Faith: Christianity today in the USA - some thoughts on the current scene inside and outside the PCUSA

1. The PCUSA (the church I currently belong to is part of the PCUSA) has a lot going for it conceptually. 
Most of my church life has been in congregational ruled churches and I have friends mostly in those settings as well. There is good and bad to congregational rulership of churches. The bad is that sometimes there can be a "cult of personality" which can be very unhealthy so the oversight and accountability structures of the PCUSA are noble and wise. I have seen those mechanisms used effectively to help a PCUSA church I was a part of get back on its feet after a season of conflict within its leadership team.

2. PCUSA as an entity is deeply divided.
I have heard those rumblings back in 1998 when I first started to attend a PCUSA church and because of the growing troubles in the denomination nationally, the thought of leaving PCUSA has occurred often. The Church (big C) will survive because it is God's instrument but PCUSA itself is not sacred. I had heard in some preaching somewhere that the 7 churches in the book of Revelation all eventually faded away? Thus, a particular local body or a national denomination has no assurance of survival.

3. I think the problems within the PCUSA are reflected in the church at large in the USA.

4. I affirm the emergent church's hunger for doing church differently but acknowledge that just because something is new doesn't mean its a good idea and that because something is old it is a bad idea.

5. I affirm that orthopraxy is very important but acknowledge that the Scriptures do make theological claims. 

6. I affirm that orthodoxy is a very important but acknowledge that some people (me included?) put a lot of (too many) bullet points on their orthodoxy list.

7. I affirm post-modernism's concern that interpretation of Scripture can be fraught with mistakes but acknowledge that we can't really function if we have no fixed anchor points.
If we believe everything we really are committed to nothing.

8. We want to identify with our culture and welcome everyone with open hearts and wide arms.
See life of Jesus in the Gospels.

9. Yet, Jesus following in some ways is counter-cultural and in some situations, we need to separate ourselves.
Again, see life of Jesus in the Gospels. The in the world but not of the world balance is an incredibly difficult tightrope to walk.

10. Spirit of truth, guide us to truth and Lord have mercy!