Fireworks in Pittsburgh!

Pittsburgh sure does know how to put on a fireworks display!   Stunning light displays accompanied by a cacophony of booming retorts rocked the skies above Pittsburgh Wednesday night.  Meanwhile, fireworks of another kind had been set off earlier that day as the General Assembly met in plenary and heard the prepared statement of resignation from Vice-Moderator Tara Spuhler McCabe.  Rev. McCabe had been witness to a marriage (legal in Washington, DC where it took place) of two women which is contrary to our constitution Even with this knowledge, the assembly had approved her as vice-moderator with a commanding majority.  Rev. McCabe cited as her reasons for resigning a pastoral concern for the unity of the church following a wave of vitriolic blogs, emails and texts aimed at her and threats that the Assembly proceedings for the rest of the week could be derailed by attempts to remove her.  Her resignation stunned the Assembly on "all sides of the aisle."  By that evening, Teaching Elder Tom Trinidad from Pueblo Presbytery agreed to stand for vice-moderator.  A request was made to allow 20 minutes to discuss what had happened prior to the vote on Trinidad and this was defeated by about two votes.  Rev. Trinidad was then elected and installed with great majorities. But the undercurrents of tension continued.  The question I kept hearing was, "What are we becoming as a church?"  "You know who you are," wrote the Apostle Paul, "It is not yet clear what you will become."  Paul was talking about the astonishing work of the transformation of heart and life by the Holy Spirit.  A Spirit I continue to trust to move us through our very real differences - to hold them in creative and generative tension - even while holding us all together in the unity of the Triune God.


The work of the Assembly continues.  In other news the Assembly:

• Commissioned mission co-workers (including the 122 Young Adult Volunteers serving all over the world including nine in the Presbytery de Cristo at the Tucson Borderlands Site)
• Celebrated examples of innovative new worshipping communities springing up all around the country as part of the 1001 New Worshipping Communities initiative of the General Assembly Mission Council.  (Check them out on the PCUSA website!) 
• Disapproved overtures to change the language of the Constitution which holds Presbyterian property in trust of the whole church.
• Disapproved much of the Mid-Council Commission's report including disapproving non-geographic presbyteries and replacing the Commission's time-line for re-organizing the Synod structure with a new plan to study the role of Synods over the next two years.  

More about that later.  For now, a view of the Synod of the Southwest's G.A.M.E in which about 40 young people are experiencing the General Assembly.  (Above)

Signing off, late afternoon, Thursday, July 5, 2012.