General Assembly 2025, tentative conclusions
The road to Memphis and "Beyond" for the Disciples of Christ
This is my fifth & final entry about the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Assembly in mid-July of 2025; links to the previous four posts can be found at the end of this one. Keep in mind I arrived in mid-GA, missing the first two days of the four. I had hoped to make it in time for the evening worship on Sunday, July 13th, but heavy rain & wrecks on the road between Nashville & Memphis got me in as worship was ending.
At the end of the fourth post I noted my intention to pick up with some “context from Dr. Lee Butler, formerly of Phillips Theological Seminary now of Iliff School of Religion, who has some things to say about pyramids and Egypt and the American Nile and bondage and the Bible Belt and the No-Sin Zone in which we most emphatically do not find ourselves.” He picked up the theme of the somewhat ominous pyramid outside the doors of the convention center, and whose picture I put atop my “Day 3” post.
Dr. Butler is now President of Iliff School of Theology; that’s a United Methodist theological school, where he is an American Baptist ordained clergyperson. My previous awareness of him was as Vice-President and Academic Dean for Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma; we overlapped one year as I began teaching for them in their online certificate program, but he left for Iliff in 2023 before I could visit the campus in person (which I still haven’t done!).
Plus before Phillips, he taught at Chicago Theological Seminary, which is a seminary affiliated with the United Church of Christ (UCC), a tradition with which my own faith story is deeply entwined. Dr. Butler is a very ecumenical Christian teacher, with special emphasis on the traditions I’m closest to.
He opened with an observation that at least in part had occurred to most of us, as we drove up to the convention center with a giant oddly illuminated pyramid across the street. It’s apparently two-thirds the size of the Great Pyramid in Giza, a nod to the Egyptian roots of the name Memphis, and now hosts a Bass Pro Shop megastore inside.
Dr. Butler turned to the deeper roots of why a Memphis was here in Tennessee, and the Mississippi River flowing past, known more often in earlier days as “the American Nile.” And he began to unpack in detail the history of the American Nile, the image of empire in monumental form, the story of the Deep South which opens downstream in the Delta region, and of course about slavery, and the imperfect end of the era of slavery into the reality of a century of lynchings and terror and injustice, still hanging in the humid air of the river valley, weighed down by the heat of the sun and depth of the nighttime.
All of which he turned, slowly, steadily, into a calm, dispassionate analysis of something he called “theological narcissism,” and how we struggle in every generation to turn our eyes toward God, even as we have a tendency to make everything about ourselves, our needs, our wants. And he broke it down into a very basic, simple problem.
“Is this a no-sin zone?”
That’s the question Dr. Butler asked us, at a conference in Memphis, in the shadow of the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid, next to the American Nile.
“We are in the heart of the Bible Belt here, almost at the very buckle of its embrace,” Dr. Butler said. Especially in the early years of Memphis and the Mississippi valley, across the legendary Delta bottomlands extending south from here towards New Orleans, Christianity was pre-eminent. Christian teaching was dominant, the (Protestant) Bible at the center of the culture, ministers and congregations the heart of civil affairs, and well past the Civil War into the modern era it has been Christian teachings which stood to the fore of the schoolhouse, the courthouse, even in the storehouse and into the jail house.
Yet it is also an area where infidelity and illegitimate birth, abortion and poverty, robbery and murder along with illiteracy and illness are present at record levels. What’s wrong here, asked Dr. Butler? If the Christian church is allowed to be a dominant influence, as it has been in so many ways over the last two centuries, shouldn’t this be a no-sin zone? “Is this a no-sin zone?” he asked, piercingly?
If not, and it isn’t, then what went wrong? Dr. Butler suggested there was a flaw in our theology. It could be, he allowed, that Christianity if widely practiced might not reduce sin, but he did not believe that was true. Faith in God and trust in Christ should reduce, if not completely eliminate sin. If the church was largely in control of a culture, and sin abounded, there is a flaw, even a heresy at work. He called his primary suspect “theological narcissism.”
Theological narcissism, Dr. Butler said, is an assumption that one’s own self is closer to God than someone different from one’s self-identity. And I trust I do no violence to his thesis to fill in from a theologian of a century ago but just two hundred miles to the east, in Nashville.
