 |
|
| July
letters, page 2 Archives of letters to the editor  |
|
| Letter-writer's
assertion 'quite humorous' July 29, 2003 I found David Walters' letter quite humorous – unintentionally, I'm sure – with his assertion that "those behind the so-called 'confessing movement' are really about one thing – power. Their only desire is to be in charge. In order to do that they know that they have to run the liberals out of the churches so that they can have enough votes to take over." He certainly hasn't been following the letters on The Layman Online, or he'd know just how wrong he is. On my observation, both here and elsewhere, most of those behind and involved with "the so-called 'confessing movement'" aren't thinking at all about "run[ning] the liberals out of the churches so that they can have enough votes to take over," but rather about giving up the battle and bailing themselves out for the PCA, EPC, or other such haven. This is in part because most of those in this movement, as far as I can tell, are essentially local in their outlook; as the most recent Christianity Today cover article noted, "evangelicals often tend to think that what happens in the local church is more important than what happens in the national bureaucracy, while liberals tend to think the reverse. … Liberals tend to gravitate into denominational leadership, while evangelicals tend to gravitate into local leadership." It's the principal reason that conservatives are the majority in the pews while liberals are the majority in denominational offices, and it's rooted, I think, in the fact that "many evangelicals find church politics utterly distasteful" (same source). As such, I can only conclude that Mr. Walters is projecting – he's interpreting the confessing church movement by what it would mean if liberals like himself were doing it, rather than trying to ground his interpretation in any actual understanding of conservative attitudes, concerns and motivations. There's a word for that, Mr. Walters: it's called stereotyping. Rev. Rob Harrison Grand Lake, Col. Movement not about chasing away gays July 29, 2003 The Confessing Church Movement, from what this writer assess, is NOT about chasing gays from the church. Gays and others, who are not regenerated by the Spirit of God, are not real Christians, and those churches that preach the Gospel reach out to the same. Holy Scripture is clear on this matter (Rom. 1-6: I Cor. 6). The CCM demonstrates obeying the Great Commission; maybe not all, but the conviction of the CCM is to make certain the PCUSA obeys the Holy Bible and the Book of Order. The church of Jesus Christ is NOT a social club, but the body of Christ, obeying Christ what Christ taught as recorded in the Gospels. Dave Walters is incorrect to think the CCM is about power. The CCM is that means to help reform the church to always reform, but for the right reasons. I would hope Dave Walters can honestly see the CCM and its mission. Lou. S. Nowasielski Wilmington, Del. CCM has consistently confessed its beliefs July 29, 2003 Intending no disrespect to Mssrs. Blanton and Walters, the Confessing Church Movement is not mainly about chasing homosexuals out of the Church, nor is it about grabbing power. And the Confessing Church Movement definitely has consistently confessed what it believes:
May I suggest that the writer get a better grasp of the facts before he presumes to speak about the Confessing Church Movement. Jim Wilken First Presbyterian Church Marion, N.C. PCUSA news service: Bright wasn't a Presbyterian July 28, 2003 The reason the Presbyterian News Service did not publish an obituary on Bill Bright is quite simple and has nothing to do with "liberal bias." Bill Bright was not Presbyterian. He attended Princeton Theological Seminary, but many non-Presbyterians attend Princeton and Bright completed his theological education at Fuller Theological Seminary, a non-Presbyterian seminary. Bill Bright attended two Presbyterian churches – First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, Calif., and First Presbyterian Church of Orlando, Fla. He never joined either of those two congregations nor any other Presbyterian congregation. There is much to admire about Bill Bright, his life and ministry. Many Presbyterians were touched by that ministry. But Bill Bright was not Presbyterian and that is why the Presbyterian News Service did not publish an obituary. Fine obituaries are available from the Associated Press, the New York Times and Religion News Service, among others. Jerry Van Marter Coordinator for News Services Presbyterian Church (USA) The following is a quote from the Orlando Sentinel: "'Bill Bright was – by any standard one of the greatest Christian leaders of the modern era," said the Rev. Howard Edington, former pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Orlando, where the Brights were members. "Yet I have found to my great admiration that he was one of the most genuinely humble men I have ever known." A spokesman for First Presbyterian Church in Orlando confirmed by phone today that Bright was a member of the congregation. The Editors Criticism of Mel Gibson's 'The Passion' July 28, 2003 Re: The New York Times and The Boston Globe criticizing Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion. I wonder if the writers are Born Again Believers in Jesus Christ? How can nonbelievers assess a film about Christ? Seems like Gibson's movie hits home about what Christ did on the cross, and that offends? Political correctness taking a back seat to TRUTH? It must be driving the PC crowd to the cross. Lou. S. Nowasielski Wilmington, Del. Gibson courageously follows the Holy Spirit July 28, 2003 Thank you for the article about The Passion. I cannot wait to see this movie. Bless Mel Gibson for his courage to express his faith and to follow the Holy Spirit. Bonnie Craig Confessing movement wants to chase away gays