Committee recommends no action in Peacemaking Conference followup
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, February 13, 2001
Presbyterian ministers and the staff of the Presbyterian Church (USA) will not be held accountable for statements made at PCUSA conferences that contradict the denomination’s Biblical and confessional standards if a committee action becomes a General Assembly Council policy.
The council will meet Feb. 18-24 in Louisville, Ky., home of the denomination’s headquarters. It will hear reports from committees representing the denomination’s three divisions – congregational, national and world ministries.
Since the council’s September 2000 meeting, the Congregational Ministries Division Committee met separately and considered the long-running controversy that began in June 2000 at the denomination’s annual Peacemaking Conference. The keynote speaker, Presbyterian minister Dirk Ficca of Chicago, suggested that there are valid paths to God other than Jesus Christ and asked rhetorically, “What’s the big deal about Jesus?”
After receiving hundreds of complaints from individuals and sessions, Peter Pizor, chairman of the General Assembly Council, announced that he would form a task force to consider how the denomination might better supervise denomination-sponsored conferences and hold Presbyterian speakers accountable for what they say.
Also, John Detterick, executive director of the council, told the Presbyterian Coalition during its meeting in Indianapolis that the council should not have left unquestioned Ficca’s pluralistic theology.
But the Congregational Ministries Division Committee voted “to strongly encourage … Pizor to re-evaluate his decision” to appoint a task force.
The committee also said, “We affirm our trust and faith in our PCUSA conference planning teams and believe they are being faithful to our theological, Biblical and Reformed heritage. We affirm the right of all invited conference speakers to voice their opinions and views in conference settings.”
The Presbytery of Shenango in Pennsylvania and the sessions of Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas – one of the largest congregations in the denomination – and Montreat Presbyterian Church in Montreat, N.C., sent formal complaints that that could lead to ecclesiastical trials.
The Highland Park and Montreat complaints focus on Biblical and confessional statements that reflect the essence of Jesus’ comment in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me.”
The sessions of those two congregations are waiting for the General Assembly Council to take action during its meeting in Louisville before deciding whether to pursue the issue.