The Presbyterian Pendulum: Seeing Providence in the Wild Diversity of the Church

By Mark J. Englund-Krieger

The Presbyterian Pendulum is a study in mainline Protestant social ethics with a focus on the Presbyterian Church (USA). This book is written for the church with the hope that it will provide theological foundation and spiritual encouragement for our efforts to find unity despite the diversity of convictions and perspectives in our midst. This is a historical study of the significant social and political issues to which the church responded throughout the twentieth century. With a foundation in solid historical research, this book offers the compelling thesis that the Presbyterian Church is at its best when the wild diversity of worldviews, theological perspectives, and convictions are encouraged. Even more, the book offers the spiritually rich thesis that it is in this wild diversity, not despite of it, that the providence of God is seen and known. What is unique and compelling about this study is the guiding metaphor of the pendulum swinging. The vast difference of opinion in the church around social issues has historically always been true, is necessary today, and itself points to a deeper truth about God's sustaining providence. The church must discern and hold onto that deeper truth. We must let the pendulum swing. It is my hope that this book will be an encouragement for the church even as we continue to be mired in deep conflict.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Feb 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781498272186

Mark J. Englund-Krieger

Mark J. Englund-Krieger is Executive Presbyter of the Presbytery of Carlisle, Presbyterian Church (USA). He is the author of The Presbyterian Pendulum (Wipf & Stock, 2010).

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The Presbyterian Pendulum

Seeing Providence in the Wild Diversity of the Church

Mark J. Englund-Krieger

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The Presbyterian Pendulum

Seeing Providence in the Wild Diversity of the Church

Copyright © 2010 Mark J. Englund-Krieger. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock, 199 W. 8th Ave. Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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Dedicated with the deepest gratitude to all my teachers at

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

and

the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

Foreword

When the anxiety of Y2K—the supposed time when the computer systems upon which our financial and information systems relied would crash and throw us into worldwide chaos—turned out to be unfounded, we stood at the dawn of a new century of promise. Prosperity, peace, and security, while not the experience of all, seemed to be the pervasive theme in much of the world. By the end of the decade, however, the cover of Time Magazine proclaimed the first ten years of the twenty-first century to have been The Decade From Hell. ¹ We are living in a time of profound societal change.

In the Reformed tradition of engagement with social, political, economic, and cultural issues, Presbyterians seek theological understanding of these forces at work in the world. We do so openly and democratically, through discussion and debate, communal discernment and collective prayer. As a consequence, the Presbyterian Church is too often known by its disagreements and divisions. Yet, that is a great contribution of the church. How fitting, around the five hundredth anniversary of John Calvin’s birth in 1509, to reflect on the gifts of the Reformed tradition through engagement with issues that occupy the attention of our culture, seeking not just political and social solutions, but understanding of the will of God.

Mark Englund-Krieger’s metaphor of Foucault’s swinging pendulum is a helpful description of how the church has wrestled with truth, meaning, and calling through the arc of history of the twentieth century, a century marked by dramatic developments in science and technology, by economic and social change, urbanization, and world wars.

The struggle between the social gospel, which was concerned with ameliorating social ills, and the evangelical perspective, which focused on salvation of individuals, ushered in the twentieth century’s debates over the role of the church. Throughout the century, Presbyterians struggled to understand the will of God and where God was working in matters of war and peace, science and technology, social dislocation and political liberation. In each debate, deeply committed and convicted pastors, theologians, and members sought to establish their understandings as the truth. The examination of differing views leads to deeper understanding. Englund-Krieger observes that the church needs to be in a position wherein diverse opinions and various viewpoints are both encouraged and allowed, even in response to massive pressure to adopt a single, particular perspective.²

A great gift of the Presbyterian Church has been precisely in the humble acknowledgement that the church of Jesus Christ is the provisional demonstration of what God intends for all of humanity.³ In seeking understanding of God’s intention, the Presbyterian Church allows and even encourages debate, and so the pendulum swings. Yet, the circumstances of each age are different, so in analogy to Foucault’s demonstration, each swing is in a different plane than the one before.

