Grease monkeys resolve impasse
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, September 28, 2009
FRESNO, Calif. – They’ve been best friends ever since they first dove under the hood of an old car and emerged with grease up to their elbows. But head gaskets and piston rings only begin to cover the subjects that these shade tree mechanics share. When they’re all cleaned up, the Revs. James Evans and Chris Erdman pilot the two largest Presbyterian churches in Fresno. And they’re driving in different directions.
Chris Erdman prays for James Evans during the Sept. 17 presbytery meeting when three churches were dismissed by San Joaquin Presbytery to join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
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Evans is the son of the late Louis Evans, former minister of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., Hollywood Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, and other prestigious pulpits across the country. His kin have played pivotal denominational roles for many years.
Erdman is a self-described “mystic” whose mid-life crisis drove him from a successful management oriented ministry toward a life of contemplation and prayer. He has authored two books and a recent e-book, titled Returning to the Center: Living Prayer in a Distracting World.
Both men claim an evangelical label (although they may define it differently), and both command widespread respect in the city of Fresno for their many contributions to the community.
They describe their relationship as a “covenant,” a pact that requires transparency and accountability. Meeting often to confess to, encourage and pray for one another, they share the many dimensions of their calling, including their views on the state of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Labor pains
An internal tug of war had been taking its toll on Evans. How could he, the progeny of notable national church leaders, even think of leaving the denomination? Words like rebellion and sedition come to mind. Yet, departure loomed increasingly large on Evans’ landscape.
Fresno First’s minister did not come to his decision to leave easily, nor did he do it alone. Together with his elders, he studied the Scriptures and engaged in a thoroughgoing analysis of PCUSA programs, pronouncements and policies. In 2006, he participated in a unanimous vote by his session “to separate, but not yet to divorce from our denomination after a disastrous General Assembly.”
At that point, Evans’ session held out a hope that this shot across the bow would result in an improved 2008 General Assembly. They sought and prayed for some indicator that the denomination would repent of its ways or, at the very least, not sink deeper into “the frigid waters of revisionism” that “drown faith, dilute the uniqueness of Christ, and stifle evangelism.”
But this was not to be. Writing to their congregation following the 2008 General Assembly, Evans and his session said, “This summer, the PCUSA voted on a series of sweeping changes affecting everything from Christology and creeds to Biblical authority over personal life. Each of five problematic votes was a frontal assault to our view of the witness of the Lord’s Word over our lives; it was the worst General Assembly in three decades.
“It is, thus, with sadness and yet hope for the future, that the elders have voted unanimously to respectfully request the Presbytery of San Joaquin to transfer our congregation, pastors and property to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC). We will always be Presbyterian, and our intent is to unite with a like-minded denomination that is uncompromising on issues of Biblical authority.”
Unity a priority
Meanwhile, Evans’ partner mechanic was affirming a very different take on denominational affairs. Erdman’s passion is for church unity. Any break in the body of Christ breaks his heart.
After San Joaquin Presbytery delivered “The Challenge of our Time” strongly criticizing the 2006 General Assembly – a document to which Evans was a signatory – Erdman joined a small group, primarily peopled by his own staff and session at University Presbyterian Church, and issued a “September Statement of Conscience,” in which they took issue with the presbytery majority.
‘Free to be faithful’
Erdman and his colleagues said that while they found no “grounds for celebration” in actions of the General Assembly, neither did they believe the denomination had abandoned the Christian faith. Suggesting that “the media” had engaged in “miscommunication” when reporting General Assembly actions, the “Statement of Conscience” affirmed that nothing was done by that assembly that “signaled an abandonment of our historic commitment to the person and work of Jesus Christ, nor have they denied our traditional theological convictions or jettisoned our traditional teaching on human sexuality and standards for ordination.”
Erdman and his fellow signatories declared that they saw very few (“only one”) justifiable reasons “for a church’s ordained leaders to abandon their vows and lead congregations to withdraw from a denomination,” they said. “We do not believe the PCUSA has reached such a state today.”
Erdman, who says he keeps his distance from “renewal groups,” includes in his published correspondence and sermons a theme often articulated by Presbyterians for Renewal, a renewal group that encourages evangelicals not to leave the denomination. PFR says that regardless of what actions the General Assembly may have taken, Presbyterians are still “free to be faithful.” Following that line, Erdman argues that because the General Assembly’s inclusive policies continue to make room for people of various beliefs, evangelicals are free to profess what they believe without denominational coercion.
No big tent
But that “inclusivity” is precisely the sticking point for Evans and his congregation. “What once would have been correctly seen as heresy is now accepted as following in the cultural norm,” they wrote in their letter to First Fresno. “Discipline of theology has evaporated. Everyone’s opinion is held in equal esteem. We fully believe that to stay is to compromise our collective integrity and commitment to Scripture, and thus wither.”
On the denomination’s sexual behavior standards, Evans and Erdman have draped themselves over opposite fenders. Evans vigorously defends the PCUSA’s constitutional ordinance that it will not ordain or install persons who engage in sexual behavior outside the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman.
Erdman, on the other hand, told San Joaquin Presbytery on Sept. 4, 2008, “… I’m unwilling to speak for or against the ordination of monogamous or chaste gay and lesbian Christians … I do know that we must find ways of being solidly evangelical while being more inclusive of those who have been marginalized, objectified and oppressed by the evangelical faith that ought to have won them to the Savior.”
So, according to their signed statements, Evans believes that “to stay is to compromise our collective integrity and commitment to Scripture.” And Erdman believes that “we must not – indeed we cannot – break fellowship with our church nor can we initiate a process that may lead to such a break without sinning against the Body of Christ, our Lord, and our confession of faith (we ‘believe in one holy catholic church’).”
A moment to
decide
Evans’ congregation petitioned San Joaquin Presbytery for dismissal (with its property) to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and the presbytery council appointed Erdman to a “transition committee” empowered to recommend the presbytery’s response.
In his capacity as a committee member, Erdman visited with Evans and his session, probing the entire congregation to assess the strength of its conviction. The committee’s fact-finding efforts resulted in a clear picture: First Fresno knew what it was doing, and its desire to leave the PCUSA was unequivocal.
At Evans’ invitation, Erdman visited Fresno First’s sanctuary where together they preached a half-and-half sermon. Then, employing an ancient ritual of affection and servanthood, Erdman washed Evans’ feet.
The body of Christ
Erdman continues to advocate loyalty to the denomination, but something in him has changed. He no longer believes that those who “break fellowship” with the PCUSA are “sinning against the body of Christ, our Lord and our confession of faith.”
That clearly was his view in 2006 when he signed a “Statement of Conscience.” It remains the view of attorneys from the Office of the General Assembly in Louisville, Ky. who advise presbyteries to label departing Presbyterians “schismatics,” no longer part of “the true church.”
Erdman has not stated publicly what led him to spurn Louisville’s advice. Possibly it came from a recent soul searching foray into the Egyptian desert, followed by Celtic seclusion in Iona and an immersion into the writings of medieval mystics in Oxford. During that pilgrimage he concluded that making such judgments is inconsistent with the holy life.
It is also possible that something happened to Erdman while he and his friend manipulated the nuts and bolts of an ailing automobile.
Whatever its genesis, at the San Joaquin Presbytery meeting on Sept. 17, Erdman stepped to a microphone and declared that when his brothers and sisters move to a different denomination, they will not be leaving the family. Nothing has changed, he said. They continue to be part of the Body of Christ.
Gesturing toward his Fresno friend, he said, “Jamie and I may be on different fenders, but we’re under the same hood.”