 The heart of the matter  The Layman – Volume 37, Number 4 – Posted November 8, 2004
If you have not been part of the dispute in the PCUSA for some years, you may not be clear as to what the real issues are in the seemingly interminable controversy over the ordination/marriage of homosexuals. Some people point to 1976 as the starting date, when the General Assembly was asked for guidance about the eligibility for the ordination of people who openly acknowledge their homosexual behavior. Others, though, would point to 1965, when the proposed confession (adopted in 1967) seemed to change the Reformed understanding of Scripture as the single authority for Christian faith and life. Then, some would go back even further and say the current maelstrom originated in the controversy of the 1920s, when the Presbyterian Church would not adopt as “fundamentals” these doctrines: the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth of Jesus, the miracle-working power of Jesus, the substitutionary atonement of Jesus’ death for our sins, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I propose an even earlier date – that the issue was first joined in the Garden of Eden, when the first question ever recorded is asked – by the serpent. And the purpose of the question is not to find answers but to raise doubts. Can’t you just hear the insinuating tone: “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” (Gen. 3:1) There the serpent is calling into question the trustworthiness of God and his Word, and that has remained Satan’s basic strategy. At the heart of the controversy, then and now, lies the denial of the truth of God’s Word, written in Scripture and living in Jesus Christ, who testifies to and in no way departs from the written Word. At heart in our debates is what God says and who Jesus is. Those of us who are members of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and other renewal groups accept as our foundation the Word of God in Scripture and incarnated supernaturally in Jesus Christ. We believe God made heaven and earth, that Jesus is his Son in the flesh, who was crucified to atone for the sin of the world, that Jesus rose bodily as the first fruit of our own resurrection, that he ascended into heaven and will come again in judgment. Really. No crossed fingers or rambling qualifications. We think that our denomination is tolerating and even approving the preaching of a different Jesus and another gospel from those presented in Holy Scripture. But we are commanded to build on the rock of Jesus’ words and to stand firm upon them. No other Jesus, no other special revelation of God. We know and trust God’s Word; we have been saved by him in it. He is the only good news sufficient to save people in this world so desperate to find truth, life and hope. We are called to persevere in this ages-long struggle. Peggy Hedden, a ruling elder in Columbus, Ohio, is the chairman of the board of directors of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. |
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