Together they avoided court battles over property. The churches paid a total of $975,000, and the Indiana presbytery released the land and buildings to the congregations to continue their ministries.
When the churches, Covenant Church of West Lafayette, First Church of Frankfort, and First Church of Nappanee, gather with the presbytery on April 19 for a closing/sending worship service, tears will be shed. Promises to keep in touch will be tinged with sadness, knowing that those contacts will be minimal. Tears of joy will be shed as the departing congregations breathe a cathartic sigh of relief: years of feeling conflicted toward their mother denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), will have come to an end.
But what lies ahead for these churches? To what do those congregations go?
They go to another battleground. The EPC is debating the matter of ordaining women to be teaching elders, i.e., pastors. The Presbytery of Florida, which prohibits such ordinations, has formed a special committee to study the subject. The Presbytery of the East has affirmed its support for women as teaching elders. The Presbytery of Mid-America has prepared an overture to the denomination’s General Assembly, requesting permission to divide into two affinity presbyteries, one for churches that support and the other for churches that oppose women becoming pastors.
Why are they pressing such a proposal? The overture’s rationale states, “Wise Christian leaders of good conscience hold differing understandings of what the Bible permits regarding gender and pastoral ordination. Some feel that they cannot in good conscience allow pastoral ordination of both genders in a presbytery for which they personally hold judicial responsibility.” It summarizes, “ … Therefore we respectfully petition the General Assembly to allow a friendly division of our presbytery based on the ordination preference of each local church within our boundaries.
If the overture gets approved, that 23-church presbytery, spread over seven states (400,000 square miles), will be subdivided. And each congregation will have to suffer through the wrenching process of debating and deciding which presbytery it will join.
Why divide over such a matter? Contrary to the song’s lyrics, breaking up isn’t hard to do.
In his book, On the Boundaries of American Evangelicalism, (St. Martin’s Press, 1997) Jon Stone affirms the vitality of the movement launched by Billy Graham, Carl Henry, Harold Ockenga, et al. Their goal was to promote a faith that at once holds to the core doctrines of fundamentalism but expresses itself not just as a light on the hill but also as leaven in the lump, salt in the earth. In other words, they would not separate themselves above the culture; they would engage it, learn from it as well speak into it, and become influencers of the larger world around them. The movement soared in impact, as evidenced by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Christianity Today and Fuller Theological Seminary.
However, as soon as the movement got rolling, the leaders were faced with the question, “Who qualifies to be one of us?” Soon the National Association of Evangelicals was formed, with one membership requirement being “cannot be a member of the National Council of Churches,” a rule that remains to this day.
Drawing lines of demarcation makes some sense; we trinitarian Presbyterians don’t consider Unitarian Universalists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Latter-Day Saints to be Christian in the proper sense of the term. But the tendency to subdivide away from folks we know to be brothers and sisters in the Lord injures the body of Christ and discredits our witness to the Savior.
Indeed, our shout out to the Wabash Valley Presbytery is expressed through bit tongue. Our preferred conclusion would have been for the presbytery to convince our fellow Presbyterians to hang in with us. In fact, I dare say to them, on behalf of all, if the grass is not so green on the other side, please come back. We won’t fence you out.
— JHH
