1,383
April 19, 2016...1,383 days ago, as of today.
I've been thinking about entering a post like this for months. Why I'm doing it today, I can't say. There is nothing special about this day. Apparently, it's time.
It was, as of today, 1,383 days ago that the delegates to the 2016 annual sessions of the Eastern Regional Conference of the CGGC instructed the leadership of the Conference to recall my ordinance certificate.
That certificate remains in my possession. (We moved last November 5, and, since then, I haven't actually laid eyes on it, though I'm certain that it's somewhere in the apartment, or in our storage space.)
Back in the day, for a time after it occurred to me that ERC holders of institutional authority didn't plan to submit to the authority of the Eldership and to recall my ordination certificate, I put a number at the top of each post on my A Layman's Log blog.
For example, 75. The 75 represented the number of days that the ERC's holders of institutional authority were guilty of insubordination to the authority of the church by not obeying its instruction.
Today, it's 1,383.
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Here's a brief history of those 1,383 days:
Several of my friends across the Conference informed me of what was happening at Conference in April 2016.
In the days, then weeks, then months that followed, I waited to hear from Conference staff, presumably the Executive Director.
Nothing.
Several months after the Conference instructed it's leaders to recall my ordination certificate, I received a businesslike email from Pastor George Jensen on behalf of the ERC Commission on Church Renewal asking me to cooperate with the Commission in some matters related to the gathering at Faith.
George explained that the request was being made, based on the reality that I'd been defrocked and the Commission needed to deal with the reality that an ERC congregation didn't have, well, a pastor.
I replied to George that I was not aware that my credentials had been removed because the Conference had not recalled my ordination certificate.
As a result, I noted, it would not be appropriate for me to respond to the Commission as if I was no longer a credentialed member of the Eldership.
Some time not too many weeks later, I received a notice from my mail carrier that there was a piece of mail waiting for me at my local post office which had been sent from ERC in Harrisburg, PA. I would be required to sign a form stating that I'd received the letter. About a week later, a second notice arrived and, later on, there was a final notice along with a warning that the mailing would soon be returned to its sender. I can only assume that it was returned.
I, of course, have no idea precisely what was inside the envelope.
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Why didn't I retrieve the letter?
I could guess what it said. I'd received a similar notice in 2015 and did retrieve it.
That first letter notified me that the ERC Administrative Council had met at the conclusion of 2015 Conference Sessions and voted to recall my ordination certificate. According to the Constitution of the ERC, if I didn't return the certificate, the act of the Council would become effective upon the approval of Ad Council minutes at the following Conference sessions.
Instead, in 2016, a brother in ministry called the issue to the attention of the Conference in session, that article in the minutes was extracted for specific action and the whole Conference actually voted to instruct ERC staff to recall my ordination certificate.
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Anyway,...
...why didn't I retrieve the second letter?
I didn't retrieve it to call the ERC to be true to its word.
Back then, the ERC web page linked, it still does, to the CGGC's We Believe. That document announces that, in our body, the Bible is our "only rule of faith and practice."
I, personally, embrace that item of our shared faith and I do my best to live that principle in my own life. As a member of a CGGC congregation, I was...am...asking no less of the rest of the body.
When I criticize holders of institutional authority in the CGGC and ERC, it is over that essential element of our belief.
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Discipline among followers of Jesus is an issue addressed several times in the New Testament. It's clear how it should be undertaken in the "New Testament plan."
Certainly, discipline, in the New Testament plan, is not something that can be addressed through the exchange of letters.
According to Jesus, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault just between the two of you.
That personal, face-to-face, encounter is essential to the love for one another necessary to the carrying out of discipline in the New Testament plan.
What's more to the purpose of discipline in the New Testament Plan, among the people of the Kingdom, discipline is to achieve reconciliation, the redeeming of the broken relationship.
I didn't retrieve the letter for that reason: Reconciliation, the redemption of broken relationship...
...and, secondarily, of course, to live with the Bible as my only rule of faith and practice.
