The Layman – June 2002 Volume 35, Number 3 – Posted June 3, 2002

Denomination’s bait and switch The Presbyterian Church (USA) has gone through a cost-cutting frenzy that includes eliminating 34 missionary jobs and laying off the denomination’s director of evangelism, one of 66 staff jobs shut down in the Presbyterian Center in Louisville. But don’t worry, the PCUSA’s leaders say, they’ll get world missions and evangelism back on track as soon as Presbyterians give another $40 million through a fund-raising campaign. See the irony in this bait and switch? The denomination squeezes the ministries that appeal to the heart and mind and then declares them the primary beneficiaries of a fund-raising campaign. What the churches’ leaders are not saying is that the controversial programs that would draw little support from the people in the pews continue to get your contributions through per-capita and undesignated gifts. In fact, the Presbyterian Center in Louisville could eliminate four unnecessary programs that cost about $1.6 million annually – just what it costs to employ and support 34 missionaries. Those programs are the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, the National Network of Presbyterian College Women and the Washington Office. What benefit has the PCUSA gained from these “ministries?” The ecumenical church councils are dying organizations, veering far from their original purposes. The National Network of Presbyterian College Women is more about a handful of women’s demands than about Jesus Christ. Because of its promotion of lesbianism and “goddess” rites, the organization almost lost its PCUSA lifeline. The Washington Office is an ineffective, left-wing lobby that no one pays much attention to. Even Research Services, the denomination’s polling agency, concluded that the Washington Office wasn’t on the radar screen of the vast majority of Presbyterians. These are not programs that promote the good reputation of the Presbyterian Church (USA) or the first of the Great Ends of the Church – the propagation of the gospel. They are often embarrassing, unBiblical and dismaying to Presbyterians. We suspect more than a few of the 1.76 million Presbyterians – 65,000 in the past two years – who have left the denomination did so because the denomination’s budget-makers preserve and protect rogue agencies. The final chapter on this matter of deeply cutting funds for missionaries and evangelism has not been written. The 214th General Assembly must approve the budget. Let’s hope commissioners consider first the purposes of the church and last the preferences of Louisville’s power elite.

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