Al knows me enough to know that I, for one, am totally cool with change, courageous about transformation, and in general am pro-risk and pro-future–sometimes to the detriment of the past, and even the present, I’m afraid. If I thought this resolution was an attempt to shut down forward movement or to cancel out the current vision for the church, then I would publicly speak against it.

I believe in the vision of the church as originally conceived. I do recognize, though, that the followthrough on the original vision has been damaged by our dysfunctional processes, leaving a lot of people lost and in pain.

And I say this in sort of a funny position. Al is pretty worked up about this, as he says himself. He also is an influential member of the board that I am asking to support and fund not only my church plant in Austin this summer, but also a larger church planting movement that I am convinced is needed by the General Church, the New Church, and the human race. So I don’t want to irritate someone who has power over the fulfilling of my life’s purpose, while ironically that purpose is exactly the kind of activity that he is supporting in his rebuttal to the Council resolution. So I write this with a little fear and with a little mirth. Al, if you’re reading this, we’re still friends, right?

I didn’t vote to rescind any initiatives, nor to condemn the board, nor to recall the bishop, or anything else of that nature. I voted in favor of repairing our broken process that has our boards, administrators and pastors each operating independently of the other two groups in a dysfunctional and hurtful manner. Because I believe in the vision.

__

To My Fellow Board Members:

At the meeting of the Board of Directors of the General Church on February 27, 2010, during the Bishop’s report, Bishop Kline reported on a resolution of the Clergy, passed the previous day, February 26, 2010, which resolution passed by vote of 64 yes, 7 no, and 12 abstained. At the meeting my immediate, and “kneejerk”, reaction to this resolution was quick, strong and could have been considered intemperate. Upon further and quiet reflection I have come to the conclusion that my reaction was far too temperate.

At the meeting on February 27, as I recall, the way the matter was left is that the Executive Committee of the Board would meet with the Bishop and the Consistory to discuss the resolution. My purpose in writing this letter is to urge the members of the Executive Committee to express our opposition to the resolution strongly. Furthermore, I urge my fellow Board members to speak out against this resolution. Finally, I would ask that members of the Clergy denounce the resolution for what it is, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

A VISION WORTH FIGHTING FOR

My wife recently handed me a compact disk upon which were recorded a number of songs that we in the New Church are familiar with. On the inside cover for the CD, “A Vision Worth Fighting For”, is written the following:

“Our vision is at once bold and modest – to make meaningful contact with millions of new people in the years ahead, as we seek to spread the Lord’s Truth throughout the world. We have a core purpose, core values and a strategic plan that unite us in mission and commitment.

We are all called upon by the Lord to be disciples in spreading the Truths of His Word. This is the Vision worth fighting for. Let us continue this work and pray the Lord will bring us together in charity to share this most precious vision with all who thirst and hunger.

This is a vision to unite our hearts, minds and actions in a harmony of uses, like a great hymn to the Lord. Add your voice and your commitment to the hymn, and help spread its peace and hope throughout the world.”

On the back cover the following is written:

“The General Church has an inspiring vision of sharing the
profound message of the Lord’s Second Coming with all
who are open to His Truth.

——– a VISION worth fighting for ———–

The Academy has a supporting vision of making this message
come to life through distinctive New Church education in its
Secondary Schools and College.”

This is indeed a lovely vision. It is a vision which stirs passion in the hearts of those who truly believe in the Lord’s Second Coming. It is a vision to which the many initiatives that we have discussed on the Board of Directors of the General Church have been directed. While I am not on the Academy Board, I do believe that it has also guided the direction of our secondary schools and college.

It is a dynamic vision which flies in the face of the lethargy in which our moribund organization has been floundering for the last 100 years. It is indeed worth fighting for.

The resolution of the Clergy is a signal that those of us who are committed in our hearts to this vision are indeed in for a fight.

THE RESOLUTION

First of all, before criticizing the resolution we need to read the resolution, attempt to ascertain its meaning and weigh the circumstances of its passage.

At the outset, it has been made public that the vote was, 64 yes, 7 no, 12 abstained. The significance of this vote is important in that it establishes near unanimity among the Clergy for the sentiments of the resolution. Thus, we are placed in the situation where we can feel free to refer to the “Clergy” of our Church, because they are apparently acting as one. With this in mind, I shall feel free to treat them as one as they have chose to express themselves in that manner and to publically set forth what their vote was, obviously for the purpose of giving this resolution its maximum impact. And that impact was a broadside against the vision.

Curiously I talked to one of the ministers who voted in favor of the resolution the day after its passage. He stated to me that there were “64 different reasons” that would be given for voting for the resolution. That is, that there was no unanimity about what the resolution meant, only that they voted in favor of it. Thus, one might get the impression that this resolution has no meaning because it meant 64 different things to 64 different ministers. Are we to assume that our Clergy is that naïve or foolish not to understand the impact of this resolution? Within minutes of its passage it was blogged throughout the Church and used as an argument that the initiatives should be rolled back and indeed, therefore, that the vision would be killed. It is my belief that this resolution is being used to throw us back into the self-indulgent world, fueled by a large endowment, with which we have been pleased to solace ourselves for the last 100 years.

