Thud’ from Louisville was the other shoe dropping
Posted Monday, March 31, 2008
If one was listening carefully, that “thud” from Louisville was the other shoe dropping.
According to the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly and the General Assembly Council, “Per capita is a fundamental way in which all . . .congregations and governing bodies of the Presbyterian Church (USA) are connected. … Per capita is as important as being Presbyterian!”
Following last year’s incredible assertion by the Synod of the Sun that any church opposing the so-called property trust provision of the Book of Order destroys Presbyterian connectionalism, COGA and the GAC now declare that “per capita funding is how . . . Presbyterians discern God’s call in their lives.”
How interesting. No need for Scripture. No need for worship. No need for repentance or evangelism or any of that messy religious stuff. Just give us your property and your money and you have an in with God.
At least for those who have called for the PCUSA to identify the essential (fundamental) tenets, there is now a denominational answer – dirt and dollars!
It appears that, in Louisville’s eyes, indulgences were not such a bad idea after all. Luther and the other giants of the Reformation must be spinning in their graves.
Michael R. “Mac” McCarty
PDA response to Katrina ‘indicative of other shallow thinking’
Posted Friday, March 28, 2008
Thank you for your article on the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance failure to actually provide for the real needs of the Katrina disaster victims.
Somehow, I find this to be indicative of other shallow thinking used by Presbyterian Church (USA) leadership in matters such as the PUP travesty. This was a childish attempt to destroy the authority of the Presbyterian Book of Order.
The people who signed onto that kind of action should be ashamed of themselves. In that case, we can only hope that the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission will develop some teeth.
Ted Chapman Arcadia, Calif.
Article on PDA ‘could not be ignored’
Posted Friday, March 28, 2008
I usually just read your articles and shake my head and move on, but this article on the work of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance could not be ignored.
You see, our area received much help from PDA when, in 2004, Hurricane Charlie devastated our area. Hurricane Charlie blew through our area on Friday, Aug. 13. Many, many folks lost their homes or their homes were severely damaged. We could not locate folks in many churches. Six of our churches were badly affected, with First, Punta Gorda losing their whole building. Chapel by the Sea effectively had the gulf sand and water “relocated” to their sanctuary.
On Sunday, Aug. 15, as we gathered together, dirty because there was no water or electricity, we did so with PDA staff present in the most severely hurt areas. They offered hope and financial gifts immediately.
On Monday, Aug. 16, our presbytery was overwhelmed with help of all kinds from PDA. This help continued for the next two-and-a-half years with many, many monetary gifts but, more important, gifts of self through personnel, volunteers and direction. We could not have recovered with the help of PDA.
For you to continue to attack the work of PDA is an outrage. How can you continue to find fault with the Presbyterian Church (USA) over and over again is beyond me. But how dare you suggest that money is not being spent in the right way. You go and work and see what is done and learn how you have to figure how to stretch the dollars to get the most help for people. Talk to others who have worked in the Gulf Coast and in Peace River Presbytery. We in Peace River Presbytery are grateful for the work of PDA and the PCUSA.
Editor’s Note: The Layman Online stands by its news analyses on PDA’s response in the aftermath of the Gulf Coast hurricanes. Candy Reid program coordinator, Peace River Presbytery ,
A reply regarding Jim Berkley’s blog
Posted Friday, March 28, 2008
Jim Berkley’s latest blog asked a good question about the new general legal counsel of the Presbyterian Church (USA) as to whether she, in effect, practices the faith we in the PCUSA expect.
I found myself asking the same thing about Paul Rolf Jensen a few years ago. While he was not an employee of the PCUSA, he was a lawyer filing charges against many in the PCUSA that included my pastor, Steve Van Kuiken. Mr. Jensen’s action made a significant change to my church family that brought much hurt and division. Yet, Mr. Jensen is no more familiar to me as a person than someone living in China. It’s that cold and empty.
Mr. Berkley and others in this situation at least are early enough in the process, I think, to reach out. Hopefully, they will not experience the same coldness and emptiness.
Maybe I’m foolish to believe this, but I think reaching out is what matters and will make a difference. I realize the end result may not be what all want. But I think one will truly feel more alive than dead in reaching out. That’s what it is all about, just as Christ taught us and demonstrated for us on the Cross.
