PUP report sails into alien territory
October 18, 2005
While the Task Force was charged to discern ways to maintain and/or restore peace, unity, and purity within the PCUSA, its report’s recommendations sadly and disappointingly lack the components of a path to truly restore harmony within our denomination.
The PUP Report uses the metaphor of the church as a ship and our polity the mechanics of adjusting and re-adjusting the ship’s course as a means to ensure forward motion through difficult waters. The report acknowledges the difficult waters surrounding our current “ship,” yet fails to example any specifics besides the chastity requirements of G-6.0106(b). Most troubling, it alludes to the necessity to oversteer from time to time in order to pull everyone along. Over the course of the past century, our “ship” has less experienced the normal corrections of a few degrees, but rather the attempted near-180 degree re-charting into alien territory.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) of the 21st Century finds itself divided over not only the above mentioned ordination standard, but, even more important to many, the sharp disconnect between congregational members and our officers of various presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly over matters of non-conformance beyond minor “scruples” as applied to the Basic Tenets and even to the Triune nature of God.
- The report affirms the Triune nature of God, but our higher level of government seemingly refuses to disassociate itself from groups evoking “the goddess” Sophia, even after the General Assembly voted against the Sophia association. As more and more PCUSA congregations sign onto the Sophia/”Christa” movement, our leaders are mute. Is this one of the new paradigms of the 21st Century we are to examine as called for by lines 451-3 of the report? We were instructed by a breadth and variety of Christological affirmations that have been accepted as Christian and Reformed doctrine and chastened about our own tendencies to oversimplify our claims about Jesus Christ in contemporary debate.
- At the present time, the ordination of a homosexual in a self-avowed active sexual relationship is a clear matter that, under the current and clear wording of G-6.0106(b) should not be ratified by a higher body to which the ordination was appealed. In recent cases, appeals from other presbyteries for adjudication fell upon deaf ears. [See end note.] Then, as now, and as proposed by the PUP Report, “local option” would have no validity in our church’s polity; but the politically correct suppositions of our times coupled with our higher echelon’s commitment to be “of” the 21st Century (i.e., influenced by society rather than influencing society), tactically endorses the local option evidently exercised by the presbyteries listed in the End Note.
Even the PUP Report’s opening statement, directing the Task Force to “lead the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in spiritual discernment of our Christian identity in and for the 21st century…” implies the need to conform to current society.
- We are not Amish gathering to consider discarding customs that were modern when adopted in the 18th century. We are a Reformed and always reforming group whose basic message has endured for two millennia: Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Even the PUP Report calls for affirming that simple view of Christ.
One may ask the question: “What’s so special about the 21st century as opposed to 35 A.D., or the 16th or 20th centuries?”
- The basics of our faith have not changed; what has changed is our society, the first to intellectually embrace the notion that there are no absolutes-no truth that may be assumed true except to its believer. Everything is relative. This is our crisis. Yet the PCUSA refuses to engage in the debate.
“Scruples,” Individual Conscience and Popular Exceptions
Although the PUP Report concludes that its recommended authoritative interpretation of G-6.0108 (Freedom of Conscience-Individual and Corporate) is not intended to change the existing ordination standards (life in obedience to Scripture and confirmed standards including fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness), adoption of the offered interpretation coupled with the emphasis on the historical “scruples” dissentions solution of 1729 will inevitably lead to the exercise of the local options the report claims it cannot endorse.
The report refutes establishing local ordination standards. Yet the PCUSA already allows the exercise of local culturally popular exceptions to clearly stated standards (see End Note). The Task Force’s emphasis on the 1729 exception ruling as applied to theological standards will make even more room for accepting candidates and church officers who depart from the Essentials.
Our church’s emphasis on individual conscience in interpreting Scripture on “non-essentials” and the Confessions has been the hallmark of our denomination. Yet we live in a society where political correctness is the highest standard of behavior.
- A major unacknowledged issue facing the PCUSA is the pressure from within our church by numerous congregations allied with the Sophia affinity group to pull away from the simple message of Jesus as the way and truth. Our early American church leaders of 1729 never envisioned their descendents of 2005 operating essentially “out of Order” on matters of basic theology – attempting to “reform” the Holy Trinity into the Holy Square. Nor would they have prayed to Allah at the opening of their meeting as did the Presbytery of the Pacific this past year.
CONCLUSION:
To maintain the report’s ship analogy: Acceptance of the PUP Report recommendations will serve to loosen the hull rivets.
- We cannot risk elevating the “scruples” test at a time when our divisions are in crisis depths.
- As evidenced by our current applied polity, many practices and attitudes within the PCUSA in direct conflict with our confessions and Book of Order are tactically accepted or not dealt with.
“Discipline” is not a dirty word. Indeed, its root meaning is disciple. Applied fairly and with love, church discipline is essential to “sail our ship.”
I call upon the leadership, clergy, and seminaries of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to:
- 1. Reflect an ideal (albeit naturally imperfect) standard of doctrinal beliefs in matters of policy, adjudication, and education.
- 2. Diligently and with love nurture Presbyterians at all levels and church institutions toward a cohesive Christ-alone faith.
With that turnaround, the polity recommendations of the Task Force would be palatable or could even be taken on faith under loving submission. And, the call for a general season of discernment for congregations would be joyous and appropriate rather than the stalling tactic it appears to be. However, with the absence of these commitments and demonstrated actions toward their goal by our leadership, the Task Force’s recommendations should be rejected.
Sandra Jean Richardson, elder
First Presbyterian Church (Church of the ’49ers)
Columbia, California
End Note: Recent ordination cases involve the Presbytery of the Redwoods and the Presbytery of Baltimore, and the declaration of 13 congregations in the Presbytery of Hudson River that they will continue to elect and install sexually active homosexuals and perform same-sex marriages. Not only did requests for review fall on deaf ears, the 215th General Assembly voted to address the problem not by adjudication but by continued pastoral letters. And, it ensured by changes to the Standing Rules that special called sessions of the GA would become nearly impossible to achieve. An important avenue to enforcing Order was effectively eliminated.