UCC General Synod – Monday, June 29

I promised a daily blog from General Synod, but yesterday was tough, for two reasons.  First, it was a busy day, and second, I found it difficult to process my thoughts.  I still do.  I wrote two drafts yesterday, but they didn’t seem to go anywhere.

Then I realized the day was really about what endures and what doesn’t.  About legacies.

Let me tell you about Sunday at General Synod.

In the morning, we went to church.  I would like to have participated in the “Sacred Conversations on Race” that were on the Synod schedule, but (a) Sunday morning to me is “church time,” and (b) it was hard to resist the chance to go hear a man dubbed by some “the next Billy Graham.”  (He’s not the only one who’s been called that.)

Rob Bell pastors a church just west of Grand Rapids, so a number of us ECOTs hopped in cars and went over to Mars Hill Bible Church, where Rob Bell is pastor.  The church is like the web site (www.marshill.org) – no flash, not much color, substance over style. 

One would think that a suburban megachurch meeting in a converted mall would use all sorts of visual and technical pizzazz.  But there was virtually no signage on the street or the building (I had to ask someone if we had found the church), no video monitors to greet you on the way in, no pictures in the weekly newsletter, and no colors (except black and white) on the screen displaying lyrics to songs and key words/quotes for the message. 

Three songs, a message on forgiveness (compelling but not filled with either a lot of biblical content or stories), and a few more songs while worshipers came forward for communion by intinction and an opportunity to place at the foot of a large wooden cross a piece of paper with areas of need for God’s forgiveness or human reconciliation.

What will be Rob Bell’s legacy?  It’s too early to tell.  We’ve had a little more time to think about John Calvin.

Lunch was our FWC luncheon, in which historian, author, and pastor Charles Hambrick-Stowe answered his own question, “John Calvin at 500: Can We Celebrate?” with a clear yes.  Calvin’s birthday was July 10, 1509, and the UCC has all but ignored the date at this General Synod just two weeks before the 500^th anniversary of his death.

John Knox, the Presbyterian reformer who was Calvin’s contemporary, said that Calvin had created in Geneva the most perfect society the world had seen.  America’s early settlers were overwhelmingly those who wanted to recreate Calvin’s model in the new world.  By the 1800s, however, Congregationalists were attempting to de-Calvinize their legacy.  Now the New York Times says the “new Calvinism” is the third most significant trend changing the face of America.  Yet the denomination that should overwhelmingly reflect his heart and life is pretending, as Charlie Hambrick-Stowe said, that he’s an “embarrassing uncle” we would like to pretend never lived.

Calvin was a “theologian of the heart,” who believed theology and piety are inseparable.  Doctrine has to be lived out in response to God’s calling.  Purity of life is the normal result of understanding God’s claim on our lives.  Justification and sanctification cannot be grasped independently.

Calvin’s legacy is secure even if a denomination or generation chooses to ignore him because of its own blind spots.

By contrast, the afternoon and evening yesterday were spent in ways that hardly seemed to be worthy of legacy.

The afternoon worship service focused on the theme of the Synod, “Immerse Yourself.”  Between quasi-pantheistic worship of river and water and a noble attempt by the UCC’s current President to preach on water-related Scripture texts (Jonah being tossed into the ocean, the Ethiopian eunuch being baptized), I’m still not exactly sure what this whole immersion theme is all about or what we’re supposed to do with it.  I don’t see much that either celebrates or creates lea legacy.

The evening was a committee hearing (to which delegates, even Voice without Vote delegates like me) are randomly assigned.  Committee #8 is addressing two resolutions.  Last night we completed work on one; today we’ll finish two more.

So we spent the better part of two hours discussing details of a resolution that, from a UCC perspective, is a no-brainer – making our meetings more eco-friendly.  Care for the environment is certainly a legacy the UCC can be proud of.  Wastefulness of everything from paper to energy should be addressed and corrected. 

But what about wastefulness of time?  If the principles of the resolution are universally accepted and the details are to be fleshed out by national staff, is refining the grammar and style of the document worthy of 2 hours’ time for 80 people who traveled from as far away as Hawaii (the conference that submitted the resolution)?

I hope for some better substance from this morning’s conversation on how we can help those “struggling and suffering in the troubled economy.”  If we can make a difference, that would be a worthy legacy.