I feel sorry for Moss, it looks like he lost out on this deal:
Wright was officially to have stepped down last Sunday, June 1. And from the pulpit at 7:30 a.m. that day, Wright’s hand-picked successor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, preached what should have been his first sermon as senior pastor of Trinity, one of the Chicago’s largest congregations and among the most influential religious institutions in America. Instead, on church bulletins on June 1, Moss was identified simply as “pastor” rather than “senior pastor,” even as Wright assumed the title “pastor emeritus.” Indeed, Trinity members familiar with the developments say that on May 27, Moss was summoned to the church’s massive brown sanctuary for a meeting that included Wright, several church board members and other senior leaders. According to those sources, Moss, 37, expected the meeting to finalize transition plans. Instead, Wright suggested the board merely declare Moss “senior pastor-elect” because the younger cleric needed “supervision” — effectively ensuring Wright remains Trinity’s preacher-in-chief. Wright’s essential argument hinges on a technicality: Moss is an ordained Baptist minister who has yet to be fully ordained in the United Church of Christ, the predominantly white protestant denomination of which the roughly 8,500-member Trinity is the largest congregation.
[...]
Officials at the United Church of Christ’s national headquarters in Cleveland are aware of the leadership tension at Trinity. However, they say, individual U.C.C. churches are autonomous and the national body can do little to intervene. Barbara Powell, a U.C.C. headquarters spokeswoman, noted that “Trinity didn’t follow the normal U.C.C. guidelines for the [pastoral] search” (Wright handpicked Moss, apparently without a formal search committee), but said it was hard to imagine that Moss wouldn’t successfully complete the ordination process.
[...]
His parents were civil rights movement activists married by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and his father is a prominent Cleveland minister. Educated at Morehouse and Yale, Moss had since 1997 led an Augusta, Ga., congregation, boosting its membership from 125 to some 2,100. In a January 2007 interview with Trumpet, a Trinity-affiliated magazine, Wright recalled introducing Moss to the congregation. “I had prayed to God to send someone to God’s church. God answered my prayer in Otis,” Wright told the publication. “Don’t think,” he added in the interview, “I would turn over 36 years to someone I didn’t have complete confidence in.”
In accepting the Trinity job, Moss apparently bypassed an opportunity to assume leadership at his father’s church. Moss moved his wife and two children to Chicago, where he was to serve as an associate pastor at Trinity during the two-year transition.
Does Wright now give back his retirement house and the money that the church gave him?
An interpretation of this post from the Reformed perspective:
In the PCA there is much more oversight of the individual churches. People who have a problem with the pastor or the elders have recourse to the presbytery that the church reports to. We have the best of both worlds, autonomy to run our church but oversight if we go beyond bounds of our denomination.
posted June 5, 2008 at 12:39 pm
It would be interesting to know if the PCA structure results in fewer instances of discord between preacher and congregation. In my experience (mostly Baptist) the transition from one preacher to another seldom causes problems within the congregation.
I can recall only two instances where such a transition was problematic. In those cases the denomination offered advice to the lay leadership on how to proceed, but were unable to intervene directly.
How would the PCA handle a minister that held ordination outside the denomination that applied for a position within the PCA? Would they credential him on a temporary basis, with supervision? Would they reject his application out of hand? Or would they require an examination of him by some sort of panel?
posted June 5, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Just like Vladimir Putin. LOL.
posted June 5, 2008 at 2:54 pm
It is the Church and Ministry Committee of the Association in the Illinois Conference that will have to deal with this. The issue of credentials is theirs to negotiate with the church. In some ways it is also the C & M Committee that has to deal with Rev. Wright and his indecision. However, the ultimate authority remains with the congregation. This is a clear example of Wright believing his own publicity and that he is smartr, has clearer vision, and better sense than nayone else. His recent actions are proof that this is not the case. Now the congregation, in the interests of not wanting to offend their great (former) leader, will do what he asks – though I expect they will be alot of mumbled grousing and many people may fall away from the church.
If Rev. Wright were honestly interested in the best interests of the church he would recuse himself from any and all of the discussions between Moss and the leadership of the church. I hope someone on the Illinois Conference staff (or the denominational staff) would have the chutzpah to call Wright on this. It is a classic pastor-emeritus not letting go manuever. This scenario does not end well, for anyone in any denomination. Our system works very well, when it is allowed to work. When people try to go around the system problems develop.
posted June 5, 2008 at 4:25 pm
“When people try to go around the system problems develop.”
And given that they did not follow procedures for the pastoral search process…
posted June 5, 2008 at 6:23 pm
The UCC was created in 1957 as a union of the Congregational Church (congregation by congregation as they all had to vote on it and some remained independent) and the Evangelical and Reformed Church. This meant that there were some interesting compromises and total autonomy on matters of congregational stuff, like hiring and firing as well as theology are part of the fundamental makeup of the UCC. In that regard, the UCC are like super-liberal Baptists without the ceremonial bathtub. And the individual congregations take that autonomy very seriously.
This means that there are going to be truly radical differences between say, Trinity UCC on the South Side of Chicago and, let us say, St. Paul’s UCC in Franklin Park, Ill, a suburb near O’Hare Field (where I was raised). You get not only major differences in theology from the pulpit, but also physical differences as well, the E&R churchs going in for a higher church style of decoration, stained glass windows, altar instead of communion table, cross and candles, that sort of thing.
It is a very interesting denomination once you look past the folks who claim to run it.
posted June 6, 2008 at 9:07 am
It is a very interesting denomination once
If I weren’t locked into mine … I say, it has sounded interested all along. “United Anything-Christian” appeals to me.
posted June 6, 2008 at 10:10 am
“Just like Vladimir Putin. LOL.”
Excellent comparison!
posted June 6, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Now, if we can only get the PCA to quit worshiping at the feet of John Calvin, well we might get somewhere. But alas, that just might be why people become PCA members, they like a sycophantic mentality, it’s safe.
posted June 6, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I give mad props to the PCA although I myself worship at a church that is congregational in government though heavily invested in partnership/fellowship with other churches in our family of churches (Sovereign Grace Ministries).
You’re right though that church discipline and theological integrity in mainline denominations like the UCC seems non-existent if Wright/TUCC is any indication.