The first PCUSA overture has appeared that mandates cutting off ties with the EPC. I’m told that there’s a good chance it won’t pass in the presbytery in which it’s been proposed, but it, or something like it, is bound to pass somewhere and be considered by the 2008 General Assembly. According to the Layman Online:
“Be it Resolved that the Presbytery of Mississippi PCUSA does hereby overture the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA): (1) to temporarily suspend all the rights and privileges of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of being in correspondence with the Presbyterian Church (USA), and (2) to review its communion relationships with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church to determine why these relationships should not be rescinded if the activities of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church described in our rationale below do not cease.”
This rationale for this overture (which you can see here) is based entirely on one situation within the Mississippi Presbytery, that of Grace Chapel Presbyterian Church in Madison. It makes various accusations about the EPC that center around the fact that Grace was admitted to the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery before Mississippi released it. The overture, interestingly enough, didn’t come from a church, but from the administrative commission of the presbytery that is dealing with the situation.
In the same PDF there is also an interim report by the Grace Chapel Administrative Commission. It reveals the source of Jeff Jeremiah’s information to EPC presbyteries that we were being accused of initiating contact with PCUSA churches and going to be threatened with the cut-off–the big man himself:
Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PCUSA, who having received copies of all correspondence, wrote to Dr. Jeremiah on November 30th informing him that: “…in recent months the Office of the General Assembly has received complaints from our presbyteries concerning the reception of congregations and ministers by the EPC prior to Constitutional release by PC(USA) presbyteries. We have also received information that Evangelical Presbyterian Church representatives have been actively recruiting, seeking, and initiating contact with PC(USA) congregations to encourage their leaving this denomination. Both practices are contrary to the principles and expectations of our respective Books of Order. I am writing to request that your office advise your presbyteries – including the transitional presbytery – they should abide by the processes in our Books of Order. If this pattern continues unabated, I expect one or more of our presbyteries will overture the 218th General Assembly of the PC(USA) next summer, requesting that the assembly examine the basis of the PC(USA)’s relationship with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Such examination might well result in the 218th General Assembly taking action that would adversely affect the relationship between our two communions and the possibility of being able to transfer congregations between our presbyteries in the future.”
I’d love for Kirkpatrick or the people he heard it from offer evidence that EPC folks are “actively recruiting, seeking, and initiating contact” with PCUSA churches. I know it is most emphatically not the EPC policy to do that, precisely because we didn’t want to take any chances of provoking the kind of reaction we’re now seeing. Of course, if such proof doesn’t exist, I’m sure they can fold, spindle, or mutilate something into a form that will satisfy them. As for the threat–well, here it is in black and white. Expect to hear a lot more about this proposal in the next few months, a proposal that will make it all the more likely that churches that are thinking of making the move will do so, and do so fast, thus resulting in a lot more of the kind of situations that PCUSA wants to avoid.
(Hat tip: Viola Larson.)
UPDATE: Pastor Steven Bryant of Grace Chapel left this in the comments:
The Presbytery of Mississippi did not approve the overture and instead will send a letter to the GAC asking them to propose a process for dismissal.
Thanks for the update, Pastor.
Posted by David Fischler 