In my religious tradition’s history, there are few figures more amazing in range and scope of their work and thought than Preston Taylor (1849-1931). As a leader among African American churches in the Restoration Movement, he served in the Civil War, had success in constructing railroads, and founded a funeral home and cemetery in Nashville, having served as an elder and preacher in his church from age 20. He formed the National Christian Missionary Convention for African American Disciples of Christ churches and preachers in 1917.
In his inaugural address to the convention, which he served as President for fourteen years, he proclaimed to the wider church “…if the white brother can include in his religious theory and practice the colored people as real brothers, he will have avoided the heresy of all heresies.”
The heresy of all heresies. I thought of Rev. Taylor in 1917 Nashville as I listened to Dr. Butler in 2025 Memphis, and about the theological narcissism he warned us about. It was precisely this blindness, this lack of fellow feeling, this absence of basic justice, this heresy of all heresies, which explained why the Bible Belt failed to become a no-sin zone. Racism, the practical working out of beliefs about the relative humanity of different people, Taylor argued was “the heresy of all heresies.” You can argue theologically with that categorization if you like, but it answers Butler’s question about why the Bible Belt and Memphis and the United States were and are not a “no-sin zone.” Theological narcissism expressed as racial bias, or vice versa, gives you barriers and blindness and faith that is no faith, because it is seen as only really operative for people like yourself. And “separate but equal” works no better in building churches or faith communities than it does in education or civic affairs. The man who was killed in this city, at the Lorraine Motel in 1968, wrote in a Birmingham, Alabama jail cell five years earlier:
“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham, Alabama jail,” April 16, 1963
Our faith can change human hearts and transform the world, but our cultural barriers and exclusions can block how that faith flows and moves people. By the banks of the mighty Mississippi, I found myself thinking about how we divert the flow of grace, and let sin flourish.
What, then, does a meditation on theological narcissism tell us about the present status and future prospects of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)? Our General Minister and President, Rev. Terri Hord Owens, heard Dr. Butler’s keynote, and I was present to hear her repeat the phrase “theological narcissism” three more times, the last in her remarks near the end of the closing worship. I suspect she said it more than three times in Memphis, and is still talking about it. The two words struck a chord for her, and I believe for all of us hearing it.
We have a definite problem in our tradition of seeing things our way, not that this is unusual. Among mainline/oldline Protestant religious bodies, we’re in good company when it comes to a worship and practices kind of “theological narcissism.” We are defensive of our preferences as normative, and our inclusion may be a bit better than the surrounding culture or communities we live in, but not by much, and not enough for what Christian community arguably ought to be.
In an earlier installment (again, there are links to the previous four posts about GA 2025 at the end of this one), I tried to talk about the slowly collapsing tension between “Institutionalists” and “Idealists” in the GA context in particular, and across the Disciples of Christ more generally. My intention was to offer this dichotomy less as a split between two groups of people in attendance, though there’s some of that, but as a description of two impulses which weighed variously within most active and engaged Disciples of Christ clergy and lay leaders. The “institutionalism” in most of us is fading — that’s the biggest part of what I wanted to say.
But it’s also fair to say that the group of people for whom “institutionalism” is their primary orientation towards church life has been declining, while “idealism” is more dominant in the floor discussions and overall attitudes at a GA, or even within most regions as they do their particular ministries, from regional assemblies to regional committees and commissions.
Speaking more from the clerical side of the equation, when I got involved in church life after moving to Ohio in 1989, the senior clergy who sought to mentor and guide younger ministers like me were people like Willard Guy, Russ Deitch, Floyd Faust, Harry Smith, and Jerry Sullivan. I’ve written elsewhere, I hope with respect, about how Willard was very emphatic with me that my focus should be on “churchmanship” and work in “the Brotherhood.” He saw community work, even Scouting or jail ministry and certainly housing and homelessness as “horsefeathers.” An extraneous activity that didn’t build up the congregation and wasn’t where I should put my time, no matter how much time I put into church work.
If you say “um, terms like churchmanship and Brotherhood are, uh, kinda sexist?” well, you may have noticed that this generation was pretty exclusively male. There were women in ministry when I came to Ohio, but they were younger, and faced an uphill struggle in any direction other than in CWF work. This is the world the old guard knew, of emphasizing Brotherhood causes and mastering the fine art of churchmanship to increase support for Basic Mission Finance (which some of them still tended to call “Unified Promotion" which is the predecessor of BMF, now DMF), using the Ohio World Budget process to promote general units and other specifically Disciples causes.
