Joining the cultural predators
The Layman – General Assembly 2008 Volume– 41, Number 4, August 13, 2008
We are accustomed to lamentations about American crime rates, the devastation wrought by drugs, rising illegitimacy, the decline of civility, and the increasing vulgarity of popular entertainment. But the manifestations of American cultural decline are even more widespread, ranging across virtually the entire society, from the violent underclass of the inner cities to our cultural and political elites, from rap music to literary studies, from pornography to law, from journalism to scholarship, from union halls to universities. Wherever one looks, the traditional virtues of this culture are being lost, its vices multiplied, its values degraded – in short, the culture itself is unraveling.
Robert H. Bork, “Hard TruthsAbout the Culture War,”
First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, no. 54 (June/July 1995), p. 18.
We’re indebted to a friend for bringing to our attention Judge Bork’s painful observation of the unraveling of culture. Thirteen years since “Hard Truths,” it seems that the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has joined Bork’s list of cultural predators.
Disbelieving the very commandments of Scripture, the commissioners made a colossal error of faith, judgment and theology. They voted, in effect, to separate the incarnate Jesus Christ from the written Word of God.
So when it comes down to what they really approved on the question of ordination, it is this: They said the essential requirement for a deacon, elder and minister is obedience to Jesus Christ. But the commissioners’ call for obedience is entirely subjective. It does not include “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman and chastity in singleness.”
In fact, the commissioners asked presbyteries to strike the constitutional requirement, just as the General Assembly voted to expunge the Biblical rationale for the ordination standards. And, even if the presbyteries affirm the “fidelity/chastity” clause, the sweeping sexual revolution has already been ushered into a once-great denomination that is selling its birthright to be culturally chic.
This was another spike in the coffin of the PCUSA. It will – and should – prompt many congregations to question their continued membership in the denomination. It will lead to other cultural abuses, even church-sanctioned marriages of same-gender couples of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. The door has opened wide to destruction.
The irony of this sweeping purge of Biblical Christianity is that it was committed under the aegis of a verse of Scripture. “What, O man, does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). The commissioners violated each of those commandments.
The Hebrew word translated as justice is mishpat, which literally means ordinances. Real justice is a matter of doing what God requires, whether it’s dealing fairly in business or rejecting a lifestyle that defies His clearly revealed will. Can we possibly show justice if we break the bonds with God’s commandments? Are we showing mercy if we accept the behavior of those who shamefully violate the revealed will of the Lord? And are we walking humbly when we set ourselves above God’s Word?
What happened in San Jose June 21-28 is more of the denominational behavior that has reduced the Presbyterian Church to a half-life. Dan Chun, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Ko’olah, Hawaii, ran the numbers as material for his sermon before the last business session of the 218th General Assembly. “We Presbyterians have a lot to be humble about,” he said. “Since 1966, we have lost members every single year. If we keep losing members at the rate we did last year, in four decades there will be no members. We need to be humble and say we radically screwed up.”
No power in heaven or Earth can prevent Jesus Christ from restoring this denomination – if He chooses to do so. No power in heaven and Earth can nullify the living Word of God, which neither withers nor fades and is sharper than a two-edged sword. But even with its justice, mercy and humility theme, the book of Micah is clear. For Judah and Israel, the verdict was destruction. How, then, might the PCUSA fare?
Is there time for repentance?