Posted on 09/22/2007 7:43:55 PM PDT by Terriergal
Top officials of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have come to the conclusion that they cannot continue "doing church" the way they have been.
Fri, Sep. 21, 2007 Posted: 15:57:06 PM EST
Top officials of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have come to the conclusion that they cannot continue "doing church" the way they have been.
Churches within the PC(USA), the nation's largest Presbyterian body, have "hit the wall" and "come to the end of the string," seeking new directions amid a growing exodus from the denomination.
"It is as if a tsunami of change has hit us," said Joan Gray, moderator of the General Assembly during a Sept. 17-21 GAC (General Assembly Council) meeting in Louisville, Ky., according to the Presbyterian News Service. "I recently spent time in the Midwest, and these areas are drying up. The people are not there any more. In Detroit, 3,000 people a day are leaving to emigrate elsewhere. That is just the tip of the iceberg.”
The PC(USA) has suffered continual losses in membership and now claims a little less than 2.3 million. More dissident Presbyterians and some historic congregations have voted to split from the PC(USA), citing that the denomination is not consistent with written theology in such areas as the singular saving Lordship of Jesus Christ and homosexual ordination.
Many are moving into the smaller and more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
“Much of our discomfort is really about our coming to grips with the overwhelming change that is coming at us from all sides. The bottom line is that we simply cannot continue doing church the way we have been," said Gray, according to PNS.
"One thing I am seeing is that some of those churches and presbyteries who have come to the end of the string are making a choice,” she added. “They are letting go of what they had been doing and opening the way to what God is doing.”
The PC(USA) is set to undergo some dramatic changes.
One major change includes the re-writing of the denomination's Form of Government, a major portion of the PC(USA) constitution, that hasn't been changed since 1983, according to Mark Pammen, director of Constitutional Services for the General Assembly.
The new Form of Government would be a major change in the way the church conducts its ecclesiastical business, as PC(USA) head the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick said at the meeting.
“We may move away from a somewhat over-regulated polity to one that frees us up to be a more flexible General Assembly,” said Kirkpatrick, who announced recently that he will not seek a third term next year as stated clerk.
Breakaway Presbyterians have expressed their discontent with the PC(USA)'s "bureaucratic, centralized authority, and hierarchical top-down leadership" that doesn't work anymore in the postmodern era, the Rev. Dr. D. Dean Weaver, senior pastor of Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, which recently voted to leave the PC(USA), said previously.
Following Christ faithfully into the next millennium relates to a paradigm shift in polity, said Weaver.
Kirkpatrick compared the PC(USA) to a recent flight he took in which the plane was having a few problems.
"The pilot says, 'You really can’t expect a 40-year old plane not to have a few problems,'" Kirkpatrick said as he told the story.
"Then the pilot and flight attendants leave and another crew comes onboard. Then, first thing you know, you are heading down the runway and on your way and will perhaps arrive ahead of time. It’s like that in the church.”
A change in PC(USA)'s Form of Government would focus more directly on local congregations and provide more flexibility. If the new Form of Government is adopted when the General Assembly considers it next year in June, it would be a "significant change," according to Pammen.
Weaver, however, isn't optimistic that he would see any major changes take effect in the PC(USA) any time soon.
"Big ships turn slowly," he had said.
Baptisms have decreased in the PC(USA) in recent years along with the largest membership dip of 2.05 percent in 2005.
Although concerned about the exodus from the denomination, Kirkpatrick has expressed optimism for growth and said the church is in a "potential tipping point of renewed growth and vitality."
Lillian Kwon
Christian Post Reporter
simply cannot continue doing church the way we have been
Famous last words. The lampstand is long gone. Since when do you 'do' church anyway? It's what you ARE. So apparently they 'are not' the church if they have to change. And they'll do everything BUT what is good and necessary, a return to the pure truth of the Word.
Unbelievable.
First the Episcopalians,
Now the Presbyterians?
I think we all need to pray for the Lord to be our guide.
I fortunately belong to one of the growing and thriving Bible-believing PCUSA churches. There is a whole group of us, and we have generally become the biggest and strongest churches in the denomination. Basically, my church totally ignores the national denomination, and they leave us alone because they know we’ll walk if they try to force their agenda on us.
