An important starting point is to think briefly about institutions. That’s especially important in our case because anti-institutionalism is widespread in the culture of the United States. Institutions, at their best, enable people to work together on a common project across spaces and through time. We don’t have to have a personal relationship with one another in order to work together on this shared project. While we may not know each other personally, the institutional structures of the PC(USA) enable us to work together. The structures of the institution provide a framework for our common project; they provide ways for us to be part of that project, to be in relationship.
An analogy may help us see why (and how) polity is important and to identify ways in which polity goes wrong: polity is like play and the games in which it happens. Games can be absorbing and utterly engaging, both for players and for observers. Little wonder that sports, for example, hold such a commanding position in our culture. Followers of college basketball look forward every year to the NCAA Women’s and Men’s Tournaments and the great play that they always bring.
What makes play in games work is, of course, the rules. The rules of the game enable a group of people to coordinate their efforts around a common purpose. The rules of the game enable the incredible performances that get replayed in those video clips that are watched and shared widely.
Games function better if there is someone who pays attention to the rules as play happens. Also, if there is a shared, agreed-upon set of rules. Unlike those not very fun games where there is no shared set of rules, games that devolve into arguments about the rules, or one player imposing their rules.
In this analogy, polity is the rules by which, together, we join in the project of participating in this denomination’s work of glorifying and enjoying God (to borrow the language of the Westminster Shorter Catechism). Because polity can open a space, one that enables embodiments of beauty and skill in a complex collective divine and human endeavor.
“Complex” and “collective” are important here, as collective endeavors require the coordination of individuals who would not know how to engage with others in that particular way without the rules. Polity helps Christians know how to relate to one another in doing things that exceed the capabilities of any one of us (qualitatively, not just quantitatively). What we can do together is different in kind than what we can do on our own. This is to say that polity is, in part, by its very nature, unitive or uniting. This uniting function is a reflection of the unity between God and humanity, and therefore among human beings, already achieved by the God who creates and who in redeeming re-creates us. Polity unites even as it is fraught with potential for disuniting.
This basketball analogy also points toward ways in which polity goes wrong. Some referees are quicker to call a penalty, while other referees are ready to let play continue. When is the officiating too strict, and when is it too lenient? There are the times when the flow of a game is completely demolished by repeated stoppages to review the video and consult with distant arbiters. There is the foul called, or not called, that clearly influences the outcome of the game. To move to the church side of the analogy, there are times the polity may function to exclude, to silence, making it difficult to impossible for some to fully participate.
Our shared theological commitments help us to keep shaping a polity that enables us to live presbyterian-ly with excellence.
For Reflection:
- Describe a moment or situation in which the rules of polity helped you and/or your session or presbytery work well together.
- Consider the analogy of polity being “like play, and the games in which it happens.” What are ways in which the rules of a game go wrong, making the game harder to play, or not possible to play at all? Have you seen similar problems in the life of your congregation or presbytery?
Barry Ensign-George is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He has served as a pastor in Iowa and at the denominational level in the Office of Theology & Worship.
Throughout 2025, monthly Regarding Ruling Elders articles will focus on the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity as included in our Book of Order. Ruling elders can benefit from these reflections as they consider their own ministries and call to serve as leaders in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
© 2025 Barry Ensign-George
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