Earl C. Apel deacon, Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
Thank you for your Special Report
Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008
Thank you for the Special Report on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
As a member of one of the first teams sent by Seattle’s University Presbyterian Church, I can attest to the ecumenism of the people who gathered to assist at First Presbyterian Church in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Roman Catholics from Wisconsin, Mennonites from Vermont, Baptists from North Carolina and Presbyterians from a number of churches across the United States all participated as brothers and sisters in Christ.
We operated just fine without the contrived ecumenical assistance of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance in Louisville, symbolized by their failure in Gautier.
Our teams were gathered under the orders of a common Savior to help the needy in distress and to live out the Gospel on a daily basis.
Bruce McCartney Puyallup, Wash.
Joan Gray ‘has correctly identified the problem in the PCUSA’
Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008
The Rev. Ms. Gray has correctly identified the problem in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Anxiety is literally rampant about our “shrinking churches.”
Yet, we are reluctant to talk about our faith. Want to know why? It is elementary. There is no faith present to talk about. Churches are mostly social events, if not centers for political or social advocacy.
Until a church becomes a worshipping, believing community of Jesus Christ, they will continue to shrink and evangelism will be a tougher nut to crack.
Sidney L. Leak, III honorably retired Orange Beach, Ala.
A reply regarding ‘PCUSA failure shouldn’t stymie world missions’
Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008
One should certainly lament the drop-off in funds dedicated to mission, but to hear that lament coming from The Layman Online is not without irony.
It is, after all, The Layman Online that has most vigorously and consistently condemned the Presbyterian Church (USA) as apostate and incompetent and unworthy of support. So, funds are drying up. People who believe that their resources will be wasted are refusing to give.
Mission accomplished, as they say.
Rev. David Williams Trinity Presbyterian Church, Bethesda, Md.
Thanks for the article on The Passion
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Oh! I see what Christ has done for me and everyone who will turn to Him!
If all who wear a cross and everyone who looks at these crosses on the street only felt within their hearts what Jesus means to us.
Thanks for this description in detail. How can the world not see and fall on their knees asking for forgiveness and thanksgiving to God?
Daryle Getting
Myth ‘perpetrated by denominational apologists’
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
There is a myth often perpetrated by denominational apologists, let’s call it the “Permanent PCUSA.”
Friends, the Presbyterian Church (USA) is 25 years old. Many, if not most, of our congregations are much older. How in the world could anybody honestly claim that the resources of those local congregations belong to a much younger institution? How can there be any claim that members who gave decades ago were giving to the PCUSA? It is a myth.
Furthermore, it is also clear, in case after case, that the local congregation had no idea what the trust clause meant or that the exemption was really no exemption at all. Just because some national bureaucrats were able to confuse the matter does not mean their land grab is defensible. Furthermore, one elected official in Ohio does not make truth.
I suspect the members of a local congregation who are the genetic and spiritual descendants of those same donors would have a much clearer understanding of their parent’s intentions than anyone else. I am so glad that this Easter I do not celebrate a myth but a real, saving Lord. He is risen!
Bill Crawford pastor, First Presbyterian Church , Thibodaux, La.
The GLBTQ agenda
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The agenda of the LGBTQ lobby has been very clear from the start. Perhaps it is the wrong agenda.
Many Presbyterian Church (USA) members and congregations have separated from the PCUSA over doctrine, theology, misguided social engineering by church agencies and other grievances. Perhaps it is time for this group to pick up their marbles and go somewhere else.
It is abundantly clear that the Episcopalians and perhaps some others would honor their perversions. Those of us left in the PCUSA do not believe that fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness are negotiable points in our constitution. They are, indeed, among the essential tenets of the Reformed faith and no amount of activism will change the fact that theology is not a matter of personal choice, but a search for the revealed truth.
Jim Keyes
A reply regarding the Metherell article on the Passion of Christ
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Kudos to The Layman Online for posting this article. It is a subject that most would prefer not to discuss. I cannot find fault with its biomedical conclusions.
While I laud your decision to post this article, I must say that it is incomplete. The article, just like Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, only tells part of the story.
The Apostle Paul is quite clear about the meaning of the Cross of Christ. In Galatians 3:13 he writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.'” Paul’s point is abundantly clear: as Christ hung on the Cross, he bore God’s curse for our sins. Put differently, the curse He bore was the wrath of God that our sins deserve.