Another aspect of the Institutionalism that used to be in the ascendant around regional and general work I see reflected in how at Regional Assemblies, in between GA years, there were always “Clergy & Spouse Luncheons” which had been “& Wife” five minutes ago. I attended two in Indiana through seminary, and then came to Ohio where my first RA was in 1990, but the clergy lunch program was nearly identical. Prefatory to the regional minister’s address to the clergy, there was a program where different things would be asked like “would everyone who is an alumni of CTS please stand” and so on around a variety of experiences or characteristics. The culmination was always to have all ministers stand, then a period such as “less than five years, be seated” would be announced, stage by stage, until a couple of elderly ministers would be left standing, and the interval dropped to one year at a time until the longest ordained minister was standing alone, to a round of applause.
In the assortment before that, one category always mentioned was “ministers who have served in the military.” It was to my recollection a dozen or so of us in 1986 & 1988 in Indiana. In Ohio, this was announced at the clergy lunch in 1990, and two of us stood: Willard Guy, and myself. We turned and I bowed to him: Willard was chaplain to a unit that crossed Europe in 1944-5 and he was present with his troops at the Battle of the Bulge. The honor was rightfully his.
In 1992 Willard did not attend, and the category was not mentioned at the lunch program.
What I’m trying to describe, for those who weren’t around in the 1980s or 90s, is that we had been and still were in many ways a very institutionalist Order of Ministry. The structures and patterns and sequences of the church were fairly clear and easy to follow, even if the living out of it all was challenging. Institutionalism meant those who served the institution of the church advanced, and those who advanced in that service would in turn advance the institution.
We also had plenty of idealism, to the theological and the political left and also to the right. I could spend a whole post and then some on the foibles & flaws of Herald Monroe as the regional minister who shaped the Ohio Region for generations, but he had a passion for the Beloved Community, which he picked up from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and carried into Camp Christian . . . because autocrat though he was in many ways as a regional leader, he knew the congregations of his region were largely unsympathetic to the civil rights struggle (or at least from his correspondence he clearly thought so), but the CYF Conference program was a different thing altogether, and an area where he could invite or include anyone he wished. Youth conferences were no longer segregated as they had been before World War II (I can’t determine for sure where that happened between the late-1930s and 1950, but by 1950 there was no longer a “separate but equal” CYF event).
Progressive idealists could co-exist with Institutionalists in regional and general life in many ways, but evangelical idealism was at odds with the institution when it pressed for increased focus on soul saving, conversion, missionaries, and maintaining Biblical roots for all our activities (“Bible names for Bible things” was one common catchphrase in the earlier movement, hence our default to “Fellowship Hall” for church basements rather than undercrofts or social centers, because “fellowship” was a Bible word). A few preachers and some very vocal lay leaders would call for, at regional and general assemblies, a variety of resolutions to put “Christ at the center of all we do” or “requiring all general units to include in their reports how their work spreads the Gospel as we are expected to do as part of the Great Commission.” These were seen, however, as callbacks to the forces around the 1926 split, meaning the Institutionalist camp or faction or spirit, however you want to put it, was biased (for cause, they would argue) against conservative Idealists. So conservative Idealism had very little purchase within our Institutionalist sentiments, while progressive Idealism made steady progress — and the Vietnam era brought into ministry a significant number of Institutionalist oriented clergy who were radicalized, if you will, by the question of the draft, into distinctly progressive Idealism in their general makeup.
Back in the Beforetimes (pre-COVID, kids) at General Assemblies, we worried about the conflict between progressive and conservative idealists around social justice resolutions. Dick Hamm spent a great deal of his time as GMP from 1993 to 2003 trying to help us as a wider church think about the role of these sorts of motions, and the place they should occupy; likewise, we had a long history of evangelically tinged motions from the floor asking the GA to vote "to affirm the centrality of Jesus Christ" or "the infallibility of Scripture." The conservative motions were almost always referred to Reference & Counsel or the General Board for consideration and didn't come to the floor; the progressive motions generally got amended but voted on with a certain amount of raucous (if generally polite) debate.
But in candor, the last time I recall a real back and forth during business meetings was 2009 in Indianapolis. In 2013 in Orlando (which I did not attend, and streaming video was only available for worship, not business sessions, so this is all secondhand), we voted on GA-1327 calling on our church to be "a people of grace and welcome to all" and it passed with, I was told, very few "nay" votes. Fewer than expected. It was made clear at the assembly and in public statements after by GMP Sharon Watkins that this was NOT binding on local congregations (or even regions, though that was said more indirectly), but we saw in the Midwest an overwhelming majority of our Hispanic congregations leave the Disciples, along with a few others.
