Voting is underway on another Amendment to the Constitution dealing with sexuality, for the fourth time in five years. Presbyterians are weary of the controversy. There is no illusion that defeating this amendment will settle this issue for the church. Presbyterians expect advocacy for the ordination of those engaged in homosexual behavior, and acts of defiant disobedience, to continue. Some Presbyterians are discussing whether it is time to withdraw and form another denomination. They question whether it is good stewardship to continue to use time, resources and energy to fight a battle that seems endless, impossible to win and which appears to hinder the goals of mission and evangelism.
In this series of articles we will argue that the confrontation between the church and the prevailing spirit of the age is basic to the church’s mission and that the current conflict has historical precedent throughout Scripture. We will also argue that those who declare that we cannot continue to tolerate “the same old-same old” business as usual are correct. We will probe Scripture for a vision of a renewed church and our role in it. And, in coming issues of Theology Matters, we will start a discussion of effective steps we can take toward the reform and renewal of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The Current State of the Church
Some people today inside and outside the church are labeling the entire Presbyterian Church (USA) apostate. Rather than using such a broad sweeping label, let us look at some specifics.
Three hundred and seventeen commissioners to the 2001 General Assembly out of a denomination of 2.5 million members approved Amendment A. If an additional fifty-five commissioners had voted against Amendment A, it would have been defeated and not sent down to the presbyteries for their vote. Those few GA commissioners do not represent the faith and commitment of the entire denomination.
The three hundred and seventeen commissioners to the 2001 General Assembly that supported Amendment A were elected by their presbyteries. Since in 1996 a majority of presbyteries voted to add the fidelity and chastity ordination standards to the Book of Order, it is clear that many of the commissioners to the 2001 General Assembly did not reflect the views of the presbyteries that sent them.
It seems evident then that the general state of the church is one that affirms our current ordination standards but is careless in electing commissioners to the General Assembly.
We know that the General Assembly Council (GAC) has on important occasions failed to hold its program agencies accountable to the church’s doctrinal standards. The GAC failed in 1994 to denounce the theologies of the Re-Imagining Conference and it failed in 2001 to reject entirely the theologies of the Peacemaking Conference. The ninety-two people on the GAC are nominated by the GA Nominating Committee and elected by GA commissioners sent by presbyteries.
Members of the GA Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC), which is our highest church court, are nominated by the GA Nominating Committee (GANC) and elected by GA commissioners. Their rulings in several recent ordination cases have contributed directly to the conflict in our denomination. In response to these PJC actions, presbyteries have attempted to restrain the court by sending overtures to the GA to amend our Constitution.
A majority of the 2.5 million Presbyterians hold biblical views consistent with our constitution and are not represented by the decisions of this small number of people in leadership. An August 2000 Presbyterian Panel survey shows that seventy-two percent of Presbyterians reject homosexual behavior as an acceptable lifestyle. A majority of presbyteries—fifty-seven percent—hold biblical views on sexuality, reflected in their votes on previous amendments. A handful of people who oppose biblical standards and the votes of lower governing bodies have been elected to positions of leadership and exert great influence in our denomination.
Our Constitution: Guidance for the Way Forward
Constitutionally, the PCUSA remains strong. The Presbyterian Constitution, which includes both the Book of Confessions and the Book of Order, presents a clear biblical witness that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, and is the only Savior of the world and Lord of all. (For example see the Heidelberg Catechism, 4.016, 4.017, 4.029, 4.030, Westminster Confession of Faith 6.044, 6.056). The Constitution in both the Book of Confessions and the Book of Order presents a clear biblical witness on issues of morality. The binding document that defines us as a people is faithful to Scripture. Our Book of Order says of the Confessions, In these confessional statements the church declares to its members and to the world who and what it is, what it believes, and what it resolves to do. These statements identify the church as a community of people known by its convictions as well as by its actions. They guide the church in its study and interpretation of the Scriptures; they summarize the essence of Christian tradition; they direct the church in maintaining sound doctrines; they equip the church for its work of proclamation…. The church is prepared to counsel with or even to discipline one ordained who seriously rejects the faith expressed in the confessions. (G-2.0200)
The reform of the church has been advancing over the past several decades. Since 1978 the church has repeatedly been asked whether Scripture can be interpreted to affirm the ordination of those who engage in sexual relationships outside of marriage. Each time the church has said that Scripture is clear that God’s will and intent is for sexual relations to be expressed only within marriage. The church’s position has not changed despite pressure to do so from a vocal minority.
