Anonymous group suggests a ‘newpcus’
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, December 5, 2005
Save your Southern hymnals because, an anonymous blog group says, the PCUS may rise again.
Appearing from nowhere, the group – claiming it includes pastors, elders and seminary professors in the Presbyterian Church (USA) – has launched a Web site and begun churning out a somewhat revised standard version of the PCUS, aka, the Presbyterian Church U.S.
The PCUS was the denomination that reunited with the United Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1983 to become the PCUSA. But, says www.newpcus.org, the mainline denomination is “likely” to “place itself in schism from the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church in the summer of 2006, by eliminating sexual immorality as a barrier to ordination to church office, contrary to the witness of Scripture.”
The group is referring to the 217th General Assembly, which will meet in Birmingham, Ala., in June 2006. Fourteen presbyteries have submitted overtures calling for a national referendum to delete G-6.0106b, the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard, from the Book of Order and to repeal the General Assembly’s Authoritative Interpretation that calls homosexual behavior contrary to the will of God.
In addition, the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity will ask the General Assembly to approve a new Authoritative Interpretation that would allow ordaining bodies to decide whether the “fidelity/chastity” clause is essential.
Newspcus does give the General Assembly an escape hatch, however. “If the PCUSA rejects overtures to delete G-6.0106b from the Form of Government and also rejects the fifth recommendation of the P.U.P. report, this discussion will be over, at least for the moment.”
Disclaiming any desire for a denominational split, newpcus says, “… we must ask what will come next. … With foreboding, but also with a sense of vocation, we are preparing for the possibility that it will be divided nevertheless.”
So who’s in newpcus? No telling. “For the time being, some of us intend to remain anonymous. We have families and other responsibilities that we feel we cannot endanger. Others are willing to use their names and other identifying information on the site.”
But the saints anonymous have gently sniped at others who have issued similar warnings about a possible fissure in the denomination if the 217th General Assembly gives the green light to the ordination of practicing homosexuals.
In particular, newpcus has singled out the New Wineskins Initative for being too generically Christian and not sufficiently Reformed. Leaders of the NWI have said the 217th General Assembly could be one possible “breaking point” if it abandons the constitutional “fidelity-chastity” ordination standard or dilutes the PCUSA’s historic belief that Jesus is Savior and Lord for all.
NWI, says newpcus, is “creating a church that will be broadly evangelical and without what we regard as a significantly Reformed ethos. We also worry that their proposed polity is not sufficiently robust to discipline corporate sin in congregations and governing bodies. We wish them every blessing, but believe we are called to continue to be confessionally Reformed and politically Presbyterian.”
Newspcus says a better model would be the PCUS. It also recommends a 1970s PCUS Book of Order and, especially, the Westminster Confession and its catechism.