At times in the last century, stopping the pendulum was warranted, as when the church reached understanding and established principles of gender and racial equality and inclusiveness. At other times, stopping the pendulum cut off debate, narrowed vision, and shortchanged truth. Englund-Krieger’s insightful review of the church’s response to these forces illuminates the challenges facing the church in the twenty-first century, and the vital role of the church.

In 2005, writer Thomas Friedman used the term the world is flat to describe how globalization through technology, travel, and access to information has leveled the playing field in commerce. Yet we are reminded that billions of people do not experience or have access to that flat world, as disparities between the rich and poor persist and even grow, and over half the world—over three billion people—live on less than two dollars and fifty cents per day.⁴

Christianity itself is undergoing profound shifts. While waning in proportion to the population and in influence from its once dominant and prominent place in the United States and Western Europe, it is burgeoning in the global South. Even in the Reformed family of churches, long a European and United States expression of Christianity, two-thirds of members are in the global South. New forms of church and faith communities are emerging and gaining momentum to the extent that some writers are claiming that Christianity is undergoing change as dramatic as the Reformation of the sixteenth century. ⁵

The demographics of the United States are rapidly changing. Our population is now over 30 percent nonwhite, and within thirty years, the demographers project a majority of the population will be nonwhite. With this changing racial and ethnic profile is coming, too, a growing diversity of religions and nonreligions, and now one of the largest categories in surveys of religion is spiritual but not religious.

Each of these shifts poses significant issues to theology, the role of the church, and how we are to live lives faithful to the gospel. How will the church respond? Will we hold together? Will we continue to be a vibrant and faithful witness in this changing nation and the world? Englund-Krieger observes how the Presbyterian Church has exhibited remarkable resiliency through the dramatic issues of the twentieth century. In a time that seems increasingly polarized in politics, culture, and religion, he remarks, We must find a deeper truth beyond either/or thinking [‘the conservative-versus-liberal, right-versus-left dichotomy’] and within the both/and thinking signified by the pendulum’s swing.⁶ Indeed so.

The challenges and changes of our time are enormous, complex, life-threatening, creation-damaging issues. We have in the world today the resources to solve world poverty so that no one is hungry or thirsty or without shelter and everyone can share in the abundance that God promises. Yet we are caught in debates about environmental and economic policies, struggles for power and position, and wars and conflicts that are entangled in religion. We engage in lifestyles that contribute to inequities. In a world where people are now connected through communication technologies in unprecedented ways, alienation, isolation, and fear of the stranger are persistent and destructive. These keep all from sharing in that abundance. God cares deeply about this, and the church has a vital role in determining truth and the will of God in the midst of it all.

Reflecting on how the church has wrestled with issues in the twentieth century provides helpful insight as we confront the challenges and choices of the twenty-first. The swing of Foucault’s pendulum is steady, rhythmic, constant—mesmerizing to watch. Our human swings of the pendulum are not so smooth and peaceful, but rather are often heated, impassioned, and even hurtful. Yet, through it all we know that theology still matters. That the church is resilient. That God is at work and always will be. The pendulum may swing, but God is constant.

Linda Valentine

Executive Director

General Assembly Mission Council

Presbyterian Church (USA)

Louisville, Kentucky

December 2009

1. Time Magazine, December 7, 2009.

2. Chapter 2, page 38.

3. Presbyterian Church (USA), General Assembly, The Book of Order, vol. 2, The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (Louisville, KY: Office of the General Assembly, 2004), G-3.0200.

4. World Bank Development Indicators, 2008.

5. See, for example, Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2009).

6. Chapter 9, page 149.

Preface

This work is one of the deep joys of my life. The research and writing for this project started with an initial idea and plot offered to me by Professor Martin Marty. I explored the idea a bit, enjoyed it, and wrote my dissertation under the direction of Professor Marty at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. My Ph.D. dissertation is titled, The Social and Political Ministry of the Presbyterian Church: From Social Gospel to Social Justice and Beyond. Since graduating in 1998, I have continued this research and writing. The dissertation and my thesis have now been completely reworked and rewritten. I am delighted and proud to offer this book with the hope that, in some small way, it may be an encouragement to our great Presbyterian Church (USA).

