General Assembly Council may enter debate over salvation by Christ By John H. Adams The Layman Online Monday, September 18, 2000 MONTREAT, N.C. – The General Assembly Council, the governing body of the Presbyterian Church (USA) between sessions of the General Assembly, may wade into the debate over whether there is salvation outside Jesus Christ. The council will meet Sept. 20-23 at Montreat Conference Center. Peter Pizor of Wyoming, chair of the council, told The Presbyterian Outlook that he expects some questions to be raised about a keynote address made by a Presbyterian minister during the 2000 Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference in July. Historic view challenged The speaker, Dirk Ficca, a Presbyterian minister who is executive director of the Council for the inter-faith Parliament of the World's Religions, challenged the historic Reformed view that salvation is available through Christ alone. "That Christians through Jesus of Nazareth have access to God in an intimate, parent-child way … does not rule out that other people do not have other kinds of relationships with God," Ficca said during the conference. At one point, he stated bluntly, "What's the big deal about Jesus?" Ficca's comments – and subsequent statements by leaders of the Peacekeeping Conference and the General Assembly Council – touched off a firestorm that has not diminished. Peacekeeping Conference leaders supported Ficca's address and said the conference "reflected the Reformed understanding of salvation, which is that God alone is the author and source of salvation which we experience through Jesus Christ." Pizor-Detterick statement After numerous complaints were made to Presbyterian officials in Louisville – including threats to cut funding – Pizor and John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council, issued their response. They said, "We believe that God's love and grace for us was revealed through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus and that through Christ, with Christ, in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor belong to Almighty God." Both statements limited the scope of salvation through Christ. The Peacemaking Conference leaders spoke of the salvation "which we experience," leaving open the possibility that non-Christians may experience salvation through some other authority or power. The Pizor-Detterick statement, by speaking of God's "love and grace for us," also left open the possibility of alternative means of salvation. The claims of Scripture Meanwhile, Presbyterian confessions are consistent in reflecting the claims of the New Testament: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). "…for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). What the confessions say Scots Confession, chapter 16: "… For since there is neither life nor salvation without Christ Jesus; so shall none have part therein but those whom the Father has given unto his Son Christ Jesus, and those who in time come to him, avow his doctrine, and believe in him. …" The Heidelberg catechism, answer to question 29: "…salvation is not to be sought or found in anyone else." The Second Helvitic Confession, chapter 11: " … For however many seek salvation in any other than in Christ alone, have fallen from the grace of God and have rendered Christ null and void for themselves. …" The Larger Catechism (Westminster), response to question 60, "… They who, having never heard the gospel, know not Jesus Christ, and believe not in him, cannot be saved. … " Theological Declaration of Barmen, chapter 8: "… Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation." Confession of '67, chapter I: "The risen Christ is the savior for all men … To receive life from the risen Lord is to have life eternal; to refuse life from him is to choose the death which is separation from God. …" When ministers take their ordination vows, they promise to "sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do."

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