Be fair: Conservatives ignored genocide
Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2003
If we are going to be fair about our liberal presidents and genocide, let’s be fair.
We just found, dead, an Iraqui, whom I believe the news media called Chemical (or Gas) Ali, or something like that, who in the year 1988 mass-murdered Kurds in Iraq. OK, who was president? Jimmy Carter? No, 1976-1980: How about Bill Clinton? No, 1992-2000.
Well, there were only two presidents between these two men: Ronald Reagan and George Bush. What did they do to bring this mass slaughter of human life to the forefront? And why do you bypass these two when you are writing to a Christian organization?
As to genocide, I heard a lot of conservative Republicans and Christians talk about our being in Serbia and Kosovo, saying they were not against our troops over there, which I truly believe they were not against our troops, just the policy and President Clinton who got them there.
That was until we started digging up graves with hundreds of people buried in them. Those graves were part of ethnic cleansing, to get rid of Muslims in a Christian country. Unfortunately, Christians participated in this process called ethnic cleansing. Then conservatives came to the rescue.
So, where were Reagen and Bush? Why didn’t they scream at the top of their lungs about it on TV? Why didn’t George Bush scream about it as a part of our reasons for going into Iraq, then just to get them out of Kuwait?
Not only does this show true bias, but it also shows this nation’s lack of knowledge about worldwide genocide, and our faith’s silence on the whole topic in the 20th Century.
But there were those who screamed in this country – people like Rapael Lampkin to get the genocide bill passed in the U.S., George McGovern (Cambodia), Bob Dole, Bill Proxmire, labeled so far left he left America, and a few others, both liberal and conservative.
The Problem from Hell (the history of Genocide) has been ignored by both liberal and conservative presidents in the past century. To show your bias is wrong, read The Problem from Hell and learn about how both sides failed humanity.
I apologize for the harshness, but sometimes I just get tired.
Doug Gailey, elder St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Dunedin, Fla.
WCC panel’s recommendations are suspect
Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2003
What kind of recommendation can we expect from a panel which is examining the World Council of Churches, when the stated clerk and one member of the panel are members of WCC’s Central Committee?
Why did not these two disqualify themselves from recommending on WCC support by the General Assembly, since they have a conflict of interest?
I’m not commenting on the merits of their recommendation. I’m merely suggesting that the makeup of the panel makes any of its recommendations suspect.
Rev. Ernest Williams Mission, Texas
PCUSA should stop funding WCC and NCC
Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2003
So a denominational committee wants us to continue to affirm the World Council of Churches and send them major financial gifts to keep them afloat. I am not a commissioner to the General Assembly, but I know how I’d vote on that one if I were.
If I were a commissioner, I think I’d make a motion from the floor that the PCUSA withdraw its membership and ban the giving of any further financial resources to the WCC (and while we are at it, I’d throw in the National Council of Churches, too). I mean, stop and think about it: how many missionaries, who would actually spread the life-transforming gospel of Jesus Christ (rather than that of Karl Marx) could $1,437,806.75 support?
Aren’t there any commissioners out there with the moral courage to make such a motion? When will God’s faithful people say, “Enough is enough?”
Rev. Bill Pawson Westminster Church , A Confessing Church , Canton, Ohio
WCC or missionaries: a matter of priority
Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Hmmm, seems like we could put some of the money that we are sending to WCC on our own missionaries. But I guess the WCC is way more important than fulfilling the Great Commission.
Marc Karasek
Are we flogging a dead horse?
Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Why do I get the distinct impression we may be “flogging a dead horse” on these issues. It seems that the denomination powers that be are determined to have their way. If the assembly does not take affirming actions, I will be asking the Lord to direct us to a church home will uphold the timeless Biblical standards that reflect his will.
Carl Smith, deacon First Presbyterian Church, Spokane, Wash.
Revisionism dressed up as compassion
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
Those of us who are evangelicals should remember Mr. McNeese in our prayers, especially as he struggles to de-conservatize the good people of rural Oklahoma. I’m sure it is a constant burden to him, battling the forces of heterophilia in what many (perhaps he himself) might consider something of a cultural wasteland. But can there be any excuse for the wholesale cheap shot of associating fellow-Presbyterians with racists? This – more than the report – merits our apoplectic shock.