In another area of morality, the General Assembly in 1997 passed a resolution condemning partial birth abortion. The General Assembly in 1998 restructured the denomination’s compulsory medical plan so that churches can choose not to use their medical dues to pay for abortions, and instead have their dues cover medical expenses for adopted newborns.
The women’s groups in the denomination which were so effective in promoting radical feminism up to 1993’s Re-Imagining Conference have been much less effective in recent years. Women’s Ministry Area director, Mary Elva Smith, was quoted in PCUSA News saying that she “doesn’t want to allow the continuing backlash to the legendarily controversial re-imagining God conference of 1993 to continue silencing feminist theologians in the denomination.” The GAC was instructed by the GA in 1998 to rewrite the sexuality curriculum to conform to biblical standards.
Over the last several decades there has been movement toward reform in critical areas where the Church is significantly acculturated. Russ Stevenson, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Baton Rouge, LA, observed at a meeting in Denver in July, 2001, “that the denomination is more evangelical now than it has been at any time in the last 40 years of my ministry.”
The hard work of reform in the church is certainly not complete. However, if we are blind to the fruit of God’s faithful reforming activity among us, then we deny the praise that is due him and the encouragement he offers us.
The Nature of the Church
Scripture does not support the notion that the church can be without sin and free of controversy. Assaults on the truth begin in the earliest biblical records of the church. Scripture is replete with occasions when the people of God forsook the true God and worshiped idols. The accounts of Moses and the golden calf, of Ezra and Nehemiah’s rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple, of Josiah’s reinstitution of right worship, and of Paul’s warnings to the churches of the New Testament, teach us that the long history of the church has been one of falling into the worst forms of sins against God, and God’s faithfulness to restore his truth among his people from generation to generation. Paul’s final words to the leaders of the church at Ephesus were, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock,” “to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them…. Therefore be on the alert….” (Acts 20:28-31).
Our Confessions also remind us that the gospel will be attacked. The Second Helvetic Confession teaches, “there have at times been great contentions in the Church, and the most excellent teachers of the Church have differed among themselves about important matters without meanwhile the Church ceasing to be the Church because of these contentions. For thus it pleases God to use the dissensions that arise in the Church to the glory of his name, to illustrate the truth, and in order that those who are in the right might be manifest.” (1Cor 11:19) [5.133]
The apostle Peter looked back at the state of the church in the Old Testament and looked forward to the controversies that he knew lay ahead for the church when he wrote, “As there were false prophets among the ancient folks, so also among you there will be false teachers, secretly bringing in destructive heresies” (2 Pet 2:1). Calvin, reflecting on the passage’s meaning for the church of his day, wrote, “Do you see how he predicts that danger threatens, not from the common people, but from those who boast the title of teachers and pastors.
Moreover, how often did Christ and his apostles foretell that pastors would pose the greatest dangers to the church?” (Institutes VI,18,4)
We, in our day, are proving again the truth of the Bible’s teaching that the real threat to the church has always come from inside the church: from leaders and pastors, from false prophets and teachers—that is the church’s history throughout the Old Testament, into the New Testament, and up to our own time. Jesus cautioned against utopian notions of church purity when he taught his disciples that there would be wheat and tares growing together in the church until he returned.
Calvin describes the state of the church at the Second Council of Ephesus, “where Eutyches’ heresy prevailed and …. Flavian, with some other godly men, was cast into exile and many misdeeds of this sort committed.” Then he concludes, “I am quite convinced that truth does not die in the church, even though it be oppressed by one council, but is wonderfully preserved by the Lord so that it may rise up and triumph again in its own time.” (Institutes, IV,18,13)
Satan’s primary target is the church because, as Paul wrote to Timothy, it is “the pillar and support of the truth.” Its head is the One who is the Truth. If Satan can destroy the church, he has destroyed the truth and the father of lies wins. But Christ promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
Scripture is a record of the clash of two kingdoms that culminated on Good Friday when it appeared for a time that the kingdom of Satan had defeated the Kingdom of God. We misunderstand the extent of spiritual warfare when we see our current situation as abnormal and seek to flee from it. Our generation’s sexuality struggle is only the current manifestation of Satan’s attack on truth that has occurred throughout history and will continue until Christ returns.
While we do not seek these controversies, we also cannot shrink back from them as if they are abnormal. They should not weary us for they are the natural outcome of the kingdom of God challenging the kingdom of this world. And God’s Word tells us that God allows these controversies in order that the truth might be made manifest and his name glorified.
This article first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 7, No. 5 (Sep/Oct 2001).
