Writer’s solution is thwarted by PCUSA practice of taking church property
Posted Wednesday, February 29, 2012
In response to Harold G Porter’s passionate appeal [letter to the editor, posted 2/28/12] for no new Presbyterian or Reformed denominations, it needs to be pointed out that the very solution he would hope for is thwarted by the PCUSA’s pirate practice of stealing the local congregations property. Sure, almost all of the faithful congregations who want to leave would happily join one of the bodies he mentions; except the marauders would be gearing up to raid their stores. So, instead, they form a résistance denomination within the undead corpse that has become the PCUSA. If the PCUSA would stop its stealing, it would go a long way towards fostering Reformed ecumenism.
Rev. Russ Westbrook McKee, Ky.
‘I am ready to get back to work being the church’
Posted Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thank you, Carmen, for such a thoughtful assessment of the beginning of the NEXT Conference in Dallas. I hope the rest of The Layman’s reporting reflects the same considered tone and feel.
I was one of the 600+ in attendance and have to say that I am more and more convinced of NEXT thinking. As one of those in the church who has moved beyond the generations long arguments over sexuality, I am ready to get back to work being the church. NEXT brought together many people who share that energy.
My one disappointment in the event was the lack of leadership from small churches and rural churches. The small churches represented tended to be from very large metropolitan areas. There are many of us in small cities and towns and in rural areas who are yearning for what NEXT has to offer and I for one will be seeking out others who want to begin thinking about what NEXT means in small town and rural ministry. Based on comments from some of the NEXT leaders, they are open to widening the scope of the conversation and I have great hope that moving forward we will be hearing more about what wonderful things are happening in places like my own context in the rural Ozarks in Arkansas.
There was a feeling at the NEXT Conference that I have not encountered at PCUSA related events for quite a while. Rather than being defined by anxiety or fear of death, this gathering was defined by and filled with a spirit of resurrection. And thanks be to God for it!
I hope some of my FOP brothers and sisters will join in this conversation and in this shared hope for the PCUSA. I continue to pray that we can put the generations of fighting and discord behind us and get on with being the creative people of God I am confident we will be. NEXT thinking will not wipe away sincerely and deeply held convictions that may lead us to disagree with one another, however the unifying assurance of resurrection in Christ that is at the heart of NEXT thinking ecclesiology is more powerful than any discord can ever be.
For my part, I am deeply grateful to the NEXT leadership and hope that they will hear and build on the ideas shared in Dallas and continue to help foster conversations and partnerships across the church that reflect the hope we share in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Rev. Dr. Robert Wm Lowry, transitional teaching elder First and Harmony Presbyterian Churches Clarksville, Ark.
Between four and 24 human lives, created in the image of God, killed
Posted Tuesday, February 28, 2012
In the article about the overtures coming to the General Assembly, it was mentioned that the Board of Pensions paid $11,000.00 in 2009 A.D. for abortions.
The amount was slightly less than that, but less we gloss over that figure, I would like everyone to realize that amount represents:
- As many as 24 early-term abortions, or
- As many as 4 late-term abortions,
- for between 4 and 24 human lives, created in the image of God, killed.
How sad it is that Presbyterian pastors, pastors’ wives, or daughters, or staff members, would choose abortion. There is grace and help and healing for those affected by their abortion decisions. You can find out more by visiting the website of Presbyterians Pro-Life.
Rev. P.J. Southam, teaching elder Big Creek Presbyterian Church, Rensselaer, Missouri
Both sides of PCUSA division have become bizarre
Posted Tuesday, February 28, 2012
I’m sorry! Both sides of the current division in the church have become so bizarre, I can’t support either side. The Presbyterian church seems obsessed with legitimizing homosexuality, attenuating morality, and so broadening the skirts of the “great tent” that one need no longer be a Christian to belong, and the Fellowship of Presbyterians seems intent upon sharpening and hardening the more unpleasant and absurd aspects of Calvinism so as to vie with Allah-barring the Trinity and the Incarnation.
Concerning the “Essential Tenets” of the FOP in your last issue of The Layman: They are replete with metaphysical elaborations and intensifications. For example, God is “omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.” Omnipotent? How many times did God repent? Omniscient? He promised to limit His omniscience by forgetting our sin! Omnipresent I’ll grant: Jesus said He would be with us always. I suggest “Sovereignty” and “unsearchable” would be more Biblical than omnipotent and omniscient, and nearer the point.
