When Fidelity + Chastity = War

To some in the Presbyterian Church (USA) these words are a battle cry, a call to arms to defend all that is holy.  To others in the denomination, these words are a putrid barrier to Jesus' command to love one another.  For twenty+ years this phrase has been hammered and sharpened and driven as if it were the single issue defining the faithfulness of a church.

For those who don't know, the "fidelity and chastity clause" is a phrase within the ordination standard in the PC(USA) which essentially declares that an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament must maintain either fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness.  The phrase was inserted in the late 1980's clarify what is, and what is not, appropriate sexual expression for the church's ministers.  It was also an atttempt to shut the door on the discussion about ordaining homosexuals.

The phrase has done for those supporting homosexual ordination what Governor Walker did to galvanize union workers.  Instead of being the last word on this issue for the church, it became the fighting words over which several churches have left the denomination, bitterly, with anger and accusations of faithflessness being spewed by both sides.  The longer the debate lasts the more harsh the division.  Labels of "Liberal" or "Conservative" have become code for either the support or defeat of that fidelity and chastity clause.  Liberals take pride in their desire to love without boundaries after the example of Jesus.  Conservatives take pride in their desire to uphold the living and active Word of God.  And because of one issue, the two sides have made it as if the example of Jesus and the Word of God can't coexist.

Polarization has led to the demonization of those we once called brother and sister.  When letters arrive at my office to sway my opinion one way or the other, they make statements like "we still believe in the Word of God," with the obvious implication that those who disagree with them do not.  They come like salvos daring the church to make a move, to cross that last line in the sand to force their church to leave, as if the grass really is more holy on the other side of the fence.

Polarization has led to Bible abuse on both sides.  Proof-texts are launched as if these should end all debate, and both sides are frighteningly close to looking like those lunatics at Westboro Baptist, as if one side's particular version of righteousness is the only version of righteousness God can bless. 

Polarization plays to fear rather than rational thought.  It invokes fight or flight, or in this case, both, as people press against the boundaries of their side.  It amplifies anxiety and, in our effort to bind it off so we aren't so profoundly stressed, we either huddle in with those who think like us to find support with our position, or we scream, passively or aggressively, that the others over there are just wrong.  Can't they see that?  Why can't they see that they're wrong?

Polarization leaves scars that don't fully heal.  The American Civil War was waged 150 years ago.  No one alive has firsthand knowledge of the issues that justified that war's atrocities, but I can tell you as surely as I am alive that the Mason-Dixon Line, which is within sight of this church, is far more than an historic boundary to settle the land dispute between the Penn and Calvert families, and that the Confederate flag is far more than a statement of southern heritage.  As pastor of a church which suffered schism 75 years ago over a change in confessional standards that let women be ordained, I can tell you that no living member of either the church or the other one down the road was olde enough to experience the dynamics of that split, but distrust lingers, buttressed by pride in the side chosen.

Polarization is spreading through the church.  Now, I should point out that we come by it quite naturally.  Schism is in our cultural DNA.  There wouldn't be Presbyterians in America if we could've solved our differences in Scotland, or if the Dutch Reformed could've plugged their own theological cracks in the dam back in the Netherlands.  Our history is to fight and split.  We find the line of demarcation and choose sides far more readily than we work to maintain the unity, purity and peace of one Body with one Head.  Sadly, we'd rather cut off the hand because it is not a foot, despite the way it cripples our ability to witness to the gospel that proclaims "Behold! I make all things new!"

I would ask the battalions on either side to lay down their mightier-than-sword armaments, come out of their entrenched positions, and embrace the wideness of God's mercy which outstretches our own.

The various Presbyteries (a body of regional church representatives) are voting on a resolution that would remove the "fidelity and chastity" clause and replace it with a more generalized standard.  My presbytery, the Presbytery of Donegal, will take up the question this weekend.  Frankly, the insertion of the original clause doesn't make any sense to me.  If you can, just for a moment, take a break from the raging background debate and ask yourself, "Does it make sense to lift up one area of life over every other to determine one's faithfulness to his or her calling?"  Why does it make sense to single out sexual issues but not issues of greed, honesty, jealousy, pride or addiction as we declare who can or can't be ordained?  Don't these sins have enough of a long-standing track record of destroying congregations to merit specific language in the ordination standard?

The original insertion of this clause was a mistake in the first place.  The life of the ordained is under constant scrutiny in all areas of that person's life.  People hold their pastors accountable for the cars they drive, the way they keep their house, the behavior of their children, their managerial skills, their willingness to sacrifice, their educational level, their speaking ability, their counseling perspective, their availability, their pastoral presence, their dress, their fitness, their hygiene, their personality, their relationships.  Every part of a minister's life is observed and judged.  The church's presbyteries have the right and responsibility to examine the whole of a person's life in guiding him or her to a faithful position that will earn for them the ear of those needing to hear the gospel message.  The presbyteries can decide for themselves what, in their particular context, is most important. 

My vote will be in favor of the change in language because, on its own, the new language makes sense. 

My prayer is that the polarized will stop blaming the other for causing the sky to fall.