 Letters running 94 percent in support of Williamson By John H. Adams The Layman Online Monday, January 5, 2004 Parker T. Williamson, who has reported on enough General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to earn combat pay and has covered the denomination's links with other Presbyterians on four continents, suddenly became the story during the closing weeks of 2003. The Williamson issue surfaced on Dec. 5 when The Layman Online reported that a task force of the Presbytery of Western North Carolina had recommended invalidating Williamson's ministry as chief executive officer of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and editor in chief of its publications. That recommendation, also endorsed by the presbytery's Committee on Ministry, will come to a vote before the full presbytery when it meets on Jan. 31 in Asheville, N.C. Williamson has been a minister-member of the presbytery for 32 years – 18 as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lenoir, N.C., and 14 during his service with the evangelical Presbyterian Lay Committee. Letters from 29 states, Africa and Pakistan Beginning on Dec. 8, the letters began pouring in through e-mail to The Layman Online and other Presbyterian Web sites. By the end of December, The Layman Online had received 117 letters from Presbyterians in 29 states, Africa and Pakistan, with 110 writers (94 percent) opposing the presbytery's attempt to invalidate Williamson's ministry with the Lay Committee. Letters from Williamson's opponents Only seven letters (6 percent) took the other side – but their messages were some of the most incendiary. For instance, Richard S. Hong suggested that Williamson pack his bags, go find a real job and cease his "attack-dog pseudo journalism." Hong comes from a wing of the denomination that has been trying for decades to repeal the PCUSA's historical ban against ordaining practicing homosexuals and adulterers. He is the treasurer of the Witherspoon Society. Two anti-Williamson letters came from a clergy couple in Ohio – David and Molly Douthett. Molly Douthett was a commissioner to the 215th General Assembly. As a member of the assembly committee on ordinations, she introduced the motion to call for yet another referendum on repealing the constitutional ordination standard and the long-standing General Assembly declaration that homosexual behavior is sinful. The committee approved that motion, but the full assembly voted it down. David Douthett accused Williamson of being "divisive, hateful, fear-mongering," and Molly Douthett criticized The Layman Online for highlighting another letter – from former General Assembly Moderator Herb Valentine. "Instead of simply letting Valentine's letter reside in the list, it was removed, highlighted, side barred, and editorialized. By using this type of journalistic tactic, you have demonstrated that everything he wrote in his letter is true," she said. "I will look for my critique and my husband's critique. I don't expect to find them." But, if she looked, they were there – and still are – published chronologically with all of the other letters and now compiled in a special Layman Online archive of letters on Williamson's validation. Valentine's letter was highlighted for two reasons: because he is a former moderator and because he has been one of the leaders against the ordination law and an advocate of defying the church law. He accused Williamson and his colleagues of being "crybabies … subversive … schismatic" – even unsaved. "Believe it or not, I pray for your redemption," said Valentine, who once began a General Assembly communion service with a "smudging ceremony" to drive out evil spirits. Valentine defended former President Bill Clinton as a "moral" man during the public debate over Clinton's sexual dalliance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and lobbied publicly for partial-birth abortion. He is on the board of advisors of the Covenant Network and is a founding member of the Interfaith Alliance, which bitterly denounces evangelical Christianity as "religious political extremism." Dan Mertz of Milroy, Pa., said Williamson's ministry was "hateful, mean-spirited, unChrist-like," and Scott Alan Nesbitt of Ainsworth, Iowa, declared, "I'd have Williamson shipped to a desert island along with the Lay Committee and its assets, publications and fervent supporters." Most letters from 'fervent supporters' But the letter avalanche included far more "fervent supporters" than calls for Williamson to pack his bags. It also included some Presbyterians who don't agree with Williamson but argued that it was incredulous that his opponents, who like to boast of inclusiveness, weren't willing to practice it when it came to including a spokesman of the denomination's evangelical wing. There were no letters from high-level staff members at Louisville, the headquarters of the 2.45-million-member denomination that has lost more than 42 percent of its members since 1967. One staff member, who asked not to be identified, did tell The Layman Online that Williamson's predicament and the burgeoning cause de celebre it generated had caused shock waves at the headquarters. That staff member expressed concern that Williamson's case could further erode the denomination's ability to raise enough money to continue funding its programs at the current level. All of the arguments in Williamson's behalf are too numerous to cite – it took 77 pages of 8½ by 11 paper to print out the 117 letters. Here's a sampling:
Others viewed Williamson's situation as a defining moment for the evangelical movement in the PCUSA.