Mark Englund-Krieger

Introduction

Foucault’s Church: Watching the Pendulum

Emperor Napoleon III was amazed by the swinging pendulum. After the great ruler witnessed Foucault’s scientific experiment, he requested that an even larger pendulum be set up under the dome of the Pantheon for all of Paris to see. On March 26, 1851, the elite of Parisian society turned out to witness Foucault’s pendulum swinging. The pendulum hung from a wire 220 feet long, and the gold bob of the pendulum weighed 61 pounds. We can imagine Napoleon standing silently next to Foucault’s pendulum, watching it swing. Did the pendulum swinging move Napoleon into meditation and reflection like countless school children on science field trips? Was there a spiritual aspect to Napoleon’s request that all of Paris, his great city, should witness the pendulum swinging? Does the pendulum swinging teach us about the world, ourselves, or God? Indeed, a pendulum swinging teaches an extraordinary lesson about the planet earth. Can the swinging pendulum teach us about our churches? This is a study in American Protestant social ethics. I propose to use the swinging pendulum as a provocative metaphor to help us understand these churches.

The hope of this study is that when we ponder all the wild diversity in our church, many examples of which we will explore here, we may begin to imagine a deeper truth about divine providence. The metaphor of the pendulum swinging is intended to invite this deeper imagination. Eugene Peterson claims the vital importance of metaphor for such spiritual imagination.

It turns out that the quickest and most available access to the invisible by means of language is through metaphor, a word that names the visible (or audible, or touchable). A metaphor is a word that carries us across the abyss separating the invisible from the visible. The contradiction involved in what the word denotes and what it connotes sets up a tension in our minds, and we are stimulated to an act of imagination in which we become participants in what is being spoken. Metaphor is our lexical witness to transcendence—to the more, the beyond, the within—to all that cannot be accounted for by our microscopes and telescopes, by our algebra and geometry, by pulse rate and blood pressure, by weights and measures . . . a witness to all the operations of the Trinity.¹

Few people have watched a pendulum swinging as carefully as Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (1819–1868). What he discovered is astonishing. Common sense would reason that a swinging pendulum should not move out of the plane in which it is set in motion. It will swing straight, its arc being a plane. That is to say, when energy is transferred to a pendulum it will swing across a plane in the direction of that push. It will swing farther if and when more energy is provided. Its swing will slow as the force of gravity inevitably brings it to a stop at the lowest point of the swing. But there is no reason for the pendulum’s swing to move to a different plane. There is, it seems, no reason why a pendulum swinging will slowly rotate. But, in fact, that is exactly what appears to happen.

Foucault discovered that the plane of the pendulum’s swing does not remain constant. The pendulum does not simply swing back and forth repeatedly until gravity and friction finally bring it to a stop. A pendulum actually rotates on its axis, or so it seems. The farthest point of its arc will move slightly with each passing swing, two degrees per swing in Paris. Over many hours, depending of the length of the cable, the weight of the bob and the location on the earth, the swinging pendulum will circumscribe a full circle. In Paris, Foucault’s swinging pendulum rotated 270 degrees in twenty-four hours.

The brilliance of Foucault’s research on the pendulum is his conclusion that the swinging pendulum does, in fact, swing back and forth in one plane of movement but the planet earth rotates beneath it. The swinging pendulum thus proves the rotation of the earth. There is no other explanation for the behavior of the swinging pendulum. The simple, predicable behavior of the swinging pendulum points to a deeper, more fundamental truth: the constant rotation of the planet earth.

Since Foucault’s experiment, pendulums have swung in scientific museums all around the world for all to see. Students studying elementary physics have often set up simple, smaller models in their classrooms to learn about Foucault’s remarkable conclusions. A pendulum swings over and over again with a meditative, peaceful repetitiveness but also demonstrates a more subtle truth, the rotation of the planet earth. Can this be a metaphor for the social and political ministry of mainline American Protestantism and the task of ministry? Like all metaphors or analogies it is possible to push it too far, beyond the point of relevance. But I hope the metaphor of the swinging pendulum will give us some helpful clues in thinking about the state of the church today. I have specifically in mind my own Presbyterian Church (USA) in which I was baptized as an infant, raised as a child, and have served as an ordained minister of the Word and Sacrament for many years. But I expect the lessons may also be relevant for all of mainline American Protestantism.

