Ohio congregation votes to leave PCUSA and affiliate with Evangelical Presbyterian Church
By Patrick Jean, March 6, 2007
Saying the report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity was the last straw, members of an Ohio congregation have voted almost unanimously to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) and affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Middle Sandy Presbyterian Church in Homeworth voted 60-2 on Feb. 25 to join the EPC. The congregation has 132 active members, said Scott Mason, an elder of the church.
Middle Sandy leaders will now negotiate with Muskingum Valley Presbytery about dismissal, Mason said. “We’re praying,” he said, “that a peaceful agreement can be reached.”
The Rev. Dr. Debbie Rundlett, Muskingum Valley executive presbyter, said Middle Sandy’s request is being referred to the presbytery’s Committee on Ministry so that a pastoral reference team can be formed. “As you can imagine,” she said in an e-mail to The Layman Online, “we are seeking to care both for the Middle Sandy congregation and the congregations of presbytery as we respond to their request.”
Middle Sandy expects to be dismissed with its property, Mason said. The church’s deeds and articles of incorporation are in line, he said, with the congregation owning its property.
Mason said the church has a good relationship with its presbytery and that the issues are “more with Louisville. This has been long coming within the congregation, and I’ve only been a member for six years.”
He said Middle Sandy felt it was apart from the PCUSA on issues such as the divinity of Christ and the Trinity. But the final straw, he said, probably was ordination standards – specifically, the 217th General Assembly’s approval of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity report to keep the current ordination standards in the denomination’s constitution, but allow those who choose not to obey them to declare them to be non-essential.
“As a congregation, we were getting tired of fighting for change from within,” Mason said. “Some members of the session were ready to move on.”
Mason said Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly, got it wrong when he said departing PCUSA churches hurt the body of Christ. “Fractures within the body of Christ diminish our witness of God’s grace and mercy to the world – unfortunate in these already divisive times,” Kirkpatrick wrote in a Jan. 29 letter co-authored with Linda Bryant Valentine, executive director of the General Assembly Council, in which they urged congregations not to leave the denomination.
“The body of Christ isn’t just the PCUSA,” Mason said. “It’s much larger than that.”
From a personal standpoint, Mason said he is amazed at how far the PCUSA has drifted away from Scripture over the past 10 years.
“Growing up in the Presbyterian Church,” he said, “I’ve been a little sheltered. I never thought there was such a thing as a liberal Presbyterian.”
Mason said the tenets of the more conservative EPC lined up with Middle Sandy’s beliefs. Being an EPC church, he said, will allow the congregation to focus on missional and outreach work. Leaving the PCUSA for the EPC is exciting and scary, Mason said. “Any change is both of these at the same time.”
But he hopes the dismissal “could be an example for churches and presbyteries as to how this process could take place.” “This doesn’t have to be a painful separation,” he said.
Patrick Jean is a staff writer for The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at pjean@layman.org.