Equally benumbing is the report’s notion that the Mother-Father-Children model of the family is simply dispensable or merely a preference among preferences. You might as well say that eating food is merely a preference alongside eating manure. Sometimes reading “advisory” reports feels just that way.
The problem is less with homosexuals per se than it is with married heterosexuals who support the gay cause – straights who rally around the rainbow flag – without presenting so much as a single, compelling argument.
We wait to no avail. What we hear is not rational discourse, but merely an attitude that says “Don’t be such a fundamentalist,” or “Why must you be so hateful?” The entire movement begins and ends in simple reactionism. “We don’t know why we should change and we can’t tell you, nor can we offer you decent Scriptural support for making this decision, but it is time to change. We change because we change, and we don’t care to evaluate our changes.” Most of us are not biting.
So he should give us the rationale – one or two real reasons – why it is now time for the Church to reverse its worldwide, 2000-year-old unanimity on sexual ethics and we can finally have a real discussion. Until then, his reactionism looks like little more than the wholesale adaption of ready-made, ’60s-style, civil rights rhetoric (for which the appropriate analogies have never been established). Give us something better than family-revisionism dressed up as compassion.
Apoplectic? Perhaps, but the alternative is simple coprophagy.
Noel Anderson Michillinda Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, Calif.
What was military budget of Rome-conquering Christians?
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
[Re: Methodist bishops chide Bush on his ‘wickedness’]
1. It is interesting to me that church leaders who criticize the president for starting a war are assumed to take the extreme opposite political view on every issue (“welfare state”?). Some Christians seem to think that you’re either a Democrat or a Christian, a conservative or evil, atheist or Republican. It is just possible that there is more to political and religious views than the “us” or “them.”
2. As for the actual subject of the bishops’ article, I’d like to ask this question: How much do you think Christ would recommend spending on arms? (Asked another way, what was the military budget of the early Christians when they conquered the Roman empire?) Answer: 0
Jim Farris Germantown, Tenn.
Withholding per capita is a stewardship issue
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
Heartland’s per-capita policy is not a surprise. It was only a matter of time until some presbytery decided to crack down. After all, we’re discussing money here. And to advocate the redirecting of per capita is to promote schism? Heavens, our GA Stated Clerk would be horrified at such obvious violations of ordination vows.
Yet the redirecting or withholding of per capita is a stewardship issue. Why would you give money to an entity that cannot be trusted to send that money to the cause(s) for which it was given? Why should churches be expected to send money year after year when the funds continue to be spent for items that those churches oppose?
Let me point out one salient example: the bailout of the National Council of Churches. When the move was being considered, the mail was overwhelmingly against such wasteful spending – yet those who were in a position to decide made the decision to be “prophetic” and the money was spent. My experience in particular churches is that giving declines when the trust level declines. Why would one expect the higher governing bodies to be any different than particular churches in such matters?
I suspect that if Stephen Van Kuiken had been on trial for a per-capita-related issue, such as preaching against the paying of per capita (and thus promoting schism), he would be defrocked today.
Rev. John R. Kerr Hookstown, Pa.
How can NCC and WCC be best opposed?
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
I know it’s your intent to focus on PCUSA news for conservatives and provide a forum for expression and not your job to educate us on the details of denominational political practice or to open yourselves up as an even bigger target for the liberal/progressive critics.
However, it would be helpful to somehow include suggestions, or recommend another helpful avenue, for how best to protest the budget inclusion of the NCC and WCC. It would seem pointless to petition Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick because he is so committed and entrenched.
It has bothered me for a long time that he has so much influence and so few apparent checks on his authority, let alone any regard for the carefully studied and clearly repeated majority opinion in our denomination. What options are left that could actually have a real impact? Is there any way to do something besides share opinions here with other conservatives, and actually get the attention of the GAC?
Your prayers and views do make a difference. The Web site of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has a directory of General Assembly Council members with their home addresses and E-mail addresses. Jeannie McElroy
Withholding per capita
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
The national office of the Presbyterian Church no longer represents me. I will withold the portion allotted in my per capita and urge all caring Presbyterians to do likewise.
Frank D. Elkins Salt Lake City, Utah
PCUSA is out of touch with a lot of us
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
To punish those congregations for not contributing their per-capita giving to Louisville because those congregations feel their money is not wisely used is hypocrisy from the little vatican (Louisville). And pope Cliff is threatening punitive action? Seems like Cliff is not reading the Holy Bible about evangelism.
