Presbyterians are rapidly jettisoning any hope that the denomination they once respected can recover its loss of theological and moral integrity. Across the spectrum, it is now widely assumed that the demise of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is irrevocable. Prognosticators no longer use the word "if" but "when."

Thousands of Presbyterians have left, some paying exorbitant exit fees imposed on them by ecclesiastics who insist on seizing the last pound of flesh from those who flee their dying institution. The fact that denominational officials practice such coercion shows that they too have acceded to the doomsday scenario. Knowing that their institution is going down, they turn the screws, grinding out an ersatz loyalty before the curtain falls on their regime.

Bullying tactics may extrude compliance from the cowardly for a season, but they win no love for the denomination. To the contrary, disdain deepens as thousands more local church sessions ponder the meaning of their growing estrangement.

Modern monasticism

Even Presbyterians for Renewal, a perennial apologist for institutional preservation, has drifted perilously close to the exit ramp. Having abandoned its former assurances that the church was not as bad as it seemed and things were getting better, PFR has announced that it is building an evangelical enclave, a walled space inside the PCUSA to protect those who still share New Testament faith.

Church history reveals a precedent for PFR’s proposed rearrangement. Medieval monasteries cloistered the faithful during their mother church’s corruption. Monks chose to be in the church, but not of it, and in their self-imposed isolation, they kept the faith.

Theirs was an intercessory offering. We can be thankful for the fervent prayer, discipline and sacrificial service that these holy orders maintained. Night and day, they prayed that the Lord would convict church authorities who had abandoned the Gospel. By candlelight, they painstakingly copied sacred texts, preserving them for the day when Scripture would no longer be ignored. Welcoming the stranger and those persecuted by church princes, they shared the love of Jesus. This evangelical cloistering played an important role in passing on the faith.

The Reformed alternative

But however venerable, monasticism is not our tradition. The Reformers (including a monk who bolted his ink-stained cell) chose a more public path. Rather than retreat from the institution, they engaged it. With hearts afire, they proclaimed holy Scripture, nailed their testimony to the doorposts of a tainted church, stripped their sanctuaries of idolatry, sent indulgence peddlers packing, purged the parish of clergy who had besmirched their holy calling, ennobled the teaching office, invigorated and educated the laity, established rules of discipline, replaced an evanescent and heresy-prone "spiritual experience" with thoroughgoing grounding in doctrine, and celebrated the life of the mind in the service of God.

Our Reformed forbearers were radicals in the best sense of that word. They publicly focused on the radix, the root, the Biblical substratum of Christian faith and life. They loved and served the Lord Jesus Christ who is revealed in the Scriptures, and they tolerated no pretenders.

The Reformers spurned the monastic option that was readily available to them, rejecting an ecclesiastical rearrangement that might have cloistered them safely within the confines of a corrupt institution. "Sola Scriptura!" they insisted, knowing full well that they would pay a price for making such demands public.

A godly heritage

That Reformation is our godly heritage. It sets forth a narrow way, despised by those among us who embrace a "gospel" of inclusiveness and diversity, just as it was maligned centuries ago by a fraudulent pope and his pecking order. But that narrow way is commanded by a Lord who dwarfs pontificating executives, stated clerks and administrative commissions. Quivering clergy would do well to ponder the self-styled sovereignty of these fleeting flag bearers. They are dust, and they cannot intimidate those who follow the ruler of heaven and earth.

Today, as was true when wicked kings misled Israel and blowhard bishops introduced idolatry to their sixteenth century churches, rearrangement proves an unworthy alternative to Reformation. There is no Scriptural warrant for bailing out or even buying time for a corrupt and corrupting ecclesiastical institution. Restructuring schemes are straws in the wind. They will not save the PCUSA.

Holy Scripture and the lessons of history remind us that nothing short of Reformation will save us. Our only hope for this moribund denomination lies in its agonizing confession of sin, rejection of cultural accommodation, release of captive congregations, and abject plea for mercy from a transcendent Lord whose thoughts are not its thoughts and whose ways are not its ways.

Only then will those who walked in darkness see a great light. And only then will they embody a Reformation that is not of their own making, announcing the reign of "wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, the prince of peace."

The Rev. Parker T. Williamson is editor emeritus, consultant to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, and an honorably retired PCUSA minister.