Official Confession

The 222nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) just voted to include the Confession of Belhar in our Book of Confessions.  This has been in the works for almost 10 years now, because like most democratic government systems, nothing moves quickly through the denomination.  I have been part of two Presbyteries that have dealt with Belhar.  The first, Kiskiminetas Presbytery in Western Pennsylvania, voted to reject the recommendation of the 219th General Assembly that would have adopted the Confession nearly five years ago.  There were complicated reasons for this rejection, including a general resistance of more conservative leaning Presbyteries to anything that altered or was perceived to alter the confessional standards of the denomination.
Belhar was a casualty of the culture war.  It's language of inclusion and equality and it's rejection of doctrine which would further the separation and discrimination within the Body of Christ, made people who were fighting against full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the polity of the Church a little bit nervous. The argument about the Belhar Confession was a bit of an eye-opener for me, as I found myself at odds with colleagues, who up until that point had considered me "like-minded."  After rising to speak in favor of Belhar, I was no longer invited to their discussions.  It is, to this day, the only time I have ever stood up to speak either for or against something on the floor of a Presbytery meeting. My argument wasn't that great, I simply said that if I had to pick a side, I would rather stand with the likes of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King Jr. in speaking for justice and equality for all of God's children. It wasn't that I was right beyond reproach, I was being admittedly emotional and committing several rhetorical sins (name dropping, false equivalency and straw man fallacy), it was rather that I felt like it wasn't even heard.
It wasn't the dialogue everyone said we should be craving, it was gotcha politics and soundbites, spouting of dogma and rhetorical jousting. I wasn't even saying that Belhar was as good as I now think it is, I was just willing to say that we need to say something, we needed to have a dog in the fight.  That moment is also what I would consider the breaking point, where I realized that too many people were willing to split the child in half in order to win the argument.  How could we turn away from a statement of racial reconciliation that we, as a nation, need as much as South Africa?  Were we that afraid of the "homosexual issue?"  Were we that closed off to speaking a new word? Were we that broken?
Belhar did not die with that vote though. The 220th General Assembly sent it back for study, which means they kept it on the table. 221 then recommended it for adoption again and this time around the Presbyteries, including the one I currently serve, enthusiastically adopted it.  Thanks in no small part to the fact that the LGBTQ issues that had been such a divisive factor in 2010, are no longer an open question, and many of those offended by the moves we have made towards inclusion have moved on to more "like-minded" pastures. I am trying to honestly wish them well, and hold on to the unity of the Body of Christ, but I've still got some forgiving to do.  It's hard when people treat you like a heretic for trying to follow Jesus, but I guess he did warn us.
So what is the Confession of Belhar anyway?  And why should anyone other than Presbyterians of the PC(USA) persuasion even care a little bit?
The Confession was a product of the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa (URCSA, Presbyterians love acronyms).  It was written and adopted in 1986 in the midst of Apartheid in the nation of South Africa and it is a solid piece of confessional history that represents a specifically Christian response to such an atrocity.  Both Godfrey Betha, and Alan Boesak (one of the writers of Belhar) represented the URCSA at GA this year and rejoiced that an American Reformed denomination has finally joined with them in this Confession.
Our cultural addiction to bigotry and racism has reached a critical point, and I think that we need an intervention. The Confession of Belhar is sort of like a 12 step program for institutional racism.  The URCSA is sort of like our AA sponsor, they are giving us the benefit of thirty years of sobriety, which they began in an era when their own government was still actively maintaining the system of Apartheid.  Too often white churches (which the PC(USA) definitely is) have been complicit in the perpetuation of those sorts of systemic injustices.  When we call this a Confession, there is a very real sense in which we can mean it in both senses of the word: a statement of faith, and a statement of repentance for our sins.  Racism is not a by gone problem or an issue that has been adequately resolved in our own nation.  We trumpet the Barmen Declaration because it was written against the Nazis, and we all know what bad guys they were.  But it is too safe to shout at the dead dragons of history, it is much more dangerous and necessary to speak into the face of living, breathing evil.
The Confession of Belhar does that, and even if nobody else really cares, I'm actually proud of General Assembly on this day, so I'm gonna hold on to that feeling.
If you missed the link above, please read the Confession of Belhar right here.