Commentary: A caterpillar Christology
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, March 31, 2010
“Darryl,” a 36-year-old Presbyterian minister who says he’s “progressive-minded,” told interviewers in a study sponsored by the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, “I reject the virgin birth. I reject substitutionary atonement. I reject the divinity of Jesus. I reject heaven and hell in the traditional sense, and I am not alone.”
The Rev. Parker Williamson
Darryl’s rejection of Christian truth qualifies him to join a growing community of “secret disbelief” that has spread among Presbyterian and other denominational clergy. They rarely celebrate their apostasies corporately, but certain code words suggest an affinity with other closeted nonbelievers.
Yes to Jesus; No to Christ
Darryl says he is a “Jesus follower,” but he’s quick to limit that association: “It is arguable whether I am also a ‘Christian.’”
Darryl’s “god” appears nebulous, so he apparently did not enter a Presbyterian seminary with conviction. Rather, he went there “to explore.” He says that what he learned from the faculty convinced him that Christianity wasn’t “black and white, it was plaid, polka-dot – there was just such a variety of thought that went in every different kind of direction.”
Darryl says that “believing in something” is important to him, although he’s not at all sure what that something is. A clergyman would be “really sad” if he or she went through the motions of the job without believing in anything, he told his interviewer.
Pretending for pay
He admits to “cognitive dissonance” when he considers how his beliefs deny Scripture and the Reformed faith as expressed in Presbyterian Church (USA) standards. Sometimes he feels he should come out of the closet, but he says the cost would be too great.
“I realize that if I come out a little more, I may be burning bridges in terms of my ability to earn a living in this way … I need to provide for myself and my family …The church has been a positive thing in my life overall. It’s been a place of affirmation … of comfort … of ritual and wonderful mystery.”
By Darryl’s calculus, forfeiting those perks is just too high a price to pay for honesty, so he continues to draw a paycheck from a church whose faith he does not share.
Living the lie
Darryl is one of five ordained ministers from various denominations who confidentially shared their non-belief with Tufts interviewers. One stays in the profession because he likes working with people. Another says his position with a local church offers a springboard for social action and community organizing, which is what he really likes to do. Another says he loves drama, so he acts out various Christian beliefs although he doesn’t personally affirm them, just as he would if he were in a play. One said he could not afford the loss of salary and pension were his non-belief to be revealed, but he would renounce the faith in a heartbeat if someone would pay the $200,000 that it would take to pay off his debts.
There is one factor that all five have in common, a factor that, by their assessment, many of their fellow clergymen share:
They are living a lie.
This study, says Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., “lays bare a level of heresy, apostasy, and hypocrisy that staggers the mind.” Mohler said that its findings reminded him of Gilbert Tennett’s famous sermon, “On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry.” In that sermon, Tennett called unbelieving ministers “caterpillars” that “labor to devour every green thing.”
Apparently, the presence of these life devouring creatures is of no consequence to the PCUSA, whose love of “inclusiveness” invites them to feast on our faith. The only caterpillar from which PCUSA officials seek divestment is an earth moving species that carves space between Middle Eastern adversaries.
Shucking Scripture
Not only does the PCUSA turn a deaf ear to whispers of heresy, it harbors clergy who loudly applaud it. The Rev. John Shuck, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethton, Tenn., an advisor to the Presbyterian campus ministry program at East Tennessee State University, and a member of Holston Presbytery’s governing council came quickly to the five ministers’ defense on his March 23 blog.
Shuck warned conservative church people might attack non-believing clergy by focusing on their integrity. Such attacks turn reality on its head, says Shuck, because faithless ministers are not the problem. The real problem is “the traditional church’s worn out faith” that these ministers no longer believe. Shuck believes these ministers are announcing “the demise of supernaturalism and the creeds that continue to uphold it,” and that their non-belief should be applauded rather than punished.
Happy Easter!
“We were not placed in any garden by any divine being,” Shuck tells his Internet audience. “No god/man came to Earth, walked on water, rose from the dead and sits on a heavenly throne. That is religious fiction. It is metaphor, story, myth, human invention. It is how our ancestors tried to find meaning. Bless their hearts.”
Shuck continues, “My advice for clergy and for laypeople who are growing out of a childish supernaturalistic past is to stand your ground. Don’t let them set the terms or the rules. Don’t resign. Be bold. Tell the truth. Don’t call it a loss of faith. It is a growth in understanding. It is waking up from sleep. It is gaining sight from blindness. It is resurrection from death to life. Happy Easter.”
One wonders how the churches of Holston Presbytery have agreed to tolerate this in-your-face apostasy, much less commend college students to his counsel and honor him with a position of presbytery governance.
Happy Easter, indeed! Shuck has sucked the life out of Easter. Scripture speaks clearly to those who so cavalierly discard the Gospel:
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.”
Shelving the faith
Often, when a PCUSA congregation announces its inclination to leave this denomination for an association that unequivocally affirms the Gospel, presbytery executives rush in with assurances that the faith is alive and well in the PCUSA. “Look at our Book of Confessions. That’s the official constitution of our denomination,” they cry.
Maybe so, but a church that will not hold its leaders accountable to that very constitution; a church that will not discipline its leaders – especially those who preach from its pulpits, counsel its people and teach its children – has shelved only reliquaries (bone boxes) of a once-lived faith.
Resurrection joy
The good news is this: On Easter Day, millions of believers will turn their faces heavenward, praising the Lord for His glorious resurrection and His ascent to that eternal communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our exuberance will not be diminished by a few paltry priests who cross fingers inside cassocks and play at the pretense of piety. On that day of resurrection, no faithless cleric will worm through our Hallelujahs. No power in this earth can undermine our joy.
Jesus Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed!
The Rev. Parker T. Williamson is editor emeritus, consultant to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, and an honorably retired PCUSA minister.