 EPC to vote on non-geographical, transitional presbytery to receive New Wineskins churches Report: PCUSA 'compromised its own confessions and constitution' By Craig M. Kibler Staff Writer The Layman Online Tuesday, January 16, 2007 A new report by the New Wineskins Association of Churches says that the Evangelical Presbyterian Church will vote in June on establishing a transitional, non-geographic presbytery to receive those churches that disaffiliate from the Presbyterian Church (USA).
"In order to fulfill the mission of the Church of serving the Kingdom of God by proclaiming and adhering to Biblical truth, which we believe obedience to Christ requires of His disciples," the report's authors say, "we are compelled to recommend the Biblical solution of separation from our present denomination. The report says this recommendation for "graceful disaffiliation" is due to historical, Biblical, spiritual, missional, congregational, legal and strategic reasons, and that, "It is time for those who are ready to realign with an evangelical, Reformed body that is more faithful to Christ, obedient to Scripture and seeks a missionally-focused partnership with us than what we presently experience in the PCUSA." The 155-page report offers a range of options – both for congregations that wish to stay within the PCUSA and those that wish to align with the EPC – and includes a "concrete and comprehensive" examination of Biblical, spiritual, missional, congregational, strategic and legal considerations, including the request for dismissal of a congregation from its presbytery. "We believe that this report gives specific and strategic steps that a congregation can take, whether it prayerfully is called to remain or realign," New Wineskins Association of Churches' co-moderators D. Dean Weaver and Gerrit Scott Dawson wrote in a cover letter to the report. "We believe it is time to implement the strategy our Lord has given us to transform the world. It is time for an Acts 1:8 Church!" they write. "It is time for a church whose members are being equipped as missionaries; sent by God to live and proclaim the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ in their own world. It is time for a reproducing community of authentic disciples. It is time to be united with those who confess Biblical truth through a polity that serves Christ's mission, which is the Great Commission." The PCUSA, the report says, "compromised its own confessions and constitution" at the 217th General Assembly in Birmingham by receiving a report on the Trinity and approving the report of the Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity. By these actions, the PCUSA "embraced a de facto confessional position which encourages the worship of a god unknown in the Scriptures, a god of man's own making whose names appeal to the sensibilities of contemporary philosophy, politics and a culture that asks the Church to validate rather than redeem that culture," the report says, adding: "It also adopted an authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order that, while affirming the existence of standards for ordination, takes the step of making the enforcement of those standards optional on the local level. This new reality allows local judicatories to determine that such departure from revealed truth is a non-essential for ordination." Clear teaching of the Scriptures The report charges that the denomination now allows ministers, elders, deacons and, "by logical extension, church members to embrace beliefs that are inconsistent with the clear teaching of the Scriptures and the doctrines from our own Book of Confessions. We now believe that the PCUSA has eroded Reformed orthodoxy and Presbyterian practice to a point where the collective conscience of many no longer allows us to remain aligned with this thinking." If the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, during its General Assembly June 20-23, votes to establish transitional, non-geographic presbyteries, the New Wineskins Association of Churches will petition the General Assembly to create a New Wineskins presbytery, overseen by a General Assembly Commission, that will be authorized to "immediately receive" New Wineskins churches into that presbytery. Four key points about this presbytery, according to the report:
Saying that the New Wineskins churches' stand at a "historic juncture" their relationship with the PCUSA, the report includes several references to documents known as "The Louisville Papers," two strategy papers in which the denomination's "leadership secretly advised presbyteries to take harsh and un-Biblical action against churches suspected of considering the possibility of disaffiliation. Such actions included personal attacks on pastors and elders, as well as pre-emptive moves to seize control of congregations and their property." These documents and Advisory Opinion #19, the report says, "has increased the erosion of trust between congregations and the PC(USA). Congregations and individual members no longer feel secure in their own churches, the one place in a troubled world that ought to be a sanctuary of peace and confidence." "For years we have mourned our denomination's unfaithfulness and we have grieved its actions," the report says, concluding that there are "two faithful options" for evangelicals:
"When denominational polity, procedure, practice and devotion depart from Scriptural injunctions, we are conscience-bound to correct it. If we are unable to do so, we must unyoke ourselves from that man-made entity and once again turn our hearts to Christ's Church." Craig M. Kibler is the Director of Publications for the Presbyterian Lay Committee and Executive Editor of The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at cmkibler@layman.org. |
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