Lay Committee is apparent target of Kirkpatrick’s attack
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, August 15, 2005
Without mentioning the Presbyterian Lay Committee by name, Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), criticized three considerations of the renewal group that, he says, conflict with his aims for the church.
“We are so much like the early church in Paul’s day that it is almost frightening,” Kirkpatrick said during an address to the first meeting of the new Presbyterian Communicators Network.
“There are already those who are promoting schism or talking about ‘gracious separation,’ who withhold per capita and claim that the church harbors two faiths.” In the midst of all this conflict, he said, “Jesus continues to call us to find reconciliation and common purpose.”
Although citing Paul, Kirkpatrick did not mention that the Presbyterian Lay Committee has strongly supported the apostle’s clear teachings about homosexuality, Biblical authority and interpretation and other issues that have been at the heart of the PCUSA’s disagreements.
The proposal called “gracious separation” was first presented in October 2003 at Gathering VIII of the Presbyterian Coalition. The proposal, which was drafted by Robert L. Howard, former chairman of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and at that time a member of the board of the Presbyterian Coalition, was designed to provide the basis for an amicable separation of congregations within the PCUSA. It has been hotly debated but affirmed by many as a way to end the liberal-evangelical divide in the denomination.
The Presbyterian Lay Committee has consistently agreed with the denomination’s Book of Order, the General Assembly and the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) that local church sessions are entitled to withhold per capita and designate their gifts to ministries that they support. But Kirkpatrick has disagreed.
In the most recent ruling on Oct. 18, 2004, the GAPJC declared that Heartland Presbytery violated the constitution of the PCUSA by requiring local congregations to pay their full per capita and make and fulfill a presbytery mission pledge before being eligible for presbytery services. Howard, a trial lawyer and a Presbyterian elder, served as counsel for the congregations that filed a remedial complaint against the presbytery.
Before the ruling in the Heartland case, Kirkpatrick warned church officers that they could be found in violation of their ordination vows if they advocated withholding or redirecting per-capita requests. After the Heartland ruling, he issued a new advisory opinion that no longer threatened officers for such advocacy.
Kirkpatrick’s reference to those who “claim the church harbors two faiths” apparently was aimed at monograph by the Presbyterian Lay Committee titled “Can Two Faiths Embrace One Future.” The monograph was included as an insert in the August Layman. Thousands of additional copies have been ordered by readers.
In his address to the Presbyterian Communicators Network, Kirkpatrick repeated an assertion he has frequently made about the denomination’s massive loss of members. He said the PCUSA is not losing members to other churches, “but out the back door to secularism.”
But the PCUSA has done no exit polling to determine whether that is true. In the last three years, the denomination has lost more than 130,000 members, including nearly a dozen entire congregations. None of the congregations departed to secularism and all affiliated with more evangelical denominations. The denomination has provided no evidence about where those who left individually or as families went.
In its August edition, The Layman called on the denomination to do some actual exit polling to determine whether people are leaving because of the PCUSA’s liberal policies. Several readers have responded in letters, noting their departure to more conservative denominations and not to secularism.
One reader, asking that his name not be used, wrote that five had recently left the PCUSA congregation he attended. Interestingly, three left for more conservative congregations and two went to the United Church of Christ (which the reader dubbed “Unitarians Considering Christ.”)
“God intends us to be one church, so we need to rediscover the rock-hard commitments that are the heart of our faith,” Kirkpatrick said, praising the work of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church. “Then we need to strengthen presbyteries and nurture congregations, connecting them for mission and having the flexibility to resource them in the ways they need.”
The Presbyterian Communicators Network is an in-house organization initially funded by a $100,000 appropriation through the General Assembly Council in its 2005-2006 Mission Work Plan. The purpose of the network is link the national office, presbyteries and synods in a combined effort to boost the PCUSA’s public relations and information.