The Layman – October 2004 Volume 37, Number 4 – Posted November 8, 2004

The task force’s ‘moral authority’ At its October meeting, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick told the denomination’s Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity that it has accrued “huge moral authority.” That’s an interesting assessment of a panel that has met 10 times since its first gathering in December 2001, amicably modeling the stated clerk’s pet project – unity in diversity – and working its way through a vast reading list on theology, Biblical authority, sexuality, church history and group-process. But do the task force’s amity and its hard work constitute the equivalence of “huge moral authority?” And, more important, does its moral authority line up with the One to whom is given “all authority in heaven and earth” – including moral authority? Does that authority echo the grasp of the centurion who sought healing for his son: “I know you are a man under authority, because I am a man under authority.” For instance, whose authority is the task force under when it considers a subcommittee paper that recommends allowing the ordination of homosexuals as long as they are in “committed relationships?” And by whose authority does the task force conclude that Presbyterians who separate from the denomination because of a commitment to Biblical standards risk “severing themselves from Christ?” Christian authority is not delegated by a stated clerk or a General Assembly. It is gleaned from a culture that opposes Christian morality. It is, as the centurion realized, derived only by submitting to the authority of the One who holds heaven and earth together by the Word written and the Word incarnate.

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