It is time for a new reformation to begin’
Posted Thursday, April 27, 2006
History tells us that, when the Church at Rome distanced itself from Biblical authority, it became corrupt. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door at Wittenburg in 1517 that exposed the corruption, the Reformation began.
The Church at Louisville now has distanced itself from Biblical authority and become corrupt. That corruption now has been exposed. It is time for a new Reformation to begin.
George Hill First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge, Port Allen, La.
For ‘evangelism’ to be successful, one must have a message to share
Posted Thursday, April 27, 2006
“Thus, it should have come as no surprise that Detterick repeatedly urged the General Assembly Council to make evangelism its priority.”
For “evangelism” to be a successful priority, one must have a message to share. People are not attracted to churches that don’t know what they believe.
James E. Tuckett
The Layman’s call to arms plays directly into the hands of Baal
Posted Thursday, April 27, 2006
Elder Steve Jones [letter to the editor, posted April 13, 2006] raises some interesting questions in his analysis of my letter supporting Dr Alan Meenan’s views of our current circumstance.
Elder Jones suggests, then scoffs at the suggestion, that there is a vast secular right wing conspiracy to infiltrate the church to use it for its own political purpose. A conspiracy is usually defined as a secret plot by persons unknown. He is right,of course. There is nothing secret about it.
The movement, as I would call it, is only two mouse-clicks away on the Internet. It puts out newsletters coaching its members on how to influence their churches, what wedge issues to bring up, and how to frame them. Some trace its origins to the Lewis Powell memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It was composed by the Nixon administration – not long before The Layman was founded – in response to what the conservatives then believed was a growing left wing attack on America and its political and socio-economic foundations. In it, future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell mapped out the conservative strategy for taking back our universities, media and pulpits over the next 30 years. Although Powell clearly affirmed that “the need for liberal thought is essential to a balanced viewpoint,” the movement has moved way beyond its initial aspirations.
Elder Jones questions whether a Biblical view of the world is compatible with a political view. I think that maybe he is confused about the meaning of the words he is using. The Biblical worldview is that the whole world belongs to God (Ex. 19:5), and that the government of the universe is upon the shoulders of our Lord Jesus Christ (Is 9:6-7, Lk. 1:32-33). The definition of the term “political” relates to government and “politics.” The most common definition of the term “politics” is the art and science of government, authority and control. The term “obedience to God” is therefore a political statement – by definition. The choice to be under the authority of Scripture and to recognize the Lordship of Jesus is therefore a political choice.
It was an early adaptation when secular leaders figured out that to control humanity they would have to pretend God was on their side. In many cases, secular rulers have claimed the status of deity themselves. It should come as no surprise when secular rulers penetrate the Church in order to control their subjects. They seduce us by preying on our own desires for control and power. The bigger the church, the more vulnerable our pastors become to its intoxication. It is the devil’s second temptation, but it is based on a lie. The world is already the Lord’s, and the devil cannot give what is not his to give. It was to end the evil farce that the political founders of America tried to establish a separation between church and state. A separation that today’s neo-cons would disrespect.
Elder Jones suggests that my reflections on Meenan’s words are only a repetition of someone else’s doctrine. Hardly. My writing was based solely on my own experience and what I see. After I shared it, The Layman published a reference to John H Thomas’ article regarding the IRD’s attempts to influence the Church. Even a cursory examination into the history and founders of the IRD substantiates his claims. The only thing I can say is that there must be a rising awareness and concern over what is going on.
The idea that evangelical Christians are being manipulated as innocent pawns should not be difficult to grasp. The Marxists of the ’50s and ’60s did it to the liberals of their generation, and now the neo-cons are doing it to the conservatives of ours. Since before the time of Christ, the Biblical worldview is that the people of God are like sheep for the slaughter. Nothing has changed. It would seem that when it comes to politics, the people of God tend to be as wise as doves and as docile as serpents, instead of the other way around (Mat. 10:16).
