The Presbyterian Layman – July 2001 Volume 34, Number 5 – Posted July 6, 2001

An apostate assembly Five hundred and fifty-eight Presbyterians who gathered in Louisville on June 9-16 may have won high marks as ecclesiastical politicians but, in their actions and in their refusal to act, they failed to be the Church. Denying the faith When asked to stand up for the one who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me,” the General Assembly majority hedged. Such statements contain “confusing language, sloganism, and premature simplicity,” said a commissioner, who encouraged the Assembly to prepare a study that takes into account “more complex Christologies.” “I have deep concerns about declaring Jesus as the only savior,” said a youth advisory delegate. “This might portray intolerance on the part of the PCUSA toward people of other faith traditions.” Another told the General Assembly that he believes religions are just human understandings of God which, “like fruit with different flavors, are all essentially the same.” A presbytery executive said, “I firmly believe Jesus is my personal lord and savior, but I do not feel that I have the right to say that other people may not find God in other ways.” And the president of a PCUSA seminary parsed references to the Trinity, suggesting that such words were “confusing and difficult to explain.” So, rather than affirm the Church’s faith that Jesus Christ alone is Lord of all, the only way of salvation, the assembly played politics with faith. They cobbled a hodge-podge of sentences, including phrases for everyone, believer and unbeliever alike. Rejecting the life Having refused to declare the Church’s faith, the assembly then proceeded to dismantle the Church’s ethic. In a decisive vote, it wiped out a major section of the denomination’s “fidelity and chastity” ordination standards, eliminated 23 years of definitive guidance, and repudiated centuries of the Church’s moral teaching. Gone is the requirement that church leaders limit sexual intercourse to the covenant of marriage. We declare this Convention Center gathering an apostate assembly. We do so fully aware of the gravity of that charge. The root word is apo-histanai. Histanai means “to stand” and “apo” means to depart from that stand. An apostate assembly is one that has abandoned its religious tradition and the moral principles that emanate from it. That is precisely what this assembly has done. The true church But, thanks be to God, the world has not been left without a witness. While this assembly was busily dissembling Christian faith and morality, God’s spirit was moving mightily across the American landscape. By the time the assembly adjourned, 538 churches in 43 states and Puerto Rico, representing more than 186,000 Presbyterians, had joined a barely three-month-old Confessing Church Movement. We believe that because this assembly refused to be the Church, thousands of congregations now will step forward. The Confessing Churches are doing what the 213th General Assembly failed to do. Undeterred by the ridicule they received from Moderator Jack Rogers, they are declaring without equivocation that Jesus Christ alone is Lord of all and the way of salvation. They affirm that Scripture is God’s holy Word, to be revered and obeyed. They attest that God’s calls us to a holy life, that includes honoring the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. And they announce that, regardless of what an apostate assembly says and does, their congregation will not ordain any leader who will not affirm these principles. As a denominational dinosaur lumbers toward extinction, faithful Presbyterians should not lose heart. The Confessing Church Movement enables congregations that are true to the Church’s historic faith to remain Presbyterian without supporting General Assembly policies and programs. The Confessing Church Movement has given us a place to stand and a growing fellowship of Christians who are eager to take that stand together. Our confidence in this movement is not based on our own power, but on the promise of Jesus who said of Peter’s confession, “On this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

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