The Top Ten issues at GA – #9 Building Community revision will be debated in Fort Worth By Robert P. Mill The Layman Online Wednesday, June 9, 1999 FORT WORTH – The ninth-ranked issue coming before the 1999 General Assembly, a study paper titled Building Community Among Strangers, was one of the most contentious issues at the 1998 GA. According to the paper, produced by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), building human communities requires that Christians deny the lordship of Jesus Christ. Commissioners to the 1998 Assembly disagreed. "I am a former missionary, and I find this material offensive. It is hostile to the world mission of the church," said Paul Pierson of San Gabriel Presbytery. Glenn Weaver of Lake Michigan Presbytery said the original paper was not only outside the PCUSA confessions but "an act of hostility against them." When Building Community came to the floor of last year's Assembly, Tom Theriault of San Diego Presbytery moved that the paper be sent back to ACSWP and that the committee produce a paper that "(1) is clearly centered around the confessional and biblical teaching about Christ as Lord of all the world and its only hope of reconciliation, and (2) embodies a tone of mutual respect for differing opinions within our church." By a 418-86 vote, commissioners sent Building Community back to committee for a theological overhaul. Revised report comes to Fort Worth The draft coming to Fort Worth does say that "Jesus Christ is Lord of the world as well as the church." And in a section dealing with the boundaries that create and maintain our common faith the report declares, "These boundaries around the church cannot be dissolved even as we seek to build community …" However, according to one analyst, the new version retains "the same tired social analysis that plagued the original study." Among the policy prescriptions are recommendations concerning racism, including yoking inner city black and suburban white congregations, classism, including homeless ministries and job programs, and sexism, including having women studying theology "reinterpreting and reclaiming biblical texts long misinterpreted or ignored." If adopted by the Fort Worth Assembly, the revised version of Building Community will form the basis of future PCUSA policy.

Respond to this article New PCUSA study denies Christ to ‘build community' – January/February 1998 ‘Building Community Among Strangers’ rejected – July/August 1998 1999 General Assembly issues The Top Ten issues at the 211th General Assembly

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