Viewpoint
June 20, 2007

Completely correct – completely irrelevant
By Michael Neubert

A young man during his first hot air balloon ride had an unexpected adventure. A fog bank closed in around the balloon making it impossible to see the ground and putting the passenger and pilot in extreme danger.

For a moment, the fog parted and the two saw some golfers below. The pilot called out, "Where are we?"

One of the golfers answered, "You are over the ninth green." With that the fog closed in once more.

The passenger said, "That man must be a Presbyterian."

The pilot asked, "Why would you say that?"

He answered, "Because what he said was precisely correct - and completely irrelevant."

Surely it is in the spirit of that parable that Linda Valentine and Clifton Kirkpatrick recently wrote to Executive Presbyters and Stated Clerks. Correctly quoting the pertinent portions of the Book of Confessions or the Book of Order is simply irrelevant to the current controversies in the PC(USA). The written standards of the denomination are precisely correct, but they are largely ignored. And so, quoting the standard is pointless. If you want to know what the standards of the denomination really are, look at what is actually permitted in Presbyteries and congregations.

Pastor Jim Rigby, Saint Andrews PC, Austin, TX receives an atheist as a church member, ordains gay elders, marries homosexual couples. What does this say about what the PC(USA) actually believes? If we read that Mr. Kirkpatrick and Ms. Valentine were quick to correct such actions, we would understand clearly that we mean what we say in the Book of Order. I haven't read that news article yet.

Pastor John Shuck, FPC, Elizabethton, TN describes his church as a "Progressive Christian Community". Which is to say, he rejects every tenet of the Reformed faith in particular and Christianity in general. If Mr. Kirkpatrick and Ms. Valentine wrote to the EP and Clerk instructing them to enforce the Book of Confessions and its orthodox standards I would be impressed. I haven't read anything to suggest that they care.

In my own presbytery, we once received a nominating committee report that included the names of a self-affirmed practicing homosexual and a minister who had been disciplined for serial adultery. When I asked if these were appropriate nominations the EP replied, "They are members in good standing." Precisely correct - and completely irrelevant.

Arguing against joining the EPC, some point out that we have made women's ordination a confessional standard. Dr. Purves' recent letter on Presbyweb reads, "men and women share equally and fully in the life and ministry of the living, reigning and acting Lord Jesus Christ" (emphasis added). Well, not exactly.

I confess that I had somehow overlooked section 5.191 in the Second Helvetic Confession until a PCA pastor brought it to my attention. It reads, "We teach that baptism should not be administered in the Church by women or midwives. For Paul deprived women of ecclesiastical duties, and baptism has to do with these." Since that is clearly not what the PC(USA) now believes, I brought to Presbytery the modest proposal that we overture GA to delete 5.191. The overture was defeated. The gist of the conversation that day was that it doesn't matter what is in the Book of Confessions since that was written for another time and doesn't apply to us. I suspect that some opposed correcting the Confessions precisely because it would suggest to the PC(USA) that standards do apply.

My personal frustration is that while I have not left the PC(USA) - over the years, the PC(USA) has left me. Those of us who do hold to the Reformed Tradition and the faith represented by the Book of Confessions (even if we scruple 5.191) feel more and more as if we are on the outside looking in.

A fair-minded person would surely recognize, as I do, that liberalism is ensconced in the denominational structures of our day, while the faith of the Confessions is marginalized. Wherever there is hostility toward Reformed pastors there is evidence of the institutional cancer that is destroying the denomination. Still, if the GAC Executive Director and the Stated Clerk mean to call us back to fidelity to the Confessions and the Book of Order, and if they will now faithfully correct the structures and discipline the persons who plague the Church, even now we may see the blessings of God return to us.