Theologians: Declaration should not be used to divide the church
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 28, 1999
DALLAS – The Presbyterian Coalition’s “Union in Christ,” intended to be a defining statement by the evangelical wing of the Presbyterian Church (USA), is both a “gift to the Church” and an admonition to evangelicals that it should not be used to provoke schism.
Those assessments were made during a joint presentation to the Coalition’s “Gathering IV” by Joe Small, coordinator of the Office of Theology and Worship at the Louisville headquarters of the PCUSA, and Mark Achtemeier, assistant professor of systematic theology at Dubuque Theological Seminary.
Those who expected a theological clash because Small is from the denomination’s staff and Achtemeier is an activist in the evangelical wing of the denomination were disappointed. Both were complimentary of “Union in Christ,” with Small describing the declaration as a gift to the Church and Achtemeier commending it for its cautious reflection on unity. And both advised against using “Union in Christ” to leverage church division.
Statement of evangelical faith
“Union in Christ,” subtitled “A Declaration for the Church,” was drafted by a Coalition-appointed team of pastors, theologians and renewal leaders and presented to more than 500 Presbyterians attending “Gathering III” in Dallas in 1998. It was approved overwhelmingly by those participants as a statement of evangelical faith.
While it can be seen as a call for unity, the declaration strongly opposes theological pluralism, relativism, syncretism, professed righteousness apart from Christ, discounting the authority of Scripture, theology that pits law and gospel against each other, moral and sexual confusion and congregational autonomy to decide such issues as whether to ordain homosexuals.
But both Small and Achtemeier agreed that the essence of “Union in Christ” was to maintain unity in Christ.
Small cautioned that “Union in Christ” does not rise to the level of confession or creed because it has not been ratified by the denomination or even proposed for ratification.
Commentary on Declaration
A similar assessment is made in the foreword of a newly published commentary on “Union in Christ” (Louisville, Witherspoon Press, $8.95) by Achtemeier and Andrew Purves of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. There, it is described as “a considered statement of faith and worthy of study by thoughtful Christians … It is not part of the Church’s Book of Confessions and has no authoritative place in the Church’s faith and life.”
“Union in Christ is or can be a modest gift and a generous invitation to the Church … It can be a gift of the genuine conviction of this company of believers … an invitation to think and talk together,” Small said.
He said “Union in Christ” is “too valuable to be used as a doctrinal manifesto” or as a weapon against those who do not agree with evangelicals.
Achtemeier used what he called “theses on the unity of the Church” that could be drawn from “Union in Christ.” They comprised an admonition against using “Union in Christ” as a line in the sand to separate evangelicals and liberals.
“To break fellowship with other persons who show any signs at all of being in Christ is to deny our own oneness with Christ and our own hope of salvation in him,” Achtemeier said.
Formal ‘anathema’ required
He said the only acceptable method of declaring a break with liberals “consistent with our confession of Jesus” would be to issue a “formal anathema declaring the other party’s fellowship to be utterly lacking in the means of grace and thus wholly and completely outside of Christ.”
Achtemeier said a formal anathema – a biblical word for curse – must not be based “on aberrations of local practice, but in the official statements, confessions and teachings of the fellowship in question.”
Enemies within and without the Church and “the ongoing work of reform in the face of sin, unbelief and heresy are permanent features of the Church’s existence this side of the kingdom,” he said.
Instead of schism and separation, “which testify to our despair of the workings of God’s grace,” Achtemeier said, church reform is carried out through prayer, preaching, instruction, Christian nurture and church discipline “that together proclaim our hope in Christ.”
Creeds and present witness
Small’s presentation was framed around the proclivity in most Reformed denominations – with the exception of Lutherans and their Augsberg Confession – to use a variety of creeds but none as the single authoritative model for biblical interpretation and church polity. That means that PCUSA Presbyterians in particular, although once committed solely to the Westminster Confession, have been reluctant to close the door to the “present witness” of the means of grace.
“Before there was ‘Union in Christ’ there was the Book of Confessions,” Small said. “That declared who and what the Presbyterian Church is.”
Sadly, Small added, “many of our ministers, elders and deacons would be hard-pressed to name the 11 confessions … they are often regarded as museum pieces” or used principally to “identify bad faith or bad life in other people.”
Quoting Karl Barth, Small said confessions by nature are geographically confined, contemporary and provincial, the very reason that new declarations of faith, such as “Union in Christ,” emerge.
Scripture, tradition and Church
Small also said that “Union in Christ,” like other other declarations, draws from three primary resources: Scripture, tradition and Church. “Scripture always stands over and judges the tradition and the Church,” he said. “Even so, these function together against the dangers of cultural conformity.”
“We always knew that ‘Scripture alone’ never meant each interpretation alone,” Small said, referring to today’s divisions that are marked by liberals and evangelicals using contrasting personal interpretations of Scripture to arrive at different views.
In company with the declarations of the Church and its tradition, Scripture “is not restricted by our eyes and ears,” Small said.