All those theological “un-niceties” evoke this image: God the Father sitting at the head of that great table and all of the purified raising their glasses to Him in a great chorus of Praise. There He sits glorifying Himself in the praises of the Redeemed.
But the Gospel of Jesus evokes this image: The great table where the redeemed sit talking and laughing, just reveling in the love they have for one another, and the Father, ignored, at the head of the table, reveling in the great joy His children are having in one another, and great tears of divine joy roll down His face. And Jesus, the Son, is there, and He says, “This, Father, is why I suffered, died and rose.” And the Father says, “Well done, My Son, for the real enjoyment they can have of us is the enjoyment they have of one another, and the full love they can have for us is the love they have for one another. We are content.” The Father and the Son leave the hall, and no one notices, but God is still there, for the Holy Spirit is the love that suffuses that vast assembly.
James S. Rila, pastor emeritus Mt. Hermon Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, Ohio
We don’t need another Presbyterian denomination
Posted Tuesday, February 28, 2012
All through the years of my ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA) I have had a lover’s quarrel with my church over certain issues – especially our 34 year old policy regarding homosexuality – but never with our polity, our form of government.
I have a similar view regarding my country. When I believe either my church or my country to be in the wrong, I still believe in our governing process.
That is why today I cannot understand why anyone knowledgeable of the first six chapters of our Constitution’s Book of Order, especially where it describes our representative democracy of majority rule and judicial appeals, would want to start a new Presbyterian denomination which is now in progress. We don’t need it! Our constitutional process is the fairest imaginable.
Of course no church government works well without the good will of its members. But our constitution is already built on mutual forbearance, that God alone is Lord of conscience, that all have the right of private judgment as to faith, that there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, that truth is in order to goodness, and, above all, we acknowledge that we are all fallible men and women. Our polity not only protects the voice of the minority but it engenders more room for the Holy Spirit to wrestle with the human spirit, than do others.
And what a better welcome into church membership than our invitation that we are to show no partiality but are to “welcome all persons who respond in trust and obedience to God’s grace in Jesus Christ.” And is there a better mission statement than the “The Great Ends of the Church” found in the 2nd chapter of our Form of Government?
Two hundred years ago, these and the other principles embedded in the first chapter of our Constitution were called “radical”. Perhaps, given the several splits in our denomination, they are too radical and beg only failure. But what kind of new constitutional principles would anyone replace them with? They are irreplaceable. We don’t need a new Presbyterian denomination!
Further, such a split today seems so redundant and so costly.
Despite Jesus’ prayer that we all be one, there are a whole potluck assortment of Presbyterian denominations already available for disgruntle Presbyterian churches to join: The Evangelical Presbyterian Church, The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, The Presbyterian Church in America (conservative), and we might add, The Reformed Church in America, The Christian Reformed Church, and several more, all of which have had their origins in the reformed tradition. Enough! Let us not add to the factionalism of our body!
What’s tipping today’s effort to establish a new denomination is, of course, the awareness that our denomination is largely moving away from its past policy of treating homosexual behavior as intrinsically sinful. Today the majority is now persuaded that the unbounded love of God, manifested in the life and ministry of Jesus, has led them to believe that gays and lesbians should be treated as part of God’s good creation, equally made in the image of God. That is why this past year our church removed the infamous clause in our ordination standards – the so called “fidelity and chastity” clause – because it now had become clear to a majority that G-6.0106b had really nothing to do with fidelity, chastity, or marriage but was simply an animus deftly designed against a whole segment of our members for one single purpose – to prevent them from even being considered for ordination, no matter their desires or their gifts.
That the church has for so long held onto the historical prejudice that homosexuality is a depraved condition, that it is outside the grace of God, and that its practice is sinful, is bad enough. But that those who still feel this way are now tearing at Jesus’ seamless robe designing an alternate denomination in which they can continue their prejudice, is inexcusable. Instead, we should now move forward together as a chastened denomination, designing not a new denomination but how we might design an appropriately apologize to those we so long marginalized.
A lesson from history: I have recently been leading group discussions around a book that every candidate for the ministry should be required to read: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and her second book, The Key To Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the midst of Old School, New School divisions within the Presbyterian Church, the imminent doom of the Civil War and the split of our denomination largely along southern and northern loyalties, no one records the failure of our denomination to deal with slavery better than Stowe. In the last chapter of The Key, the most comprehension societal study of slavery up to that time, she asks, “What is to be done?” Her answer, written in the year 1854 seven years before war broke out, was that all Christian denominations need to heed the historical resolution of the Presbyterian Assembly of 1818 which declared that “the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another, (is) a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; (it is) utterly inconsistent with the law of God. It is manifestly the duty of all Christians…to obtain the complete abolition of slavery throughout Christendom, and…throughout the whole world.”
