Members of Pittsburgh Presbytery expressed grief and frustration with three churches that recently voted to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) without going through the constitutional process for doing so, while the church’s national moderator, who coincidentally was at their regular meeting Thursday, said he had offered to meet with leaders of those churches and two others that are pursuing the formal process for leaving.
Representatives from only one of the five, later identified as Bellefield Presbyterian Church in Oakland, agreed to meet with the Rev. Neal Presa. About 140 churches are in the countywide presbytery.
During the meeting at Bethel Presbyterian Church in Bethel Park, Rev. Presa said the theological concerns cited by the churches that want to leave must be taken seriously.
“These are actions and reactions that have been bubbling up for a long while. They are not knee-jerk actions to something that happened yesterday,” he said. Read more
