As I mentioned last week in my post, as we approach the 2012 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) I am going to write about some of the very significant issues that will be taken up during that week in Pittsburgh. Some of you may know all this already, and some may not care in the least. Others of you, though, may not know yet and may be interested in what is happening in our denomination on a national level. I will do my best to offer a balanced presentation of what is going on, although I will at times state my opinion or stance and when I do so I will clearly delineate between what is happening and what I think about what is happening in regard to the PC(USA) and General Assembly. Just as a reminder: General Assembly meets every two years and is made up of ruling elders and teaching elders (pastors) from every presbytery (regional governing body) that have been elected by their presbytery to represent them as commissioners. As I mentioned last week, Dick Glass and Charlotte O’Neill are both among our presbytery’s commissioners this year. The biggest issue facing this General Assembly is the looming, and almost certain, schism of the Presbyterian Church (USA). On January 7, 2011, a “white paper,” was published by a group of seven PC(USA) teaching elders (pastors) declaring their views of the current state of the PC(USA) and listing some options for dealing with the problems within the denomination. According to Wikipedia.com, a “white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and may be a consultation as to the details of new legislation. The publishing of a white paper signifies a clear intention on the part of a government to pass new law.” This document was then followed up by a “Letter to the PC(USA)” that presented these concerns and suggestions to a wider audience. This letter has come to be known as the “Deathly Ill” letter because it begins with these words, “To say the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is deathly ill is not editorializing but acknowledging reality.” The seven teaching elders who published this letter are predominantly pastors of large Evangelical churches within the PC(USA). You can read the "Letter to the PC(USA)."
After the “Letter to the PC(USA)” presented this group’s concerns and suggestions to the denomination and was published in numerous denominational media outlets, those who agreed with the statements made in the letter were invited to sign their name to it, not unlike what was done with our nation’s Declaration of Independence back in 1776. If you sign it you are showing your solidarity and saying, “I’m willing to stick my neck out for this and if the writers’ necks get chopped because of this so will mine.” That letter has since been signed by 1,562 individuals within the PC(USA), made up mostly of teaching elders and ruling elders.
Some groups that are well represented within that list of signers are pastors of many of the PC(USA)’s largest congregations, and a very large number of leaders within the Korean Presbyterian congregations in our denomination. A few of those 1,562 signers are very good friends of mine, as well as some of them being seminary classmates of mine. This group within the PC(USA) began to refer to themselves as “The Fellowship of Presbyterians” and held a large gathering of more than 1,000 people in Minneapolis this past August to feel things out and decide on a course of action.
Based upon the findings of that gathering, they met again in Orlando in January for a kind of “constitutional convention” to begin working toward forming a completely separate denomination from the PC(USA) that they are calling the Evangelical Covenent Order or ECO.
The hope of many within the Fellowship of Presbyterians, as I understand it, is that the General Assembly will take steps that will allow for congregations that wish to do so to be dismissed from the Presbyterian Church (USA) to the Evangelical Covenant Order. There are some real challenges to that actually happening, however, so some congregations have decided to go ahead and leave the PC(USA) to be dismissed to an existing denomination called the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The thought is that these congregations will join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church for the time being then when everything shakes out with the Evangelical Covenant Order those congregations will leave the EPC to join the ECO. Many within the Fellowship of Presbyterians do not like that plan, however, because they disagree with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s stance on the ordination of women. The EPC allows each congregation to determine whether or not women can be ordained as deacons and ruling elders and up to each presbytery as to whether or not women can be ordained as teaching elders (pastors). The folks in the Fellowship of Presbyterians, like other members of the PC(USA) believe that women and men are called by God to all offices of the church and that is non-negotiable. The overwhelming majority of those involved in the Fellowship of Presbyterians do not want to be affiliated with the EPC, even for a short time, and therefore are working toward being dismissed directly to the new denomination that is being formed (ECO).
Immediately after the white paper and letter were published, many of the message boards on Presbyterian websites were filled with posts about how the Fellowship of Presbyterians was made up entirely of rich white male pastors of large conservative churches. That is certainly true of the original seven authors, but not of the 1,562 signers that came after. There are a great number of women (pastors and not) and as I mentioned earlier a large number of Korean-American church leaders. There are representatives of large churches and a great number of representatives from small churches. In my personal opinion, most of the original negative responses I read focused solely on the gender, race, and church size of the authors of the letter instead of the actual issues discussed within the letter. It is kind of like our contemporary political culture on both sides of the aisle: attack the messenger instead of discussing the message. Over time, however, some more intelligent and articulate responses were offered to the Fellowship's documents.
I really wanted to talk about the issues in the letter so in the weeks after the white paper and letter, a friend of mine, also a PC(USA) pastor, and I sat down several times for coffee to discuss the matter. He decided rather immediately that he would sign the letter to grant his full support, and encouraged me to do the same. Another friend of mine had encouraged me in that direction as well. Truthfully, I agreed with nearly everything the Fellowship of Presbyterians was saying about the disconnect between many of the stances taken by our national leadership and what is actually believed by the majority of members of Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations. I agreed with their critiques of the encumbrances of bureaucracy in church government, as well as many of their statements in regard to theology, mission, and evangelism. But I was not as eager or resolute as my friend about signing on.
Everybody has their “line in the sand,” their “deal breaker,” their “straw that breaks the camel’s back.” Whether or not we say it out loud, we all can say, “If this happens, I’m out of here.” We have that in friendships and marriages, organizations and churches. For instance, “If my friend and my spouse develop a romantic relationship, I’m out of both the friendship and the marriage.” We have this in political parties. “If the Republicans raise taxes I’m becoming an independent” or “If the Democrats give up their emphasis on social programs I’m out.” And we all have that with our church as well. Different people draw their lines in the sand in different places.
For some the line is drawn at the use of screens in worship. “If we ever start using screens in worship I’m out of here.” By the way, if that’s you then your line in the sand is about to be crossed this Sunday. For others it is, “If the pastor ever claims that Jesus wasn’t fully human and fully God then I’m out of here.” For another it might be something else. We all may like to say, “I’m sticking with this church no matter what,” but that’s not really true. Not that I ever would, but what if I started preaching that racism is sanctioned by God? What if the session and I declared all infant baptisms invalid and required that everyone be re-baptized? What if I decided to sing all of my sermons way off key, which is the only way I could sing them? How about if there was abuse of children and not only that but it was covered up? We all have our line in the sand, our deal breaker, our straw that breaks the camels back. Over coffee I learned that my good friend’s line had been crossed by the Presbyterian Church (USA); he found that although I agreed with most of what the Fellowship of Presbyterians was saying that my line had not been crossed. So he decided to sign onto the letter and I declined. 
So that gives a decent overview to the recent developments within the Presbyterian Church (USA) that have a bearing on whether or not there will be a significant split in the denomination in early July or soon thereafter. Next week we will get into the specifics of why many want to leave, but also why many want to stay. I think you will find that many or most folks on both sides of these varying issues hold beliefs that are based upon their determination to do the right thing as a Christian and as a Church. They just disagree vehemently on what the right thing to do is.Don’t forget to wear red for Pentecost Sunday! Go forward to love and serve the Lord!
Everett
