October 6, 2003

From Gathering VIII of the Presbyterian Coalition
The state of the Church
By Douglas G. Pratt

My name is Doug Pratt. I'm a pastor from Pittsburgh, and it has been my privilege to serve the evangelical and renewal movement of the PCUSA for the past two years as a Co-Moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition. I've been asked to share with you my own personal assessment of the current condition of our denominational union; these are my thoughts and observations alone, for which I alone bear responsibility.

From my time of service to the Church, it is my conviction that in order to deal with our current challenges we must understand the "landscape" or dynamics of this denomination accurately. Some have tried to portray the PCUSA as a body composed of primarily "centrists" – good-hearted and clear-minded people who share a common commitment, the "real" Presbyterians – who are unfortunately having to put up with an evil-spirited or muddle-headed few on the radical fringes of the right and left. The picture comes to mind of a group of folks celebrating an outdoor picnic who are distracted by some annoying ants and mosquitoes trying to spoil their fun. If only those radicals would just be quiet and go away, our church could go on about its business in peace and prosperity-and the moderates or centrists could maintain the proper course. That's the right way to envision the PCUSA, we have been told.

That picture is false, a fantasy. The reality is that the Presbyterian Church circa 2003 is like the body politic of a nation that is structured around a two-party system. The two parties have profoundly different beliefs and values; they each have their own comprehensive agenda for the church; and people of conviction and a bias towards action are drawn towards leadership in one or the other party. And then there is a group of people in the middle – the undecideds, the uncommitteds, the independents, the apathetic, etc. This middle group will be swayed sometimes this way, sometimes that, depending on the breezes of politics and individual issues. But the middle does not – and cannot – lead or set the agenda for the entire body. Leadership comes from the opposing parties, for it is there that people with the greatest passion and vision are drawn. Like the USA, with its two dominant parties and its people in the middle, so the PCUSA is divided by two competing ideologies – or more properly, in our context, theologies. The fact that some individuals and congregations may insist on identifying themselves as moderates or independents does not change the overall landscape.

And of greatest concern for us is the reality that the two parties within our denomination hold as their foundational principles positions that are mutually exclusive. They cannot both exist at the same time, due to the fundamental principle of logic (that "A" cannot also be "Non-A"). For example, sexual activity outside of marriage between a woman and a man cannot be both permitted and prohibited at the same time. It's a logical impossibility – it must be one or the other. And those who have tried to offer "local option" as a reasonable solution to this dilemma are in fact calling for the end of a unified national denomination.

To those who claim that "local option" is the way to cut the "Gordian Knot" of ordination standards, I reply that you have the wrong story from ancient literature in mind. "Local option" would be the sword that King Solomon threatened to use in 1 Kings 3, which would have split the baby in two and killed it!

While we are gathered here in beautiful Portland, I confess to you that part of my heart is 2000 miles away in Plano, Texas this week. The evangelical and orthodox leaders of the American Episcopal Church are meeting there. What a difficult situation they find themselves in-legally bound to a denomination that has abandoned the Scriptures and the clear voice of the Church worldwide and through the ages. Our prayers and our support are offered to our sisters and brothers, trusting that the Lord will give abundantly to them of His infinite wisdom.

Some of our own have, perhaps rather smugly, stated that the disaster which has overtaken the Episcopal Church couldn't happen to us. Technically that is true, of course, because our church is not ruled by bishops. We are ruled by a Constitution. But make no mistake about it: the removal of G-6.0106b would be the direct equivalent for us of a Bishop Robinson. It would plunge us into the same kind of turmoil and pain. I fear that if a General Assembly were to pass another "Amendment A" clone, the damage would be irreparable to our fragile union – long before the votes of the Presbyteries were cast. And the Louisville offices have already received an overture to next year's GA, calling for the removal of our ordination standards-in wording nearly identical to that which we have repeatedly defeated. So here we go again.

The ongoing struggle to defend the church's historic ordination standards – and, on the broader scale, to positively uphold and proclaim the divine will for human sexuality as expressed in our Books of Order and Confessions – is, at times, a wearying one. This is not a battle of our own choosing. Contrary to what our opponents charge, we aren't "hung up" on sex, nor are we Victorian prudes, nor do we take pleasure in ruining people's healthy fun. We are simply captive to the Word of God. We will not let personal experience, political correctness, or the latest opinion poll take the place of God's own self-revelation as our rule of faith and practice.

It is undeniable that those who oppose us have the cultural wind at their backs. Their sails are catching the breeze of a secular, postmodern society that is swiftly progressing towards moral decay. We, on the other hand, have to tack against that wind. We have to resist the prevailing philosophies that proclaim that all behavior between consenting adults is morally neutral, and that whatever "feels natural" must be right and good. As hard as it seems at the moment, we labor on – and we will never give up. We will spread our sails for nothing but the Wind of the Spirit, the eternal and unchanging voice of God as recorded in Scripture.

We gather here this week not only in the context of a deep division within our denomination over things that truly matter. We also meet in the context of a decades-long period of decline. Some might even call it, in the terminology of management consultant and author James Collins, a "Death Spiral." You don't need another tragic recitation of the ranks of the hundreds of thousands of Presbyterians who aren't there any more.