The Presbyterian News Service.
Six of the 13 people who submitted complete applications to become Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have been asked to move to the next step in the process, said the Reverend Carol McDonald, moderator of the Stated Clerk Nomination Committee (SCNC).
“Thirteen amazing people put themselves forward and their experience is just unbelievable,” she said. “We have identified six persons who have been invited to face-to-face interviews.”
The deadline for receiving completed applications was midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on December 21, 2015. The SCNC will declare its nominee on April 19, sixty days before the opening of the 222nd General Assembly (2016) on June 18 in Portland, Oregon.
McDonald said each candidate will now complete a candidate assessment facilitated through the North Central Ministry Development Center in New Brighton, Minnesota. A report regarding these assessments will be offered to the SCNC in late February.
Web page of the Stated Clerk Nomination Committee
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As with all other things institutional PCUSA, the primary concerns and drivers of the search process, are the tribal issues of diversity, race, ethnicity, gender, orientation as the primary matters of concern for the candidates, and will get most of the ink the denominational blogasphere.
But this much is clear whomever the Stated Clerk is post Portland, he or she will oversee the great downsizing of the organization in response to the great depopulation, decline of the church. And that process will be messy, painful and times chaotic for those concerned. The skill set required in terms of management and communication will be a challenge for the best of person.
For those still inclined to the entity, one could hope they bring far more to the table than the reflexively ideologues and tone deaf, doctrinaire leadership of Grayde or his predecessor Kirkpatrick. The institution has no more “do overs” left in it.
Deckchairs, meet Titanic.
I pray that the sole focus of the GA is Jesus…and Jesus alone. The PCUSA is in decline. Pray.
One really wonders who wants this job to manage the decline of the pcusa, there’s no putting lipstick on this pig.
The PC mentality has so infected our religious leaders that they seem incapable of using the English language with clarity and accuracy:
“Thirteen amazing people put themselves forward and their experience is just unbelievable,” [the moderator Carol McDonald] said. “We have identified six persons who have been invited to face-to-face interviews.”
Apparently seven out of the thirteen were not quite as amazing and their experience was slightly more believable than the six who will move forward in the interview process. And note, the search committee did not choose these six out of the pool of thirteen. Rather, they were identified, presumably by the word “candidate” written in marker pen across their foreheads. Why not simply say, “Out of thirteen potential candidates, the committee chose six for further screening.” The rest is useless or misleading verbiage.
Thank you for letting me rant about language. My screed ends now.
Geez is there not grace or understanding in your life? This is just anger and outrage. Ugly and more ugly.You can do better.
Three of the eleven confessions (the Scots Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Second Helvetic Confession) contained in the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) are highly critical of some aspects of theology and practices of the Roman church. But the fact of matter is that there have been quite a few reform movements among the faithful in the churches of Rome before, during, and after the Reformation.
While refusing to give the title of the church to the congregations under Roman headship which was dying, Calvin did not doubt the existence of churches among the papists. He believed that some marks of the church still remained even when the whole Roman church, and its congregations for that matter, lacked the Scriptural form of the church.
Calvin, who left the Roman church at the age of 25 to keep his salvation, argued that the death of the visible church would follow when and if the sum of necessary doctrines was overturned. He believed even later in his life that the Roman church was not completely dead. True, Calvin never discussed the possibility of restoration for papal church but his theology leaves room for such a possibility—due to the love and grace of God.
I personally believe that the Roman church is restored or reformed, certainly not during the Reformation era but a few centuries later. The present condition of the Roman church seems to be much more faithfully alive than that of the PC (USA). As Calvin insisted at that time, “the Lord wonderfully preserves in them [the papists] a remnant of his people” as was the history of Israel.
This is also true even today. There are a faithful remnant in the PC (USA). Who knows if the GA may elect a faithful and true believer as Stated Clerk to reform the Americanized denomination? After all, the lost son returned home to his Father (Luke 15:11-32).
I hope and pray that our gracious and loving Father in heaven will do for the PC (USA) what He has done for the Roman church.
James- Peter Gregory’s last line is correct. PCUSA is out of last chances from an institutional perspective. Not being ungracious. That is just the way it is. If present trend lines are not reversed it is quite possible the membership could bottom out at 300K. Again, not being ungracious but clear eyed, it is not likely that the current leadership of the PCUSA has the intellectual tools or temperament needed to halt let alone reverse the decline.
James, I would ask you, are you looking at the same numbers everyone else is? Can you tell us if you think the current PCUSA leadership has the skills to manage the current decline let alone reverse the decline? I am not trying to be argumentative but think these are honest tough questions.
Despite the reforms that have been brought about, the Roman Catholic Church still denies that one is justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, apart from the works of the law, as taught in Scripture (Rom. 3.28, Gal. 2.16, Eph. 2.8-9).
Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about justification: http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm
Luther added the word “alone” to his own translation of Romans 3:28. Galatians 2:16 and Ephesians 2:8-9 do not contain the word “alone.” Luther wanted to remove the letter of James from the New Testament because of the passage about faith and works at James 2:14-26.