This is a post, not about the balance between good news and bad news, but how bad news drives good news off the table. Wednesday was a day of much good news, but in the discussion and press, just as in this post, the bad news gets the headlines.
On Sunday afternoon, Tara Spuhler McCabe was installed to the office of vice moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for a two year term. Under our system, the newly-elected moderator selects a person to be vice moderator. The General Assembly confirms that selection or not. In this case the Assembly did by a large, but not overwhelming majority.
Apparently, over the next two days, the blogs, texts, email and tweets concentrated not on her gifts of service to the Church and the Presbyterian community, but on her service of love and compasion to a same-gender couple of her congregation. She brought the Church's presence to a marriage in the District of Columbia where such a marriage is legal. This is contrary to the discipline of the Presbyterian Church in which a marriage is to be exclusively between a man and a woman.
Wednesday afternoon, at the opening of next business meeting of the Assembly, she resigned her office because the controversy over her actions would detract from her ability to serve the church. This resignation was an act of love for the Assembly and the denomination.
On Wednesday evening Tom Trinidad, from Colorado, was confirmed to the office of Vice Moderator.
The news about the resignation has been and will continue to be the high (low) light of Wednesday's actions. Lost in this news will be celebrations and joys. For instance:
- The assembly celebrated
- The service of retired and newly-commissioned missionaries abroad and in the US
- The 200th anniversary of two of our seminaries
- Service of seminary educators
- New form of worshiping communities
- Ecumenical worship
- The assembly started the processes to
- Possibly send the Belhar Confession, a confession based on the struggles for equality in South Africa
- Send to the presbyteries for consideration a new and more accurate translation from German of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), based on the academic translation work of scholars of ours and two sister denominations
- The assembly celebrates the gifts of Tom Trinidad as Vice Moderator
It is unfortunate that the bad news about the conflicts within the denomination catch with headlines while the work that is being done as the denomination attempts unity without the necessity of uniformity so pushed aside.
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