Parker T. Williamson
Editor-in-chief
History tells us that most institutions do not die gracefully.
When threatened by extinction, institutional managers instinctively
fight for survival, even at the cost of the organization’s own
founding principles. Typically, the final phase – when an
institution’s demise is imminent – becomes (to borrow from
Hobbes’ state of nature) “nasty, brutish and short.”
The world saw an example of this in the last years of the Soviet Union.
Decades before the fall, the Marxist vision had lost its hold on the
hearts and minds of the Soviet people. Economists in Russia’s
universities knew that Communism was untenable. Peasants in the streets
were skeptical of rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin. Their vigorous
black market constituted a daily no-confidence vote.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described those final years in his
Gulag
Archipelago. Managers of a system that was thoroughly discredited in
the eyes of its own people held their empire together by the only means
left to them: coercion. The KGB was never more cruel than during its
final years. Police brutality shored up the teetering structure for a
time, but ultimately the state’s intellectual, moral and economic
bankruptcy forced its collapse.
An institution called the Presbyterian Church (USA) is manifesting
similar ungracious behavior. Historically, denominational leaders could
count on a three-legged stool to support their claim on their churches.
The first, and primary leg, was a common faith, anchored in Scripture
and the Confessions of the Reformed tradition. Its leaders having
weakened the essential leg of Scriptural authority in their pursuit of
cultural relevance, the denomination’s structure became unstable.
The second leg was church polity, a constitution that respected the rule
of law and provided for an orderly means of governance. This, too, has
crumbled under the weight of officially sanctioned individualism. The
denomination’s chief constitutional officer chooses to look the
other way as congregations and presbyteries openly defy ordination
standards that are clearly delineated in the
Book of Order. This
enthronement of “diversity” has fractured a critical component
of our connectional life.
The third leg is the property trust clause, a spindle to which General
Assembly officials are clinging with all the tenacity they can muster.
In the secular world, property means power, and the exercise of power
inevitably involves coercion. Muscle rather than ministry now
characterizes the denomination’s relations with its member
congregations.
How else can one interpret two recent California atrocities? In May,
officials from the Presbytery of the Pacific dumped two ministers from
the Hollywood Presbyterian Church without a shred of due process, and in
seizing congregational control, they appointed a commission that
includes flagrant apologists for homoerotic behavior. This clearly
unconstitutional power play deeply wounds an evangelical flagship church
and tightens the denomination’s fist around property worth millions
of dollars.
Now we have the case of the 2,700-member First Presbyterian Church in
Torrance, the largest Korean congregation in the Presbyterian Church
(USA). Declaring that it could no longer associate with a denomination
whose leaders have denied the gospel, rejected the authority of
Scripture and undermined the sanctity of marriage, the Torrance church
voted to leave with its property. That triggered civil actions followed
by an ugly disruption (which included the moderator of the General
Assembly) of the congregation’s worship service.
I watched a video recording of that incident in utter amazement. The
moderator’s supporters tried to snatch the microphone from under
the congregation’s minister, and in the ensuing scuffle broke it.
Meanwhile, in the chancel stood the uninvited moderator, flanked by
presbytery and synod officials, wearing his cross and multicolored
stole, countenancing an unholy fracas that resembled a barroom brawl.
Lawyers from headquarters are now advising presbyteries to push their
congregations into amending their corporate by-laws in order to
strengthen the denomination’s claim on their property. Ironically,
while homoerotic activists thumb their noses at our ordination standards
and the stated clerk resolutely declares that it is not his job to
enforce the Constitution, his office has become the enforcer-in-chief of
the property trust clause.
We are receiving reports from evangelical ministers across the country
that their careers are being threatened by presbytery power brokers.
Pastoral search committees are being told that by identifying their
congregation as a Confessing Church, they could damage their prospects
for finding a minister. Such thumbscrew tactics – well remembered
by Russian Orthodox priests who suffered under the Soviets’ heavy
hand – are designed to forge a compliant clergy.
The Book of Acts reminds us that coercion will not win. In fact, the
Apostles welcomed abuse from Rome and the religious establishment, for
they considered it their privilege to suffer for the sake of the Savior.
They knew that bullying characterizes the last gasp of a failing regime
that can no longer claim the respect of its people.
In these tough times, we remind our readers that the gospel alone is the
power of God unto salvation. The Church that clings to that mighty Word
will learn in our time – just as it has been taught in the
centuries preceding us – that not even the gates of hell can
prevail against it.
A column by Parker T. Williamson, chief executive officer of the
Presbyterian Lay Committee and editor in chief of its publications.