July 28, 2003 Richard Blanton wrote: "We all know the confessing movement is mostly about our homosexual neighbors, that is; excluding them from the grace of God. It's certainly not about being Presbyterian." Well, he is only partially right. The whole truth is that those behind the so-called "confessing movement" are really about one thing – power. Their only desire is to be in charge. In order to do that they know that they have to run the liberals out of the churches so that they can have enough votes to take over. The ordination issue is their "whipping boy." They intend to talk about it until enough people leave. Unfortunately, they are unable to "confess" what they really believe. David Walters First Presbyterian Church Andalusia, Ala. PCUSA News Service shows its bias July 25, 2003 I am happy to see that other Presbyterians feel that the denomination should have acknowledged the contributions of Bill Bright. Below is the text of an email I just sent Clifton Kirkpatrick. I would like to suggest that we begin flooding his office with complaints about the consistent liberal bias of the PCUSA News Service. Who knows, it might even have an impact. At least sending the email made me feel better. You can send Kirkpatrick a letter by going to an e-mail form on the PCUSA Web Site. Charles P. Preston Jr., member Tapahannock Presbyterian Chapel Tappahannock, Va. Presbytery of the James
Be careful before calling a church a sect July 25, 2003 The writer of the commentary "Two Kinds of Christianity" says, "In another 10 or 15 years it [the Episcopal Church (USA)] will amount to no more than a sect, ... By an old rule of a thumb a religious body whose membership was smaller than one percent of the U.S. population used to be considered a sect. Of the nearly 280 million U.S. citizens, a mere 2.1 million belong to the ECUSA." It would really be helpful to know from where that "old rule of a thumb" came. There are a lot of sects out there if this is true – PCA, Orthodox Presbyterians, EPC and several other active, Biblical denominations. I think we need to be careful how quickly we are ready to call others and ourselves "sects" simply from a numbers point of view. Christians are being marginalized fairly adequately without giving the secular world such an easy shot! Number 1 definition, Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary: "sect: 1.a: a dissenting or schismatic religious body, esp.: one regarded as extreme or heretical. b: a religious denomination." As well, Noah Webster's original 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language says much the same thing, but does not have a positive alternate definition. So, perhaps we should not concern ourselves so much with quantity as with true Biblical quality! We do not need to be distracted by this "old rule of thumb." After all, what could we do right now to get back above 1 percent? Let's instead raise our devotion to God, his Word, his Son and Spirit closer to the required 100 percent! It is, remember, his work to bring numbers into his kingdom. It is our work to be faithful to the job description he has given us, his children. Greg Leaman Oostburg, Wis. No evidence of snobbery in the PCA July 25, 2003 Re: Larry and Janet Brown's letter titled, "Snobbism And Elitism are killing Presbyterianism." I don't know where they have been going to church but, in the PCA churches I have attended, I saw none of the above. I did see quite a bit of it in the PCUSA though. Snobbery? Recently an African-American church was planted here in Charlotte by the PCA. The pastor is African American and has a doctorate. Does that make him elitist? Will he become a snob? The problem I see with the Browns' comments is that they seem to think that the teaching offered by pastors has to go down to other's levels instead of raising them up to a new understanding. How does one grow without being challenged? Perhaps they do not have an understanding of the Reformed view toward education. Reformed folk have been in the vanguard of education since the Protestant Reformation. Not for the advancement in career but the better to be able to read and study their Bible. Reformed people do not spoon-feed teaching to its adherents but expects them to Tolle Lege, Take Up And Read. One need only look around at Roman Catholics who have no desire to read the Bible and see what spoon feeding does for them. They believe anything the magesterium tells them instead of being like the Bereans and filtering what they are taught through God's word. You seem to think that God will reward laziness in his word. You might also look around at the numerous Korean and Chinese Presbyterian Churches. Elitism? Traditionally, the Reformed churches have always demanded an educated clergy. In the 1700s, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was founded on the basis of their disagreement over an educated clergy versus the backward clergy type as ordained by Wesley and the Baptists. The Methodist split from the Episcopal church was caused in part by this tendency to ordain anyone with a call to ministry in the word. This has led to error and numerous interpretations of Scripture which has led to thousands of denominations today. The Baptists and Methodists grew mostly because of their man-centered appeal to emotion and not intellect. The evangelisation and conversion of the unsaved involves more than the heart. The mind is part of that process. "You shall Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind." Not involving the mind leaves us with milk-drinking baby Christians. By the way, I am a small business owner who dropped out of high school in the 9th grade. I install cable for data networking systems and while we don't have a bank president at out church, we do have a couple of doctors and lawyers. Robert Demarest Cuminale Letter writer has unusual definition of 'sect' July 25, 2003 