And what did the Presbyterian churches do in response to the 1818 declaration? Entrenched themselves antagonistically into separate, Old School, New School conclaves, and eventually split the whole denomination in half, and settled in for war! While some churches would oppose slavery, far too many, including whole Presbyteries, responded by declaring “the existence of slavery itself is not opposed to the will of God.” “The holding of slaves, so far from being a sin in the sight of God, is nowhere condemned in his holy word.” “The subject of slavery in these United States is not one proper for the action of the church but is exclusively appropriate to the civil authorities.” Etc. (from The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin) Of course, this was true through practically all the denominations.
So went the loudest arguments of that day that slavery was acceptable because it has always existed; its practice is documented in the Scriptures; and it was practiced by many of our most faithful biblical ancestors. But Stowe rightly saw these and other arguments defending slavery as simply for what they were – a betrayal of Christ.
Lincoln, it is famously told, when he met Harriet Beecher Stowe, bent down, grasped her hand, and said, “So this is the little lady who started this big war.” But in reality no one wished the war less than Stowe.
More importantly, the question history really asks is: Could the Civil War been avoided if the churches had denounced slavery as antithetical to the will of God instead, as so many did, declaring that it has God’s blessing?
Of that we can never know, but by the 1870’s there were no Presbyterian Churches (and hardly any others) still arguing that slavery has a place in God’s world. But at such a great cost: the fractured internal divisions of our Old School and New School factions, a devastating civil war in our country that has yet to be healed, and a major schism of our Presbyterian body that would last over one-hundred years. Costly, indeed! We do not need to make this same mistake today! Now that we have agreed that being gay is not in itself an impediment to ordination, we need only to move forward together. We do not need a new Presbyterian denomination!
With some apology for a personal note, even though a joyous one, let me conclude: I have been, just before retirement, a pastor of a Presbyterian Church with 350 members – remarkably one third who were openly gay and two thirds openly heterosexual! In that greatly diversified congregation, having emerged at the same time as our own denomination was declaring that homosexuality is “not God’s wish for humanity”, we all discovered a depth of the Gospel, and a deepening experience of love, never before experienced. Our communion services seemed a foretaste of the heavenly banquet on earth. Our souls were expanded and our lives were forever changed. We could never go back to who we were. True, this congregation’s sexual constituency may not be typical of Presbyterian congregations but it is not totally unique either. Many welcoming congregations have experience such a deepening of love and surely all of our congregations need to be models of diversity and inclusiveness of the whole family of God.
We don’t need a new Presbyterian denomination! Only one that accepts all persons, gay or straight, as children of God, equally made in God’s image. Thankfully, even though we still have a few details to iron out, we now have become such. Let us rejoice!
Harold G Porter, Spring Lake, MI Pastor Emeritus, Mt Auburn Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
How about helping Palestinians instead of condemning Israel?
Posted Friday, February 24, 2012
The fruitcakes are at it again. Don’t they have anything better to do than whine about companies supplying essential products to Israel? Wouldn’t it be better to help Palestinians build up their manufacturing capability and provide means of support for the people?
Bill Arthur Greenville, S.C.
Teachings of the denomination can overshadow a congregation’s Biblical teaching
Posted Friday, February 24, 2012
Re: Jane Leighty Justis letter to the editor, posted 2/22/12
“We are not winning souls to Christ with this animosity, accusations and name calling.”
It is sad when a congregation or denomination teaches that what God calls sin really isn’t sin. After all God created us this way so how can it be sin?
I think we better study God’s teachings in Revelations chapter 2 and 3. Especially read what He says about Jezebel and her children (followers of her teachings). Also study First Corinthians 5:1-13; Ezekiel 3:17-21; and Ezekiel 33:1-20.
I believe a local congregation can teach the Bible correctly and be OK in God’s eyes, however the teachings of the denomination overshadow and contaminate their teachings.
