(By Jacquelyn Lynn, guest columnist, Orlando Sentinel). My church does not speak for me.
I’m a conservative who happens to be a member and ordained elder in the increasingly liberal Presbyterian Church (USA). For years, the denomination’s leaders have been issuing statements with which I disagree — and I’m not alone. Not every PCUSA member shares the opinions of those who claim to be the voice of our denomination.
In my small PCUSA congregation, our members’ views span the gamut from far-left liberal progressive to far-right conservative. In the parking lot, you’ll see cars with pro-life and pro-choice bumper stickers parked next to each other — along with cars sporting bumper stickers expressing a broad range of social and political positions (and a few good jokes). But we are united in our faith in Jesus Christ and our commitment to one another as friends and a church family.
PCUSA members do not vote as a bloc. We don’t all shop at the same stores, buy the same products, make the same choices when it comes to health care or even laugh at the same jokes.
Yet in a recent public letter to the CEO of Ben & Jerry’s, our stated clerk, J. Herbert Nelson II, implied that 1.4 million Presbyterians agreed with his position on an issue related to how the ice-cream company operates. We do not.
In the letter, Nelson urged the company to “enter into a legally binding agreement to join the Milk with Dignity Program developed by Migrant Justice.” Ben & Jerry’s is known for its commitment to social justice. A statement on the company’s website says it’s still negotiating that agreement and is committed to being the first dairy company to implement the program.
Ben & Jerry’s can do the right thing in terms of assuring safe, dignified working conditions for all those in its supply chain without signing an agreement with an external entity. This is just one example of why I think Nelson is out of step with tens of thousands of PCUSA members.
Membership in mainline churches, including the PCUSA, is declining. A key reason conservatives are fleeing the PCUSA is the church’s regular public statements and positions that are at odds with their views and values.
This is one of the challenges of being a member of a mainline denomination — any of them, not just Presbyterian.
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I’m in full agreement with what this Elder has written, and in my experience it’s those of us like her who are paying the bills and keeping the doors open. I’m frankly sicked and tired of those who don’t lift a finger or tithe (and yes I do know who they are) they come in and spout off trashing our President, evangelicals and anything else they don’t agree with, and of course we are kind in disagreement, it’s about time for that to end. As for the louisville sluggers, they are running off people like us every day, and I frankly don’t think they care, as long as we leave the door keys and bank account numbers.
those in church denominations that have cut loose their anchors to scripture and to the Lord, will find themselves being sheep among the wolves in sheep clothing. Unfortunately those at the top will lead the way.
35 years a teaching elder, served on 3 GAs, many Presbytery COMs. I always knew I would be a distinct minority in the entity. But in truth I knew what I was getting into in 1982. I think we need to be more precise in our terms. We need to talk about two distinct PCUSAs, one totally divorced from the other.
From an operational, functional perspective, the PCUSA is a place where 85% of its churches are 100 members or less, and 40% of its pulpits cannot afford full time pastors. It is a place where close to 30-40% of said churches will cease to exist in 7 years due to a number of factors. I would guess that 99.5% of those in the pews do not give a damn what the other PCUSA, the administrative state, says or does. They are too busy raising kids, putting food on the table, keeping a roof over the head, keeping a job. In essence they have a life. And the functional PCUSA is divorced from the administrative state PCUSA. In fact the administrative state PCUSA, the GA, OGA, PMA, Synods and Presbytery paid administrators assume the vast majority in the other PCUSA, or at least those remaining are the unwashed fools needing their counsel and guidance. In essence the current PCUSA is best thought of as a hostel take over. I would posit that the core partisan base, the core the administrative state PCUSA serves, caters too, the various paid PCUSA employees, staffs, its ideological tribal, identity based groups number no more than 60-70,000, out of 1 million “reported” members, But that core is whom the administrative state PCUSA exists to serve.
The ills and sins of the administrative state PCUSA are many. But none more so than lack of accountability on all levels. Failure is treated as a success and mediocrity is rewarded. This is why you have the gradual morphing of the office of the Stated Clerk and Moderators from servants of the functional PCUSA to political tools of the administrative state PCUSA. Where all feel free to speak “ex cathedra” as if they themselves speak for all, and without consequences.