To fund the NCC and WCC, which are infested with some apostates, at the expense of funding missions is hypocrisy.
Matthew 28:18-20 instructs us to go and make disciples of Christ, not political action. Mark 16:30 instructs us to preach the gospel to every living creature, not get involved in opposing the war on Iraq and letting us know the PCUSA high command opposes the war, while the rest of the country supports the war. Seems like the PCUSA is out of touch with a lot of us, and I wonder why.
By the way, Saddam Hussein, the murderer, is no longer in power, thanks to this nation’s understanding of history. Remember World War II? Remember Neville Chamberlain telling us, “Peace is at Hand?” Remember Henry Kissinger saying the same thing and selling out South Vietnam? Remember Jimmy (“Who”) Carter selling out the Iranians and allowing those fundy nutcase clerics wrecking Iran? Last, but not least, Billy Clinton – do I have to say more?
Now the PCUSA wants to fund the NCC and WCC and use God’s money for non-gospel projects at the expense of sending missionaries throughout the USA and the world? The devil and his demons are rejoicing seeing the PCUSA is destroying itself from within. But the payday will come.
I would like to ask Cliff and the boys this. Can you honestly look into the eyes of those missionaries and say there is not enough money to fund missions while at the same time have enough money to fund worthless projects?
Lou S. Nowasielski Wilmington, Del.
PCUSA is wrong place for these pastors
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
If these two pastors [Stephen Van Kuiken and Harold Potter of Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati] feel that it is God’s will for them to marry same-sex people they need to read God’s word. I also think they should not be Presbyterians if they will not abide by the Book of Order.
They should not be Presbyterian pastors any longer. Loving others has nothing to do with performing same-sex marriage. Loving others is to teach them God’s love and truth – not help them to live in sin.
Gaye Fahringer
Letter-writer using different glasses
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
I was saddened and a little perplexed by “Evangelical conservatives in apoplexy” (April 24) from John McNeese. At least, I was until I realized he and I are really not seeing this world through the same worldview glasses.
I am trusting the Word of God to remain correct throughout time. When I finally remembered that, it helped me to think through his need to throw a gratuitous racial bigotry charge into his attack. And, yes, I know to use the word “attack” looks like one of the other recent letters which charges those of us who are being a bit more forceful with our defense of God’s Word with … not being nice.
Keep Mr. McNeese’s letter around, Layman Online. It is an excellent example of a spontaneous “in-your-face-because-I can’t-think-of-anything-more-clever-to-say-but-I’ve-got-to-say-something-right-now” explosion.
By the way, I completely deny Mr. McNeese’s charges. Sex is easily perverted and no heterosexuals are perfect, but “because they’re not, I can do anything I want,” is not a good worldview for those who love our Lord. And, we must remember, only He can resurrect America to anything resembling what He would want. As good as we seem to remember them, though, it would not be to the standards of the 1950s.
Greg Leaman Oostburg Wisc.
Denomination needs to do exit-polling
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
With the large exodus of members each year from the PCUSA, it appears that our fearless leaders in Louisville should do what successful business are doing – conduct an exit poll to determine why all these people are leaving our denomination.
If they did this, they then would know, and that would enable them to provide some leadership.
Ed McLean Maitland, Fla.
Layman article lacks principled balance
Posted Monday, April 28, 2003
Your publication consistently maintains the highest standard of objectivity of any I have encountered. The points you make are strong ones, but you do not abandon principled balance in making them.
This impressive standard is notably (and distressingly) missing in your “Iraq” article by John Adams (The Layman, February, 2003, page 3).
We, as a country, have compiled a sorry record in recent years of unprovoked aggressions carried out on pretexts which turn out, when the facts emerge, to have been specious when not outright falsehoods. Serbia, Kuwait and Afghanistan are flagrant examples of this.
Judging by our track record, Iraq is likely to be another such example. To impugn unworthy motives to someone questioning the moral legitimacy of our involvement there – on no other or better grounds than his failure to uncritically accept our president’s sweeping allegations (to date completely unsubstantiated) enthusiastically as established fact – is a shameful departure from the intellectual integrity for which The Layman is justly noted. My two cents worth.
Bill Wagner Houtzdale, Pa.