We will study these churches and their responses to important social and political issues throughout the twentieth century. In pondering our churches, we find these important public institutions mired in deep conflict. In many ways, these institutions have always been in conflict, particularly since the start of the twentieth century. We will study many of the major social and ethical conflicts in the American Protestant churches in the twentieth century and also consider the diverse ways the churches responded to the events of the day. It will be easy to notice the wide diversity and deep conflicts in the church throughout these years.

Our eleven chapters follow the history of the twentieth century. As a theological response to the Industrial Revolution at the start of the twentieth century, the social gospel movement introduced a bold, new social agenda to our churches. The social gospel movement reached the peak of its influence in the Protestant churches before World War I. But the movement’s social agenda conflicted with an older evangelical emphasis on the conversion and salvation of individuals (chapter 1). As the devastating violence of World War I escalated throughout Western Europe, America was drawn into the cataclysm. And the American Protestant churches followed along in full and complete support of the war effort as it was led by Presbyterian President Woodrow Wilson (chapter 2). What happens when the separation of church and society collapses and the church acts as an arm of the government? There were dire consequences for the authenticity of the church when its ministry and mission were wholly identified with specific government legislation. Such was the era of Prohibition, and the churches paid a high price (chapter 3). In and around the 1920s, a segment of these churches adopted a more modernist stance, open to scientific innovation, and they grew comfortable with new, penetrating social transformations. This view conflicted with a vital fundamentalist perspective of some, who railed against the dilution of ancient Christian truths and practices (chapter 4). We must also consider a difficult and influential controversy in Presbyterian circles by studying the bitter clash between J. Gresham Machen and Princeton Seminary (chapter 5). In the midst of World War II, the American Protestant churches struggled to find a balanced response. There was massive support for the war effort; while at the same time, deep theological reflection was planting the seeds of peace (chapter 6). Soon after the war an influential party within our churches adopted a sweeping internationalist perspective, building huge cooperative institutions like the World Council of Churches. Over against this ecumenical theology, there emerged a strong America-first perspective, which saw the church’s role as a warrior fighting the dark forces of socialism and communism (chapter 7). In the 1950s there were terrible church fights over the role and place of women (chapter 8). The mainline churches’ responses to the civil rights movement also created deep and lasting division (chapter 9). In response to the Reagan administration’s military buildup, there were bitter conflicts within our churches over a proper Christian response to the nuclear arms race. In the same era, the sanctuary movement introduced a radical social justice ministry, which sparked more division (chapter 10). Now, pressing and tearing apart our churches are the great debates about the role and place of homosexuals in church and society (chapter 11). Within the purview of social ethics, our Protestant churches have been and continue to be crammed to overflowing with conflict, tension, and deep division. Is this history of conflict indicative of some basic flaw in our churches? How can we continue to worship and serve, participate in and build up these churches when such deep conflict has been central and continuing? Is there a deeper truth to which the tension and conflict point?

I believe it is essential to attain a deeper, spiritually enriching perspective beneath this history of conflict. Possibly this perspective may be gained by metaphorically watching the pendulum swinging. The church is a pendulum swinging. Foucault’s pendulum proved a more important scientific truth: the rotation of the planet earth. Does the wildly swinging diversity in our churches point to a deeper truth? What if the pendulum stopped swinging? What if at one end of its slow, swinging arc someone grabbed the bob, not allowing it to swing back the other way? Then the experiment fails. There is no evidence then to prove the rotation of the earth. But nonetheless, in fact, the earth would continue to rotate, although our stopped pendulum would provide no demonstration of it. The church is a pendulum swinging. What if one or another side of any of these great divisions in the church captured the convictions of everyone? What if the debates stopped because the viewpoint of one side ascended supreme, and all difference was cast out of the church? In this hypothetical scenario something very significant would be lost; some deeper truth would be obscured. That is precisely the thesis of this work. The conflict, tension, and wild diversity within our churches itself points to the fragile nature of the church and its full dependence on the providence of God in Jesus Christ.

