is it? We've been electing them for years. Every year Synod has elected that board, and I cannot remember a single year when those nomination s have been challenged from the floor.
We are a church family. Families argue. If we don't, we aren't a family. But when families do not air our differences, they have a tendency to explode. When the dust settles, we will pick up and go on with the business of seeing the peace, purity and prosperity of the church. Now that we have the purity, let's have a little peace and prosperity.
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