When I stood for election as the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly in 2008, I did a whole lot of research and a whole lot of thinking. A significant portion of my research involved discussions with folks throughout the church.
What I found was that there was not a lot of real discussion in progress. There are a lot of caucuses--special interest groups--that meet in various times and places. My experience when I attended these caucuses events was not pleasant. As much as I tried to engage, I failed.
These observations solidified what I had already written about years before. And they made me very sad and worried. I know that folks of like minds inevitably get together. I know these are good ways to organize, discuss, process. But when these caucuses take on the feel of a war room is when they are damaging our church.
What do I hope for? That these caucuses will open up, that they will become the arena for cross-caucus discussion, that they may become places where those of like mind could learn that the notion of compromise is not something bad but is nothing more than the admission that no one group has all the right answers.
G-1.0307 says, " Now though it will easily be admitted that all synods and councils may err, through the frailty inseparable from humanity . . . ." I would hope we can add caucuses, so that the provision would read----
" Now though it will easily be admitted that all synods and councils and caucuses may err, through the frailty inseparable from humanity. . . ."
About Me
- Ed Koster
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- I have been the Stated Clerk of the Presbytery of Detroit since 1995. Over the last 15 years I have engaged in the national dialogue in a variety of ways, most visibly by articles published by the Presbyterian Outlook and public conversations on line. I stood for election as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly in 2008. In the process of preparing for that, I traveled and spoke with people all over the country and theological spectrum. I asked each person this question: "What do you think the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly should do and be?" The answers to that question generated significant discussions about many things. Much of what I have written in my book "The Challenge of the Presbyterian Church: Opening Governance to the Movement of the Holy Spirit" emerged from those conversations.
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