Reported by the Aquila Report.
On January 13, 2016, the session of Veto Presbyterian asked to join the Ohio Presbytery of the PCA as a mission church. On February 2, with great joy, the Ohio Presbytery voted to receive Veto as a mission church of the Presbytery, with a provisional session of members of the session of Grace Presbyterian, Hudson, Ohio, and Granville Chapel, Granville, Ohio.
After a unanimous 61-0 vote of the congregation, on December 6, 2015, Veto Presbyterian Church of Vincent, Ohio, voted to withdraw from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and join the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
On January 13, 2016, the Session of Veto Presbyterian asked to join the Ohio Presbytery of the PCA as a mission church. On February 2, with great joy, the Ohio Presbytery voted to receive Veto as a mission church of the presbytery, with a provisional session of made up from members of the sessions of Grace Presbyterian, Hudson, Ohio (Rhett Dodson, pastor), and Granville Chapel, Granville, Ohio (Todd Naille, pastor).
Bill Howell, a member of Veto remarked, “Veto Presbyterian Church appreciates the help provided by Grace PCA in Hudson, Ohio, who helped us as a congregation. We especially owe a debt of gratitude to Ruling Elders Scott Wolfe and Peter Miller, along with Pastor Rhett Dodson, for shepherding the Veto Church as it went through the process of finding its new affiliation in the PCA. These men spent hours answering our questions and outlining the steps we needed to take the actions that we did.”
One of the significant questions that had to be answered was the role of women in church office. Veto’s Session was comprised of six elders, five women and one man. At first it appeared that it would be easier to withdraw from the PCUSA and affiliate with a denomination that already accepted women in church office, like the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC). However, the Veto Church had long discussions on the qualifications for church office and the church concluded that male headship was the biblical pattern.
All of the ruling elders voted in favor of recommending to the congregation that the Veto Church withdraw from the PCUSA and join the PCA.
10 Comments. Leave new
As the stated clerk of the Presbytery of Muskingum Valley, I am disappointed there was no acknowledgment in the Aquilla article about the careful and pastoral work of the MVP administrative commission in helping the Veto session and congregation to discern which denomination with which they wanted to affiliate. The presbytery voted to approve their dismissal to the PCA with name, property and assets. It is not as if the Muskingum Valley Presbytery were not an active partner in this process. A very different process and outcome could have resulted were it not for the grace and generosity of Muskingum Valley Presbytery.
Not very gracious reporting by PCA?? – it also seems disingenuous to all of the sudden decide to send women back to the other side of the church?
Thank you, Wayne, for setting the record straight in this business. It was immediately obvious in reading the story about Veto Presbyterian Church that the entire PCUSA part of it had been left out, and that the story being told in the Aquila Report was not complete or balanced.
Please accept my appreciation, as a member of the EPC, for the way that you and your presbytery have handled the Veto dismissal. It is an increasingly rare thing to see such a display of forbearing graciousness, and Muskingum Valley Presbytery is to be commended and thanked for its witness to the love and mercy of God.
One would hope that having behaved graciously toward the people of the Veto Presbyterian Church, your presbytery would have received a certain measure of graciously in return. Sadly, this does not always happen, and sometimes one’s graciousness is not reciprocated.
Dominic Aquila has been a firebrand since the earliest days of the PCA. While there is nothing inherently wrong in being a firebrand, and there are some of them for whom I have great respect, they do tend to come in two distinct varieties: (1) those who are willing to sacrifice ideological advantage for the sake of the truth, and (2) those who do not hesitate to sacrifice truth for the sake of ideological advantage.
I will be curious to see if Dominic will update his story to include a few words about the graciousness of Muskingum Valley Presbytery toward the Veto Church and thus show himself to be of the first type of firebrand, or fail to do this and show himself to be of the second type. My guess is that he is of the second type, but I would love for him to prove me wrong on this.
May God bless you and Muskingum Valley Presbytery as you seek to be faithful witnesses to the Gospel.
Dr. Yost,
I echo Donnie Bob’s thanks for the gracious way in which MVP handled the Veto Church’s dismissal. When Colonial in Kansas City sought dismissal in 2010 from its presbytery to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the process turned ungracious on us, and we were forced to resort to unilateral disaffiliation (the congregational vote was 927 to 27 to disaffiliate) to achieve separation.
You mentioned that MVP was an active partner in the Veto Church’s discernment of to which denomination Veto wanted to be dismissed. The author of the article stated, “One of the significant questions that had to be answered was the role of women in church office.” I am curious as to what arguments the MVP ARC made on behalf of the PC(USA)’s policy on women’s ordination.
I started this press release, which was further reported on by Mr. Aquila. It was not in any sense meant to be an article that outlined the whole process. The closing paragraph does mention the Muskingum Valley Presbytery, PCUSA, voted to release the Veto Church, in accordance with the Presbytery’s “go in peace” policy. In retrospect, I could have mentioned more of the work of the Administrative Committee of Muskingum Valley Presbytery, but I did not have first hand knowledge of it.
Thank you for your post, Peter. You’re a stand-up guy. I appreciate it.
What happened with Bakersville Presbyterian Church in BakersvilleOH? It will joins the PCA as well?
The Layman Online has not reported that Bakersfield Presbyterian was seeking to be dismissed. Where did you get your news?
That being said, it is extremely unlikely that Bakersfield would seek to be dismissed to the PCA. Most Evangelical churches remaining in the PC(USA) by the year 2000 had made peace with the ordination of women, whereas the PCA does not ordain them. Veto was unusual in this regard. The vast majority of churches disaffiliating from, or seeking dismissal from, the PC(USA) have either reaffiliated with, or been dismissed to, either the EPC or the ECO. If Bakersfield is seeking dismissal, it is almost certainly to one of these.
I read on the Muskingum Valley Presbytery agenda for the February Meeting that the Bakersville Church will also secede in the future. I just want to ask what will happen with it.
No seceder PC(USA) cvhurch reaffiliated as I know.