But several of those evangelicals, including Jim Berkley of Presbyterians For Renewal, Brad Long of Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International, Don Corne of One by One, Sylvia Dooling of Voices of Orthodox Women and Bob Davis of the Presbyterian Forum came to Williamson's defense.
Alex Metherell, a physician and engineer who has been regarded as a leading medical expert on the physiological trauma Christ suffered on the cross long before Mel Gibson's The Passion, cast the issue in the historical context of the Reformation. "Paying the General Assembly per-capita taxes to Louisville is no different than the paying of indulgences to Rome," Metherell said in a column titled "Paying Indulgences to Rome." "They are both intended to buy you out of purgatory. And you know what happened when people stopped paying for indulgences – all hell broke loose with the wrath of the central church government coming down on those advocating 'redirecting' those funds, as Luther did." "There is little difference between the lifestyles and perversions going on in Rome in the 1500s and that which is going on in Louisville today. Louisville, however, is worse. Rome's perversion was mostly moral, whereas ours are moral, theological and Christological perversions," Metherell added. Dr. Larry Brown of African Bible College in Malawi updated the anti-Williamson move to a more current event – the American Revolution. "During that altercation, an exasperated member of the British Parliament observed that 'Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson and that is all there is to it!' A lot of troublemakers in those days were Presbyterians. The 'Presbyterian parson' to whom he referred was Witherspoon. Your Parker Williamson is much more like Witherspoon than today's 'Witherspoon Society' is like Witherspoon." Many writers found it disingenuous that Williamson faced the loss of his validation – and eventually his ordination if not revalidated during a three-year probationary period – while other ministers, who were publicly defying the constitution, were granted immunity by their presbyteries. The 'cruel irony' "It is a cruel irony that the Baltimore Presbytery voted to validate the ministry of a minister member whose sole purpose is to defy the Book of Order's provision concerning the standards of ordination while a five-member task force of the Presbytery of Western North Carolina has voted 4-1 to invalidate the ministry of a member who has done nothing in violation of the Scriptures, Confessions or Book of Order," said Gary W. Miller, a Minden, La., pastor. David L. Welliver, a deacon at the House of Hope Presbyterian Church in Saint Paul, Minn., brought the historical perspective forward into the 20th century – quoting orthodox scholar Gresham Machen, who was drummed out of the mainline Presbyterian church for daring to challenge modernists who sought to abandon Biblical beliefs and practices. "'In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology.' Seemingly, these words could be written today to describe the war between orthodoxy and anti-orthodox forces within the Church." However, this quote is from Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism, published in 1923 (p. 2)." Black congregation's leaders back Williamson One appeal on Williamson's behalf came from the leaders of a small black congregation in Henderson, N.C., whose members are particularly sensitive to having their minority voice and vote rejected. (In the 1960s, Williamson was a civil rights proponent and a participant in Martin Luther King's march on Selma.) In an open letter to the Presbytery of Western North Carolina, the pastor, C. Todd Hester, and stated clerk, Lynn M.N. Henderson, of Cotton Memorial Presbyterian Church expressed their "deep disturbance concerning the pending invalidation of the Rev. Parker Williamson's ministry. It is also our humble prayer that the Presbytery will refuse the recommendation and instead continue to validate this ministry … "As an historically African-American church, we are very worried what this invalidation says about the diversity of our church. Is that diversity permissible only so long as the ordained rank-and-file follow the agenda of the leadership? Can we truthfully say we are a diverse church when we reprimand or remove those who simply do not agree with us? Is the church of Jesus Christ not big enough for those who dissent, even those who are contentious in their dissent? Are the ministries of our Black Caucuses going to come under fire if we say something unpopular?" Many of the letters included warnings. "I suspect that the actions of the Presbytery of Western North Carolina against Parker Williamson will have the opposite effect of that desired. Since the vast majority of large Presbyterian churches are evangelical, they will not take this persecution lightly," said Donald M. Snider, an elder in Fair Oaks, Calif. And many predicted the fulfillment of the law of unintended consequences. "So they are upset about a constitutionally valid action, withholding per capita? So they go after a person who advocates it? Which makes a lot of people unhappy, giving them more cause to withhold per capita. When you go after someone whose desire is to uphold the Constitution, I think, 'Maybe the guy's correct,'" wrote Geoff Robinson of Haddon Heights, N.J. |
|
Respond to this article |
|
| Home
· Archives
· The
Layman ·
PLC
Publications Presbyterian Lay Committee · Feedback · Links |
|