What’s ahead for evangelicals in the Presbyterian Church (USA)?
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, October 4, 2001
ORLANDO, Fla. – So where is the evangelical wing of the Presbyterian Church (USA) headed?
That’s not clear.
Some evangelicals favor a mass exodus. Some favor remaining the loyal opposition. Some want to keep the same denominational superstructure, but break into two synods made up of “us” and “them.” Some want to leverage their money (per-capita and denominational mission giving) to bring the national church to its knees. Others want to stay, fight and prevail.
The one immediate consensus that emerged from Gathering VI sponsored by the Presbyterian Coalition is that they’re determined to defeat Amendment A, the proposal to eliminate the denomination’s past statements on homosexual practice and to expunge the constitutional standard that prohibits the ordination of self-affirming, practicing adulterers and homosexuals.
But much of the agenda remains beyond consensus.
Some of the non-consensus matters were discussed in Orlando in plenary and breakout sessions.
Withholding money
This is what one Coalition leader, the Rev. William Vanderbloeman, described as a “Boston Tea Party of sorts.”
Peggy Hedden, an attorney and elder from Columbus, Ohio, a member of the Coalition board and vice chair of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, sketched out the theological and practical implications of withholding money. She did not make a recommendation.
“These are my ideas and my reflections,” she said, emphasizing that she was not speaking for any renewal group. “It is not a strategy. I don’t think we make stewardship decisions on the basis of strategy. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”
She pointed out two ecclesiastical court decisions have affirmed that per-capita assignments to local congregations to support presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly are voluntary.
The per capita for 2002 to support the General Assembly is $5.25 per member. That pays for the annual meeting of the General Assembly, the Office of the General Assembly, the General Assembly Council and ecumenical dues.
Hedden said a 1999 authoritative interpretation said presbyteries are obligated to pay their per capita allocations, even though they may not be able to collect from all congregations. Because of that obligation, three overtures before the 2001 General Assembly attempted to make per-capita payment by local congregations obligatory, but they all failed.
Because per capita is voluntary, congregations are permitted to “protest and dissent” by not paying their share “when they are unsatisfied with something a governing body has done,” Hedden added. Per-capita gifts raise about $12 million.
Another means to express dissent or dissatisfaction, she said, is to withhold from denominational missions.
“Mission giving is totally voluntary,” she said. The annual mission budget for the denomination is about $144 million, with 72 percent in contributions that are designated for specific ministries (and cannot be diverted to cover shortfalls in other programs).
Hedden gave an example of the kind of impact that might be expected if evangelical congregations withheld mission and per-capita funds.
The 1993 ReImagining conference, which the Presbyterian Church (USA) financially supported, prompted a backlash against the denomination – between $8 million to $12 million in reduced contributions. In response, the 1994 General Assembly adopted a resolution that said the conference went beyond boundaries of the Christian faith. It also approved a document declaring that “Theology Matters.”
Stay, fight and win
Sue Cyre, editor of a journal called Theology Matters, presented the case for remaining in the denomination and seeking to prevail over those who oppose Biblical and confessional standards.
“The question is whether God is able to redeem and transform the denomination,” Cyre said.
She called for a realistic assessment of the denomination. “How widespread is the sickness? It’s only a handful of people. The majority holds strong views upholding the Biblical and confessional truth.”
She compared today’s situation to the Berlin Wall. “The Berlin Wall stood for most of my lifetime. Almost overnight, and to everyone’s surprise, the Berlin Wall fell down. None of us anticipated the cracks that only God could see.”
“Let’s be honest with ourselves,” Cyre added. “The state of the church at least in part … must begin with you and me … with our commitment to spend time and energy to defend the gospel in our churches and our presbyteries.”
Gracious separation
The Rev. Mark Toone of Gig Harbor, Wash., said the 213th General Assembly in June gave a “great gift to the church because it revealed how desperately divided we are.”
So now’s the time to call for a “gracious separation,” Toone declared.
He described the situation as the “Neville Chamberlin approach to ecclessiology – at all costs we must hold things together,” but added: The denomination has been “hopelessly ineffective.”
Toone asked whether the “loss of 500,000 souls over the last 10 years has been faithful? I don’t think so.”
Saying the denomination was divided on Scripture, the person and work of Christ and the nature of salvation, Toone added that the “time has come to speak the unspeakable: Is there too much diversity.”
Evangelicals cannot remain “unequally yoked” with liberals, Toone said. “We have become bad for each other.”
He called for a “gracious separation” in which neither side villifies the other. The alternative “might be more sinful than schism.”
Toone also called for a negotiated settlement that would lead to an amicable division because “it has become their church as truly as it is our church.” But he warned that failure to defeat Amendment A would make such a settlement impossible. “If we lose, our opponents will not need to negotiate.”
Toone saw no hope in evangelicals trying to prevail through the polity and politics of the church. “The other side will never quit because these issues define who they are. We will never quit because their issues are intolerable to us.”
Two-synod model
A proposed two-synod model was presented and discussed during a breakout session by the Rev. Jim Singleton of Austin, Texas, and the Rev. Peter Barnes of Boulder, Colo.
They also suggested a negotiated settlement that would permit congregations to affiliate with one of two synods: one evangelical and the other for the rest of the denomination. The General Assembly would be limited to consideration of matters that both agreed on. As a consequence, the number of national staff members would be sharply reduced.
The actions and decisions of the two synods would be expressions of their constituencies.
Both Singleton and Barnes described the two-synod approach as “minimalist” and temporary.
“There’s a time for a change,” said Singleton, quoting a Jerry Clower story about a woman with 12 children. One of her children fell into a batch of tar, and she told the youngster, “You know, I think it would be easier to have another one than to clean you up.”
Singleton and Barnes provided a handout to outline some specifics: Synods and their allied presbyteries would handle the disposition of property; clergy would be ordained to a particular fellowship; current synods would be eliminated; the Presbyterian Foundation and the Board of Pensions would be unaffected.
They listed potential objections and benefits.
The objections included tolerating evil (unBiblical views of those in the other synod), schism, complexity and likely opposition.
They said some of the benefits would be ending the politicization of the denomination, granting freedom, decentralizing the denominational structure, keeping in place the Foundation and the Board of Pensions, and allowing Presbyterians from different theological camps “to agree to disagree agreeably.”
There were a number of questions about the two-synod plan and some strong disagreement. Parker T. Williamson, editor in chief of The Presbyterian Layman, warned that the plan would “institutionalize two competing faiths.” He said the proposal would have the same effect as Amendment A if it is approved – allowing local option rather than remaining committed to the principle that the Presbyterian Church (USA) is a connectional church.
Williamson argued that the liberal congregations are dying out. He urged the evangelicals to “love off one another” and hold together. “We don’t have to institutionalize a view that is not Christian.”