Commentary: ACSWP’s Scattered Ergocentricity

LOUISVILLE—If egocentricity is an excessive preoccupation with one’s own self, ergocentricity is an excessive preoccupation with one’s own work. An egocentric person thinks, I’m the center of the universe. An ergocentric person thinks, The particular work presently on my mind should be the center of everyone’s attention.

We witness ergocentricity in the large set of Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) reports for General Assembly in June, each with vast recommendations that would tightly focus every aspect of Presbyterian church life on a particular subject. Caring and well-meaning people spot a perceived problem, latch on to it, finagle General Assembly funding for ACSWP to propose a resolution, and then load level after level of burden and expense upon a denomination and its congregations which, in truth, are only intermittently listening and will probably not follow through.

General Assembly commissioners, overwhelmed by reams of paper, know little about the scores of complex arguments and often-onerous recommendations being presented in detailed ACSWP papers. They rarely understand adequately the funding and follow-up the recommendations require. They don’t have time to really grapple with the myriad social and governmental implications of yet one, two, three dozen more emphases and entitlements the recommendations would engineer. Many commissioners benignly think, Well, someone has looked into this, and I want to be supportive. I suppose it’s a good idea, so what does it hurt to go along?

That is how a hyperactive ACSWP leads all Presbyterians and all levels of governing bodies into more emphases than most people have the passion to push, more politicking than they want to venture, more reliance on big government than Reformed sensibilities ought to allow, and more glib tokenism than integrity ought to tolerate.

If everything is special, nothing is special. If a bushel basket of new emphases gets thrown on top of individuals, congregations, and Presbyterian entities, meaningful emphasis is lost, and longstanding priorities—such as evangelism, discipleship, nurture, and mission—get shoved aside for the latest social-gospel directive from the ACSWP.

Enthusiasts always can produce one more snarl to untangle. Realists and responsible leaders, however, need to focus finite energies and resources where they are most needed. In addition, hope-filled leaders know that hope ultimately rests in Jesus Christ, not the latest bill before Congress or United Nations initiative. One wonders about the prudence of such vast extensions of church responsibility as lecturing governments on international diplomacy, championing a radical school of thought on complex economic issues, forcing pastors into greater psychiatric responsibilities, or engineering electrical power grids or even the global climate.

Presbyterians fool no one but themselves if they think they know all and can do all. A kindly desire to do something nice does not justify all the actions stipulated in all the resolutions going to General Assembly.

Default Skepticism about Social-Witness Enthusiasms
Perhaps each individual General Assembly commissioner would better serve the church with an attitude of skepticism by default, rather than benign acquiescence:

If I have not fully read and thoroughly wrestled with my understanding of this resolution; or

If I have not calculated the broader implications of this resolution and the effect it will have on other ministries; or

If I am not thoroughly convinced that the particular solutions are proper and fair, and that the results are bound to be beneficial; or

If the solution offered and the actions required do not seem realistically possible, no matter how desirable; or

If I do not think a large majority of my fellow Presbyterians would welcome and embrace this statement as speaking for them;

Then I will vote against the resolution’s adoption.

Fewer, better, more focused, and more essential social witness resolutions would actually mean something. But multiple resolutions that are scattershot and overreaching, multiple ambitious plans that are neither broadly requested nor widely supported, self-important and windy ramblings about subjects far beyond the church’s fields of specific knowledge and expertise—these will be wasted and ignored, if not decried as foolish and divisive.

The present batch of ACSWP resolutions is simply excessive.