Another PCUSA session fires warning shot on PUP report
The Layman Online, March 24, 2006
Another session has fired a warning shot primed by the San Diego resolution.
On March 21, the session of First Presbyterian Church in Thomaston, Ga., served notice of its displeasure with the direction of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its aversion to remaining in a denomination that might abandon its theological and ethical heritage.
“Still, we believe that it would be unwise to set any arbitrary deadline for making our local decision,” the session said in a statement posted on the congregation’s Web site. “The General Assembly may defeat the Peace, Unity and Purity report. Those strong efforts to reform our denomination may succeed in reversing the trends we have seen in recent years. If not, there may soon be clear options for us to take.”
The statement noted that there already “is a serious proposal to revive the old Presbyterian Church of the US, the denomination to which we belonged before 1982. Another Reform proposal is called the New Wineskins Initiative.”
The session is using the congregation’s Web site to post information about denominational issues.
The session declared that it is “adamantly opposed” to some trends in the denomination.
“The leadership in Louisville and in many of the agencies and commissions of the PCUSA appear to be following a radical leftist agenda,” the session said. “The denomination has aligned itself with anti-capitalist, anti-U.S., anti-Israel causes, both within our nation and on the international scene.”
The session complained that the “denomination has, almost deliberately, taken stands on issues which have little to do with the mission of the church but which, rather, are partisan positions about which Presbyterians (and Americans generally) do not agree.”
It says that, because the leaders of the PCUSA “do not see Jesus Christ as uniquely Lord and Savior (in the Biblical sense), they are confused about the purpose and the mission of the church.”
The session accused denominational leaders of seeing the church’s mission as “‘improving the world’ through political action rather than proclaiming the good news of salvation from sin through Christ’s atonement.”
If the recommendations of the Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity are approved by the 217th General Assembly, the PCUSA “will no longer be a connectional church,” the statement added. “Each presbytery will do as it thinks right. In protest many individuals and congregations will leave the denomination, and we will face our own decision locally.”