Parker Williamson’s letter to Committee on Ministry
December 8, 2003
December 5, 2003
The Rev. Dr. G. Wallace Johnson, Chairman
The Committee on Ministry
237 Second Street, NW
Hickory, North Carolina 28601
Dear Wallace:
I am writing to contest a recommendation to the Committee on Ministry from the presbytery’s Validated Ministry Task Force, and to urge your committee not to approve it. The proposal, “to not validate the ministry of the Chief Executive Officer of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, and Editor in Chief of the Presbyterian Layman because of the character and conduct of its ministry,” constitutes a feckless attempt to impugn the integrity of a call that has been validated by this presbytery each year since 1989. It is unconscionable that members of this presbytery would proffer such undocumented vagary as cause for action against a colleague’s career.
What “character” and what “conduct” does the task force deem sufficiently offensive to warrant the denial of ministerial validation? The task force doesn’t say, providing those who receive its recommendation imaginative opportunities for filling in the blanks. The task force purports to target the Presbyterian Lay Committee rather than the person in its employ. In fact, its chairperson made that claim in a recent interview: “We’re not talking about Parker …” This disclaimer, of course, is bogus, for one cannot separate a minister from his ministry any more than one can unscramble an egg. I strive to be faithful to Scripture and the Reformed Tradition, praying that my actions are fully consonant with the “character and conduct” of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, an organization of Christians whose faith and life I hold in the highest esteem. It is precisely their mission to which I have been called.
Even if one grants, for the sake of argument, the false proposition that this attack targets ministry rather than minister, how does the task force explain its about face in a matter of months? In April, 2003, it recommended validation of the Reverend Steven Strickler’s call to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, the very ministry whose “character and conduct” is now judged unworthy of validation. The task force does not explain what has occurred between April and November that sanctions its 180-degree turn.
The Validated Ministry Task Force has ventured onto thin ice. I trust the Committee on Ministry will weigh the consequences of pursuing its recommended course.
Sincerely,
Parker T. Williamson
Editor and Chief Executive Officer