The Presbyterian Layman Special Report – Confessing Church Movement April 2001 – Volume 34, Number 3 – Posted April 20, 2001

Rhetoric and reality “But this could lead to a split!” has been the reaction of some liberal leaders to the Confessing Church Movement now gathering momentum within the Presbyterian Church (USA). The reaction implies that should some Presbyterian individuals and congregations publicly acknowledge their commitments to Jesus as Lord, the authority of Scripture and God’s call to a life of holiness, such actions could result in denominational division. The Covenant Network, Witherspoon Society, Voices of Sophia, Semper Reformanda and More Light Presbyterians all have undertaken efforts similar to the Confessing Church Movement’s attempt to link like-minded individuals and congregations. The leaders of these independent, incorporated organizations are Presbyterian ministers and elders who teach that the Bible is wrong and who proclaim that they will violate the promises they made to God when they were ordained. Yet they are the ones applying the label “schismatic” to Presbyterians who have announced their desire to remain faithful to the teachings of Scripture and to their ordination vows. How ironic. Contrary to such inflammatory rhetoric, the Confessing Church Movement will not create a division within the PCUSA. Rather, the grassroots emergence of this movement – from a congregation to a presbytery to the denomination as a whole – grows out of the undeniable reality that this denomination is already deeply divided. While the causes of division are many, three are especially prominent. First, Presbyterians are separated by irreconcilable beliefs about the person and work of Jesus. Was Jesus, as many modern liberals maintain, merely human, a good, God-conscious moral teacher, one of infinitely many valid approaches to the divine? Or is Jesus who the Bible says he is: eternally existing, fully God and fully human, the only mediator between a holy God and sinful humanity? Such questions highlight the second area of division, the nature and authority of Scripture. Some Presbyterians believe the Bible is a flawed and fallible human product, one that needs constant revision to accommodate shifting social standards. Other Presbyterians accept the Bible’s own self-attestation: “All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (II Tim. 3:16). These causes of division lead to the third. If, as some maintain, Jesus is merely a good teacher and Biblical teachings may be discarded when they fail to fit a social situation, righteousness is a moving target. If, however, Jesus is God incarnate and Scripture is God-breathed, God’s standards for Christian faith and life are unchanging and inviolable. In all three of these areas, the Confessing Church Movement stands firmly with Scripture, the Reformed tradition and orthodox Christians throughout the ages. Those who would move themselves and others beyond the bounds of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church must accept responsibility for dividing our denomination, the unity of which they once vowed to uphold. And those who join the Confessing Church Movement must remember and proclaim that it is not schismatic to stand where the Church has always stood.

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