 Presbyterian Leaders’ Forum 
A Message from the PLC Chair An article titled “United Methodists at the End of the Main Line” (First Things, June/July 1998) ought to be required reading for anyone who professes to seek the peace, purity, and unity of the PCUSA. Schism stalks the Methodists over the same issues that have preoccupied our church. Their long commitment to theological pluralism compounds their problems. William J. Abraham concludes: In the long term we need to stimulate conversation toward the emergence of a new theological consensus that might command the allegiance of a majority in the church at large. However this important conversation continues, and it surely will continue, it must be informed by the very real possibility that the Liberal Protestant project exemplified by United Methodism was flawed from the start. Perhaps the very idea of theological pluralism was bound to self-destruct in time. These are the ominous questions now engaged. The truth and the church we love deserve from parties on all sides of these questions clear thinking, honest speaking, mutual respect – and much prayer and fasting. Fortunately, we Presbyterians are already committed to theological coherence under the authority of Scripture. Our historic confessions already provide a theological consensus, to which our ordained church leaders have already solemnly vowed allegiance. The question now is – are we also willing to support those ordination vows with our sacred honor, even our spiritual and secular lives? Our forbears in the faith, like the founders of our country, were willing to sacrifice their very lives to uphold their sacred honor. Are we equally serious and sincere about what we profess? Do we really believe what we promised on ordination? Are we willing to stand firm for the faith delivered once and for all through the Word written and incarnate? As our teenagers would say, “Lets get real.” Intellectual integrity demands that our inner belief and conscience be in harmony with our outward profession of faith. If we really believe what we outwardly profess, we will feed a world craving for the bread of life – we will become faithful witnesses who tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If Jesus is not who he proclaimed himself to be, then we are indeed merely miserable creatures, free to imagine or re-imagine God to be whatever we want him to be, whatever our self-centered psyches need him to be. But, if Jesus is the Christ, the only begotten son of the triune God of eternity, the Word incarnate, the way, the truth, the life, then theological pluralism is an intellectual oxymoron and we are not free to make God in our image. One of Frank Sinatra’s most popular songs – “My Way” – became the theme of his celebrity lifestyle. Whenever any of us within our church insist on personal and secular agendas over against our historical faith, we are singing the wrong theme song. All of us must reaffirm our sacred vows to do it “His Way.” Instead of “My Way,” how about “How Great Thou Art?”
Robert L. Howard, Chair |
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The Presbyterian Layman, July/August 1998 contents |
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