Two kinds of Christianity? I guess you mean yours or theirs. It has been reported, that today, there are more than 1,000 different sects of Christianity, each one somewhat different. Otherwise, I suppose, the different sects would have stayed with the ones they separated from. Rev. Bill Pawson has an unusual definition of sects, one I'd never run across before. Excuse my ignorance, but I thought a sect was a religious group splintered off from another religious group. The Southern Baptists are definitely a sect, having split from the other Baptists in 1845, as proponents of slavery. According to their figures, they now number 16 million plus adherents. I would think that figure is grossly inflated, much the same as the 2.5 million claimed by the PCUSA. Presbyterians have been branching off for years. We have three different sects of Presbyterians here in our town. I guess all of them began as Reformed, Presbyterians or Calvinists, but there are some small or large differences within the eight different Presbyterian sects alive today. According to PCUSA statistics on the Internet, the total membership, and the total at worship for the year, is usually half of membership totals. From personal experience, in this area, and in areas where my children live and attend PCUSA , I find this is true. 41,812 of God's people since 2001, have said enough is enough, and that number doesn't even begin to reflect the actual figures. I confess, I am a self-identified, practicing Christian, a follower of the teaching of Jesus Christ. When I became a Presbyterian, the acceptance of Jesus Christ as head of the Church, and a professed belief in Jesus Christ were the requirements I remember. I can't identify with those who profess belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. Having read, and studied the Scripture for most of my 69 years, I find it astounding that 429,392 Presbyterians have signed a statement, professing belief in, and adherence to, the confessing resolutions. And agreeing to urge their session and presbytery not to ordain or install any person who does not affirm the articles of faith expressed by this resolution. Honoring the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman is another hard to understand clause. The latest statistics indicate that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. I know from experience that there are numerous deacons, elders and clergy in the PCUSA, that have experienced divorce, remarriage, and continue to be ordained, or keep their ordination. This is allowed under G-4.0400, specifically G-4.0403, and I thank God, "The Church " affirms a rich diversity and inclusiveness. We all know the confessing movement is mostly about our homosexual neighbors, that is; excluding them from the grace of God. It's certainly not about being Presbyterian. Richard Blanton Owensboro, Ky. PCUSA has already arrived at sect-hood July 24, 2003 The commentary titled "Two Kinds of Christianity" makes the following statement with respect to the anthropocentric liberal version of Christianity: "In another 10 or 15 years it will amount to no more than a sect, which by traditional arithmetic the Episcopal Church has already become. By an old rule of a thumb a religious body whose membership was smaller than one percent of the U.S. population used to be considered a sect. Of the nearly 280 million U.S. citizens, a mere 2.1 million belong to the ECUSA." It gave me pause to wonder – given the current rate of loss of members – on what date the PCUSA will achieve the status of sect. I went to the official PCUSA web site to look for our current membership statistics, where I found the following information in the FAQs section: 1. How many members and how many congregations do we have? At the end of 2002 (our most recent data), there were 11,097 congregations and 2,451,969 members in the Presbyterian Church (USA) – a net loss of 41,812 members from 2001 (-1.7 percent) and a net loss of 44 congregations. Having already arrived at sect-hood, I suppose our next stop is irrelevancy. When will God's faithful people say "Enough is enough?" Rev. Bill Pawson Westminster Church Canton, Ohio A Confessing Church Denominations die because of disobedience to Bible July 24, 2003 The "Two Kinds of Christianity" author rightly points out two kinds of Christianity or churchianity, if you will, by comparing liberal verses conservative views on Christianity. What was not mentioned was the view of the Holy Bible. The liberal view Christianity worships man as the center to be adored and the Biblical conservative view of Christianity rightly obeys Holy Scripture. Anything less can be considered heretical. The Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist main line denominations are dying, because of disobedience to the Holy Bible, and will decline until obedience to the Lordship of Christ is demonstrated by the same. Lou. S. Nowasielski Wilmington, Del. Snobbery, elitism are killing Presbyterianism July 24, 2003 I've been following the progress of the Confessing Church movement for the past two years. Recently it has occurred to me that Presbyterianism is dying, but not because of any conservative/liberal division. There are any number of entities that flourish with both liberals and conservatives among their ranks (i.e. the Congress of the United States). Two things are killing Presbyterianism. First of all, snobbery. Most Presbyterian churches I have seen looked like the country club at prayer. For all their talk about "pluralism" and "inclusiveness," Presbyterians – particularly the left wing – restrict themselves to white yuppie suburbia. "We want inclusiveness, but only if they think like we do." If you were to walk into a Southern Baptist church, you would see a bank president worshiping beside the cable guy. The SBC is also making a deliberate effort at planting churches in ethnic (Black, Asian, Hispanic) and