I didn't retrieve the letter because I hoped to call my brothers and sisters to a face-to-face reconciliation-focused encounter.
I didn't retrieve the letter in the hope that, as we obeyed the "love one another as I have loved you" command of Jesus, there might be reconciliation, redemption, even restoration.
Of course, there's been no reconciliation. No redemption of relationship. No restoration.
There was no face-to-face encounter. There was, in my opinion, no Bible as our only rule of faith and practice.
The person who was under obligation to submit to the authority of the Eldership, at the time, didn't submit. After I didn't retrieve the letter, nothing was done.
I still have my ordination certificate because it has not been recalled. I have not been asked to return it.
I haven't refused to return it. I wouldn't refuse. I was never given the chance to refuse.
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What does the fact that I'm still, by virtue of the fact that I possess my ordination certificate, an ordained pastor in the ERC say about the ERC?
What does it say about me? (I'll allow others...I even invite others...to assess the me issue.)
But, what is the commentary on the ERC?
My emotion about all of this has long since evaporated. Even in recounting the events in this post, recalling and describing the tale, I felt little.
As a prophet, my vantage point is from 40,000 feet in the air.
Here is some of what I think these events reveal about the ERC:
1. Truth matters very little. The system of church government in our body, from our first day in 1830, has declared that it is the church, the body, organized as a Conference or Eldership, that is our ultimate human authority.
Certainly, we claim that the Bible is our "only rule of faith and practice," but, in the CGGC, it is the body, the Eldership, that determines what we do in real life in response to what the Word teaches.
Interestingly, these days when a man or woman seeks credentials among us, the people who are guardians of the ERC gate go to great lengths to determine that a candidate shares our belief about the church.
Yet, in my case, the fact that we believe in the authority of the Eldership hasn't moved ERC staffers, who are servants of the Eldership, to action.
ERC people talk our church government talk, but there's no action. Clearly, what we believe to be truth about the church doesn't matter in real world action.
2. Relationship matters very little. This is the shocker. In the end, no one cared enough about what is demanded of them for the sake of the body to do what they were responsible to do for the sake of the body. And, no one held others accountable to do their duty for the sake of the body.
3. There is a vast divide separating official faith and practice. In our first days, the Church of God was known first and foremost by what it's people did.
Much was written in those early days about what we believe, but those books and pamphlets and magazine articles came along to describe what was already being lived out. That is no longer the case in the body, at least in the U. S..
In my case, the Conference, which we agree is our ultimate human authority, instructed the holders of institutional in the Conference to obey its directive.
The holders of institutional authority in the Conference didn't submit to ERC authority initially, and only did so months later...and then only after being confronted publicly by me,...and only then in a legally justifiable way that would pass muster with an attorney, but not with the Lord...and they still haven't completed the task.
Very significantly also, the Eldership itself doesn't care that its directive to Conference staff goes uncompleted.
I've been clear about that here, in this forum. Several people of position in the ERC read this blog, and interact with me regularly.
We have faith but no real world practice.
4. Cynicism rules. All across the American CGGC body no one follows anyone.
Some want to imagine themselves to be leaders, but no one does anything that can be followed. We have no followership at any level in our body.
In my case, ERC staff didn't follow the Eldership and, for nearly four years, no one has cared.
There is no mutual submission in the CGGC.
There is no mutual submission because we don't obey the love one another command of Jesus. Instead, we wander around, occasionally bumping into each other and, as was the case during the time of the Old Testament Judges, everyone does what is right in his own eyes.
As a matter of what we do in real life, we disregard the Word and the will of God.
And, of course, we decline in number and, in the Spirit, we decay.
What we need to do is love each other as Jesus loved us and, as Paul admonished the brothers and sisters in Ephesus be "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ."
But, cynicism, not love nor submission, is our way. We all do what is right in our own eyes. We have no real community.
We decay spiritually because we are already spiritually decayed.
5. We must repent.
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So, we are at day 1,383.
My defrocking remains unconsummated... and for all the worst possible reasons.
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