Carmen Fowler LaBerge, president of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, presents her views on the recent decisions of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The forum was hosted by James Island Presbyterian Church in Charleston, S.C., on Oct 5, 2014.
The forum is available on You Tube or can be seen blow.
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Really enjoyed this discussion. Spot on, Mrs. President.
Carmen you are so gifted at leading a discussion through the Bible, our culture and the challenges of the church in the future. It was a joy to see and hear you leading these believers in a great discussion.
Wayne Hardy
I sure wish our session and pastors would have this lady come in and speak. Our church seems to lack the courage and for many of the members…. the simple knowledge of scripture and God word.
Carmen, this reaffirms the commitment I made 6 weeks ago to leave pcusa after 30 years. Thank you and God Bless You
Thank you Carmen, I sent the You-Tube video to all of the members of my session.
Why don’t you address the issues facing ECO. There seems to be a lack of accountability, structure, oversight….
Integrity is also a Biblical issue
Um … have you looked at the accountability requirements in ECO ??? Its in their Polity manual available here: http://eco-pres.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ECO-Polity-updated-020113-and-formated-062713.pdf
I found the presentation most informative. As regards all things PCUSA, the “Laymen” serves two important services.
-An independent and critical voice to the PCUSA. Something neither the “Outlook” or “Presbyterians Today” can claim as both at times function as a vehicle for the PNS/OGA to use and manipulate.
-Serve as a watch or guard to expose PCUSA graft, sham and corruption .As its recent expose on the EP and Tropical Florida letter. As it functions now to expose the fraud and abuse of “1001 new communities”
What does “Outlook” do? They run Movie Reviews and Poems while their denomination burns to the ground. OK
As far the Horned Lady, Andrew. Pres, Willy the Wonder Dog. Simple fix, only accept posting from those who use proper and full names and supply an e-mail, Facebook, or digital trail back to original sender. Outside of that you get the anonymous trolls who use and abuse the site.
Pretty much what Peter said
On another note, I have no doubt that someone in louisville monitors this site, so they can see what the pesky Bible believeing knuckle draggers are cooking up, trying to get out of the trust clause, and take away “their” church buildings. I hope this site tweeks them.
Carmen received several questions about gay ordination and gay marriage, and at one point stated that proponents of both do not use scripture. I believe that in general she is right, but there are some in that camp who use Scripture, and who do so without resorting to those conspicuous interpretive gymnastics that render the texts they use utterly unrecognizable. So, to the end of sharing a quote from a proponent that is altogether more helpful in understanding a thoughtful articulation of their position, I present the following quote from Luke Timothy Johnson (Johnson’s daughter, by the way, is a lesbian, which seems to have prompted a theological shift).
For those of you who have never seen it, here is the quote:
“The task (i.e. dealing with homosexuality from a Biblical perspective) demands intellectual honesty. I have little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says, through appeals to linguistic or cultural subtleties. The exegetical situation is straightforward: we know what the text says. But what are we to do with what the text says? We must state our grounds for standing in tension with the clear commands of Scripture, and include in those grounds some basis in Scripture itself. To avoid this task is to put ourselves in the very position that others insist we already occupy—that of liberal despisers of the tradition and of the church’s sacred writings, people who have no care for the shared symbols that define us as Christian. If we see ourselves as liberal, then we must be liberal in the name of the gospel, and not, as so often has been the case, liberal despite the gospel.
I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us. By so doing, we explicitly reject as well the premises of the scriptural statements condemning homosexuality—namely, that it is a vice freely chosen, a symptom of human corruption, and disobedience to God’s created order.”
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/homosexuality-church-1
My response would be as follows:
The strength of his approach as I see it, is that it clearly defines the boundaries of the discussion, which is something many on the “pro” side are unwilling to do (namely, that Scripture is clear in forbidding homosexual intercourse). The weakness, to my mind, is that he goes on to articulate a “tension” in which Scripture is forced to confront itself in a way that ultimately validates the desire of the “pro” to bless same-sex unions. Therefore, to the extent that a Christian is willing to let Scripture argue with itself in a manner that results in either a lack of clarity, or that results in a hierarchical reading whereby so-called “gospel” issues (one might read instead “inclusive” issues) prevail over other concerns, then his approach will be satisfying. Ultimately, what we cannot say, is that the most thoughtful among the “pro”s hasn’t considered Scripture in their argumentation. Those of us on the “con” side can still very much accuse them of sophistry.
Lindsay,
I was invited by a PCUSA session to address members of the congregation at a forum over lunch where they asked me to offer my perspective on four very specific concerns: the action of the General Assembly of the PCUSA related to marriage, the Authoritative Interpretation (AI) on marriage issued by the PCUSA General Assembly, the action of the PCUSA General Assembly related to Israel, and the larger question of the submission to the authority of the Scriptures.
If I were invited to address concerns/issues related to a different denomination, I would do so.
Carmen
Luke Timothy Johnson’s position is essentially the Roman Catholic and, to some extent, the Methodist-Anglican position (the Quadrilateral). That tradition and experience are on an equal plane with Scripture. The Reformed tradition of “sola scriptura, sola gratia” rejects this elevation of personal experience and tradition. Our confessional statements speak clearly to this distinction. His position is, however, refreshingly honest.
**I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. **
Remember serpent asking Eve in Genesis 31, “Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” He is a sophist, true, revealing his own authority, another gospel if you will, violating Romans 1-3. Another authority??? Whose??? His own thinking he is god??? Such rubbish.