The Presbyterian Lay Committee responded to the passage of Amendment 10-A by stating that the PCUSA has “severed itself” from the historic Christian faith. The PLC issued this statement in the Layman Online:
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has just amended its constitution to allow the ordination of officers who do not restrict their sexual activity to the bounds of Christian marriage. By doing so the PC(USA) has undermined its own foundation of scriptural integrity. It contradicts not only Scripture, but its own Confessions. The PC(USA) has thus severed itself from “the faith once delivered to the saints,” practiced by the one holy and apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.
The Presbyterian Lay Committee declares that:
- In deciding for itself by a “majority vote” that what the Bible deems to be sin is not sin, the PC(USA) has set itself against the Scriptures and undermined the Word of God as foundational to the faith.
- In deciding for itself that shifting cultural trends trump the Church’s historic confessions, the PC(USA) has set itself against the counsel of Reformed Christians throughout the ages.
- In establishing a system where each governing body is free to do “what is right in its own eyes,” the PC(USA) has undermined its own connectional principle of governance.
Like Jude, we feel “compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.” (Jude 3) Today, as in the days of Jude, “…certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” (Jude 4, NASB)
Right and righteous responses to what the PC(USA) has done will vary. Some will advocate allowing the wheat and tares to continue to grow up together, waiting for God to sort it out on the Day of Judgment. Others will feel compelled to heed the call to “come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord…” (2 Corinthians 6:17, NASB)
Whatever may come, a season of discernment is upon us all, as we choose whom we will serve. As you seek God’s call for your church, know that the Presbyterian Lay Committee will stand by you as we contend for the integrity of the faith, together.
We urge that the PC(USA) return to God, and once again walk in the ways of the Lord as revealed in Scripture.
Over at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, Presbyterian Action director Alan Wisdom put out this statement:
This is a lonely day for Presbyterians who believe what the Bible and the Church have consistently taught: that God’s will is that we be faithful in marriage or chaste in singleness. Now we belong to a denomination that is no longer sure it believes that teaching.
Now we belong to a denomination that gives no clear counsel on sexuality. It is a denomination that will not necessarily support its members as they struggle to obey the high standards of Scripture. It will not call them to repentance when they fall short of those standards, and it will not offer God’s forgiveness for what it no longer recognizes as sexual sins. In a society where the abuse of sexuality is devastating millions of lives, this abdication by the PCUSA is tragic.
By dropping the “fidelity and chastity” standard, the PCUSA separates itself from the Scriptures that are supposed to be its “rule of faith and life.” It separates itself from the historic Christian tradition and the vast majority of the global Church. It separates itself from many of its own members who remain committed to upholding ‘fidelity and chastity.’
But those faithful Presbyterians are not truly alone. They remain united to the Church Universal and its Lord, and they remain in fellowship with one another. The IRD and its Presbyterian Action committee are committed to walking with them as they seek faithful ways forward.
I appreciate the honesty of both of these statements. Those who are even now struggling with whether to remain within the PCUSA will be needing our prayers in the days ahead.
May 11, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Call me crazy but the ordaining of men and women who deny basic Christian tenets like the Virgin Birth, substitutionary atonement, the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, etc… as has been done for near 100 years in the PC(USA) and its fore-bearers is worse than this meaningless decision to codify what is already happening in many Presbyteries.
May 12, 2011 at 9:51 am
You are right, Benjamin, that the more significant decisions were made a generation ago. But what makes this present decision not meaningless — please pardon the inelegant grammar — is the way Evangelical and Orthodox PCUSA folk have anticipated it. People have committed to stay and contend for those theological issues. Straying from those issues was an intellectual failing. and evangelicals felt bound by their covenant promises to stay and contend for those confessional truths.
But, the rational went on, if the PCUSA ever embraced the ordination of homosexuals, that would be a moral failing and would be a serious enough breach of covenant as to release people from their promises. As when a spouse committed adultery, divorce was now permitted. For a generation, evangelical leaders have declared if something like the passage of 10-A ever happened, then they would have to come out from among them and be separate.
May 12, 2011 at 10:06 am
Peajay –
You are on the right track, and it holds especially true for the New Form of Government. As another pastor friend said to me last night, “If 10-A is the line in the sand, the New Form of Government is the Grand Canyon.” It’s one thing to fight for a denomination that has lost its mooring but still holds all the central truths in its core documents and allows them to be practiced. It’s another to continue to belong to a denomination that enshrines heresy in the opening statement of its government. If the nFOG passes, the denomination will officially become a Christian cult for its embrace of universalism.
May 14, 2011 at 11:02 am
Thank you for your perceptive comments. This decision is an unabated tragegdy for the PCUSA and those who love it. Radical extremist with no regard for the historic foundations of the Presbyterian faith and the denomination’s commitment to bibical truth have taken charge of a key sector. This must not be allowed. Thomas R. Peake, Pastor, Mountain City Presbyterian Church, Mountain City, Tennessee