August 23, 2001
To Rev. Jack Rogers, Moderator of the 213th General Assembly
Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General
Assembly
cc: Commissioners to the 213th General Assembly, The
Presbyterian Renewal Network, The Presbyterian Lay Committee,
the Presbyterian Coalition and Congregations that have joined
the Confessing Church Movement.
Dear Rev. Rogers and Rev. Kirkpatrick,
This letter is to affirm to you and to the Church that, after
prayer, a study of Scripture¹, and a review of our creeds
and confessions, the Board of Directors of
Presbyterian-Reformed Ministries International concurs with
the discernment offered by the Presbyterian Lay Committee that
the 213th General Assembly took actions which may lead the PC
(USA) into apostasy.
In the letter you sent to the Lay Committee and to
commissioners you expressed the following belief:
- Apostasy refers to the total repudiation and
abandonment of the Christian faith. Historically, apostasy
is only declared by a church court that has rendered a
judgment only in response to the gravest of offenses in
teaching, usually by individual members, but from time to
time by other church courts or churches.
- "We do not believe that a body like the Lay
Committee, which is not a church, has the authority to
declare apostasy and would respectfully submit that such a
judgment on the 213th General Assembly is in error."
This statement is not only factually incorrect, but
constitutes a profound rejection of a fundamental principle of
our Reformed faith.
If it is true that apostasy can only be discerned and named
by a church court, then there never would have been a
Reformation.
History records that when councils become corrupt they
consistently show themselves unable to correct themselves from
within. Speaking that correction, biblically as well as
historically, is the role of the prophet, whom God raises up
to name the apostasy into which the people of God may have
fallen but have become too blind to see. This prophetic
speaking of God's word that is based on Scripture and inspired
by the Holy Spirit is the responsibility not just of formal
church courts but any one who is faithful to Jesus Christ and
called by Him to speak. This is what Martin Luther did when he
spoke God's word to an apostate Roman Catholic Church. The
pastors gathered at Barmen spoke a prophetic word to the
church in Nazi Germany that was accommodating its faith to
Nazi ideology.
We believe that God has spoken to you and to the PCUSA
through the Lay Committee. Your letter shows already that you
have rejected this prophetic word.
When a church rejects its prophets, it will blindly stumble
away from its foundations. By filling your ears with the
babble of diversity, you are making yourselves deaf to the
truth the prophets are speaking.
For the love of Jesus Christ, for the love of the Church and
for the salvation of future generations we plead with you to
listen to the truth that is being spoken in your midst!
In your letter urging the Lay Committee to reconsider its
discernment, you make the following statement.
- The 568 commissioners whose actions you have
unilaterally declared to be apostate began the assembly by
affirming that "Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior"
during the their initial commissioning on Sat., June 9,
2001. Their presbyteries duly elected these commissioners.
They are ministers of Word and Sacrament (primarily local
church pastors) and elders, who serve on the session in
their local congregations. They were chosen to be
commissioners because of their distinguished and faithful
service in their presbyteries. They spent many hours in
prayer and in preparation for their work at General
Assembly. While at the assembly, they engaged in daily
worship and in private devotions. During the plenary
sessions they sang with enthusiasm the great hymns of the
church, recited our historic confessions, and a holy quiet
descended upon the hall when they were called to prayer.
These ministers and elders, men and women, young and old,
sought to discern the mind of Christ and to represent
their fellow Presbyterians well and faithfully. There is
no evidence that they sought to abandon their faith or
their moral principles.
This statement represents an astonishing departure from
our Reformed faith, and it shows a disingenuous attempt to
impugn the process of discernment that led the Presbyterian
Lay Committee to conclude that the 213th General Assembly was
apostate.
Nowhere does the Lay Committee question the motives of the
commissioners. No one questions whether they were duly
elected. No one doubts that they worshiped and prayed with
sincerity. No one doubts the fact that they "recited our
historic confessions" or that there were moments when
God's presence was manifest.
None of these things, however, can be criteria for
determining the truth and falsehood, faithfulness or apostasy
of the 213th GA's actions or failures to act. The only way to
judge that, according to the Scots Confession, is through the
Bible.