This same line of thinking is found in II Corinthians 5:21, where Paul writes, “For our sake he (God) made him (Christ) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This is the doctrine of double imputation: Our sins were put on Christ as He hung on the Cross while His righteousness is given to any who believe in Him.
The point that I am trying to make is that the physical sufferings of Jesus pales in comparison to the wrath of God that fell on Him during His final hours.
While the ultimate meaning of the Cross is love, we must arrive at that destination by discussing hard Scriptural teachings, such as penal atonement and propitiation (assuaging and turning aside the wrath of God). Christ’s physical sufferings give us an idea of what our sins deserve from a thrice holy God.
An excellent summary of these doctrines can be found in Article 21 of the Belgic Confession.
Rev. David Sarafolean Christ Covenant Church PCA, Midland, Mich.
Kudos for San Diego Presbytery
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
What a contrast there is between the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Heartland Presbytery and the Presbytery of San Diego. The former behaves like the Politburo, and the latter is actually doing something constructive and creative.
This is a graphic demonstration of how hopelessly tangled the PCUSA has become. Diversity is good, but what we seem to have here is irreconcilable differences. Whoever volunteers to succeed Clifton Kirkpatrick as stated clerk should undergo a sanity hearing.
The PCUSA is obviously at a crossroads. At the next General Assembly, it can follow the Heartland model, imitate the KGB, and muddle through as it has been doing for decades, or it can follow the San Diego model and move forward, perhaps arresting the denomination’s 40-year decline.
Even though I’m in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, I realize that the Kingdom of God is not served by dying denominations, and I’m hoping that the PCUSA takes it cue from San Diego, to the glory of God.
Larry Brown African Bible College , Lilongwe, Malawi
Mistaken and destructive antics’ of homosexual advocacy groups
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
What is truly mistaken and destructive for the Presbyterian Church (USA) is the intransigence of these advocacy groups. Especially repugnant is the continual refusal of the Covenant Network to abide by the constitution of the denomination or by its highest court or by the last three denominational votes on the ordination standards.
I single out the Covenant Network because its members include a large number of power brokers from within the denomination – people who should know what their antics are doing to our once great church, people who have served in powerful leadership positions.
Have they sampled the reins of power and enjoyed defying the lowly membership for so long that it is now impossible for them to accept that the vast grassroots of the Presbyterian Church (USA) want the current Biblical ordination standards to remain intact?
Larry Froistad elder , Rapid City, S.D.
Hooray for the high court of the PCUSA’
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Hooray for the high court of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Their interpretation of the “fidelity and chastity” amendment in the Book of Order was correct and in line with the Holy Scripture.
The groups advocating its abandonment must be joking when they say that it will harm the peace, purity, and unity of the denomination. Their advocacy of ordaining homosexuals into the ministry or leadership roles of the church is exactly what has helped to cause the schism within the denomination and, thus, thousands who have chosen to leave.
They need to read and interpret the Scriptures correctly, as the high court has done. When God through the Scriptures says that homosexuality is a sin, then it is a sin. You can’t spin His Word and apply your own meaning.
Jack Fox elder (non-active), First Presbyterian Church, Towanda, Pa.
A reply to the letter by David Carothers
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
In response to David Carothers [Letters, March 19, 2008], the people who purposely buy from those who are the “most notorious,” to use his words, are motivated from different directions. Some react with the sentiment that, if a denominational entity suggests it, it must be a bad idea. I understand that. There is a lot of stuff that gets lumped under the heading of “social justice” that is misguided, to say the least.
My motivation to ignore boycotts like the ones by such entities that our social justice mavens suggest is partially personal, and partially practical. For instance, I ate at Taco Bell when the Coalition of Immokalee Workers called for a boycott for the simple reason that my granddaughter had food and shelter because her mother works at a Taco Bell. I don’t hate tomato pickers, or seek to be oppressive, but my granddaughter is not going to go hungry.
Yet, that connection led me to a practical consideration. Our refusal to patronize Taco Bell or Burger King (if we feel led to support the boycott) will not really help the tomato pickers. Instead, it will hurt local workers who struggle to survive on wages that are not enough to make the rent. The corporations that run the restaurants will just make adjustments to cover their losses. To them, it’s simply a business expense and their workers are expendable if they find their costs to be running too high.
Think about the unintended consequences of your actions the next time you think about supporting these efforts. It may not be as just an action as you think.
John Kerr Jacksonville, N.C.