Posted on 03/20/2015 6:33:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Presbyterian Church (USA) is the Radio Shack of church denominations. It’s been in free fall for so long that it’s sometimes difficult to believe the church is still around. It makes news only when it makes bad news.
This is a church that has long embraced a culture of death by accepting abortion on demand. Indeed, church materials have declared that abortion can even be “an act of faithfulness before God,” and church policy states: “The considered decision of a woman to terminate a pregnancy can be a morally acceptable, though certainly not the only or required, decision.”
Indeed, the PCUSA has been on board with the sexual revolution from the beginning, with the church an early adopter of no-fault divorce and remarriage. Its embrace goes all the way back to 1952.
It has covered itself in shame with an anti-Semitic boycott of “Israeli settlement products” and with its divestment from Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard for allegedly “promoting violence” in the West Bank and Gaza. (In reality, of course, these companies supply technology that helps Israel defend itself against Palestinian terrorism.)
The drift from biblical orthodoxy to spiritualized leftism has profound real-world consequences. The church isn’t just shuffling out of Christianity, it’s shuffling out of existence. The church has lost 37 percent of its members since 1992, and the trend is accelerating. According to Christianity Today, “in 2013, membership declined by 5 percent as 148 congregations left for other denominations — the largest annual membership loss in nearly 50 years.”
So it should surprise exactly no one that the PCUSA has continued its slow-motion suicide by voting to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. The new definition now reads:
Marriage is a gift God has given to all humankind for the well-being of the entire human family. Marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives. The sacrificial love that unites the couple sustains them as faithful and responsible members of the church and the wider community.
I’m trying not to stifle a yawn. It’s all so predictable and familiar.
Moreover, it’s difficult to discern how the PCUSA sees marriage as a “unique commitment” given that its acceptance of no-fault divorce means that a marriage covenant is less binding than a refrigerator warranty. Yet this “commitment” now includes same-sex couples.
To read the church’s justifications for its embrace of same-sex marriage is to see the reason for its decline. Here’s the Presbytery of the Cascades:
We believe that God created each of us with many differences, including sexual preferences, and that those differences are to be celebrated as part of the creative plan of God.
And my favorite quote, from the Presbytery of Maumee Valley:
We must continually be open to hearing the new things God is saying to us through the Word. It was this ever-renewed, ever-revealing light that led us away from the scriptural interpretations once used to keep slavery in place, to justify anti-Semitism, to limit the role of women in society and in our denomination, to justify the despoilment of the environment, to authorize physical punishment of children at home and school, and to rationalize homophobia.
These are not scriptural arguments. Instead, the church is offering little more than the spiritualized rhetoric of a university gender-studies department. In fact, universities spiritualized their rhetoric first. Here was the University of Michigan, opining in 2006 about biblical truth:
Some texts of the Old Testament are used to condemn homosexuality. Taken literally and out of context, Biblical passages can be used to justify slavery, prohibit the wearing of red dresses, and eating of shrimp and shellfish, and to reinforce the inferiority of women.
Not to be outdone, before its training program was struck down as violating the Establishment Clause, Georgia Tech featured its own brand of PCUSA theology:
Many religious traditions have taught, and some continue to teach, that homosexuality is immoral. These condemnations are based primarily on a few isolated passages from the Bible. Historically, Biblical passages taken out of context have been used to justify such things as slavery, the inferior status of women, and the persecution of religious minorities.
Spiritualized leftism is little more than standard leftism with the disadvantage of asking you to get up early on Sunday morning. Is it any wonder that people abandon churches that give them little more wisdom than they can get from Starbucks?
The current issue of the PCUSA publication Presbyterians Today features a picture of a person standing at a fork in the road, compass in hand. But the church isn’t choosing a new path. It’s walking the same path it has for years — the “broad road” that leads straight out of Christianity.
— David French is an attorney, a writer, and a veteran of the Iraq War.
Devastatingly spot on!
It’s hard to imagine how Romans 1:24-32 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 are being “taken out of context.”
My new tag line.
Modern Israel is not equal to the Israel of scripture. Modern Israel is an unsaved nation, having rejected Jesus Christ.
Having said that, PCUSA embraced progressive higher criticism a century ago. In doing so the church has declined dramatically. They have all but rejected their founding statement of faith: The Westminster Confession. They’ve been ordaining women, embracing abortion, sex out of marriage, divorce, sodomy, homosexual marriage and rejecting substantial portions of scripture (6 day creation, Mary’s virgin birth, Christ’s literal resurrection) for decades.
What’s an unsaved nation? If there is such a thing, the United States seems to qualify too. God has plans that include Israelis. Even now, many are turning to Yeshua, more than are currently willing to go public, I might add. The Spirit is at work.
Yup.
This explains why I can’t stand the doctrines/politics of the one Presby I know.
PCUSA is not the only denomination with the P word in its name. There are some others (PCA comes to mind) that still adhere to classic Reformed dogma.
America is circling the drain, they make it look in the movies like we’re all good when we’re not. The real story about employment would be more depressing than a Film Noir, and the fact about the National Debt is that given what passes as policy, the government is never going to leave the deficit behind and is never going to pay off the debt. By the constant deficit spending, our government is running a ponzi scheme and throwing everything but the right solution on the fire, sometimes, they are throwing alcohol on the fire maybe realizing it isn’t water, but maybe they do, because they have to absolutely react and go opposite whatever is found in religion.
I wonder how many of their members are even aware of their churches position on these things...in all likelihood many just do not care..church is simply part of their weekly check off list
Yes, many in the rank and file regard church as a place to have a social framework and receive encouragement (on whatever basis) in the midst of life’s pressures. I think a lot of liberal church members like not being challenged to buck the culture, which can produce friction and unpleasantness, but they wish for everyone to just be “nice” and uncritical. Also, the emphasis on good works gives them a feeling of satisfaction.
Camille Paglia gave the PCUSA a sound thrashing in her essay THE JOY OF PRESBYTERIAN SEX (1991), saying they should ditch Christianity and become formal Pagans (since they were no longer functionally Christian). I couldn’t find the essay online, but it had some witty lines in it.
There is a lot of that going on in the Catholic Church as well. Michael Voris of Church Militant calls it the "church of nice". Check out The Vortex on churchmilitant.tv.
I never said the US was a saved nation. We are a nation that turned its back on Christ from its founding. Israel isn’t saved either, they too have rejected Christ. Both the Jews and the Muslims who live there have rejected Christ. There are, of course, a few Christians. But that doesn’t make Israel a saved, Christian nation.
God has plans for all nations, be it the US, Israel, China etc. Modern Israel has no specific importance though. Not in scripture anyway.
Many, even among the Reformed, have seen in Scripture an indication that there will be a specific and notable turning to Christ among Jews in the latter days. I think modern Israel has providential importance. We shall see.
They joined the Evangelical Presbyterian Church organization.
I wonder how many other congregations have left?
“Modern Israel has no specific importance though. Not in scripture anyway.”
Totally untrue. The second coming of Jesus Christ involves his return to fight the enemies of Israel. People who cannot or will not see and acknowledge prophecy regarding Israel being fulfilled before their very eyes in our days are blind.
Catholic school, with priest’s backing, suspends theology teacher for defending marriage on Facebook
An excellent and damning article. Thanks for posting!
(Just an FYI; it’s usually best to excerpt articles longer than a couple of paragraphs and let people follow the link to the rest. This shows respect for copyright and in this case increases traffic to a reputable conservative website.)
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