The Layman uses Elijah and the prophets of Baal as a pseudo-Biblical metaphor to describe the conflict between conservatism and liberalism. This metaphor is wrong. The god of liberalism is a gentle, nurturing, even permissive god who indulges her children and looks beyond all their faults to the point of enabling them. Her name is Asherah. The god of conservatism is an authoritarian, autocratic, disciplinarian head-of-household god who teaches his children the virtues of self-discipline, self-reliance, and how to use force. He is the one called Baal. They are the ultimate power couple. The people of God have always fallen under their charms.
Baal’s and Asherah’s narcissistic hunger for attention is insatiable as they compete with one another for our devotion. They promise fulfillment and power to all who join them, but they do not consider our first-born children too much of a sacrificial offering in return. (Why should we put our children out on the streets of West Hollywood, or bury them in coffins draped in American flags?)
The Layman’s call to arms appears to resist Asherah, but it plays directly into the hands of Baal. The quarrel between them has nothing to do with the alternative world of the Gospel or God’s people. To choose between these gods, between the liberal and conservative factions in our church, is to choose evil. Elijah, meaning God-YHWH, cries out to us from the ancient past to ignore them both (Gen. 4:7).
Ritchie Jones Los Angeles, Calif.
Did presbytery mislead commissioners at presbytery meeting?
Posted Thursday, April 27, 2006
As many at The Layman know, because you were there, our church (Hendersonville , First) and our presbytery (Western North Carolina) were told yesterday by the bills and overtures committee that our overture to G.A. on the PUP report would not be accepted because it was past the 120-day cut-off point. And yet, today I read about two more overtures against the PUP report in a story dated April 25 – the same day we were being told otherwise.
Could you please find out if the presbytery was misled yesterday before our vote? Were these two overtures actually approved before February 17?
I am not sure which is worse – that presbytery lied to us, or the arbitrary use of the 120-day cut-off point for something that is not a constitutional change!
Mimi Jamieson
Large congregations are in historically liberal states
Posted Thursday, April 27, 2006
It’s interesting to note that the majority of these large congregations are located in states that are historically very liberal demographically.
Bob Jessen, elder Mt. Holly, N.C.
Confessions aid the church in understanding God’s Word
Posted Thursday, April 27, 2006
The reason the New Wineskins Initiative would commend a multitude of confessions and catechisms is because: They are part of our Reformed heritage, the confessions and catechisms are Scripturally-based and doctrinally sound, and to ignore them and the contribution they have made to the cause of Christ would be a theological error of high order.
For Rev. Olive [letter to the editor, posted April 21, 2006] to say that the Reformed confessions commended by the New Wineskins Initiative are a “sandy foundation” is to place himself outside of almost 400 years of Reformed theology. The confessions commended by the New Wineskins Initiative are those from the Nicene Creed through the Theological Declaration of Barmen. Even a cursory review of these documents will show their worth for the church as aids in understanding the Word of God, in teaching and preaching, and in personal devotional use.
Randy Jenkins Huntsville, Ala.
What’s next? The BOG (Bible Over the Guardrails) task force?’
Posted Thursday, April 27, 2006
Just when we thought the General Assembly couldn’t get any more contentious, along comes the proposed establishment of the FOG task force!
Either they are tone deaf to the people they should be serving, or they are employing this as a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from the PUP report.
What’s next? The BOG (Bible Over the Guardrails) task force?
Joe Rumble Former Deacon, Cashmere Presbyterian, Member, Wenatchee First Presbyterian Central , Washington Pres
Nothing that goes against the teaching of Scripture is taught at growing church
Posted Thursday, April 27, 2006
As a member of a PCUSA church that’s growing, I see the under 25-year-olds coming back to a church that preaches the Gospel and invites both believers and those seeking after truth to be part of its fellowship.
There was a testimony and a baptism of a young adult in a recent service at the church I am a part of. There were at least three missionary families that serve overseas in church. The worship team and the congregation represented a number of races and cultures other than those of European background.
But for the sake of peace, unity and purity of the congregation I am a part of, nothing that goes against the clear teaching of Scripture, or the statements in the Confessions that the founders of the PCUSA or its northern and southern predecessors stood for is taught by the pastors or non-teaching elders or deacons. But they do teach the truth in love. And all want to see peace, unity and purity of the church that also upholds Scripture and the documents that the founders of the Presbyterian movement wrote out to express Scripture’s truths.
