Stated Clerk's column - May/June 2000

Stated Clerk's column

The Presbyterian Layman Volume 33, Number 3, Posted May 22, 2000

Clifton Kirkpatrick

The apostle Paul exhorted believers to recognize the new reality into which their faith initiated them: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27-28). Paul’s powerful call to unity forms the theme for this year’s meeting of the General Assembly.

On Saturday, June 24, the 212th General Assembly (2000) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) will convene in Long Beach, California. I invite you to support the assembly’s commissioners through faithful prayer and reflection based on Holy Scripture. An aid to prayer and Bible study has been prepared: “For All ... Are One In Christ: The Unity and Diversity of the Body of Christ in Pauline Theology.” The author of this resource is Clarice Martin, a Presbyterian minister and associate professor of philosophy and religion at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.

Individuals and study groups across the church who meditate on the thoughts of Paul which are the focus of Dr. Martin’s commentary will be participating in the same experience as commissioners in Long Beach. Scriptural passages portraying the unity of believers in Jesus Christ will provide a focus for this assembly, centering on the assurance in Galatians 3, as well as exploring texts from Romans, I Corinthians, Philemon, and Ephesians.

Clarice Martin, a distinguished scholar, invites us not only to study but to “pray the Scriptures” as we gather in communities of faith. She quotes Kris Haig of our church’s office of Spirituality and Discipleship, suggesting how we may best bring to the words of Holy Scripture “all our faculties of hearing – mind, emotion, memory, and imagination; hopes, intuitions, and visions.”

In her opening remarks on the theme for 2000, Prof. Martin reminds us that “the grounds for Christin unity, and for Christian unity within the midst of our great diversity (diverse beliefs, worship patterns, and racial, cultural, class, and gender differences), arise from our common status as children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” These words from Galatians 3, she tells us, “provide the grounds for unwavering confidence and assurance of salvation, and the theological basis for Christian solidarity. Paul’s bold declaration to the Christians in the churches of Galatia, and elsewhere in his letters, was direct and uncompromising: the Galatian Christians shared in the one Spirit, and they were elect and holy because they were adopted by God. For Paul, the church was the living continuum of Christ himself, a single, living Body of cosmic dimension, with the risen Christ as its God-appointed head.”

Whether or not you choose this particular resource, it is my hope that you will keep the General Assembly and the whole church in your prayers.

(“For All ... Are One In Christ,” may be ordered for the cost of $4 per copy from the Presbyterian Distribution Service (PDS), 1-800-524-2612. In ordering, please refer to PDS Order Number OGA-00-003.)

Clifton Kirkpatrick

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