“This office advocates for the issues that are passed by the General Assembly,” he stated. I was pleased to hear the non-partisan tone. Nevertheless, I noted some underlying concerns that go beyond the Office of Public Witness.

As September turns toward October in an even-numbered year, almost all the action here in Washington is directed toward the approaching November elections. Not much legislation actually passes Congress. The bills that are put forward for debate are mainly designed to rally one constituency or another to turn out at the polls.

This hyper-partisan season poses a test for churches that are supposed to be non-partisan. Will they play along with the partisan gamesmanship? Or will they stay above the fray? These were questions that I had in mind as I listened in to a September 16 webinar sponsored by the PCUSA Office of Public Witness (formerly the Washington Office).

The webinar was billed as an opportunity to review “the public policy-related overtures approved by the 2010 General Assembly.” Here’s my full account of that webinar. On the whole, the PCUSA webinar lived up to its billing. Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons and three Office of Public Witness staffers stuck closely to the General Assembly actions. They gave fairly accurate information about those actions. They did not even mention the November elections.

The new Office of Public Witness director, the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II, stressed that the office does not devise its own political positions. “This office advocates for the issues that are passed by the General Assembly,” he stated.
I was pleased to hear the non-partisan tone. Nevertheless, I noted some underlying concerns that go beyond the Office of Public Witness:

The list of issues addressed was extensive: immigration, banking, education, the Gulf Oil spill, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq, Haiti, Sudan, and Colombia. How can an office with only three professional staffers effectively engage on so many fronts? Does our denomination have enough unity and focus to arrive at a common Christian position and make a political impact on so many issues?

The stances taken on those issues (with the exception of Sudan) were all clearly toward the left side of the political spectrum. When Office of Public Witness staffers differed with the Obama administration, it was from a position to the left of Obama. (I can’t think of a single instance in recent years when the General Assembly or any of its agencies sided with the conservative Republicans against the liberal Democrats.)

For example, office staffer Leslie Woods opposed the administration’s “Race to the Top” grants to states that implement educational innovations that raise student achievement. She criticized the grants for “funneling money to only some schools.” Woods and the General Assembly resolution rejected such efforts to “address achievement gaps by high-stakes testing and school restructuring without addressing underlying economic disparities in funding.” From their perspective, it seems, more money is the prime solution for public schools that are under-performing.

Among the innovations that have shown some promise of success, charter schools met with particular skepticism from the General Assembly and its staffers. “We’ve always advocated for public schools,” declared Stated Clerk Parsons in the webinar. “It’s at the heart of what we’ve been about for 100 years.” Many Presbyterians, although supportive of public education (my own two children attend public schools in Falls Church, VA), would question whether that particular governmental structure is “at the heart” of what our denomination is about. (I thought it had something to do with Jesus Christ.)

Yet neither Parsons nor the Office of Public Witness staffers acknowledged that many Presbyterians might disagree with the political positions taken in these General Assembly resolutions. They presented the resolutions as moderate and easily palatable to everyone. For example, Parsons summarized an overture demanding increased federal regulation of banking practices thus: “The assembly calls for fair banking, but not banking that hurts people.” Many Presbyterians would question, however, whether tighter government regulation is the cure for every ill in society.

The General Assembly’s research office reports that most PCUSA members are moderate or even lean in a conservative direction. So even if all these General Assembly political pronouncements were straight out of the Bible and right on target, how effective would they be in terms of practical politics? Would members of Congress and the administration pay attention just because a handful of denominational staffers said this was the position of the PCUSA General Assembly? Or would they pay attention to the Presbyterian voters who hold a different position?

Office of Public Witness staffer Catherine Gordon implied some doubts in this connection. She challenged listeners on the webinar to “think about what you can do” to advance the General Assembly political agenda. “In order to have our voice heard on these issues,” Gordon said, “it can’t just be the Washington Office here” speaking on behalf of Presbyterians.

That is an excellent insight. Our public witness will not be effective until it’s PCUSA members speaking together out of a common Christian conviction. It will take a lot more than a passel of General Assembly resolutions to bring us to that point.

We in Presbyterian Action pray and work toward that end. That’s why we monitor the Office of Public Witness. We praise it when it moves in the right direction, as this recent webinar evidenced. At the same time, we challenge that office and the whole denomination to go much further toward a renewed Christian witness that will have biblical integrity and social impact.

Presbyterian Action for Faith and Freedom is an IRD committee that defends and promotes biblical values within the Presbyterian Church (USA). We monitor denominational agencies and meetings, speaking out for the many Presbyterians who feel excluded by the dominant activist circles of the left. This article appeared on the PC website and is used with permission: http://www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=231