Committee investigates membership status of ‘Christian-atheist’
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, March 27, 2006
The chairman of the Committee on Ministry for Mission Presbytery has announced steps to investigate the admission of an avowed non-believer into the membership of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas.
John JudsonIn a letter sent to presbytery officials, John Judson, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, said, “We take this incident with great seriousness and want you to know that we will be sending a team from the Committee on Ministry to visit with this session and discover the facts and take whatever measures we feel appropriate to deal with the situation.”
Judson was responding to a report by The Layman Online that St. Andrew’s had admitted into membership Robert Jensen, a University of Texas faculty member.
In a column that was published on Internet sites, Jensen said, “I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe Jesus Christ was the son of a God that I don’t believe in, nor do I believe Jesus rose from the dead to ascend to a heaven that I don’t believe exists.” He also described himself as a “Christian-atheist.”
St. Andrew’s is a More Light congregation whose pastor, Jim Rigby, was recently exonerated by a presbytery investigating committee, which decided he would not face trial for marrying same-gender couples during a homosexual activist event at the University of Texas. Rigby was never tried for the charges although he declared that he welcomed a trial because he married the couples as a matter of conscience.
There was little reaction to the Rigby case – even from evangelicals. In a more recent case, Jane Spahr, a self-styled lesbian evangelist, was acquitted by Redwood Presbytery’s Permanent Judicial Commission of violating the Presbyterian Church (USA) Constitution by marrying same-sex couples. The verdict was followed by a torrent of response, both in her favor and strongly against the decision.
“It has come to our attention that a session within the bounds of Mission Presbytery has received into membership an individual whom, according to his own writings, claims neither to believe in God nor to believe that Jesus Christ is who our historic Christian tradition and Scripture claim him to be,” Judson said in his letter.
He added, “Though we are a denomination often divided by our interpretations of polity and nonessential matters of doctrine (though I realize that is open to debate itself), we have always understood ourselves to be Christians, followers of Jesus Christ; Savior, Lord and God incarnate. We are Trinitarian people and the Committee on Ministry will work to ensure that this understanding guides and directs all we do as a presbytery.”