Confessing Church taken to court over confession
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, February 15, 2002
First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian, Fla., has been taken to church court for having declared itself a Confessing Church – and has been asked by the court to recant key provisions in its confessing resolution.
A Sebastian elder charged in a complaint to the Central Florida Presbytery’s Permanent Judicial Commission that the session of the 235-member congregation violated the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church by adopting the three tenets of the Confessing Church Movement.
The principal contention by the elder, Norman F. Blessing, is that the session action violated “freedom of conscience” for him and other members of the congregation.
The court asked the session to revise part of the resolution that describes Scripture as “the Church’s only infallible rule of faith and life” – a phrase that comes directly from the Westminster Confession.
The commission also asked the Sebastian session to rescind a statement urging “sessions and presbyteries … to declare that they will not ordain, install or employ in any ministry position any person who will not affirm” the three tenets of the Confessing Church Movement. The session refused to do either.
Forced compliance possible
If the session had complied with the court’s request, the case probably would have ended, but, since it did not, the case now goes forward and the Sebastian session faces the possibility of a court forcing compliance.
A hearing on the case is scheduled at 10 a.m. Feb. 20 in the presbytery’s office in Orlando.
The action against the Sebastian session was instigated by Blessing after five elders approved a Confessing Church resolution.
Later, the pastor Eleanor Lea, and 11 of the congregation’s 13 elders signed a letter that was sent to the Permanent Judicial Commission stating their unwillingness to recant their resolution.
Confessing tenets affirmed
The Sebastian resolution affirmed the three tenets of the Confessing Church Movement: Jesus Christ alone is Lord and Savior; Scripture is the church’s only infallible rule of faith and life; and God’s people are called to holiness in all aspects of life, including honoring the sanctity of marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman.
The Sebastian session also affirmed the PCUSA’s constitutional “fidelity/chastity” standard that prohibits the ordination of men and women who are practicing homosexuals or adulterers. In the current national referendum on Amendment 01-A, nearly 70 percent of the presbyteries in the denomination have affirmed that standard.
In his complaint, Blessing says the Sebastian resolution denied him and others of their “freedom of conscience,” misled members of the church, created an injustice by “effectively blocking a member’s right to hold office,” and was “divisive and an affront to the peace, unity and purity of the church.”
The complaint is based mostly on Blessing’s interpretation of the Book of Order. The response by the Sebastian session included numerous citations from The Book of Confessions. The PCUSA officially views the Book of Order as subordinate to the confessions, just as the confessions are subordinate to Scripture.
The official Sebastian response said its resolution, which is identical to hundreds of resolutions adopted by Confessing Church sessions, “is thoroughly in keeping with the Reformed historical and traditional confessions of the Presbyterian Church.”
Response cites confessions
To support the confession that “Jesus Christ alone is Lord,” the response cites declarations in the Scots Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger Catechism, the Theological Declaration of Barmen and the Confession of 1967.
It also appeals to confessional statements to support its declaration that Scripture is “the Church’s only infallible rule of faith.” While Blessing’s complaint also notes that Westminster phrase, he argues that freedom of conscience allows disagreement with confessional and Biblical standards.
The response cites similar confessional support for the session’s appeal to God’s standards of holiness.
Freedom of conscience
The response also addresses the issue of freedom of conscience.
“The gravamin of Complainant’s allegations is that the resolution of Sebastian deprives Church members of their right to freedom of conscience. The complainant fails, however, to state with any particularity what specific portions of the Resolution he finds objectionable, and of how they run contrary to his conscience.”
The “conscience” argument has long been cited by people who oppose Biblical and Reformed theology, particularly in the arena of the debate over ordaining practicing homosexuals.
But the response said, “Freedom of conscience as contemplated within the Presbyterian tradition does not include the right of an individual to renounce the authority and/or commands of Scripture.”
“It is ironic,” the response added, “that the Complainant, in advocating his freedom of conscience, challenges the right of elders of Sebastian to exercise their conscience in comformity with the Reformed tradition.”
Rebutting Blessing’s argument that the resolution was “oppressive” – in that it did not allow people of “different theological positions” to hold office – the response pointed out that the complaint reflects an “‘anything goes’ mentality.” The response also noted that the Presbyterian Church has constitutional standards for its officers that are not required of its members.
‘Age discrimination’
One contention in Blessing’s complaint is that the session and the pastor manipulated the congregation because its average age exceeds 70 years. “This allegation can only be viewed as advocating age discrimination,” the response said.
Blessing’s complaint also noted that two of the elders who voted for the resolution had been members of the session for only five months. “Indeed, it is obvious from the complaint that the Complainant seeks to impose his viewpoint on Sebastian as the sole arbiter of what is right and proper, in contravention to the very values he purports to espouse.”