By The Rev. Dr. Carl Grosse

I’m still learning. As a youngster, I was taught that the War Between the States ended de facto upon Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse. We didn’t have family stories of ancestors who fought in the war. All of my kin who were in the conflict fought for the Confederate States of America. Everyone on my father’s side was still in Europe at the time. 

Recently, while assisting your PNC in planning for the upcoming congregational meeting, I was advised that a certain practice absolutely observed in all the Presbyterian churches I’ve attended or worked for, as well as in the Presbyteries overseeing them, and which practice I assumed was universal among PCUSA churches, was, in fact, not done in these parts. At all. The word “Yankee” was never actually used, at least out loud, by those advising me in reference to this practice. 

While I’m relieved to be so enlightened and avoid an unforgivable faux pas, the pondering triggered by the new information has stuck in my head longer than I might wish. As a result of that pondering, I have no idea why this practice would be a Northern thing, nor why omitting this practice would be a Southern thing. Further, after all the effort made to reconcile the predecessor institutions which now form the PCUSA, why was this practice not addressed and thus allowed to remain as a stumbling block for poor, ignorant, itinerant preachers such as I who sojourn north and south, east and west, upon God’s earth? 

Whether intentionally or not, I suspect there might be other ways we church leaders, both laypeople and ordained professionals, cling to beliefs and practices which have nothing to do with the gospel or organizational effectiveness and serve only as enablers of unfortunate human frailty. It’s more than likely that I cling to such beliefs and practices, and I’m still learning.