Two conservative presbyteries – Shenango and Beaver-Butler, both in Pennsylvania – also have signed confessional statements.
And it’s not stopping. On Feb. 25-27, 2002, the confessing church movement will hold a national gathering in Atlanta – one its organizers say they are deliberately calling a “celebration,” meaning a time of rejoicing and worship and fellowship, rather than a summit called for political organizing. “This unparalleled growth of the confessing church movement cannot be explained as occurring because of mortal works,” a registration brochure for the celebration states. “The best answer to this phenomenon is that God works in mysterious ways and He is doing something positive and exciting in the Presbyterian Church.”
But here’s a big question – one that few, even the confessing church movement’s most committed supporters, seem willing or able to answer: Where’s the movement going? What are its goals? Besides accumulating bigger numbers, what does it want to do?
“That is the question,” said Doug Pratt, a pastor from suburban Pittsburgh whose session at Memorial Park church was one of the early ones to sign a confessional statement. “Quite frankly, I don’t think the people involved in the movement have discerned yet where the Lord is leading them. We don’t any master plan.”
There may not be a master plan, but there are plenty of ideas – everything from creating local and regional networks of evangelical pastors to finding ways to put pressure on denominational officials in Louisville to turn the PC(USA) in a more conservative direction.
And there are some important points on which the confessing churches are not united – namely, the idea of withholding money from the denomination in protest, and the prospect of walking out of the PC(USA) altogether. Both of those possibilities were discussed openly and with some fervor at the Presbyterian Coalition meeting in Orlando in October, and both conservative and liberal leaders say that some churches are so unhappy that the PC(USA) may well experience a split within the next several years.
But not all congregations that have signed confessional statements are willing to take the steps of withholding money or walking away. Some in the movement are critical of the PC(USA), but love being Presbyterian and want to remain connected, at least for now.
“My session is adamant about not leaving the church,” said Bob Dooling, pastor of Mountain View church, Loveland, in northeastern Colorado. “We have absolutely no intention at Mountain View of leaving this denomination,” although there is support for “taking a degree of control” – for example, by designating donations to make sure that the money the congregation does give the PC(USA) is being used for work that people at Mountain View believe is valid.
Some confessing churches may be ready to leave. Others say they are waiting for God.
“Our congregation is not withholding a dime, and we’re not preparing any sort of an exit,” Pratt said. “Frankly, it’s a very human impatience I see in some of my sisters and brothers. They want to take action, and as understandable as their frustration is, to get ahead of the Lord is not a good idea. I just don’t think He has shown us where he wants us to go.”
At the same time, the confessing church movement has given some congregations a sense of empowerment – a conviction that it’s time for congregations that have felt out-of-touch with denominational policies to speak out about what they believe.
For example, Gateway church in The Dalles, Ore., is an evangelical congregation in Cascades Presbytery – a presbytery that has voted in support of opening ordination to sexually active gays and lesbians. “We work in a presbytery with a long tradition of being quite liberal,” said Gateway’s pastor, Jim Hazlett. So his session decided “we needed to be a voice for what we felt was a more Biblical understanding of authority and the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”
Hazlett said one of his youngest elders told the Gateway session that “we cannot afford not to be a Confessing Church, or we will lose some families who will be swayed and influenced by the national denomination” – people who disagree so strongly with PC(USA) positions that they might switch to a more conservative church.
The confessing church movement is “the first thing the orthodox and the renewal side of the church have had to stand up and say `Yes’ to in a decade,” said Bob Davis of the Presbyterian Forum, an evangelical group. Sessions are saying, “This is who we are, this is what we’re about. This generation of Presbyterians has been looking for that. It’s a vehicle to have something to say to a culture that does not find institutions credible . . . I really think that God is doing something magnificent through these confessing churches.”
Several pastors interviewed said their sessions became interested in signing a confessional statement after elders heard about the idea through word-of-mouth or on the Internet, and urged their congregations to join in.
At First United church in East Palestine, Ohio – the only Presbyterian church in a town of 5,100 – pastor Ross Slaughter heard about the Confessing Church movement from a friend in ministry and, curious, began researching it on the Internet. Then, at last April’s session meeting, three elders who’d also heard of the idea on their own urged the congregation to join in.
At Pleasant Hill church, Charlotte, N.C., several elders came to a session meeting wanting to sign a confessional statement. Bob Jack, the pastor, describes his 425-member congregation as “moderate, but perhaps right of center. We don’t have any fundamentalists, nobody on the hard right.”
But Jack said many in his church are concerned about “an erosion of biblical theology or biblical authority in the church.” As Jack put it: “A thorough searching and understanding of the Scriptures doesn’t always seem to precede what we do as a church.”