What is this deeper truth that grounds and sustains the church? It is the providence of God. The thesis offered here is that a careful study of social and political issues addressed by our churches will point toward a deeper truth about the providence of God. Few have so eloquently defined and expressed this deeper truth than President Abraham Lincoln at the occasion of his second inaugural address. Lincoln and all of America, living through the agony of Civil War, knew the great divisions in our nation. Those divisions pushed the nation into a Civil War that became much longer and much bloodier than anyone anticipated. In reflecting on this situation, and reaching for a theology to ground it, Lincoln proclaimed: Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. . . . Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. . . . The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes.² And there in a phrase, which has echoed down through the decades since 1865, is captured the whole mystery that is the deeper truth we are after. The Almighty has his own purposes. The faith we need in the church today, in the face of all our wild diversity, is this quiet, Lincolnesque faith in the eternal purposes of God.

Closer to the life and time of our mainline Protestant churches today, Reinhold Niebuhr expressed the meaning of the deeper truth we must grasp in his sermon titled, The Providence of God.³ Reflecting on Matthew 5: 43–48, Niebuhr rejects any simple correlations between our ways of thinking, our value judgments, and the eternal will of God. Thus the structure for the meaning of the Christian faith is completed against all the contradictions in history.⁴ Niebuhr develops his understanding of the providence of God in the light of the three different realms in which we live: the realm of nature, the realm of history, and the realm of grace. We must reach for and believe in this realm of grace. The Christian faith believes that within and beyond the tragedies and the contradictions of history we have laid hold upon a loving heart.⁵ As we explore here the tragedies and contradictions of our American church history, we hope that we may also begin to grasp the eternal loving heart to which Niebuhr points. It is the hope of this study that we might see in all our church’s differences, diversity, and disagreement a glimpse of what Niebuhr calls the realm of grace:

In that realm, finally, all concern for immediate correlation and coherences and meanings fall away. The Christian faith stands in the sense of ultimate meaning. We may be persuaded that God is on our side—not against somebody else—but on our side in this ultimate sense. We are sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come . . . will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is on this level of meaning that the Christian faith makes sense. The lower levels are a threat, not only to the sense of the meaning of life, but finally to the morals of life. We must not deny that there is a kind of religion that enhances the ego and gives it an undue place in the world. But from the standpoint of our faith we should take our humble and contrite place in God’s plan of the whole, and leave it to [God] to complete the fragmentation of our life.⁶

The church is a pendulum swinging, and that swinging points to a deeper theological truth about God. God in Jesus Christ is the ground of the church. God in Jesus Christ is the foundation of the church. All of our wild diversity points to that foundation. Thus the diversity should be encouraged and accepted within the church because it all teaches something more, something beyond any particular viewpoint. At any moment in history we never have a full grasp of the truth. The church is only a provisional demonstration.⁷ There is always another viewpoint, a different perspective. This is as it should be and may point to God’s intention for the church. Over the flow of a century, the church has been a wildly swinging pendulum; the difference of opinion within the church has, at times, been extreme. By taking a long view at that history we may see the abiding presence of God guiding and directing the church through each and every historical moment. The church is a pendulum swinging and beneath it God is moving, acting, sustaining, and providing. There is a deep faith indicated here. This is the faith to which the church points and upon which the church depends. This book is offered with the prayer that such a deeper faith may be encouraged and sustained in our churches.

This metaphor of the pendulum swinging may also help us identify an important spiritual quality that church members must seek. We must, with the eyes of faith, see beyond the conflicts and divisions to the deeper truth. It is quite possible, and even common, to watch a pendulum swinging and never discover the deeper truth of our planet rotating beneath it. What is it that sparks our curiosity for that deeper truth? Likewise, a spiritual curiosity is necessary for us in the church. The fights and tensions, the wild diversity, the vast differences all point to something more. When we lose sight of the deeper truth we stop being the church. The church must continually encourage the spark of theological curiosity and amazement that moves us into the praise of God. The church must depend on the ability of our people to see the grounding of the church in Jesus Christ beneath all the wild, swinging diversity of any particular historical moment. A task of theology