ORLANDO — The Presbyterian Coalition, not content to wait, started months before a major task force report was due out to prepare its own statement of where it thinks the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ought to be going — a paper that is not shy of proclaiming theological truth.
The paper — “Given and Sent in One Love: The True Church of Jesus Christ” — concludes in an afterward that the church should reject the report of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Two pastors wrote “Given and Sent in One Love” — Gerrit S. Dawson of Baton Rouge, La. and Mark R. Patterson of Ventura, Calif. — and it was published as a book with help from the Presbyterian Lay Committee, Dawson said.
The Coalition released the paper, based on the prayer that Jesus prays in the 17th chapter of John, on Nov. 7 at the start of its national gathering at First Church in Orlando.
The paper recommends that the sessions of individual Presbyterian churches meet for about six hours over three to six weeks and come up with a list of truths about Jesus Christ and the church that the session considers essential. Then that session should try to schedule meetings with six other sessions in the presbytery, going to visit those sessions one by one to explain those essentials of faith.
In Acts 15, the apostles and elders gathered to consider God’s work among the Gentiles. After that meeting, Paul and Barnabas sent a letter to the Gentiles in the churches explaining what rules they should follow.
When Paul and Barnabas traveled from town to town, delivering the letter, “they didn’t invite dialogue,” Dawson told the coalition meeting during its opening session. “They didn’t form small groups” to discuss it. “And the churches were strengthened in faith and grew in numbers. Maybe there’s a vision for the Presbyterian church.”
Dawson didn’t say directly in that address whether the sessions should try to visit like-minded congregations or those more likely to disagree with the Coalition’s views.
But he asked, “Can we risk it? Look, I don’t want to do this — it gives me the willies. I don’t like this kind of confrontation. I want to stay around the people in the church who love me and pay me. … But how can we call the church to repentance if we don’t go?”
Coalition co-moderator Jerry Andrews, a pastor from suburban Chicago, raised that theme earlier — the need for sincere repentance — in his address on “The State of the Church,” an update he’s periodically given at these gatherings. Repentance is always in order, prompted by the Word of God, Andrews said — starting with repenting of failing to repent.
Repentance is specific — Andrews said the reformer John Calvin wrote that if we see our sin more clearly, we may grow in faith.
The church also should repent of neglecting God’s Word, the Bible, he said — of listening to the voices of the world and our own voices more than to God. The voice of the world says the meaning of God’s Word is uncertain because people debate about what it means, Andrews said. “The voice says you have your interpretation and I have mine — let’s agree to disagree,” he said. “There is resignation and defeatism in this voice” and “this voice does not trust the Word of God to break through” presuppositions and prejudices to illuminate truth.
The voice of the world decries the Word of God as not relevant and outdated, he said. “We know so much more now, it says. Listen to us.”
Thirdly, the church should repent of “neglecting to love one another,” Andrews said. “The world’s peace is at risk because of our strife.”
Dawson also spoke of the impact of worldly views on the church, using the analogy of “breathing the atmosphere of truth” versus “breathing poisonous air.”
He said, “We concern ourselves almost all the time with task forces and institutions and the world’s agenda. … We look more and more like the world.”
Dawson gave examples. Some in the Presbyterian church say that using the word “Abba, Father,” is harmful, he said — a reference to the inclusive language debates. Some call the taking of unborn life “faithful in some circumstances” or joining together in same-sex relationships “a new act of the Holy Spirit,” he said.
“We’re breathing poisoned air,” Dawson said. “It’s about time we stopped.”
