THE nFOG

Another positive blog! What happened to Bob the curmudgeon?

I feel really good about this one because I proposed an overture to the Philadelphia Presbytery which passed the GA with some minor changes.

Basically, the 2006 GA appointed a Task Force to write a new Form of Government, (nFOG). It gave the Task Force less than 2 years to come up with the nFOG! A preliminary draft was made available last September and the final form came out in January.

It is my experience that most Presbyterians are not Constitution wienies like I am. So the nFOG came out and it was my guess that few if any Presbyterians actually read the thing. So the Tully Memorial Session proposed an overture to the presbytery (which passed) asking the GA to put 0ff the final vote on the nFOG until 2010. I figured that maybe more people would read it if they had 2 years to do so.

I have a lot of problems with the nFOG. The biggest is that it assumes that Presbyterians trust each other. The fact of the matter is, we don't. To be honest I would have preferred that the GA would have voted it down. But I hope that 2 years for studying and recommendations to the expanded committee will produce a better document. If not maybe the GA will vote it down in 2010. Or maybe the presbyteries will vote it down. Or maybe the Spirit will settle upon the expanded committee and produce a FOG that God wants. I hope if that happens we all recognize it as a gift from God. After all synods and councils, (and General Assemblies and presbyteries), and even Pastor Bob do err!

Pastor Bob