Often, congregations that disagree with what’s happening in the PC(USA) – the controversial remarks on religious plurality that Dirk Ficca made at the Peacemaking Conference in 2000, for example, or the vote of last summer’s General Assembly to allow the church to ordain sexually active gays and lesbians – have felt left out and isolated, outgunned by the organized, vocal interest groups that are hard at work trying to influence denominational politics.
The confessing church movement brings a sense of strength in numbers, “is giving us a chance to feel less alone,” Slaughter said. “Finally, we have a way of actually touching base with folks who are also struggling in this way.” And there’s no question that some pastors might be willing to consider leaving the PC(USA, if things got bad enough.
“I was born and raised in the Presbyterian church,” Jack said, and “I don’t feel particularly led to leave the denomination. But I do know there could come a time,” if the denomination moved far enough from what he believes in, that he would have to ask himself, “Do you stay faithful to your faith in Christ, or do you stay faithful to a denomination? . . . There’s no question. My first loyalty is to Christ.”
There has been criticism of the confessing church movement – particularly from Jack Rogers, moderator of the 213th General Assembly, who has pointed out that the Presbyterian process of writing confessions typically has involved the whole church, not just individual congregations, and a long period of discernment and study and prayer. Some suspect that the confessing church movement, which is being championed by the conservative newspaper, The Layman, is not entirely a grassroots effort and perhaps will be used to mobilize a block of churches who could leave the PC(USA) en masse, or threaten to leave, if they aren’t satisfied by what the denomination does.
But some whose sessions have passed confessional statements say they see it as imperative for Presbyterian churches to offer a guiding voice to the broader culture – to speak out publicly about what they do and do not believe.
Some are writing their own confessional statements – Hazlett’s session, for example, used language from the Confession of 1967 about “the moral confusion of our time” and about how “anarchy in sexual relationships is a symptom of man’s alienation from God, his neighbor and himself.”
So far, people involved with the movement say, the biggest impact of the confessing church movement has been at the local level – bringing new energy to some congregations and creating or strengthening regional networks of evangelical pastors, who meet periodically for prayer, mutual support and sharing of ideas for local ministry, and sometimes for strategizing on political or controversial issues that are likely to be voted on in the presbytery.
But what role the Confessing churches will play on the national level – and how they will interact with existing evangelical groups – remains to be seen.
They could hit the denomination financially. The national staff in Louisville already has been told to cut back on nonessential travel and expenses, in anticipation of reduced revenue.
But it’s unclear what how great an impact the confessing churches might have financially on the denomination, especially if congregations aren’t willing to withhold money from the PC(USA) outright. Slaughter, for one, has cautioned his congregation about withholding – reminding it that “what goes around comes around,” and asking, “Would you want someone controlling this congregation through the withholding of money?”
Some Confessing Church congregations already earmark some or all of their mission giving to the PC(USA) – and often they began restricting their mission giving to particular causes long before they heard of the confessing church movement. Hazlett’s congregation, for example, began designating its mission dollars about eight years ago, along with a number of other churches from the area, in disagreement with presbytery decisions. Once a church begins to do that, “it’s tough going back,” Hazlett said – because the session feels a greater investment in the success of particular programs and enjoys giving to “people with names.”
There also is not consensus over how organized the confessing church movement should become – whether it should remain loosely structured or whether a more visible leadership with a more focused agenda should emerge.
Some say they are hesitant about becoming a cohesive national organization – especially without knowing who would be in charge or what the agenda for such a group might be.
“I think if it started moving in the direction of a more formal body, it would undo what it’s already done,” Jack said. “It began as a grassroots movement, a fire burning in the field,” and “it seems to resonate with the on-the-street Presbyterian – that’s its integrity and its genius . . . I think honestly it would lose some of its punch, some of its zest, if it were to become formally organized.”
Pratt, who is helping to organize the Atlanta conference, said that “I don’t think anyone knows” what will come next, and he’s certain no one is controlling things behind the scenes.
“There are no few people in a back room deciding,” he said. “The movement must decide for itself whether it wants to remain an unstructured movement or whether it wants to become an organization, which sometimes leads to becoming an institution. There are pros and cons each way. A movement can retain a purity, a single-minded focus and lack of political entanglements. On the other hand, it’s very hard for a movement to accomplish anything.”
Davis, of the Presbyterian Forum, said the Confessing Church movement needs to spend time in prayer, needs to listen for God’s call. Davis said he doesn’t know where things are going. But he does contend that “this is a wonderful time to be in the desert.”
Posted Jan. 10, 2002