blue-collar communities. Presbyterians are not likely to do that, because these groups tend to be conservative, hence less open to the gay agenda. Secondly, Presbyterianism has created an elitist, hyper-educated clergy that has lost touch with everyday life. The typical Presbyterian teaching elder's existence upon the earth has been restricted to church and school. He grew up in an affluent household. He went to a liberal arts college where he majored in medieval Italian art or German literature. Then he went to seminary and got a master of divinity degree. He was then prepared to write a paper on supralapsarianism. He can quote Schleiermacher in German, Cicero in Latin and Plato in Greek. Then a ruling elder has to come by his house every morning and plug in the toaster. When he preaches, the congregation has no idea what he's talking about. The Southern Baptist preacher preaches sermons that can be understood by a seventh grader with attention deficiency disorder. The effective communicator doesn't try to impress his listeners with his intellectual prowess. These tendencies hold true whether you're talking about PCUSA, PCA, EPC, whatever. There are reasons why Presbyterians number less than 3 million and are dwindling, while the SBC has 16.2 million members and is growing. Can Presbyterians learn from the experiences of others? Dr. Larry and Janet Brown African Bible College Not two kinds of Christianity, but two religions July 24, 2003 With due respect to Mr. Siemon-Netto's commentary, there are not two radically different kinds of Christianity, the orthodox v. the progressive variety, but two very different religions. Theological liberals in the PCUSA, the ECUSA, the UMC, the ECLA, the UCC, any other Protestant denomination, or within the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Churches, have far more in common with theological liberals in Reform Judaism, the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship or secular humanism than they do with orthodox Christians in their own denomination. Theological liberals hold to a religious philosophy that is far more important to them than the objective content of their metaphysical beliefs. One of the tenets of theological liberalism is that all men and women have a fundamental human right to believe whatsoever they wish about God, and that no one has a right to tell other people that their beliefs about God are wrong. In other words, in theological liberalism, the faith of the individual is more important than the objective character of God. Theological liberalism is built upon an anthropocentric worldview that reverses the roles of God and man in the answer to the first question of the Westminster Catechisms. It looks at Jesus of Nazareth and sees a good, moral teacher, who, through his life's ministry and teaching, sought to bring comfort to the poor and "marginalized" of society, and to teach society to receive them as individuals of worth, as well as to teach society to cast off meaningless rules and regulations that oppressed them. This is what theological liberalism refers to when it speaks of the "Spirit of Christ," and believe that it is found in greater or lesser measure in all the religions of the world. In the contemporary world, theological liberalism has identified homosexuals, bi-sexuals, and individuals who have undergone sex-change operations as the "marginalized" of society. The "Spirit of Christ" would have us receive these individuals as they are, and would have us eliminate the meaningless rules and regulations against homosexual practice, adultery, fornication, lust and emasculation. By contrast, Christianity is built upon a theocentric worldview – who God is and what he wants is more important than anything else. The teaching of Christianity is built upon the Scriptures and the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. In theological liberalism, Scripture must be "vetted" by "experts" who are versed in redaction criticism and who are committed to the guiding principles of theological liberalism. Moreover, Scripture must be judged against the experience of the individual. If a person disagrees with a passage of Scripture, and if that passage of Scripture is not in keeping with the guiding principles of theological liberalism, that individual is free to disbelieve or disregard that text. It claims that Jesus' moral teachings (particularly regarding how we are to treat the poor and "marginalized") are probably reliable, but not his claims to be the incarnate Son of God, since that would contradict his humility. But it would only contradict his humility if it were not true. When an individual claims that he or she is predisposed to desire a sexual relationship with a member of the same gender, theological liberalism holds that the individual's experience outweighs the Scriptural injunction against the act. In other words, the individual is in the right and Scripture is in the wrong. Jesus Christ came as a liberator. He came not to liberate mankind from the tyranny of human oppression, but from the tyranny of sin and death. And this is the very point that theological tiberalism refuses to understand. This is the heart and soul of Christianity, and it is not optional. In subjecting Christianity to its anthropocentric worldview, and in subjugating Christ's command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength to his command to love our neighbor as ourselves, theological liberalism radically distorts the truth of Jesus Christ and produces a new religion entirely – another man-made religion that knows not God and does not offer the hope of eternal life found only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Loren Golden Overland Park, Kan. |
|
| July
letters, page 3 Home · News · PLC Publications · The Layman Online Reviews · Archives· History of the Lay Committee · Feedback · Links |