A call for Presbyterian decency and order
September 11, 2006
The secret strategy papers drafted by the offices of the General Assembly and General Assembly Council should profoundly shock and disturb all faithful Presbyterians. These “Louisville Papers” reveal that since late 2005, the denomination’s two highest offices have been counseling governing body officials to squelch any questioning and retaliate against any dissent from local churches by filing civil claims on their properties, freezing their bank accounts, changing the locks on their buildings, bringing suits for damages against individual elders and pastors, defrocking their ministers and taking over their sessions. The use of such tactics as instruments of church policy is unconscionable.
Most disturbing is the fact that the Office of the General Assembly was distributing this advice to middle governing body lawyers at precisely the same time that the head of that office, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, was extolling the conciliatory language of the General Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity.
On the one hand, Stated Clerk Kirkpatrick publicly called for Presbyterians who differ to “endeavor to outdo one another in honoring one another’s decisions.” He endorsed task force recommendation seven, asking all church members to acknowledge their traditional Biblical obligation, as set forth in Matthew 18:15-17, Matthew 5:23-25, and in the Rules of Discipline in the Book of Order, “to conciliate, mediate, and adjust differences without strife” prayerfully and deliberately (D-1.0103) and to institute administrative or judicial proceedings only when other efforts fail to preserve the purposes and purity of the church.”
On the other hand, in January 2006, while Stated Clerk Kirkpatrick was publicly advocating such peaceable procedures, his office was privately training presbytery executives and lawyers in closed-door meetings to take aggressive, pre-emptive legal actions against local churches whose ministers and sessions might be prayerfully and openly seeking to discern the Lord’s will regarding their continuing association with the Presbyterian Church (USA) in light of recent General Assembly actions.
The “Louisville Papers” ignore the responsibility of presbyteries imposed by the Book of Order in G-11.0103i to consider requests by congregations to be dismissed. The “Louisville Papers” also ignore the clear teaching of our confessions by self-righteously and erroneously proclaiming that Presbyterian Church (USA) institutionalists are “the true church,” and that any who dissent from that institution should be branded as “schismatics.” The Second Helvetic Confession makes plain:
(1) … [I]t pleases God to use the dissensions that arise in the Church … to illustrate the truth and in order that those who are in the right might be manifest.” (I Cor. 11:19) 5.133
(2) “… [W]e do not acknowledge every church to be the true Church which vaunts herself to be such; but we teach that the true Church is that in which the signs … of the true Church are to be found, especially the lawful and sincere preaching of the Word of God as it was delivered to us in the books of the prophets and the apostles, which all lead us unto Christ …” 5.134
(3) As to those who seek righteousness and life outside of Christ and faith in him alone, “… we condemn all such churches as strangers … no matter how much they brag of a succession of bishops, of unity, and of antiquity.” 5.135
The Scots Confession instructs us that, contrary to the self-righteous counsel of the Louisville bureaucracy, the true church is not identified by “antiquity, usurped title, lineal succession, appointed place, nor the numbers of men approving an error … [Rather,] the notes of the true Kirk … [are] the true preaching of the Word of God …; the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus …; and, lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God’s Word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished.” 3.18
We believe that many faithful Presbyterian congregations are sincerely struggling with whether they can clearly manifest the marks of the true church as taught by our confessions while continuing as a part of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Such faithful brothers and sisters should be embraced and encouraged pastorally by the presbyteries. The deceitful hypocrisy of the stated clerk’s office is further evidenced by its summary rejection of the New Wineskins Association of Churches’ call for a moratorium on hardball legal tactics during this season of discernment.
We are forced to conclude from such conduct that Stated Clerk Kirkpatrick’s public words were hollow and that he does not honestly advocate that denominational officials should seek to “conciliate, mediate, and adjust differences without strife.” To the contrary, he endorses stifling any dissent, as can be seen in the treatment of Serone Presbyterian Church in California and Ridgebury Presbyterian Church in New York, where the senior pastor and elders were sued as individuals. The Riverside Presbyterian Church in Iowa requested discussion about being dismissed from its presbytery and was met with the establishment of an administrative commission that placed the pastor on administrative leave. The latest example is Kirk of the Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the presbytery filed an affidavit clouding the title of the church’s property, followed by an administrative commission’s attempt to split the congregation.
There is nothing of Christ in the content and tenor of these papers, and we call upon the whole church to join us in denouncing them. Scripture shows us the “still more excellent way” of love. There are indications that in the next several months, some churches will discern that God’s will is leading them to associate with like-minded Christians in other denominations. We call on the stated clerk and other denominational officials to renounce the tactics now being used against dissenting churches, to honor the decisions of those churches, and to work with them to reach an amicable departure that will glorify God. Even on such occasions of separation, we are constrained by God’s Word to reflect the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Presbyterian Lay Committee
September 6, 2006