- Chapter 20 – "General Councils, Their Power,
Authority, and the Cause of Their Summoning"
- As we do not rashly condemn what good men, assembled
together in general councils lawfully gathered, have set
before us; so we do not receive uncritically whatever has
been declared to men under the name of the general
councils, for it is plain that, being human, some of them
have manifestly erred, and that in matters of great weight
and importance. So far then as the council confirms
its decrees by the plain Word of God, so far do we
reverence and embrace them. But if men, under the name of
a council, pretend to forge for us new articles of faith,
or to make decisions contrary to the Word of God, then we
must utterly deny them as the doctrine of devils, drawing
our souls from the voice of the one God to follow the
doctrines and teachings of men. The reason why the general
councils met was not to make any permanent law which God
had not made before, nor yet to form new articles for our
belief, nor to give the Word of God authority; much less
to make that to be his Word, or even the true
interpretation of it, which was not expressed previously
by his holy will in his Word; but the reason for councils,
at least of those that deserve that name, was partly to
refute heresies, and to give public confession of their
faith to the generations following, which they did by the
authority of God's written Word, and not by any opinion or
prerogative that they could not err by reason of their
numbers. This, we judge, was the primary reason for
general councils…
Our own book of order confirms this principle of our
Reformed Faith: (G 1.0307 "…That the "Holy
Scriptures are the only rule of faith and manners … all
their decisions should be founded upon the revealed will of
God."
Whether commissioners were duly elected, or had great moments
of worship, or followed the procedures in the Book of
Order are not the criteria for determining apostasy.
Scripture is the plumb line. By your own admission the study
of scripture was not one of the activities engaged in by the
213th GA.
The Presbyterian Lay Committee has found actions of the 213th
GA contrary to the "plain Word of God." If you
believe that this discernment is in error, it is incumbent on
you to make your case – not from public opinion polls,
the good intentions of duly elected commissioners, feelings of
God's presence, or our polity – but from the Word of God.
- One further statement you make is wrong and, were it
taken seriously, would result in serious damage to the
peace, purity and unity of the church.
- The second action that you cite, the proposal to amend
G-6.0106, is certainly an action which many faithful
Presbyterians believe is contrary to God's will, but it
cannot constitute apostasy. This provision only became
part of the Form of Government in 1997, and no one would
suggest that the church was apostate for all the years
prior to the adoption of this particular Constitutional
revision.
Of course the proposal to amend G-6.0106 can lead the
church into apostasy. The issue is not how long that
particular rule has been in the Book of Order. The
issue is whether the Presbyterian Church (USA) has now decided
– contrary to Scripture and two millennia of Christian
teaching – that homosexual sex is not a sin in the eyes
of God. In proposing to set aside the 1978 Definitive Guidance
which is a careful, balanced study of Scripture, this GA has
substituted the clear teaching of Scripture with mere "doctrines
of men."
That, according to Scripture and our Confessions, is
apostasy.
As the Board of Directors and the Executive Staff of
Presbyterian-Reformed Ministries International, in
faithfulness to Jesus Christ, we join with others in the
Confessing Church Movement in affirming:
- 1. That Jesus Christ alone is Lord of all and the only
way of salvation.
- 2. That Holy Scripture is the Triune God's revealed
Word, the Church's only infallible rule of faith and life.
- 3. That God's people are called to holiness in all
aspects of life. This includes honoring the sanctity of
marriage between a man and a woman, the only relationship
within which sexual activity is appropriate.
Affirmed by unanimous vote by the PRMI Board, August 18,
2001 and signed by the following.
Mr. Ron Hill – President of the Board
The Rev. Cynthia Strickler – Vice President of the Board
Dr. Thomas J. Manetsch
Dr. Lee Ann Crumbley
Miss Margie J. Van Meter
Rev. John Chang
The. Rev. Dr. Zeb Bradford Long – Executive Director of
PRMI
The Rev. Dr. Alan Leach – Director of PRMI Ministry
Development
The Rev. Bill and Mrs. Rinda Dean – Director of PRMI
Congregational Ministries
The Rev. David Pierson – Director of PRMI Youth
Ministries
Footnote:
- Upholding the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ: A Biblical Response to the Gay Theological Agenda,
By Brad Long, Presbyterian-Reformed Ministries
International, P.O. Box 429 Black Mountain, NC 28711
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