Can Two Faiths Embrace One Future?

If you have wondered to yourself, "How did we get to this place?," Can Two Faiths Embrace One Future?, will help you understand the path Presbyterians have trod since Reunion.

Published in 2005 by the Presbyterian Lay Committee, the monograph is relevant to the conversations being held today across the Presbyterian Church (USA).

For many years the PCUSA has stood at a crossroads. With the imminent threat of embracing what the Scriptures clearly delineate as sin (by passing Amendment 10A), the denomination appears to be making a choice. The lines of fracture will now become fissures likely too deep and too wide to bridge through restructuring.

The issues of relativism, pluralism, universalism, authority, a failure of discipline and schism are not just buzz-words nor are they idle threats. They are very identifiable points of fracture in the PCUSA’s body. Do those fractures run so deep and wide as to constitute a breaking point? That question is now before us as a denomination.

As you read the monograph, do so with the following realities in mind. Since initial publication:

• the denomination’s membership has precipitously declined
• hundreds of congregations have chosen to realign their futures with other denominational affiliations
• references to the stated clerk in 2005 are to Clifton Kirkpatrick; today the stated clerk is Gradye Parsons
• what is referred to as de facto abandonment of standards have
  in many cases become de jure
• some options that were available in 2005 are no longer options now.