And I see in the statement released by these 15 large evangelical congregations the desire to have peace, unity and purity in the PCUSA under the authority of Scripture and the exposition of that truth as expressed in its Confessions.
I am attaching a verse that uses the melody of the Battle Hymn of the Republic as its format to express what I think they are saying.
THE PRICE
There’s a time for every season when we each must take our stand
When the unity that’s offered means that truth must be denied
And that peace renounces purity to gain our compromise
Will God’s truth be denied?
Rising, rising, Hear the chorus
Holy Spirit, Give us courage
God’s truth going now before us
We must not compromise
When God’s truth in love is spoken yet that stand is vilified
And truth’s motive is rejected for the sake of compromise
Will Scriptures standards falter and its purity be trashed?
Will God’s truth be denied?
CHORUS
F. Spencer Loomis Towson/Baltimore, Md.
Churches should move to protect property
Posted Friday, April 21, 2006
Thank you for publishing the letter from 35 pastors of large PCUSA churches expressing grave concern over the deeply flawed core of the PCUSA. As has been noted before, the larger PCUSA churches are usually biblically conservative. It is time for these “tall steeple” evangelical churches to start banding together to form something new as the PCUSA declines into a worldly irrelevance that only has bible-believing Christians standing against it.
In light of the recent action in the Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma, these pastors and their sessions should move now to file claims to their properties in civil court. Since they have revealed their hand, they might now be targeted by their local presbyteries.
I only wish my former church, Hollywood Presbyterian, had the foresight to have done this before it was ambushed and taken over last year by the universalist, gay-ordaining Presbytery of the Pacific. Unfortunately, only hindsight always has 20/20 vision. But what happened to Hollywood should be a warning to other Biblical congregations. One of the 35 pastors, Rev. Mark Brewer of Bel Air Presbyterian, is also in the Presbytery of the Pacific. Now that Hollywood Presbyterian has been scattered, Bel Air is currently the largest church in the presbytery and represents the largest stronghold of evangelicalism there with an average 5,000 people attending every weekend. Bel Air had better watch its back and take pro-active steps now to guard its church campus from the jealous clutches of liberal presbytery officials. Shepherds, guard your flocks!
Jon Thomasson Recently-resigned from Hollywood Presbyterian Church
Why reconstitute a new denomination or movement on the sandy foundation?
Posted Friday, April 21, 2006
RE: “New Wineskins Initiative releases drafts on unity, confessions and networking”
Just out of curiosity, why would any renewal group in the PCUSA commend a multitude of confessions and catechisms, as the New Wineskins Initiative paper does? Most folks can easily document the precipitous decline of the PCUSA as stemming from the decision to abandon the traditional use of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms. It was the vagueness of confessional orthodoxy resulting from the adoption of the “Confession of 1967” and the Book of Confessions that led directly to the abandonment of Reformed theology and then of Scripture.
This is especially seen in the ordination questions, which used to be: “Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, totally trustworthy, fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, the supreme, final, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice?” Then, “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of this church as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures?” And, “Do you promise that if at any time you find yourself out of accord with the system of doctrine as taught in the Scriptures and as contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of this church you will, on your own initiative, make known to your presbytery the change which has taken place in your views since the assumption of this ordination vow?”
Today the questions are: “Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?” Then, “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?” And, “Will you be a minister of the Word and Sacrament in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and continually guided by our confessions?” (Emphases added.) As you can see, the difference is striking. The first set of questions is objective, authoritative and verifiable, while the second set is subjective, Neo-orthodox (at least potentially) and unverifiable.
I would be very interested to hear the rationale for reconstituting a new denomination or movement on the sandy foundation which has led so many to so much sorrow rather than simply seeking to return to the “faith of our fathers” that held this great denomination so steady for so many centuries (i.e., 1642-1967).
Rev. Austin Olive
Written word all but crucified in PCUSA
Posted Friday, April 21, 2006
In response to Earl C. Apel and his question as to why we just couldn’t all get along, and the movie he watched called Joyeux Noel.