The text of the resolution reads as follows:

“Resolved (64 yes, 7 no, 12 abstain):

While acknowledging with appreciation many of the exciting new initiatives that have been recently undertaken;

the Clergy would also like to express sincere reservations and concerns with the seemingly rapid change in direction of the Bryn Athyn College and the General Church resulting from decisions and actions being made without sufficient prior counsel and discussions;

and we appeal to the bishop to provide leadership in implementing processes that will actively involve the Clergy in the review of past decisions that appear to stray from the Charter Purposes and meaningfully include the Clergy in the development of future plans.”

The first obvious question we must ask is what does this mean? Furthermore, what are we to make of it?

It begins with what we call language of mitigation, “acknowledging with appreciation many of the exciting new initiatives”. By language of mitigation we mean language that softens what is to follow. The resolution also ends with language of mitigation wherein the Clergy request that there be implementation of processes which “meaningfully include the Clergy in the development of future plans”.

The problem with language of mitigation in such a resolution is that is sows confusion about the true purpose of the declaration. Indeed, the Board’s reaction to the resolution was to seize the mitigating language and follow that. Thus, the impression I received from the discussion of the Board is that the Clergy only wishes to be heard and we should accommodate that wish. In doing so, the Board simply ignored the main body of the resolution which suggests something far stronger. There was, of course, more:

the Clergy would also like to express sincere reservations and concerns with the seemingly rapid change in direction of the Bryn Athyn College and the General Church resulting from decisions and actions being made without sufficient prior counsel and discussions;

What we can glean from this statement is that the Clergy, in keeping with their 64 vote yes, are acting in unison. They are a single entity and they are united in the resolution. The next statement “sincere reservations and concerns” is a polite way of stating, “We don’t like ‘em”. What don’t they like? It’s not entirely clear. It’s not clear whether they don’t like the fact that the changes have been rapid. It might mean that they don’t like the direction of Bryn Athyn College and the General Church. It might mean that they don’t like the fact that decisions and actions were made without the prior counsel of the Clergy. I would suggest the only reasonable reading of this paragraph is it is all of the above.

In this paragraph of the resolution, it suggests that decisions and actions were being made without prior counsel and discussions. From this we can assume that the Clergy, as a group, is suggesting that had the Clergy been consulted on these decisions and actions about which the Clergy has reservations and concerns, they would not have occurred.
It is in the final paragraph of the resolution, however, that we see where our Clergy is headed. They want to review past decisions that appear to stray from the Charter Purposes. Of course we don’t know what the Clergy, apparently being of one mind, has in mind. Furthermore, we cannot tell from this resolution what the Clergy, of one mind, has in mind when it states the Charter Purposes. What is clear is that the Clergy is asking the Bishop to review past decisions, and the only reasonable implication is that the course of the initiatives that have been promoted by the administration, at least with the General Church, and endorsed by the Board, should be rolled back and reversed.
While it would appear that that this resolution is so unclear on its face that it is innocuous, we should not be deceived. This is not a statement about doctrine other than that there is a vague reference to “the Charter Purposes”. It is not a statement saying how, specifically, the General Church or the Bryn Athyn College should be administered. What, then, is it? It is a political statement. Essentially what the Council had done is to pass a resolution of “no confidence” toward various entities. These include the leadership of the Church, including the Bishop, and the Executives of the Church. It is a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the Academy and the Bryn Athyn College. And, perhaps most significant to us, it is a vote of no confidence in the Board.
For the last five or six years we on the Board have listened to report after report concerning these initiatives. Indeed, they have been the focus of our meetings. We have approved budgets which allowed for the funding of these initiatives. We have watched approvingly while good men and women have committed their future to effectuating these initiatives. Can we stand by idle while these men and women who have been carrying our banner are attacked?