This is how it will wind down. The current 3 so called special “Vision” committees of the administrative state PCUSA will report back next summer more or less endorsing the status quo, some minor tweaks on the fiscal side. And at some point the GA/12 Synod/170 Presbytery matrix will implode in various degrees. An event for the functional PCUSA, not so much maybe for the administrative state PCUSA, as long the checks clear every two weeks along the banks of the Ohio, while the Stated Clerk assuming he still has a job, will fuss and harangue others why folks are not apologizing for this and that in a manner he deems appropriate, as he assumes the came down the mountain with the original stone tablets.
I so totally agree with you! Whereas anyone can and should get involved in causes which he/she believes in, it should be on a personal basis. I would never have the audacity to speak for others unless I had asked them how they feel. This is why the PCUSA does not represent so many of us. It’s insulting and wrong to use one’s position to say you speak for all when you only speak for yourself. Finally someone spoke out – well, yea and Amen! So now what?
Ms. Lynn, unfortunately, is content to have “pro-choice Christians” in her congregation, as long as they agree to disagree.
But Jesus says “let the little children come to me”, and that precludes them being disposed of as medical waste, or worse yet, having their organs sold. “Pro-choice Christian” is at best a synonym for ignorant Christian, and at worst an oxymoron.
Conservatives in the PCUSA should get out, unless they have the persistence to treat the religious liberals among them as a mission field. This will be very uncomfortable, since they will sometimes have to tell their leaders to repent of the false religion of religious/political liberalism.
A thoughtful, insightful and accurate analysis. It is a shame that the denomination cannot limit its outreach efforts to theological or mainstream social justice issues, rather than trying to effect radical social engineering or espouse ultra liberal political causes.
Peter,
Your treatise succinctly sums up the coming final demise of the “administrative” PCUSA. What will be the final blow is when the money runs out to pay for all the administrative state overhead. Presbyteries are raising the ransoms for dismissals so high that they’ll be able to perpetuate their administrative state for many years. And Mission funding? Fat chance that will continue! What some of these churches might consider is allowing officers for the lowest council, the session, to scruple each and every apostasy exhibited in the Book of Order and let the Presbytery read those minutes at the closeout review after year end. Will a Presbytery accept all these scruples against the progressives BOO? Or initiate discipline? Might be a show worth getting tickets to attend! I just joined by reaffirmation of faith the newest ECO church here in Virginia after being “unchurched” since June 2014 when I sent a letter to my former PCUSA church to remove me as an active member. Letter fully explained the same sex marriage baloney was the final straw. PCUSA kicked the Bible, the Book of Confessions AND the Book of Order under the bus; shameful!
Well said. The PCUSA denomination seems to have fallen for leftist ideologies and values but doesn’t know the origins or where they came from. Conversely, many distance themselves and water down the scriptures of which are know,
and are established and trustworthy, yet these teachings from the Bible are met with eye rolls and backpedaling and excuse making.
Just say it plainly. The PCUSA is apostate.
Sorry, Ms. Lynn, they do speak for you and every other member of the PCUSA. The denomination has committed slow spiritual suicide over decades and ceased to be the Church of Jesus Christ. If you remain, you are part of a spiritually dead left-wing political organization.
Elder Jacqueline Lynn, you are right on target it is even more so in the Northeast. Having served as a ruling Elder for 12 years, Church School Superintendent for over 18 years, and a past Clerk of Session, it is worse then you make it out in the Northeast. In the church I am transitioning from based on a move we no longer are open to discuss and debate in a respectful manner, which this church was very open to in the past. We have moved into a full fledged indoctrination of the progressive Liberal agenda. From Gun Violence, the Israel/Palestine, LGBT issues, etc. instead of discussing, debating and being able to voice opinions and weigh the facts, the conservative members of the congregation are being silenced and they are just walking away. Having moved within a few hours of your church in FL, I am researching other Presbyterian denominations where I will no longer feel demonized for my beliefs. Council members are also being installed with little or no training on the book of order and their legal / financial obligations as an Elder/Trustee. Therefore they lack the knowledge to disagree with the positions proposed and have become a rubber stamp. It has gone so far that we were being asked to attend a protests under the church’s banner with which we do not agree.
They began not speaking for me. They continued. Now they don’t speak for me. I left PCUSA after 69 years.