The secret
strategy papers drafted by the offices of the General Assembly and
General Assembly Council should profoundly shock and disturb all
faithful Presbyterians. These “Louisville Papers” reveal that
since late 2005, the denomination’s two highest offices have been
counseling governing body officials to squelch any questioning and
retaliate against any dissent from local churches by filing civil claims
on their properties, freezing their bank accounts, changing the locks on
their buildings, bringing suits for damages against individual elders
and pastors, defrocking their ministers and taking over their sessions.
The use of such tactics as instruments of church policy is
unconscionable.
Most disturbing is the fact that the Office of the General Assembly was
distributing this advice to middle governing body lawyers at precisely
the same time that the head of that office, Stated Clerk Clifton
Kirkpatrick, was extolling the conciliatory language of the General
Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity.
On the one hand, Stated Clerk Kirkpatrick publicly called for
Presbyterians who differ to “endeavor to outdo one another in
honoring one another’s decisions.” He endorsed task force
recommendation seven, asking all church members to acknowledge their
traditional Biblical obligation, as set forth in Matthew 18:15-17,
Matthew 5:23-25, and in the Rules of Discipline in the Book of Order, “to
conciliate, mediate, and adjust differences without strife”
prayerfully and deliberately (D-1.0103) and to institute administrative
or judicial proceedings only when other efforts fail to preserve the
purposes and purity of the church.”
On the other hand, in January 2006, while Stated Clerk Kirkpatrick was
publicly advocating such peaceable procedures, his office was privately
training presbytery executives and lawyers in closed-door meetings to
take aggressive, pre-emptive legal actions against local churches whose
ministers and sessions might be prayerfully and openly seeking to
discern the Lord’s will regarding their continuing association with
the Presbyterian Church (USA) in light of recent General Assembly
actions.
The “Louisville Papers” ignore the responsibility of
presbyteries imposed by the
Book of Order in G-11.0103i to
consider requests by congregations to be dismissed. The “Louisville
Papers” also ignore the clear teaching of our confessions by
self-righteously and erroneously proclaiming that Presbyterian Church
(USA) institutionalists are “the true church,” and that any
who dissent from that institution should be branded as “schismatics.”
The Second Helvetic Confession makes plain:
(1) … [I]t pleases God to use the dissensions that arise in the
Church … to illustrate the truth and in order that those who are in
the right might be manifest.” (I Cor. 11:19) 5.133
(2) “… [W]e do not acknowledge every church to be the true
Church which vaunts herself to be such; but we teach that the true
Church is that in which the signs … of the true Church are to be
found, especially the lawful and sincere preaching of the Word of God as
it was delivered to us in the books of the prophets and the apostles,
which all lead us unto Christ …” 5.134
(3) As to those who seek righteousness and life outside of Christ and
faith in him alone, “… we condemn all such churches as
strangers … no matter how much they brag of a succession of
bishops, of unity, and of antiquity.” 5.135
The Scots Confession instructs us that, contrary to the self-righteous
counsel of the Louisville bureaucracy, the true church is not identified
by “antiquity, usurped title, lineal succession, appointed place,
nor the numbers of men approving an error … [Rather,] the notes of
the true Kirk … [are] the true preaching of the Word of God …;
the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus ...; and,
lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God’s
Word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished.”
3.18
We believe that many faithful Presbyterian congregations are sincerely
struggling with whether they can clearly manifest the marks of the true
church as taught by our confessions while continuing as a part of the
Presbyterian Church (USA). Such faithful brothers and sisters should be
embraced and encouraged pastorally by the presbyteries. The deceitful
hypocrisy of the stated clerk’s office is further evidenced by its
summary rejection of the New Wineskins Association of Churches’
call for a moratorium on hardball legal tactics during this season of
discernment.
We are forced to conclude from such conduct that Stated Clerk
Kirkpatrick’s public words were hollow and that he does not
honestly advocate that denominational officials should seek to “conciliate,
mediate, and adjust differences without strife.” To the contrary,
he endorses stifling any dissent, as can be seen in the treatment of
Serone Presbyterian Church in California and Ridgebury Presbyterian
Church in New York, where the senior pastor and elders were sued as
individuals. The Riverside Presbyterian Church in Iowa requested
discussion about being dismissed from its presbytery and was met with
the establishment of an administrative commission that placed the pastor
on administrative leave. The latest example is Kirk of the Hills in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the presbytery filed an affidavit clouding the
title of the church’s property, followed by an administrative
commission’s attempt to split the congregation.
There is nothing of Christ in the content and tenor of these papers,
and we call upon the whole church to join us in denouncing them.
Scripture shows us the “still more excellent way” of love.
There are indications that in the next several months, some churches
will discern that God’s will is leading them to associate with
like-minded Christians in other denominations. We call on the stated
clerk and other denominational officials to renounce the tactics now
being used against dissenting churches, to honor the decisions of those
churches, and to work with them to reach an amicable departure that will
glorify God. Even on such occasions of separation, we are constrained by
God’s Word to reflect the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love
of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Presbyterian Lay Committee
September 6, 2006