Since then, in Columbus & Indianapolis & Des Moines (2015, 2017, 2019) there was nearly a complete silence in opposition to social justice oriented resolutions, a silence that was actually commented on from the platform. Fairly controversial (in theory) resolutions on controversial stances would pass with a general "yea" chorus, but not even the former loud if scattered patter of "nays." So little opposition in 2017 I recall a moderator actually asking a second time for "nays," but no one spoke.
This could mean we just all agree on stuff now, right? After 2013, we're more aligned with a progressive set of stances, maybe?
Then let me post this graphic from the much respected and data driven Ryan Burge, an American Baptist minister and professor, now with Washington University of St. Louis:
See my point? We didn't get MORE progressive as a church generally -- the CES data is some of the most robust social science survey data out there, and I'd bet my Alexander Campbell portrait it's accurate -- we're if anything possibly more conservative out across the pews. But those views just don't make it to the floor, and in opportunities to speak out, clergy and other leaders who disagree don't feel . . . comfortable? Safe? Appropriate? Pick your word, but "nay" voices don't speak and did not in Louisville 2023 or Memphis 2025. If there were protests at or around the microphones, it has been that stances weren't progressive *enough* . . . which itself is interesting.
So I hope wherever you stand on social justice issues, you can see why my overall assessment is a rueful "no, we are not better at managing conflict." We've convinced conservative idealists to essentially give up on GA as a place to speak, and that worries me. Both on issues where I'd be tempted to join that stance, and even when I do not.
Meanwhile, in 2024 Disciples were 51% Republican, 49% Democrat in their voting for President, and I think that should surprise no one . . . but I've heard from more than a few colleagues who insist that can't be right. To which I say "you should get out more." I wouldn't have been surprised if the CES showed us more like 55% to 45% R v. D. Should we work harder to make sure conservative voices are heard? That’s where this gets tricky.
My impression is that in the Institutionalist/Idealist mix, whether within the human heart or numerically across a GA floor, has for Disciples widely and clergy in particular gotten much more Idealist in leaning than Institutionalist. If you talk in online forums or at regional events about stuff like, oh, attendance or membership numbers, and certainly about money, I think you can pick up quickly on how fiscal and statistical information is seen as Institutionalist, and not in a good way; if you talk about causes and positions and passions and, well, ideals, that’s Idealism which is much more widely affirmed. I could and should try to dissect more carefully how and why we’ve swung from a much more Institutional orientation in our regional and general boards and processes, to a more Idealist perspective, but it’s enough for now to ask if you would agree . . . and agreeing isn’t saying we should go back to a more balance sheet and Yearbook report oriented world, which isn’t happening anyhow. Idealism is good and right and true much of the time, and Institutionalism isn’t what Jesus was talking about, for sure . . . but there’s a certain measure of realism even in the Gospels about practical, if not institutional matters (Luke 8:1-3 comes to mind here).
The undertone of both relief and celebration in the closing worship, voiced by all three General Minister & Presidents there in person (John Humbert was with us in a recorded message, his health not permitting the trip, but he was the fourth with us if only in spirit), was about a very practical set of adjustments we were formally putting into motion after the votes in Louisville two years before. There was still uncertainty in the air, as the new pattern of GA in-person every three years was put on hold, as the General Board I think prudently pressed pause on plans for GA 2028 due to fiscal uncertainty. Idealism might say “let’s press on!” Institutionalists said “if we can’t hit 2,500, who’s paying that penalty?” Terri Hord Owens was exuberant about the decisions we have made as church about a smaller General Board and Administrative Committee, and I think they were all good choices, but they were also made out of a certain amount of practical necessity. We don’t have the money to have more meetings, in person, with the church paying travel costs for more people. Holding some GA events and deliberation online is simply fiscal common sense, and the options frankly were few.
I could ask some pointed questions about the degree of relief and thanksgiving expressed by the three GMPs, over the church doing what it had to do and really had almost no choice about — it suggests some were fighting these moves strongly, and it was worth celebrating that reason prevailed or at least arms were laid down. Who or what was carrying on the resistance to these moves? But maybe that’s my anxiety bubbling up as I thought about the four figure bill I’d be paying the next day for my car repair to get home. It did remind me of "Fifty Years of Attack and Controversy" by Stephen J. Corey, published in 1953 about the battles which raged from before the 1909 Centennial Convention in Pittsburg (yes, it was without the “h” in that year) to his era as Restructure was being pulled together out of the Disciples of Christ’s struggles following the 1926 Memphis walk-out.
