The Layman – November 2006 Volume 39, Number 5 – Posted November 27, 2006

PCUSA’s use of ‘true church’ is contrary to its meaning The latest buzz phrase in the Presbyterian Church (USA) is “true church.” Essentially, it’s a scavenger hunt by the denomination and presbyteries to find church members who disagree with their congregation’s vote to leave the denomination. There’s nothing pious about the search. It is a cold, calculated body count. In a North Carolina case, the body was 3,000 miles away. It belonged to a Presbyterian who moved from the East Coast but had not taken his name off the local church’s membership list. Nonetheless, a presbytery contacted the exile and asked him to state his opposition to the congregation’s decision to leave the PCUSA. He did. Number him now among the “true church.” In Tulsa, the Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma is combing through the rolls of the 2,700-member Kirk of the Hills Evangelical Presbyterian Church. There are not many possibilities. More than 96 percent of the congregation voted to leave the PCUSA. But that tiny minority of naysayers has suddenly become the focus of a presbytery attempt to reconstruct the “true church.” Why? The “true church” identification process is part of a denominational ploy – being enforced by presbyteries – to find church members who will claim to be the rightful users of the property that the PCUSA wants taken from the majority. Those evangelical congregations that find the denomination a hindrance to their ministries are boldly asserting their right to be set free. Only once in the Book of Order is the phrase “true church” used. It’s in chapter 8, the property section that tells local congregations that they bought and paid for their church and acquired assets so that they would benefit the denomination – not their local ministry. “If there is a schism within the membership of a particular church and the presbytery is unable to effect a reconciliation or a division into separate churches within the Presbyterian Church (USA), the presbytery shall determine if one of the factions is entitled to the property because it is identified by the presbytery as the true church within the Presbyterian Church (USA),” G-8.0601 says. “This determination does not depend upon which faction received the majority vote within the particular church at the time of the schism.” Frankly, it’s laughable about how the denomination’s leaders define the “true church” in today’s turmoil. The disgruntled and the absent are high on the list. Some in the denomination sneer at what the Reformers identified as the “true church” – where the gospel was rightly preached, the sacraments were rightly administered and discipline was used to hold people accountable to the claims of Christ. What happens if a presbytery finds enough – and one, two, or three is deemed enough in some cases – to constitute a congregation as the “true church?” They get the property and assets – and the bills. If they can’t pay the bills, the presbytery takes the assets and sells the property. Occasionally, the presbytery manages to get enough of a “true church” to survive. That happened in 2002 in Findlay, Ohio, where the presbytery fired the pastor, conducted a night-time raid to change the locks, cleared out the pastor’s office and took over the property. Ever since, a small number of “true church” members – some recruited by the presbytery from other venues – has held services. They average about 41 a Sunday, compared to 350 to 400 before the “schismatics were turned over to Ceasar,” as the denomination’s once-secret legal strategy phrases it. Meanwhile, there remains a “true church” in Findlay. It consists of those who voted to leave the denomination and reorganize as Gateway Evangelical Presbyterian Church. After having to meet in a kennel the first Sunday after the presbytery raid, they have nearly completed a $3.5-million building. And membership is booming where the gospel is rightly preached, the sacraments rightly administered and discipline is used to hold members and leaders accountable to Christ. Even the “hierarchy” of the PCUSA ought to appreciate that.

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