More on the Gaewski letter...

Commentary By Dexter Van Zile

For my money, Rev. Gaewski is expressing more than disagreement with BWF, ucctruths and the IRD, but is expressing fear over the technology -- namely the internet -- that has allowed these groups to gather information, disseminate information and contact like minded people and organize. This fear is embodied in the following sentence in which Gaewski writes: "Beyond the letter from Bishop Ludwig, we believe that all local clergy should be very aware of conversations taking place on the internet that take aim at the integrity of our family of faith."

This is as much an expression of fear over changing power relationships as it is an expression of disagreement. Gaewski's letter could have been written at the height of the counter reformation. The way I see it, the internet is having an impact on church governance similar to the invention of moveable type had on the church in Europe. Protestants like to portray the Reformation as the Holy Spirit manifesting itself as an eruption of intellect and conscience (which it was), but technology made this eruption possible.

When Rev. Gaewski writes "divisive tendencies are strongly present" we need to remember that these tendencies have always been in existence since the denomination's founding in 1957. Even before the merger, there were concerns in the congregational wings that it would create a national organization that would speak on behalf of the all the churches in a manner contrary to what they believed. I don't know how many or who warned about this, but I do think Harry Butnam was one of the people who offered this warning.

The problem for the UCC is this. By making it much easier for the divisive tendencies that were always in existence to manifest themselves, the internet has posed a serious challenge to our system of governance which has three salient characteristics:

1. A national leadership that insists on speaking for the church as if it has hierarchical authority that in theory it does not have. It has the power to do so by virtue of title and budget, but not the authority. When challenged our leaders (a) assert that they are speaking "to" but not "for" the churches and when this defense doesn't work they (b) invoke the legitimacy of the General Synod, which brings us to the second salient aspect of the UCC's governance.

2. A General Synod process that is broken. It's delegates are not representative of the spectrum of thought within the denomination and are in no way accountable to the churches that make up the denomination.

To those who are offended by the notion that the GS system is broken, I encourage you to read the letter from Conference Minister Russell Mittman available here: http://www.ucctruths.com/mitmanemail2.html.

In this letter, Rev. Mittman acknowledged that "[i]n the minds of some of us–Conference Ministers and others–the process of voting on resolutions has many flaws.

Firstly, no vote of a General Synod on most issues outside the church is binding. A synod speaks only for itself. Secondly the procedure by which a resolution comes to a synod, is assigned to a synod committee and ultimately is referred to the delegates for votes, is based on group-dynamics strategies that arose in the 1970's and, in my mind, on flawed assumptions of how a group of people can be informed within a few hours to make a decision that gets reported by secular media. More and more voices in the United Church of Christ have been saying that there must be a better way of speaking a moral voice than by way of the processes that have continued to polarize the church for nearly a half-century."

Mittman's criticism of the GS is targeted toward the process, but I think the problem goes much deeper -- representation. Whatever the causes, it's hard to think that the UCC's synod process is a legitimate expression of the church's voice.

A third salient characteristic of the UCC's system of governance is reservoir of indifference, apathy, ignorance and disorganization on the part of people who disagreed with the actions of both the leaders and the General Synod. Mounting organized opposition to the resolutions and to the public statements of the leaders was costly and time consuming.

As a result of this reservoir of indifference, ignorance and disorganization, the UCC was able to muddle along with a leadership asserting authority it did not have and a GS issuing its resolutions without being held accountable in any meaningful way. The church steadily lost churches, as it has throughout its history, but
organized opposition, aside from the BWF, was hard to muster. Under these conditions, it was possible for the UCC's leaders to offer up a facade of unity to the general public, which in fact, was not authentic. As Mittman acknowledged, the church has been polarized for "nearly a half-century."

I got a sense of this apathy and ignorance before the GS when I sent a mass-mailing out to pastors about the divestment resolution to 177 pastors in Massachusetts as part of my work for the David Project. I made follow up calls to all of them about the prospects of speaking to their churches about the Arab/Israeli conflict. It was summer and I had a hard time contacting pastors, so the results aren't scientific, but one thing became obvious. Many (but clearly not all) churches paid little attention to what the GS did. Some of the pastors regarded the actions of the GS and the UCC's national leaders as distractions from the work of the local church and a source of division within their own congregations. They understood they had an obligation to pay attention to the votes at Synod and were somehow responsible for what it decided, but I detected a certain level of reluctance to address the issues for fear of dividing their local churches. This was even more pronounced in those churches where the pastor was new or serving as an interim. (I am not offering these impressions about the churches interest in GS as authoritative data, nor am I offering it as a condemnation of people not paying attention to the GS. Having served on the stewardship committee, as a member of the board of deacons and on a pastor search committee, I know full well the tension between the needs of the local church and the agenda of the UCC as a denomination. I'm sure people will argue that being on board with the UCC's agenda is a sign of a healthy church, but I'm not convinced.)

Ultimately, we had a deal in the UCC. Church leaders in Cleveland and the GS could do what it wanted and members of the local churches could eschew responsibility for their actions, even as their presence in the denomination lent credence to the pronouncements of both GS and the leaders in Cleveland.

Some might complain, but robust debate or discussion was ultimately short circuited by a number of factors, including an GS that was not accountable to anything but itself and a laity that largely ignored what happened outside their local churches. People mistook this disconnect for agreement.

The internet has changed the equation for the UCC. Information about what Cleveland and the GS does is a lot easier to obtain (and also a lot harder to ignore) and those who disagree can make their voices heard in ways not previously available to them. People can call for funds to be withheld. People no longer depend on their local pastors for information about what the denomination is doing or saying. And people within these churches who disagree with the church's stands on issues important to them no longer have to content themselves with grumbling with their fellow travelers during after church coffee hours.

I'm of the mind that we have some choices to make as a denomination. Some alternatives:

1. Stop making public pronouncements that will divide the church (or in James' terms, violate the covenant).

2. Figure out a way to make sure that the pronouncements that are made are more representative of the UCC's collective conscience (or in Dean's terms, make the GS more representative).

3. Trust UCC members, as individuals to act on their own conscience in the public sphere and work to grow local churches.

In any event, the prerogatives of the UCC hierarchy (which denies its own existence and invokes a legitimacy it does not have) are going to be subject to much more robust challenge than they have been in the past and one way or another we need to figure out how to take that into account going forward.

Dexter Van Zile