Like any movement anytime anywhere in the church, the confessing church movement illustrates deficiencies in the life of the church from which it springs. First, it is a continually driven movement, aimed at reclaiming and bearing witness to the sovereignty of God, who has chosen to make himself known in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, his only Son, by means of the Holy Spirit.
Second, the movement is responding to a pervasive loss of awe and reverence in the presence of the Holy in today’s church, which is a concomitant of life in a postmodern culture whose basic faith lies in humanity itself rather than the living God.
Third, the confessing churches are reacting against the mantle of righteousness of the left of center which has claimed the mantle of orthodoxy in the Presbyterian Church for most of the past 40 years. This force showed no mercy, took no prisoners and arrogated to itself the power of sole interpreter of the faith, the arbiter of who would be chosen to lead, the guardian of the purity of the church.
Its many causes — race, women, peace, justice and ecology, to name a few — are all, in themselves, worthy of honor in the life of the Christian community. But the problem came when the group claimed that only its views were prophetic and Christian. Other approaches to such problems were unacceptable. And they felt quite justified when they succeeded in entrenching their representatives and viewpoints in the bureaucracies of the denomination for an extended period of time. This fact, more than any other, explains the existence now of a confessing movement in our church, and similar groups in other mainline churches.
Paradoxically, this group tended to use the concept of diversity to enforce adherence to a single point of view. We should always be more than a little cautious when any single idea becomes all-commanding criterion for excluding others. Thus, diversity — along with justice — has become the watchword of the left of center. Diversity, however, was never intended to include conservative views on doctrine or social issues.
There are many who want to claim the mantle of leadership of the confessing church movement, but if the emerging leadership of that movement exercises wisdom and discretion it will resist all would-be rulers. For if it, like the task force, becomes a tool of particular interests, in whom the root of bitterness has been allowed to grow over the years of conflict, then it will fail in its mission.
On the other hand, if the focus is on Jesus Christ, whose death on the cross and resurrection from the grave by the power of God, was an atonement sufficient for the salvation of all, it will embrace the universality of the gospel we proclaim, and not become a narrow, exclusive and perhaps even a demonic force in the life of the church.
We have a movement of confessing churches today because of the arrogation of power of one group which, once entrenched in power, sought to drive out all who exhibited different gifts of the Spirit in the one body of Christ. The question is: Will the confessing churches be a positive, renewing force in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for the whole church, or the political instrument by means of which those who have been excluded seek to drive out the Other?
The mission and future of the confessing church movement is as open and as pregnant with possibility as that of the Theological Task Force for the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church. And that’s good news. And, therefore, worthy of the prayers of the church.
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