GREENVILLE, SC — Speakers at a Nov. 3-4 gathering here of the “Constitutional Presbyterians” urged participants to separate from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) if the denomination ceases to be “a true church.”
Some here believe it already has, citing an “authoritative interpretation” of the PC(USA) Constitution adopted by this summer’s 217th General Assembly as part of its approval of its Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church (PUP).
The authoritative interpretation would allow a candidate for ordination to declare a principled objection to any provision of the Constitution. If the ordaining body determined that the objection did not constitute a departure from the essential tenets of the Reformed faith and practice, the person could be ordained.
Opponents — including the Constitutional Presbyterians — argue that this could mean that candidates for ordination might be allowed a departure from G-6.0106b of the Book of Order, which requires “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness,” opening the way for the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians.
About 215 persons came to the conference at First Presbyterian Church in Greenville to express their unhappiness with the Assembly’s approval of the authoritative interpretation and to seek ways for sessions and presbyteries to counteract it.
Conference leaders distributed sample resolutions or overtures, which participants could take to sessions or presbyteries that would establish as policy that standards of ordination and installation “are ordinarily to be treated as essential” and that even if a candidate conscientiously objected to a constitutional provision, he or she would still have to comply with it.
Keynoter James C. Goodloe, IV, pastor of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond, VA, said it was “the first intention” of Constitutional Presbyterians “to abide by the constitution of the church as written and not as fallaciously misinterpreted by the most recent General Assembly.”
He then outlined when he believes it is proper and not proper to leave a denomination.
Goodloe quoted sections from Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion in which Calvin defines the church and tells his readers when it is not all right to leave the church and when it is mandatory to leave the church.
“Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution it is not to be doubted a church of God exists,” he read.
Calvin did not believe a person was justified in leaving the church over petty disputes or simple immorality, Goodloe said. However, in defining the church, Calvin used qualifiers such as “pure, true, uncorrupted, unrepudiated.”
“When these qualifiers are not met it is no longer a church with which we are dealing,” Goodloe said. “When that happens, departure is not only allowed, but we must think, mandatory, precisely in order to continue to be the church.”
Thus, Goodloe insisted, Constitutional Presbyterians is not about splitting the church.
“The true church is tied to the Word of God. When the Christian faith is abandoned, there is no Christian church …. Surely the repudiation of the plain content of the scriptures, and therefore the rejection of the authority of Scripture … constitutes nothing less than the rejection of the foundation of the Christian faith and therefore the rejection of the Christian faith itself, and therefore indeed the very rejection of the Lordship of Jesus Christ,” he said..
“Surely such an action would form the basis for legitimate separation. We may have to wait for the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission to determine whether the authoritative misinterpretation constitutes such an action, but that is our concern,” Goodloe maintained.
“And let us be clear that separation from a body that commits such an action would not be schismatic,” he said. “It would be instead acknowledgement a body that used to be a part of the church of Jesus Christ was by its own actions is no longer so.”
At the very least, Goodloe concluded, “(we) need to distinguish themselves from what has happened in the larger church.”
The Rev. J. Howard Edington, pastor of the Providence Presbyterian Church on Hilton Head Island, SC, preached at opening worship on the second day of the conference on Jesus cleansing the temple.
In the middle of his sermon, he asked for a moment “to permit me please to speak a word from the heart? Here in your hearing I publicly want to say that I denounce those leaders of our denomination who dare to suggest that at the PC(USA) is the true church. Rubbish!”
Edington said the PC(USA) “is nothing other than a tiny little sliver of the whole host of denominations and churches that comprise the true body of Jesus Christ, the true church in the world today.
“Furthermore,” he continued, “I wish to suggest that those in our denomination seeking to undo our rock solid biblical beliefs, seeking to undermine our time-tested governing principles, are not even true Presbyterians. And what is happening in our denomination today, 2,000 years of biblical witness, 500 years of Presbyterian beliefs are in danger of being tossed right out the window in favor of the cultural mores of our time.
“We are being asked to adapt to the social realities which exist in our society instead of being called to challenge the society to adjust to the realities which come from God,” Edington said.
“If that [authoritative interpretation] prevails,” Edington added, “then mark my words, the PC(USA) branch of the body of Christ will cease to exist, and that will happen sooner, not later.
“Yet I am here to say to you that all of the powerful, faithful witness of the Presbyterian Church seen so clearly throughout history is worth preserving,” he said. “And I believe that even if our denominational structure collapses into dust and ashes as I fear it shall, then I believe that out of the ashes there will rise a whole new form of the Presbyterian witness set and targeted for the 21st century.”
The demise of the Presbyterian church he envisions is a call to repentance, Edington said. “The steep, deep, unabated decline of this once dynamic Protestant denomination of ours is incontrovertible proof of the judgment of God upon us,” he said. “And if we therefore repent, turn around and stand obedient for Jesus Christ, and work for the purification of his church, then like the Phoenix, the Presbyterian witness shall rise.”
In his sermon, the Rev. Ron Scates, pastor of the Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas, likenened the PC(USA) to the church in Crete, which he said Paul described as “a church full of heresy, full of bad religion.”
The Bible, he said, contains “little wiggle room” for religious pluralism and heterodoxy.
“In fact,” he said, “there are all kinds of reminders that the church is to be morally grounded in the word of God, that, bad religion is something that should be combated, not accommodated, not tolerated. I defy you to make a biblical case for religious pluralism. You cannot do it.”
Citing Titus 1:10-16, Scates said “Paul makes no bones about being faced with the greatest danger that is threatening the purity, peace and unity in the church at Crete. I see bad religion today rolling around like a loose cannon on the deck of the PC(USA).”
Scates said Titus was called to sharply rebuke and silence these folks, to muzzle these purveyors of bad religion. He said the constitution of the PC(USA) is like a “healthy muzzle.”
Scates concluded: “The PC(USA) is full of bad religion. But you know what? So is my life. I invite you as Constitutional Presbyterians to reach down deep and yank out any bad religion that is there. The church of Jesus Christ is too valuable to tolerate bad religion, beginning with the life of Ron Scates.”
The group found two supporters in Michael Bush and Richard Burnett, both PC(USA) ministers who are on the faculty of Erskine Theological Seminary in Due West, SC, an institution of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP). Bush told the group, “We are not about splitting the church.”
The Rev. Bill Lancaster is associate for mission for Foothills Presbytery and editor of Foothills Mission & News Report.