George Hook ex-member and elder in a PCUSA congregation
Another viewpoint on church property issue
Posted Friday, February 24, 2012
Lloyd J. Lunceford’s book A Guide to Church Property Law (2nd edition) cites an inaccuracy in “Myth #2: A property trust in favor of national denomination…since its 16th century inception” (p. 187) has been further explained. Jeffrey C Francis’ Minister, Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery, article on internet’s ChurchandWorld.com, (“Theology of Property does not have a long history”) explains Scotland’s Act of 1592. This Francis viewpoint offers history of the act known as the Golden Act of 1592 and how it was misused in the Colonial PC and Heartland Presbytery case recently found in favor of CPC. He included interesting Presbyterian history in developing a section of the BOCO in 1925 and 1981.
Francis’s viewpoint may be of interest to those concerned with church property.
Dawson Watkins
Editor’s note: In response to the letter by Dawson Watkins that questions the accuracy a statement in A Guide to Church Property, I stand by the book that I edited. Its statement about the historical absence (prior to the insertion in the early 1980s of the express trust clause) of a trust asserted to be always in favor of the national Presbyterian denomination was based on long-established, detailed decisions by the United States Supreme Court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the Georgia Supreme Court, all of which are neutral third parties. As for Francis’ article which Watkins says states the contrary, I found that I could not access it to read it for myself without paying a subscription fee. For what interest it may be to readers, though, the presbytery of which Francis is a member, Eastern Oklahoma, is the presbytery that filed affidavits asserting the trust in every county within its bounds — a hardball effort to cloud the title of all local church property, as the PCUSA’s Louisville Papers recommended. I note this not to impute ill motives to Francis (whom I have never met) but to respectfully suggest that in evaluating any article or decision readers ought fairly to consider credentials and source documentation. Lloyd Lunceford
Religious groups demand Saudis release Christian prisoners
Posted Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Charisma News
An unbiased court?
Posted Wednesday, February 22, 2012
It appears the GA court did what was right in upholding the conviction of Rev. Spahr, but as will be noticed in the article, rather than the solution being telling ministers they can’t do that, the solution is for the GA to make it legal to do so. It is thus apparent that the GAPJC cannot confine itself to simply ruling her action either legal or illegal, it goes farther in offering what it sees as a solution. And even in that it is pro-gay! How’s that for an unbiased court?
Rev. Steven L. Seng, pastor First Wyoming United Presbyterian Church, Torrington, WY
Others ‘fell on their swords’ so that you could answer God’s call as an ordained woman
Posted Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Ms. LaBerge, I am a member and an elder of First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, and a former management staff and volunteer for Young Life, and have a masters in Christian Leadership from Fuller Seminary. I served on the national Women’s Advisory Committee for Young Life for several years. I have watched divisions happen in both church and parachurch settings. The big division during my tenure in YL was over the ordination of women. The same terms you use to describe the “other side,” “anti-Biblical, false witnesses, maligners of Jesus,” were used then to describe those who believed in their hearts that the ordination of women was part of God’s plan.
As I understand it, you are ordained in the PCUSA — or were until you renounced it. Many women and men “fell on their swords” so that you would have a chance to answer God’s call as an ordained woman, and your renunciation dishonors them. I’m disappointed to see the arrogance and lack of humility with which you write about Christians who love Jesus, just as you do, but who believe differently about homosexual ordination.
Regardless of what is right in God’s eyes about the question at hand, God must weep as He watches His children treat each other so unlovingly. We are not winning souls to Christ with this animosity, accusations and name calling. How sad.
Jane Leighty Justis First Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Editor’s note: Carmen Fowler LaBerge did not “renounce” her ordination. In the commentary explaining her decision, she wrote, “I know not what else to do but to set aside my ordination until my denomination repents of its corporate sin and returns to a shared standard of ordination aligned with the Scriptures. When the PCUSA changes its position on this matter, I look forward to the reinstatement of my ordination.”
Manoa’s path was man driven, not God driven
Posted Wednesday, February 22, 2012
I read with sadness the article in The Layman regarding Manoa’s dismissal from the PCUSA without its property. It was especially sad because all the other churches reportedly leaving in that issue, as well as previous issues, left the denomination with their property. The really disappointing part is that Manoa knew since September that this would be the result, and though given several opportunities to reconsider, refused to do so. The second disappointing fact is that the very reason the leaders at Manoa initiated this action (not to financially support those positions to which Manoa disagreed theologically) ended up with Manoa now financially supporting those very same positions through paying rent, etc. in excess of costs and relinquishing the property. After reading about how other churches went about their separation from the PCUSA and comparing that to decisions repeatedly taken by Manoa, I have concluded that Manoa’s path was man driven, not God driven. Had the Manoa leaders taken a different approach, I believe that even though the wording in the deed was not in Manoa’s favor, Manoa would have left with the property. As you know, the Bible instructs us to be good stewards of what belongs to God, and I believe this is a prime example of bad stewardship by the leaders at Manoa of what members in the 1960s gave to God through their sacrificial giving for a new church and what subsequent members gave to God through the years to maintain it.
