Core Callings

I read with great interest the recent article, "Seven core callings for Reformed churches."

PCUSA Stated Clerk, Clifton Kirkpatrick, writes,

"The core callings that we are proposing for your consideration for WARC are:

To covenant for justice in the economy and the earth.

To search for spiritual renewal and renewal of Reformed worship.

To foster communion within the Reformed family and unity within the church ecumenical.

To interpret and re-interpret the Reformed tradition and theology for contemporary witness.

To foster mission in unity, mission renewal and mission empowerment.

To build churches that are truly inclusive of all the people of God.

To enable Reformed churches to witness for justice and peace.

…We believe these core callings are not only the basis on which we should organize the Alliance but also are the core callings that should be at the heart of every Reformed Church so that WARC becomes a corporate expression of our shared values and our common movement to transform the world to the purposes of God."

These seem to be fine, as far as they go, though I remain skeptical how a top-down organization will help make these into reality at a local level. However, my real complaint is about the order or these core callings.

Kirkpatrick writes: The first priority on our list, by intention and not by accident, is for WARC “to covenant for justice in the economy and the earth.” This is the fundamental calling for the Alliance and for our churches coming out of Accra and the distinct contribution that WARC has to offer to the church ecumenical and to the world. We must do this one well!

Silly me, I had always assumed that the "fundamental calling" and the "distinct contribution" of the church was true worship.

As a first core calling, economic justice seems to me to be close to idolatry. It is as if the church exists to promote economic justice. While I agree that the promotion of economic justice should be a priority for Reformed churches, I cannot see how this is a higher calling, or a more essential core than worship.

C. S. Lewis writes in the Screwtape Letters about just this condition. Screwtape tells Wormwood, "What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call 'Christianity And.' You know--Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order,...Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians, let them at least be Christians with a difference."

When I read Kirkpatrick proposal that "the renewal of Reformed worship" be the second core calling, I cringed. He writes:

It was clear to all of us that in covenanting for justice in the economy and the earth, we were taking on the “principalities and powers” of the present age. That will only be possible in the power of the Holy Spirit, which the churches must find through spiritual renewal and the renewal of worship.

Certainly, no Christian mission is possible without the power of the Holy Spirit. With that I totally agree. But what makes me cringe is the implication here that the "power of the Holy Spirit" is a means to an end, that the worship of God is simply a means to an end. And even if worship is a means to and end, doesn't it make sense to make it the first priority?

And then this: This focus on spiritual and worship renewal is in many ways a new venture for WARC.

The renewal of worship as a NEW venture? Excuse my naivete, but what has WARC been doing? Worship in the church is like breathing for people. If people stop breathing, we die. If a church places worship anywhere other than the center of its activities, it, too, shall die.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I believe in "Creation and Fall", makes the same point. In reflecting on Paul's Damascus Road experience, Bonhoeffer points out the questions Paul asks. The first is, "Who are you, Lord?" The second is, "What am I to do?" Bonhoeffer then reflects that this is the biblical order for each Christian, for each church. He says that the church always goes wrong when it asks the questions in the wrong order, what before who. Because what we are called to do is based on who is doing the calling. Without an adequate grasp of the Caller, the call is doomed to frustration and failure. Putting "justice in the economy and the earth" before the renewal of Reformed worship seems to be placing the "What?" question before the "Who" question.

Perhaps I am being too harsh or too critical. But the renewal of our worship, the inflammation of our devotion to Jesus Christ, the transforming and empowering work of the Holy Spirit, the adoration of the beauty and holiness of the Lord, seems to be a more essential core calling than "justice in the economy and in the earth."

Yes, Clifton, "where there is no vision, the people perish." But a vision of what? Of Who?