By Viola Larson, Naming His Grace blog.
On December 13, the presbytery negotiating team, (PNT), held a meeting in the Sacramento Presbytery offices, inviting all of those interested in why they were asking for an administrative commission to be put over Journey Church. They also invited those interested in staying in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Many of us attended, both those who wished to stay and those who voted to leave. Several items presented by word and paper are not true. In a handout the PNT team, who did not negotiate with those who voted to leave, stated this:
“The pastor orchestrated those members being selected by the Journey Church Nominating Committee so that those who did not agree to the dismissal were eliminated from consideration. The climate became so unpleasant that some members felt it necessary to leave. Many of them have not found a new church home.”
In contrast to this statement it should be noted, a committee selects new members for deacons and elders. I came to Journey from Fremont Presbyterian Church when they were leaving the PCUSA because God called me to renewal work in the denomination and I wasn’t finished. I couldn’t leave. Not until the 2014th General Assembly where I experienced so much corruption I felt it was time to go. But I was already an elder at Journey, and no one in the nominating committee, including the pastor, asked me if I thought we should leave. At the time I would have said no! What they were concerned with was my views on Jesus and biblical authority. They were concerned also with spiritual gifts—mine are discernment and teaching.
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The actions of Sacramento Presbytery through its committees and through the underhanded actions of those who represent it, very much remind me of some of the stories that the late, great psychiatrist Dr. M. Scott Peck recounted in his book “People of the Lie.”
One of the most common disguises of those who do evil to other human beings, according to Peck, is the religious disguise. And yet, as Jesus said, “by their fruit you shall know them.” And by its fruit, Sacramento Presbytery has exposed to the world its own evil.
My prayers are very much the people of God at the Journey Church. If ever there was a time when II Corinthians 6:17 applied, this certainly seems like such a time.
“that the PNT invited those who had not been members for many years to become a part of what they consider the “true church.”
This is the same crap presbyteries are doing around the country 1st Pres. Houston comes to mind when people showed up to vote “no” on leaving the pcusa who had not darkened the door in years.
As a therapist Peck spent his career working with various personality disorders, none more prevalent than the sociopathic personality type. Behavioral markers are manipulative behaviors of course, but what marks the sociopath is the inability to feel empathy, guilt, or respond to the pain and suffering of others. In essence use people in a utilitarian sense, as means to an end.
Does the PCUSA, Sacramento exhibit a group or social personality disorder or sociopathic tendencies? Hard to tell, but empirical evidence of their behaviors does point to a high degree of paranoia, fear, greed as drivers to their actions.
You put people or institutions under high degrees of stress and anxiety over a long period of time, they will act out in sometimes crazy and illogical ways. And if there one thing about the entire PCUSA as an organization is a very long period of stress, anxiety and chaos. Witness the circus that is the PMA, the Stated Clerk looking for closest door to get out of Dodge. Crazy times in the PCUSA. And in their ongoing process of institutional collapse it does not surprise me how the process of gracious separation” has morphed into a cash grab and extortion racket. Its what people and organizations under stress do and act. The best indication of future behaviors is current and past behaviors. Anybody that does business with the PCUSA need to understand that.
As an evangelical in the PC(USA) it has been difficult to see the decisions of the last few GA, the Stated Clerk, the Presbyteries , and the Judicial system. Yet, God must have an over reaching purpose for those who remain faithful to Scripture and the confessions beyond what we see in situations like Journey Church is facing. Always, our trust should be in a God who carries out His plan in our midstream. Therefore, we need to seek to see things from His perspective. For instance, perhaps God wants a total, clean, break from any identification with the mother denomination…PC)USA) and that may require leaving the building behind.
For all concerned, pray that Godly wisdom will be sought moving ahead and God will be Glorified. I believe God knows how to bring about ” victory and glory” to His name even beyond any of our feeble hopes and plans.