Corey, a long-time general ministry stalwart, was an Institutionalist through and through; in his day, he would have been seen as a progressive Idealist, though he wouldn’t sound like it to today’s ears. The subtitle of his 1953 work was “the consequences among Disciples of Christ.” He firmly believed those “Fifty Years,” the push in the church to division, and the controversies over baptism and missions, all had consequences, bad ones for not just his church body, but for disciples of Christ more generally.
In fact, I only recently learned his little-known 1953 work is a sequel of sorts, to a privately published volume he put out in 1900 titled “Fifty years of heresy hunting - the aftermath.” I’m working on getting ahold of a copy of it, but Corey is clearly on a roll here, indicating from 1850 to 1900, and again from then to 1953, as an Institutionalist concerned about conservative Idealism leading to heresy hunting, attacks, controversy, and splits. It appears that Corey is a harbinger of the wider tradition within the institutional church towards progressive Idealism as supportive of the Institutionalist model, and a (perhaps deservedly) harsh critic of conservative Idealists.
Yet the conservative Idealists aren’t at the table, at least at GAs, and if Ryan Burge is to be trusted (which I think he is), they’re still in our churches. Who’s fighting Institutional common sense, if it’s not conservative voices?
This is where I have to express my concern about a third factor in church life. It may be just my own experience and preferences tripping me up, but I can handle the tensions, internal and external, around Institutionalism and Idealism in the life of the Disciples of Christ, even if I wonder about the absence of conservative Idealism from our decision making processes. The third factor is, to me, a bit of a wild card, and one that my partial awarenesses makes me leery of. That additional group in the mix I would call the Activists.
Activists are institutional for their cause, up to a point. But an Activist is an Idealist with a much more specific, and pointed, and targeted agenda motivating them. Let me say right away the same thing I said about the urges towards Institutionalism and Idealism. People generally aren’t all one or the other. They’re two tendencies in group life, and in church life. Activism is similar in that a person can have all three impulses working variously within their motivations, but Activism tends to be much more hostile to Institutionalism. Idealism can lead to Activism, but Institutionalism rarely does. There’s a flow to the three, but Activism is a more urgent, channeled, focused flow. It, too, comes in both progressive and conservative flavors, and I want to give you some examples . . . and I will likely annoy or upset almost everyone before I get done.
Let me start with conservative Activism. Two working examples most of us are aware of: Samaritan’s Purse, and Lifewise Academy. I’ll put my cards on the table here: I am extremely wary of both groups, and I’ve had some definite negative experiences to back this up. They offer up their support as being good for churches, but I would skip a bunch of steps and just say flat out: they want your mailing list to solicit your members directly for donations. Yes, Samaritan’s Purse does a program for children at Christmas which is much beloved by many of our members. I can also tell you once you follow their very carefully prescribed steps for packing a gift box, they now have your contact information, and you will get solicitations from Samaritan’s Purse. Give them money beyond the Operation Christmas Child, and you will get big glossy fundraising packages four times a year. Lifewise (and a number of other programs aimed at doing a ministry to youth in your community) is interested in getting donations, and once they have you on their mailing list, they are highly effective in following up. I think there is a fair amount of good intention in both groups, but in many ways the kids’s gift boxes and the release time programming are almost subservient to the higher goal which is fundraising directly from your members to the organization.
Before you bristle, if you are a fan or supporter of either, let me note that it’s long been understood that the Big Four automakers make their profits NOT on selling cars, but on financing. You wouldn’t think it at first, but the balance sheets are clear. They are all banks, with a side hustle in making vehicles to get you to use their financing. My dad always talked about how if you paid cash you got a discount on a new car . . . that hasn’t been true for a very long time. Ditto air travel: passenger service actually LOSES money for most of the major carriers (United, Delta, Southwest, American). But they’re profitable, because they make their money on a strange brew of frequent flier miles, loyalty points, and airline branded credit cards. Delta credit cards had one BILLION dollars charged through them in 2024.
