Presbyterian Church holds service with prayers to different gods
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, July 18, 2002
First Presbyterian Church in Yorktown, N.Y., recently was the host for a “Universal Worship Service” in which the participants offered prayers to a smorgasbord of gods – including those who, “whether known or unknown to the world, have held aloft the light of truth through the darkness of human ignorance.”
“I guess they didn’t want to leave anybody out,” said John Scavarda, a member of Pleasantville Presbyterian Church. After being contacted by The Layman, Scavarda said he attended the service out of curiosity and his concern that many churches in the presbytery are looking for alternatives to preaching and teaching that are grounded in Scripture and focused on Christ.
The service, which the Presbytery of Hudson River promoted by e-mail to its ministers, included readings from Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, the tradition of the “Divine Female,” Native Peoples and Judaism.
“It was the oddest thing I’ve ever seen,” Scavarda said.
Christianity got scant mention.
After an invocation to the “Only Being, united with all the illuminated souls who form the embodiment of the master, the Spirit of Guidance,” the service had a ritual of candlelighting for the eight religions – plus the unknown. Christianity was next to last on that list.
While there were three Islamic prayers – Saum, Salat and Khatum – and one reading from the Koran, the service included only one New Testament verse: the King James version of 1 Cor. 9:10, “For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.”
Jesus was mentioned as a peer of prophets, but not as the son of God, when the congregation read from the Salat: “Allow us to recognize Thee in all Thy Holy Names and Forms, as Rama, as Krishna, as Shiva, as Buddha. Let us know Thee as Abraham, as Solomon, as Zarathustra, as Moses, as Jesus, as Muhammed.” Islam teaches that Muhammed is the greatest of the prophets.
The service included a sermon with an odd twist. The woman who spoke said she had no message for a sermon, but that those in the congregation were her sermon. She asked them to preach by telling how they felt. Several did, declaring that they felt wonderful.
Much of the content of the prayers and readings was about feeling good about the divine. First Presbyterian in Yorktown is one of 16 congregations in the Presbytery of Hudson River that have publicly declared their intent to defy the “fidelity/chastity” ordination requirement in the PCUSA Constitution.
It says on its Web site that it is a “‘More Light’ congregation that encourages inclusiveness and the full participation of all people regardless of race, age, gender, income, marital status or sexual orientation.”
The pastors of several of the congregations in the presbytery also have advertised invitations to same-gender couples to attend their services and have their relationship formally “blessed” during a worship service.
One of the congregations in the 93-church presbytery, South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., was involved in a church trial that was finally decided by the denomination’s highest court, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission. The commission ruled that South Church’s practice of conducting what it called “holy unions” of same-gender couples was not unconstitutional. However, the ruling also said the services could not be considered marriages and that they must not constitute a blessing of homosexual activity.
Meanwhile, South Church continues to publicly declare its defiance of the PCUSA Constitution with a statement on its Web site that says, “For more than 17 years, we have been wanting to be certain that the hospitality of South Church include [sic] lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered persons. Believing that sexuality is a gift of God to each person, to each a particular language for sexual expression, we welcome all persons and the whole of their lives. Members and friends are, without exception, entitled to the pastoral attentions of our staff; all members are eligible to hold positions of ordained leadership in our community of faith.”
Until recently, there were 94 congregations in the Presbytery of Hudson River, but the evangelical and growing Circleville Presbyterian Church left to join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church because of its theological and moral differences with the presbytery. The presbytery required Circleville to pay the presbytery $112,000 – a tithe on the value of its property – before it would allow the congregation to leave with its buildings.
The presbytery has taken no action against those congregations that defy the constitution.