In our presbytery, Lambton-West Middlesex, we have a church named Centre Road. We haven’t done the research to know for sure, but we bet it’s the only church in our denomination with that name. We have enough churches named St. Andrew’s to shake a stick at and we know that somewhere in that church’s history is a Church of Scotland relationship that led to that name. And then there are the churches named Knox. Again, in their history is a Free Church relationship that led to that choice. However, we would argue that our Centre Road church spells out much more clearly than either St. Andrew’s or Knox, our particular church heritage. Let us explain.
When we became members of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1973 – yes, it was the year of the previous “new” hymnbook – we were told to expect the church to be a middle way between churches that were theologically liberal or conservative. We would find people of both persuasions but ultimately, people in this denomination chose a centre road with respect to theology. Let us make this clearer. It was a centre road but not a narrow road: it allowed for a variety of persuasions but no extremes. And that has been our experience of this church. Examples? There are so many to choose from! Our most recent subordinate standard, the Living Faith or Foi Vivante and soon to have its own Korean translation is a walk-away bestseller for our denomination. Not only our church but others have appreciated the middle ground of Reformed theology it clearly and poetically circumscribes with Christian charity and clarity.
It is what defines us as a Reformed and reforming Presbyterian church, continuing its witness in urban, rural and remote places within Canada and with our partners around the world. In our churches are couples who have chosen to worship with us as a middle ground between a Lutheran married to a Baptist or a Roman Catholic married to a United Church member. We have a reformed structure to our worship, done “decently and in order,” that appeals to our ecumenical brothers and sisters from more formal liturgical backgrounds. Isn’t that a good thing, a gift or grace we offer to the ecumenical community! And we have a solid biblical basis for everything we do: the centrality of the scriptures, a strong Reformed approach that appeals to our ecumenical brothers and sisters from more gospel-centred backgrounds. And isn’t that a good thing, too?
We read with interest David Webber’s account in the October 2009 Record of his visit to the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and followed his directions to its website. There we were able to read the new polity changes that he referred to in the article, the five different routes to ordination which allowed for communion to be offered to all who wanted it, whether they were in an urban, rural, aboriginal or truly remote location. There was provision for the sacramental expression of their faith, whether through their own denomination or the inter-church co-operation occurring in rural areas. The church there was taking seriously its mandate to “feed my sheep” (John 21:17), a reference commonly heard at the ordination of a minister.
What we appreciated even more was that the PCANZ consulted with its ecumenical partners and, as a result, developed a new way of thinking about ordination that didn’t destroy long-held Reformed theological traditions that were part of its heritage. As members of the World Association of Reformed Churches (soon to be called the World Communion of Reformed Churches) and as members also of other partnerships within Canada and around the world, it is important to ensure that whatever changes we make as a denomination are theologically sound. It took years for the church in New Zealand to study, craft and endorse its new path. The Presbyterian Church in Canada has always been known for its slow and deliberate thinking about issues that are central to our faith and witness.
David Webber has shown us that there may be ecumenical partnerships that can help us think through our own difficulties. We will not find all solutions equally helpful. We need ways that won’t become speed bumps or barriers along our broad centre road. We need ways that will continue to offer the gift of apostolic succession – historic continuity with the early church through the teaching and authority given to the apostles and through them to others through the laying on of hands (see Ephesians 2:15-20; Matthew 16:18-19; John 20:19-23; Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 2:42; Acts 8:14-24 and Acts 6:1-6) – through ordination that is central to our Reformed understanding of ordained ministry as outlined in our subordinate standards, a gift that might get lost or obscured if we are not careful. Let us illustrate its centrality to our church.
First, in the Nicene Creed we affirm that “we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church,” a phrase that is then picked up and expounded upon in Living Faith at 7.1.5 and following: ”The church is apostolic. It is founded on Christ and the apostles and in continuity with their teachings.” As we continue to read in that section, “The church is present when the word is truly preached, the sacraments rightly administered, and as it orders its life according to the word of God.” Under the next section in the chapter on ministry at 7.2.3 we affirm: ”Ministers of Word and Sacrament are set apart to preach the gospel, celebrate baptism and holy communion and exercise pastoral care in Christ’s name. Their ministry is an order that continues the work of the apostles. Christ preserves this order today by calling to it both men and women. The church recognizes this calling in the act of ordination.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith does not have a section on the ministry; but it does affirm, “there be only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the gospel, that is to say, baptism and the supper of the Lord: neither of which may be dispensed by any but by a minister of the word, lawfully ordained.”
John Calvin’s Institutes carefully lists and defines the various tasks, duties and purposes of pastors, teachers, apostles, prophets and evangelists in the church. He asserts, “For as our teachers correspond to the ancient prophets, so do our pastors to the apostles.” He later adds: “But what about the pastors? Paul is speaking not only of himself but of them all when he says, ‘This is how men should regard us, as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God’ [1 Corinthians 4:1] … From these and similar passages which frequently occur, we may infer that in the office of the pastors also there are these two particular functions: to proclaim the gospel and to administer the sacraments … That is, they have been set over the church not to have a sinecure but, by the doctrine of Christ to instruct the people to true godliness, to administer the sacred mysteries and to keep and exercise upright discipline.”
We know changes are coming but we need to remember Augustine’s aphorism: ”In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, diversity; in all things, charity.” Ordination for the dispensing of the sacraments is an essential. David Webber suggests three changes that need to be addressed by the church. “The first is we have to begin to think and act interdenominationally” and we couldn’t agree more. We need to consider the breadth as well as the depth of the church and seek common agreement where that is possible. We are not the only party involved in the agreement and so we must listen with respect to our brothers and sisters in the faith. We think that means also that we should not embark on a solution to a perhaps temporary and isolated problem by a change that is so fundamental to our Reformed understanding of what it means to be the church.
Secondly, David says, “Rural people need to be practically equipped for ministry in their rural context.” They do. We have tended to reserve ordination as the end of a process, which is thorough in affirming an inner and outer call to ministry, with affirmations by presbytery, an assembly-approved education and finally the actual act of ordination by the laying on of hands by the ministers of Word and Sacrament of the presbytery. We agree with David that “in service education” seems to be the key element that needs to be reconsidered and reconfigured. Other denominations have found it necessary to ordain non-stipendiary or bivocational ministers: those whose income derives from other sources, like a pension, private income or “tent” ministers whose income, like Paul’s, came from other sources than the congregation. Where we differ is that, unlike David, we believe that ordination to Word and Sacrament is essential; the way to get there can be changed.
“The third change that is absolutely necessary for rural ministry has to do with how we approach the ministry of Word and Sacrament,” David says. If we want to continue our present understanding of the church and its ministry, we cannot “go a different route” as he suggests and remain on the same road, let alone a broad centre road, with our ecumenical brothers and sisters. There is much hard work that needs to be done to be a church that continues its witness in urban, rural and remote places within Canada and with our partners around the world. Let’s do that hard work, thoughtfully, deliberately and with full attention to who we are as a church and whose we are as the people of God.
Calvin writes in book four of Institutes, “Whoever, therefore, either is trying to abolish this order of which we speak and this kind of government, or discounts it as not necessary, is striving for the undoing or rather the ruin and destruction of the church. For neither the light and heat of the sun, nor food and drink, are so necessary to nourish and sustain the present life as the apostolic and pastoral office is necessary to preserve the church on earth.”
