Denomination is in schism, former G.A. moderator says By Craig M. Kibler The Layman Online Monday, July 10, 2006 MONTREAT, N.C. – The Presbyterian Church (USA) is in schism, a former moderator of the General Assembly says, and "there are people who will be leaving the PC(USA) because they cannot see Christ in us." The Rev. David L. Dobler, moderator of the 205th General Assembly (1993), spoke to about 275 people during the "Hope of the Church" conference July 5-8 at Montreat Conference Center. "In many parts of our church, this next season is going to be characterized as pastoral care in a time of schism. There is no other word for it but schism – depending on how you want to fudge it or make it soft," he said. Dobler, the president of Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Alaska, since March and previously the presbytery executive of the Presbytery of the Yukon for 11 years, then listed aspects of what he called this "dilemma." "There are people who will be leaving the Presbyterian Church (USA) because they cannot see Christ in us," he said. "There will be people who will be tormented over whether they should go with their congregation or not. There will be an undercurrent in many, many of our presbyteries – in this next year or two or more – for how do we care for those who are faced with this choice, this dilemma, for some an imperative, to leave. "Not since I've been in the Presbyterian Church," Dobler said, "have I seen governing bodies – that would be presbyteries – passing resolutions saying, 'We are not like the General Assembly.' That had begun to happen even before this last meeting, when one presbytery passed a resolution saying, 'No matter what they do in Birmingham, we are going to stick to the traditional ordination standards.'" He said there are texts of resolutions being passed around by e-mail for consideration by some presbyteries that are "on a spectrum leading almost to secession on the one hand to simply saying that, 'We are not like them, we will be orthodox.' It will be a very difficult season for us this next little while." Dobler referred to a statement called "Broken Covenant" by the board of directors of the Presbyterian Lay Committee that has been posted on The Layman Online. Dobler said the statement is "their assessment that the renewal movement in the Presbyterian Church has failed and that the slide into apostasy cannot be reversed." He said the Lay Committee's board "are holding their counsel this summer as to where and what should happen and where they should go. I don't know what you think about the Lay Committee, but the degree to which you sneer at that posting or dismiss them is a measure of how out of touch you are with the great number of the folks in our church." Dobler then spoke about a meeting that will be held at the end of the summer that he said will be "the birthing of a new organization that has many, many Presbyterians coming to it. The driving aim as far as I can tell is to try to preserve mission ties with foreign partners who will find that they cannot be in partnership with a denomination that ordains practicing homosexuals. People who are going to that meeting are trying to find a way to work with mission partners across the seas and say, 'We are not like the Presbyterian Church (USA).' And all those folks are our brothers and sisters in Christ." He said congregations in his own presbytery are developing mission ties in other countries "who are working hard right now to explain away the perceived actions of the General Assembly so that they can continue to exchange folks with congregations in Albania and with Russia. And so, the conversations will be going on in my presbytery and in many others, in congregations and in affinity group meetings, as to 'Must we now leave?' "Can we now stay?' 'Where shall we go?' And if you would take that lightly, let me remind you about the PCA [Presbyterian Church in America] or behold the Episcopal Church in the United States." Dobler said that, when he was moderator in 1993, his introduction to "the pain of church schism was to travel in presbyteries where the wounds of the PCA split were still fresh and remembered. I was hosted one night by one family who stayed and who were no longer speaking to a brother and sister-in-law who left." "And so for many in our fellowship," he said, "the action of the General Assembly to approve the PUP report is not received as a sign of hope or of dialogue or of koinonia or of any of the happy phrases that we have bandied about, but one that has perhaps pulled the trigger for them. If that is an unfortunate image for you, then it has become the tipping point where the option, the preferred option, the holy option, now is to find a way to define themselves as 'Not us. I am not like the Presbyterian Church (USA).'" Dobler then used an illustration of a couple to describe the defection from the denomination that he said already is in place. "Perhaps in your ministries you've known couples, and I knew one, who were married for some time and then began living apart. They bought separate homes, they didn't speak to each other for years, still don't. Their children have grown and gone. One of their sons who I was talking to about getting married, said of his parents, 'I guess they don't think much of marriage because look how they're being married together.'" "There may not be a great host of congregations who send in formal resolutions saying that they've left," he said, "but the fabric of our fellowship is really torn and schism is the word for it. Finding ways to care for those sessions and elders and congregations and pastors is going to be a determining flavor in many of our presbyteries in these years to come."

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