Another kind of audit
August 1, 1999
Having come to the General Assembly Council from the world of business and finance, Executive Director John Detterick has brought stability to his office. His first year has won him our respect, particularly in the areas of finance and management.
Standards of finance
Detterick’s business experience taught him that bank examiners and outside auditors do not evaluate their clients’ activities on the basis of feelings. Politics and passion are excluded from the process as they assess a company’s financial health using “generally accepted accounting standards.” We applaud John Detterick for encouraging his financial staff to comply with these standards.
Standards of faith
We hope that now he will help his organization achieve another level of accountability: conformity to our denomination’s standards of Christian faith and life.
There is a popular notion afloat that faith is essentially a matter of feeling, that in this multi-cultural world of theological diversity, one person’s feeling is as valid as another’s, that sincerity rather than substance is the criterion of authenticity. People who think this way have no standards beyond themselves.
Contrary to culture, the PCUSA has objective standards. We are a people of biblical faith, expressed constitutionally in our Book of Confessions. Those who wish to define their own deity are reminded that we worship the God who reveals himself in Scripture, whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways are not our ways.
Measuring by standards
We remember with gratitude the role that was played by the Office of Theology and Worship in 1994 after a ReImagining conference worshiped “Sophia,” denied the atonement, and redefined “Christ.” In a paper by Joe Small and John Burgess, the Office of Theology and Worship showed how ReImagining God themes exceeded the boundaries of Christian faith. That theological assessment proved valuable to the Wichita General Assembly.
We still have an Office of Theology and Worship. We hope that John Detterick will ask this office to assess programs produced by other areas within his organization, particularly those whose theological adventures have drawn so much fire during the recent General Assembly.
Just as we would not employ accountants who ignore generally accepted accounting standards, we cannot allow persons who write the PCUSA’s curriculum, plan its conferences, and train its ministers to promote a faith that does not conform to scriptural standards. A theological audit is as appropriate to the work of the General Assembly Council as are the financial and management audits that have become routine activities.
Let’s get it done.