Rogers calls Lay Committee ‘militant fundamentalists’ By John H. Adams The Layman Volume 34, Number 7 Posted November 30, 2001 PASADENA, Calif. – Boosted by a home-field advantage, General Assembly Moderator Jack B. Rogers delivered his stump speech to the Covenant Network, accusing the Presbyterian Lay Committee of “militant fundamentalism” and indirectly comparing the renewal organization to Osama bin Laden’s terrorists. Using the same speech that he delivered a few days before in the Salem Presbytery, Rogers told the Covenant Network that “we have a militant fundamentalist group within the Presbyterian Church. The common fundamentalist themes can be found in the attitudes of the Presbyterian Lay Committee.” Rogers formerly served as a member of the board of advisors of the Covenant Network, an organization whose leaders say exists solely to overturn the denomination’s historic ban on ordaining self-affirming, practicing homosexuals and adulterers. During his speech, he one-upped the Covenant Network with his far-reaching inclusiveness. Citing the nation’s high divorce rate, Rogers said, “None of these alarming trends has been caused by homosexuals who want to marry. None of these trends will be solved by denying same-sex couples the right to legal and church sanction for publicly committing to a life-long relationship. In a culture of non-marriage, it is very ironic that we are spending great amounts of money and energy in trying to prevent people from marrying who want to do so in a way that would contribute to the stability of society and the enrichment of the church.” The Covenant Network has not called for civil and church support for marriage of same-sex couples. The official position of the denomination is that sessions may allow ministers to “bless” same-sex couples, but that the services cannot resemble marriage and that they must not constitute an endorsement of sexual activity within a same-sex relationship. Rogers, builds his case against the Presbyterian Lay Committee from the rationale that prompted terrorists to destroy the World Trade Center towers and part of the Pentagon. He defined militant fundamentalists as those “who believe they must react. They must fight a holy war against change. Those of their own community who do not support this holy war are called apostate.” Rogers is in error Militant fundamentalists also believe “a few precisely worded doctrinal statements,” he added, suggesting that the Presbyterian Lay Committee’s support of the Confessing Church Movement meets that criteria. Although Rogers contends that the Presbyterian Lay Committee is the founder and patron of the Confessing Church Movement, that is not true. The movement began March 21 in Pennsylvania with a resolution by a single church’s session. Rogers’ speech especially targets Robert L. Howard, a Wichita, Kans., attorney and chairman of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. He contends that Howard, speaking in Orlando to Gathering VI sponsored by the Presbyterian Coalition, “outlined the strategy by which the Lay Committee plans to take over the Presbyterian Church.” Coalition’s agenda In fact, Howard, a member of the executive board of the Coalition, presented the “vision strategies” that were adopted by the Coalition’s board. Directors of the Lay Committee have also endorsed the strategies. Rogers also called the Confessing Church tenets – that Jesus alone is Lord and Savior for the world, that Scripture is the infallible guide to life and faith and that God’s Biblical holiness standards are current – “the Layman creed.” Those tenets were adopted by Summit Presbyterian Church in Butler, Pa., and the Beaver-Butler Presbytery before the Presbyterian Lay Committee became aware of the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA). Nonetheless, Rogers gave the Presbyterian Lay Committee full credit – or blame – for all of the vision strategies announced by the Coalition in Orlando. “The Lay Committee wants to radically downsize the denominational agencies,” he said. “They hope to take the vote away from retired persons like me, anyone who is not an active pastor or elder. If they got control of the denomination, they would invite churches that do not agree with their version of Biblical ordination standards to leave the denomination with their property. “If these churches do not leave, the Lay Committee would threaten them with being disciplined. Howard encouraged congregations to withhold both per capita and mission funds and divert them to causes more to their liking.” Evangelical opposition While avoiding criticism of other evangelical renewal groups – who are virtually unanimous in their support of the Confessing Church Movement – in the denomination, Rogers did acknowledge in response to a question that evangelicals en masse are opposed to his views and leadership in the denomination. He said that opposition goes back to 1996, when, while teaching at Fuller Theological Seminary, he concluded that the Bible did not oppose homosexual activity. “Since that time, no evangelical friends or conference has invited me to speak and I have had no dialogue with my former evangelical friends,” he said. Invitation spurned In fact, Rogers was invited to speak at the meeting of the Presbyterian Coalition. He and Kirkpatrick were offered a chance to debate representatives of the Presbyterian Lay Committee about The Layman’s editorial declaring the 2001 General Assembly apostate because of the assembly’s failure to affirm that Jesus Christ alone is Savior of the world and its call for presbyteries to extract the “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard from the Book of Order. They declined that offer. Just as Rogers has declined to criticize renewal groups other than the Presbyterian Lay Committee, he also has been silent about liberal groups that call for open defiance of the denomination’s constitution. He was asked about that silence after he delivered his stump speech to the Presbytery of Salem in Greensboro a week before the Covenant Network Conference. He said he did not attack his friends because they were not criticizing him. Rogers called the Confessing Church tenets “a hastily drawn up, rigidly worded, three-point creed tied to a political agenda.” He served on the committee that wrote “A Brief Statement of Faith,” which is intended to represent the collective theology of the other confessions used by the denomination. He appealed to that statement as the product of “a democratic process” and more representative of the denomination’s theology. “Do we want to toss aside the wisdom of the church and a democratic process for the dictatorship of a special-interest group with a self-serving political agenda?” he asked. Omits part of statement He also referred to a recent theological paper written by the denomination’s Office of Theology and Worship about the Lordship of Christ. But he quoted only one section of the paper – a statement that “we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith.” He did not quote the essential theme of the paper – that Jesus is the Lord and Savior for all the world and the only path to God. On Scripture, Rogers said the Bible “is much deeper and richer and more challenging than the superficial literalism that passes for believing in Scripture in some quarters.” Besides the Presbyterian Lay Committee, the only evangelical who drew Rogers’ reproach is Robert Gagnon, a member of the faculty of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of a scholarly book that concludes that the Bible does not support homosexual activity. He said Gagnon’s assumptions were based on natural, not Biblical, evidence. But most of his vitriol is aimed at the Presbyterian Lay Committee. “There is a genuine danger of schism if The Layman cannot achieve its objective of tearing down the present church and putting its own fundamentalist church in its place.”

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