THE CONFLICT
The Clergy’s resolution brings into sharp focus a significant contradiction in our Church and a long simmering conflict. The contradiction in question is between what we proclaim our Church to be and what it actually is. We raise our wine glasses in toasts and sing “Our Glorious Church”. We talk about our Church being the crown of the ages and the crown of all Churches. Perhaps our doctrine supports that concept, but our organization does not.
The reality is that our Church consists of a very small group of financially and intellectually elite who live in a little community near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There are other pockets of members of our Church, mostly in the U.S. and Canada, who essentially are friends and more likely blood relatives of the main group which exists near Philadelphia. It is a comfortable world indeed for those who are members of this Church. They are isolated and financially secure by most of our country’s standards. They are able to educate their children and an elite private school at a cost which is far lower than any school of similar quality.
The conflict is also all about money. Most notable in the initiatives is a paradigm shift that has occurred with the Church. Under the new paradigm we are not longer a financially driven Church, that is, a Church whose dimensions are confined to whatever income the endowment can produce, but a use driven Church, whereby we seek to perform the uses that are required of us and then raise the money to support them. Of course, this paradigm shift changes the responsibilities of the laity in the Church. No longer can we look to the General Church’s coffers to satisfy the needs of our various societies. Membership in the Church requires certain new responsibilities. Among them is the notion that we have an individual responsibility to financially support the Church.
Many of the initiatives of the General Church, such as the Capital Campaign and The Joseph Project, deal with this particular subject.
These initiatives were bound to bring significant conflict. They fly in the face of the insidious elitism that has plagued our organization for over a century. Goodness, if the Bishop’s vision actually succeeds, our walls of exclusion may be breached by my constituency, the Hoi Polloi, the common people – people of different economic and intellectual means – people who might approach the Writings and our faith in ways of which we could not dream. Change in the way we do things, and our organization, would indeed be inevitable.

AFTERMATH AND CONCLUSION
The suggestions that I have made about the future of the Church causes fear and indeed will terrify many of those who are comfortable with our traditions. Obviously, if we are going to engage in a fight over the vision, there will be shocks and throes. There will be a storm. But I suggest that the storm is necessary. I would like us to be mindful of what our Lord, Jesus Christ, said to his disciples in Mark 4: 35-41, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”
I call on my fellow Board Members to voice their opposition to this resolution. At a minimum, we should call on the Clergy, collectively and individually, to state what in the world they were talking about and what their true desires are. Furthermore, I call on my fellow Board Members to join the fight for the vision which we have been so long in advocating.
In his new bestselling novel, The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, spins a tale where, good men and bad men, using Masonic symbols search our nation’s capitol to find a treasure of profound significance. This treasure, if it falls into the right hands, may be a significant force in changing the world. It would have immense destructive power if it fell into the wrong hands. As it turns out, the treasure is the Bible which Dan Brown refers to as The Word. What was really at stake was not the literal sense of The Word but rather the “hidden layer” or the symbolism of The Word which was handed down from the ancients. In his novel, Brown sets forth the quest for this internal meaning or hidden layer, including significant study by some of the greatest minds in history, including Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Francis Bacon who developed his own “code” to decipher the Bible. Also mentioned was William Blake, a well known reader of Swedenborg. Swedenborg himself is never mentioned.

I found this storyline very significant in two respects. First of all is the idea that the whole world has been thirsting for centuries for the code to explain the internal sense of the Bible, a treasure of profound worth. Second, there is no mention of Swedenborg who, of course, revealed the code. Of course we in the New Church also have the code, which we’ve kept secretly to ourselves for several hundred years.

Not only do we have the code but, due to a fortuitous set of circumstances, we have substantial financial wherewithal which we could spend to share this code with the human race. It is as if we have been given a great talent by our Master. The question is, what shall we now do with this? Shall we bury this talent in the sand or should it be put it into play? We all know what our Master has commanded that we do with this talent. I believe, in my heart, that the Clergy has sent us a signal that, when this Bishop retires, they will give us a new Bishop who will take us backwards. The initiatives that have been started to open the Church to the world will be repudiated and rescinded.

Having said this, I, for one, have a message to the Clergy. You can pass a resolution stating your reservations and concerns about the direction of the Church. You can pass a resolution demanding that the initiatives for the advancement and spreading of the Church be rescinded. You can pass a resolution condemning the Board, the Executives, and the Bishop of the Church. You can even pass a resolution demanding recall of the Bishop, the Executives of the Church, and indeed the Board itself. But you cannot pass a resolution which will change what is in our hearts, and from the abundance of our hearts our mouths will continue to speak.

Al Lindsay
186 Iron Bridge Road, Sarver, PA 16055
Phone: 724-295-2316
Email: al.lindsay186@gmail.com

I stated my personal opinion–regarding doubts I have. And I showed that someone else clearly has doubts because of how the bishop phrased his response in the corporation meeting. I do not know what the bishop’s intentions are, but I would imagine that you do have a good understanding of what he is thinking.

I then went on to say that some members of the clergy expressed their opinion that he *is* taking it seriously. I was glad to hear that and feel that there is hope for the future.

My main point was to show that there is a great deal of hurt and deep concern on the part of the laity and that it is going to take some work on the part of the bishop to allay those concerns and heal the pain. A lot of people are taking a “wait and see” attitude. If anything, we are reserving judgment until we get a clear picture what his intentions are–even if some of us do have doubts.

I am asking him to share with the laity in a very direct way how we are going to correct things and to do so quickly. Let’s not lose the opportunity to spread good will and restore the lost confidence felt by so many church members.

Patrick.

I think a huge number of laypeople will be reassured by the clegy’s resolution, and grateful that it has been circulated around the membership. We will dare to hope that some changes will be made, for the health of the Church.