Belhar, the committee and our disunity

By Viola Larson

The Presbyterian News Service has posted an article on the Belhar Confession, “Belhar Confession recommended again for PC (U.S.A.)’s adoption: ‘Statement’s themes of unity, reconciliation and justice are three gifts we most need’ special committee says.” At the very beginning, the statement that unity, reconciliation and justice are the three gifts we most need is wrong theologically as well as pastorally. We have disunity and cannot be reconciled to each other because we are not committed confessionally and biblically to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Such a commitment includes upholding the authority of God’s written word and agreeing that the Confessions are truly authoritative in the life and government of the denomination.

After writing for over two years, about the problems that are inherent in the Belhar Confession as it will be applied to the PC (U.S.A.); after participating in the debate about Belhar as an advocate for Sacramento Presbytery’s 2010 motion to not adopt, listening to Janet Edwards plead that our motion not be passed because the LGBTQ community in the denomination needed Belhar in the Book of Confessions, I am totally discouraged with this new attempt. Already the Presbyterian News Service is not giving correct information about the issue.

The PNS reports that both the Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church has adopted the confession but this is not totally true. The CRC newspaper, The Banner, reports that their Synod did not adopt the confession but rather put it in a new category as an “Ecumenical Faith Declaration.” The churches themselves voted down the motion to adopt, as one elder put it:

Synod chose not to further study it. “We have studied this and studied this and studied this,” said Elder Jerry Heinen, Classis Wisconsin. “The churches have spoken, and it doesn’t make any sense to kick it down the road again.”