Yes, all the soldiers did stop fighting a while to sing Christmas carols, but later they started shooting at each other again. We in the church do that, too, but the battle that is raging in our denomination is a spiritual battle and it is one of eternal significance. We are charged by Paul the Apostle to contend for the faith, as he did. The problem we have with that today is that many church members do not believe the all of the Holy Bible is the Word of God for all of us, and that its meaning has not changed one iota.
This battle has become a war of empty words and emptier rhetoric. Scripture, the written Word of God, has been wrestled down to the mat by earthen vessels; it has been marred and as disfigured as the loving face of Jesus was when the Roman soldiers crammed the crown of thorns upon His brow; it has been drug through the muck and the mire of academia (i.e. Biblical criticism and intellectualism) until it is as unrecognizable as the face of our Lord after the brutal scourging rendered by the most intellectual civilization of its day; the written Word of God is all but crucified in Presbyterian Church (USA), but it is facing Calvary on a hill called Louisville. Many of its disciples are fleeing the scene, many deny they know Him; He calls, but they do not recognize His voice. Have we not known, have we not heard, that Christ is the Word of God made flesh? Hear ye the Word of the Lord, says Genesis through Revelation; will you read it and heed it, or will you take your pen knife to the words that are not God’s Word to you? Praise God, all the words of the Holy Bible are God’s Word to me, all the time! I have nowhere else to go, as Peter said to the Lord that day. His breath inspired the writers of the Holy Bible, and every Word is God-breathed and powerful, even to the dividing asunder of marrow from the bone. It is the life’s blood to every believer; it is the wine we may drink and never get drunk, but we can get as high as Mt. Sinai in our souls! We are waiting with bated breath to see if Louisville hammers those nails, and thrusts that spear into our Lord again. Will they accept PUP and reject the Word? Remember what happened on the third day, Louisville? He will rise again, and so will the true church.
Glenda Smith, elder Weaverville, N.C.
Size of congregations isn’t relevant
Posted Friday, April 21, 2006
Regarding the statement that the pastors of large congregations ready “for redefinition” of unity, I respect these pastors for sharing their thoughts with larger church and believe that voice is important to have in the discussion. However, I do not see the relevance of the size of the congregations that they serve; particularly, when they have made in clear in the first sentence they are speaking only for themselves. Placing that spin on their statement implies that their voice is more important than those of pastors who serve the “average” size Presbyterian congregation.
Matthew Sauer Winfield, Ind.
What good has been done by Detterick’s ‘consummate team player’ approach?
Posted Friday, April 21, 2006
I would not presume to challenge the contributions that John Detterick has made to the cause of Christ; however, in reading your tribute to his service, I am prompted to ask what good has been served by his “consummate team player” approach or “ever the diplomat” response to the insanity that has marked the General Assembly in the last 20 years?
Richard McClendon
We need 5,000 pastors to join the 35
Posted Friday, April 21, 2006
Offsetting the statement by the 35 ministers we have:
1. “Without offering the Presbyterian Church (USA) any theological assessment of the final report of the denomination’s Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity, the presidents of 12 Presbyterian-related seminaries have endorsed the report.”
2. “Twenty-five former moderators of the General Assembly and current Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase have issued a statement in support of the report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church (TTF).”
The above 12 seminary presidents and the 26 PCUSA moderators were elected to their positions by the General Assembly commissioners. Unless there has been a drastic change in this year’s selection and election of the 534 GA commissioners, it appears those who have been elected to their position by prior GA’s feel confident they have the votes to approve PUP.
Therefore, it seems that instead of 35 pastors signing this statement, we should be looking for 5,000 pulpit pastors signing the statement.
Larry Rued First Presbyterian Church
Loss which will continue unless Biblical authority is established by PCUSA
Posted Friday, April 21, 2006
John Detterick is leaving the PCUSA bleeding with membership loss which will continue unless a Biblical authority is established by the PCUSA. I will not hold my breath since it seems to me Icabod is written all over the PCUSA with the sanctioning immoral behavior, defying the Book of Order, accepting just about anyone who will donate money to the church.
Whoever succeeds Detterick, the same will continue, and we all should be praying for God’s will, his choosing not only a successor, but prayer for new members who are Biblical, believe in the authority of the Scriptures, saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, establishing a purpose driven church for the glory of God.
Lou. S. Nowasielski Wilmington, DE