That’s the Activism dilemma for pastors like me. Even when you agree with what they’re doing, the end result is going to be your best givers will have been linked up with some of the finest fundraising talent in the Western Hemisphere. Ministers tell me they see the decline in giving after these groups get their hooks into your books, so to speak. Once, a ministry or mission wanted to be on your church’s budget as an Outreach line item; now, they don’t care much about that — they want access to your membership and their giving directly, ideally as a sustaining gift, aka straight from their bank to the activist cause. You’ll never know for sure how much is re-routed, other than calculating if there’s a dip in church contributions.
Having said that sternly, I’ll turn the table to note the same concern holds with progressive Activism. And I’ll put in the dock a group I spoke very cordially to in the person of Bishop William Barber, on multiple occasions in Memphis as a fellow minister, and his organization, “Repairers of the Breach.” Note this picture:
“Text ‘Moral’ to 32846” is at the center of the rally. It was a major event at the General Assembly in Memphis. I went. I’m glad I went. I agree with at least 92% of everything Brother Barber said.
It is also the case that the centerpiece sign said “Text ‘Moral’ to 32846” — which puts you on the fundraising roster for “Repairers of the Breach.” The crowd was being worked, fairly aggressively where I stood, by young activists with clipboards who wanted you to sign up with your name, address, and email. I get it, that’s how these things are done these days. A few hundred new names went on the mailing list for solicitations that day from mostly Disciples for the support of . . . “Repairers of the Breach.”
The problem is: “Repairers of the Breach” is not the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Bishop Barber is not our General Minister and President. He has a cause, and an organization he is supporting, and they want our support. I do not for one moment think we should work in isolation for the causes we support as vital to our calling. But are we considering well what it means to see the Activist perspective taking an increasing lead in our wider life? The Activists, and I think I’m being measured and fair when I say this, do not care one little bit about our congregations and their vitality or prospects. Activists want the support of people they can reach through them, so whether Samaritan’s Purse or Lifewise Academy or Repairers of the Breach they will be happy to attend our events or invite our congregations to work through them, but we need to be mindful of the fact that they are going to be soliciting our members strongly.
Meanwhile, much of the complication of our current funding system WITHIN the general church traces back to comity agreements and internal defenses we created starting back in the early-early 1900s to reduce the volume of appeals congregations were getting from various ministries of the church. Much of the relief I thought I heard from the GMPs about our turn to a different model for organizing the General Board and Administrative Committee goes back to the regional relationships which have been sorely tested by the last three decades of decline and retrenchment. What I’m saying is: there could NOT, in any way shape or form, have been an event at the Memphis GA where a rally was held for Reconciliation Ministries, where signs went up and clipboards circulated to get names and contact info to solicit financial and practical support for our OWN general church ministry of racial reconciliation. We have rules, rules with some teeth in them, keeping colleges and seminaries in the Exhibit Hall and scheduled lunches, and the various Home and Global Ministries restricted for how and in what way they can ask for support.
“Repairers of the Breach” has no such restrictions.
This isn’t new. In those early-early 1900s our general church leaders — like Stephen Corey — were concerned about the role & influence of the WCTU, the YMCA, and Christian Endeavor, all of which were outside ministries which were (you guessed it) soliciting our churches and members, while we tried to manage and moderate the fundraising and appeals within the church. I’m up against a limit here on Substack, so I may have to add a sixth historic context for the end of my review of GA 2025, and what “Beyond” can or should look like.
What I hope we can all think about in our regions, as well as for the general church in all its forms, independent units as well as ones under the authority of the GA (which is fewer of them than you probably realize), is the NEED we have for a constructive tension between the Institutionalist impulse, and the Idealist fervor, both within all of us, but especially as that tension plays out in ministerial formation . . . and while we balance the Institutionalism and Idealism, we need to keep a wary eye out organizationally for the ways Activism can excite and enliven us, but is less interested in our wider mission than we as Disciples of Christ need to be.
=+=+=+=
First entry on GA 2025 -
https://knapsack.substack.com/p/general-assembly-2025-preview
Second entry on GA 2025 -
https://knapsack.substack.com/p/general-assembly-2025-day-3
Third entry on GA 2025 -
https://knapsack.substack.com/p/general-assembly-2025-day-4-dawns
Fourth entry on GA 2025 -
https://knapsack.substack.com/p/general-assembly-2025-review-and
The phrase “theological narcissism” reminded me of hearing MGR talk about “the idolatry of our theological beliefs” to a gathering of Disciples regional ministers — and watching the room bristle.