The evangelicals in PCUSA are growing, while the non-Chriistian revisionists are rapidly dying off, so there is actually hope this denomination is going to go the other way withing the next few years. This essentially is what Gray is admitting. The Lefties are starting to get the message, as increasing numbers of local churches have stopped sending money to the denomination. The infamous head of the “Washington Office,” one of the talking heads for the Democrats and National Council of Churches That Nobody Goes To Any More, recently quit, and another Lefty, Stated Clerk Kirkpatrick, has decided not to seek another term. They’ve had to lay a ton of their functionaries off as the denomination headquarters slowly starves to death through lack of funding.
**non-Chriistian revisionists **
Two questions:
How could they be non-Christian and belong to the Presbyterian Church?
What were they revising as the name revisionists indicates?
PS. Everyone can come home to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church — where the first presbyters (priests) helped out the bishops who were being ordained in the Early Catholic Church. (Really I’m serious.) Many Episcopalians have become Catholics; it’s not that big of a leap.
“How could they be non-Christian and belong to the Presbyterian Church?”
An older minister once explained to me how the mainline Protestant denominations were infected with non-Christian clergy. During the Vietnam War, a lot of young men seeking to dodge the draft realized you could become exempt by going to seminary. So they all applied. Once they got there they realized the churches were the perfect vehicle for pushing a left-wing agenda. They basically have to support you and you can advance whatever you want. So you now have all these leeches living off the churches, along with their disciples they have brought into their folds. In recent years their ranks have swelled with embittered women seeking second careers and homosexual activists seeking to promote the homosexual lifestyle.
“What were they revising as the name revisionists indicates?”
What they are revising are traditional Christian beliefs. In the Episcopal Church, where they have the greatest stranglehold, they have disposed of the Bible, belief in Jesus as the way to salvation, the requirement to be a Christian to take communion, and any restrictions on who can serve as a priest. They have replaced the Gospel with promoting homosexuality, and preaching that the way to salvation is in implementing the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals. Some of their priests and priestesses advocate pagan worship of goddesses such as Sophia and Gaia, druidism,and Wiccan practices such as worship of the Labyrinth. Recently one declared she is a Muslim (she was the director of “Christian Formation” of the cathedral of the diocese). Their Presiding Bishopess is a universalist who invokes public prayers to “Mother Jesus.” Another bishopess is a former Mormon who has never received Christian baptism.
**Once they got there they realized the churches were the perfect vehicle for pushing a left-wing agenda.**
I think this happened with priests too, as we have witnessed in the abuse scandal.
On the revisionist part of the question, I had no idea that any Protestant denomination was dipping into some of the cited examplels that you list. Ughhh!
I am aware of some leniency with the Catholic Church in far east countries, and frankly, it scare the heebie-jeebies out of me.
Oops —
it scare the heebie-jeebies out of me.
it scares the heebie-jeebies out of me.
A change in PC(USA)'s Form of Government would focus more directly on local congregations and provide more flexibility. If the new Form of Government is adopted when the General Assembly considers it next year in June, it would be a "significant change," according to Pammen.
Just guessing, they'll set things up so that (effectively) local bodies can do what they want about homosexuality and they won't get harrassed by "fundies". Just a guess.
This all sounds like spin to me.
"Big ships turn slowly," he had said.
First time I read that I read it as "Big ships burn slowly".
The story is short on detail. Is Louisville going to shift from economic blackmail to physical coercion to keep pastors and churches in line?
That's easy to say, but at one point First Presbyterian Hollywood (CA) thought the same thing. The presbytery moved in, fired the pastor and executive pastor, purged the session, and put their own people in charge.
It doesn't matter if you are Highland Park, or Peachtree, or First/Orlando, or someone else. The same thing CAN happen to you.
The fight has been going on since the 1930s. They've had several generations to infiltrate and move up.
What were they revising as the name revisionists indicates?
In 1967, they ditched all pretense of subscribing to the Westminster Standards, and adopted a liberal new confession of faith. (They kept the Westminster Confession along with a number of other, sometimes conflicting creeds, in an historical collection). So the short answer is that the revisionists revised the creedal standards.
I understand that ELCA is also undergoing some difficulty. Apparently there is a big push to accept clergy in homosexual relationships.
Not to mention the Methodists which are a whole other mess. Once you abandon theology, morality is quick to follow.
This book http://antonbosch.org/books.html is a very good, Biblical antidote to a cultural infection.
They’re fools if they don’t realize that the problem isn’t their beauricratic structure...it’s the fact that they went leftward and started ignoring what the Bible says. Try telling St. Paul “yes, we ordain practicing gay men as pastors”.
Good for them. Trust Scripture. The earliest churches didn't have a hierarchy either.
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