After living for decades with denominational conflict and finding no mention in the New Testament supporting the existence of denominations, I have come to the conclusion that denominations serve mainly a negative purpose and therefore have no place in Christianity. The Church is the sum total of all individual Bible believing churches everywhere, and the existence of all denominations, including the Roman Catholic and Orthodox denominations, serve mainly to detract from the vision of Christ’s Church as outlined in the New Testament. I do believe in one holy catholic church and the communion of the saints, and I also believe that denominations often seem to bring out the worst in human actions both at the denominational level and at the local churches. Keep up the good work The Layman is doing, and I am proud that my father and his close friend, Russ Esty, were so instrumental in the founding of The Layman.
Denny Fincke Philadelphia, Pa.
Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith
Posted Tuesday, February 21, 2012
As an avid reader of and earnest prayer partner with The Layman I’ve decided to voice my opinion. The last issue with all its ECOs, FPCs, NCACs, FOPs, just to name a few, finally moved me to write. James 1:8 kept playing through my mind. “A double-minded man is unstable in ALL his ways.” I believe that’s where we are. Let’s put the letters back in the alphabet and look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
Marguerite Clodfelter
Blog gives realistic snapshot of PCUSA
Posted Friday, February 17, 2012
Thanks so much for your fair and thorough blog examining “The PCUSA 2012: How we got ‘here.’”
I am sure many people are unaware of the information which you provided in the blog.
As a graduate of Fuller Seminary (M.A. in Theology), who is presently a student at San Francisco Theological Seminary, I have watched many of the events which you detail with a combination of surprise and a ‘Jon Stewart-like’ sense of comedic horror. I greatly appreciated Camille Paglia’s essay of many years ago (“The Joy of Presbyterian Sex”) which showed that even “outsiders” think that things this denomination does are somewhat strange.
Had I been in Orlando when John Ortberg gave his talk, and had he given an altar call to join the new denomination, I would have joined the new denomination on the spot. His talk at that meeting is the most moving statement I have ever heard from a Presbyterian pastor.
By the time all of the conservatives have left the PCUSA and all the old people in the denomination have died (average age is what? — 60 or something — won’t most of those people die in the next 50 years?), there may be fewer than 1 million members left in the denomination (or even fewer?), and many of the churches will have been purchased by Muslims to use as mosques. I do not think this is pessimistic — I think that it is realistic in terms of the numbers.
I have heard knowledgeable people say, that without the big conservative churches, the PCUSA will be unable to finance its operations. Can the denomination dip into the funds of the Presbyterian Foundation to finance itself? My brother, who left his own PCUSA church several years ago, thinks that the money in the Presbyterian Foundations is the “big prize” and the only thing that keeps Presbyterians together.
God is apparently still alive and doing great things in the world — many of which are occurring in groups and movements associated with the Pentecostal-Charismatic wing of the church. It may be that eventually one church in Korea will have more members than the entire PCUSA.
Keith Johnston Berkeley, Calif.
ECO benefits plan unfair to some churches
Posted Friday, February 17, 2012
While it may seem like the right thing to do, the Employee Benefits Program unveiled by the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (ECO) is a real impediment to larger churches that would lean toward joining the ECO.
At our church, we have ten full-time employees, most of who are currently in a high deductible plan, or are not taking health coverage because their spouse has coverage.
Under the ECO plan, our church will be forced to purchase health insurance for these employees at greatly increased cost to the church.
Perhaps this seems fair if you are a small church not facing this issue, but for our church, it represents thousands of dollars in costs which we cannot afford and still do the mission work we feel called to do. In fact, it will probably be an impediment that we cannot overcome.
We had thought the ECO would be a new breath of freedom for churches, but instead, it has introduced an oppressive benefits program which will stand in the way of many churches making the move to the ECO.
One can only hope that the ECO leadership will see the problem they have created and rescind this onerous provision.
Bruce Sullivan Hope Presbyterian Church