 Questions and Answers – My views  The Layman – Volume 39, Number 3 – Posted August 8, 2006
A. The assembly’s majority broke covenant with God, with us members, with our congregations and with the Church universal by declaring that obedience to the Seventh Commandment and any other portion of God’s Word is optional. In adopting the PUP Report recommendation 5, which allows ordaining bodies to declare constitutional standards nonessential for officers, the assembly’s majority also broke our denomination’s constitution, amending standards by a majority vote of commissioners rather than by a majority vote of the presbyteries. The action in June effectively closed the subject of ordination of unrepentant homosexuals for national discussion and decision; sessions and presbyteries are free to do what is right in their own eyes – a license for sin and unbelief. Q. What will happen? A. Sessions and presbyteries will adopt their own standards for belief and behavior. Sooner or later, unrepentant homosexuals and others who refuse to conform to God’s law will be ordained. Then such an ordained pastor will seek membership in a presbytery which abides by Scriptural commands; the presbytery will refuse membership, the pastor will file a remedial case, and the GAPJC will find that the “connectedness” of the Presbyterian system requires the presbytery to enter the minister on its rolls. The illusion of “local option” will disappear to reveal the full evil of the assembly’s action when complicity with sin is coerced. Q. What won’t happen? A. There will be no future decision of the assembly or its Judicial Commission to reverse this year’s vote to allow the ordaining of unrepentant sinners of whatever stripe. Everything has been arranged to prevent that – the language of the new authoritative interpretation and the PUP report’s rationale for it, the skewed representation of the Judicial Commission and supporting bodies (ACC, COGA), the tenure of the stated clerk and other officials who orchestrated this breaking of covenant. Sincere rallying cries will go up from various renewal organizations that “we can turn the tide next time, in 2008.” They cannot. The best efforts of 41 years have failed. The denomination has gone into the chasm – there will be no turning back. Q. What should I/we do? A. First, we lament. We join with Jesus and Jeremiah in grieving over the devastation wrought by the assembly, substituting “PCUSA” for “Jerusalem” in the verses of Luke 19:41-44 and Lamentations. Next we pray for God to remember his promises to preserve a remnant and to glorify his name before the peoples of the world, despite the disobedience and shame of his people. Then we prepare to act TOGETHER. I fully expect that before December of this year a group of congregations will publicly recognize the irreparable division within the PCUSA and create a body of the faithful apart from the current denomination. There will be strength in numbers. We can prepare our sessions and congregations by reaffirming the basics of the faith – reminding ourselves of God’s sovereign power, his mercy in Christ, his judgment to come – and by safeguarding the property entrusted to our congregations for fulfilling Jesus’ commission. We can work with other churches in our areas to inform and equip them to do what is needed to stand faithfully in these times. I encourage you to contact your session and ask how and when it will respond to the schism that the General Assembly has created. I encourage you to continue as members while allowing your session a reasonable time to respond to the General Assembly’s decisions. Then, as God instructed the Israelites in Exodus 12:11, let us keep our cloak tucked into our belt, our sandals on our feet, and our staff in our hand, ready to follow the Lord’s leading in a new way. Peggy Hedden, an elder in Columbus, Ohio, is the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. |
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