Severing’ clause in task force report draws a second look
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, March 4, 2005
DALLAS – The Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity spent time this week trying to figure out how to ease out of a controversy prompted by one of the statements made in its preliminary report to the 216th General Assembly.
The task force told the commissioners last year that “unity with one another is not an optional feature of life in Christ. It is a necessity: union with Christ means union with all other members of Christ’s body, including those with whom one would not ordinarily choose to associate.”
Furthermore, the report to the commissioners said, “The implication of the biblical teaching is clear: Christians cannot even entertain the notion of severing their ties with sisters and brothers in Christ without also placing themselves in severe jeopardy of being severed from Christ.”
Does that mean that Presbyterians who separate from the Presbyterian Church (USA) – either individually or collectively – are also “in severe jeopardy of being severed from Christ?” Mark Achtemeier, one of the principal writers of the task force’s preliminary report, asked the panel during its meeting in Dallas this week.
Not exactly, but …, Achtemeir seemed to suggest in a five-page follow-up paper. He argued that the task force’s interim report was based on unity as a Biblical principle for the body of Christ and that the PCUSA, one might say, is an “arbitrary construct” like other denominations.
Therefore, leaving one Presbyterian Church to join another Christian congregation doesn’t necessarily jeopardize one’s relationship with Christ. “The task force’s claims about the implications of separating from the true church may be accurate and faithful,” he said, “but that is not the issue at hand in current debates about the future of the PCUSA.”
Even though Achtemeir’s report, simply titled “Denominations,” toned down the implications of the “severing” clause in the interim report, some of the task force members were not happy with the repair work.
Even Joe Coalter, the librarian at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., who, along with Jack Haberer, pastor of Clear Lake Presbyterian Church in Houston, worked with Achtemeier in preparing “Denominations,” expressed some reservations. The follow-up report may need to be “cannibalized” to be useful in the task force’s final conclusions, he said.
And William Stacy Johnson, in presenting a later report on modern Reformed confessions, briefly questioned the whole Biblical premise of the interim report that included the “severing” clause.
That report, which was based on a selected reading of verses from the first three chapters of Ephesians, concluded that Jesus alone was the church’s peace, unity and purity and that schism resulting from disagreement over issues, such as the ordination of practicing homosexuals, would violate the unity that Jesus required.
That report did not mention that the last three chapters of Ephesians emphasized obedience and even suggested that Christians should separate from church members who continually violate God’s commandments.
Vicky Curtiss, co-pastor of Collegiate Presbyterian Church in Ames, Iowa, said the interim report should have focused on Christ’s work of reconciliation.
She raised the question of the tradition in the PCUSA in which a church member cannot agree with a decision of the church and is advised to leave rather than keep on harping about a divisive issue.
“That’s certainly a component,” Achtemeir said. “We make provisions for your weakness, your hardness of heart.”
“I was a little concerned about the harshness of the statement in the preliminary report,” said Joan Merritt, an elder in Bellevue, Wash.
In his “Denominations” report, Achtemeir said schism in church history – including the separation of Israel and Judah in the Old Testament – was never in God’s will.
“It is instructive that the division of Israel is clearly portrayed as an act of unfaithfulness and a manifestation of divine wrath, but the sinful division of the kingdom does not forfeit God’s election. Israel is now understood as divided and unfaithful Israel, but it is still Israel. The fact that Christ’s body in the world is sinfully fragmented and rent asunder in a manner reminiscent of Jesus’ crucifixion does not mean that his body ceases to exist.”
He also said the Reformation was not begun as a schism, the Reformers were excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, but it did divide the church and led to renewal – a case of bringing “good out of evil.”
“It is worth noting in this light … that virtually every great reformer repudiated the idea of separating from the established church of their day,” Achtemeir said. “They formed new churches only when they were excommunicated by the established church. They also believed that the Roman Catholic Church had corrupted its official teaching sufficiently that it was no longer Christian.”
There are some instances when separation might seem blameless, but “what if the act of separating from one Christian communion is motivated by a desire to find another group of Christians more like oneself?” he asked.
He did not answer that question directly. But he did criticize “our consumerist culture” that leads people to shop around for the kind of “brand” church they like.
“Breaking ties with committed Christians in order to seek a communion more in keeping with our own desires proclaims the false gospel of a church that is the creation of our own preferences, held together by our own strength.”
The church of the “like-minded is a distortion of the image of the church,” Achtemeir said.
After his presentation, members of the task force broke up into three groups to talk about his report. Curtiss, Coalter and Haberer reported back to the open session.
Curtiss said the report should have emphasized “a positive call to oneness rather than a negative argument.”
Coalter said the report may raise more questions than it helps.
Haberer said his group concluded that the report has “more the feel of a sociological study” and that real unity “does require playing by the rules. He also acknowledged that some of the task force members “found ourselves a little uncomfortable” with the severing clause.
In the final paragraph of his report, Achtemeir said, “Within the denominational context, no less than in the undivided church, ‘Christians cannot even entertain the notion of severing their ties with sisters and brothers in Christ without also placing themselves in severe jeopardy of being severed from Christ.'”
The task force took no action on the “Denominations” report.