wfn.org | Confessing Church Movement grows rapidly

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Note #6828 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

6-September-2001
01311

Confessing Church Movement grows rapidly

Prospect of per-capita withholding gets PC(USA) officials' attention

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - The emerging Confessing Church Movement, whose leaders claim
they want to return the Presbyterian Church (USA) to its Biblical roots, has
quickly picked up steam since its conception six months ago.

The sessions of more than 800 PC(USA) congregations, most of which can be
described as evangelical and conservative, have signed up so far. Those
churches account for about 11 percent of the denomination's membership.

Churches join the movement by publicly affirming three tenets: that Jesus
Christ alone is Lord of all and the way to salvation; that holy Scripture is
the revealed Word of the triune God and the Church's only rule of faith and
life; and that God's people are called to holiness in all aspects of life -
which includes a duty to honor marriage as the only relationship within
which sexual behavior is appropriate.

The confessing congregations are planning to gather for a national
conference next February, during which they will discuss the movement's
future. In the meantime, they are networking within their respective
geographic regions - worshipping together, sharing resources and discussing
issues and strategies.

A number of independent evangelical organizations within the PC(USA),
including the Presbyterian Coalition and Presbyterians for Renewal, have
endorsed the loosely structured movement, which was sparked by a
confessional statement approved on March 13 by the session of Summit
Presbyterian Church of Butler, PA.

"We're very excited about the growth," says the Rev. Paul Roberts, pastor of
the 290-member Summit church, which is about 40 miles northeast of
Pittsburgh. "We were hoping we were saying something important, and it has
just been wonderful to see so many congregations say, 'Yes, this is really
important to us as well, and we want to be connected with other confessing
churches.' That has been fantastic."

Pastoral and lay leaders of the confessing congregations say their
"grassroots" organization is making a stand against what they believe is
unacceptable compromise on Biblical essentials by national leaders of the
PC(USA).

"We're going to start grouping with people who believe the same things,"
Roberts says, "and we're going to start being the church that we're called
to be."

The "confessing churches" concept is patterned after a Protestant movement
in Germany in 1933 that opposed the Nazi-sponsored German Christian Church.

Leaders of today's movement charge that the denomination's General Assembly
(GA) has not been faithful to some basic tenets of Christian faith and is
too accommodating to contemporary culture.

Passions were inflamed in June when the 213th GA recommended that the
denomination rescind its four-year-old ban on the ordination of any man or
woman who was not either faithful in marriage or single and celibate - a
measure that was largely seen as a basis for refusing ordination to sexually
active gay and lesbian people. That provision of the church constitution
will stay in place, however, unless a majority of the denomination's 174
presbyteries vote to approve the change.

The movement also was fueled by displeasure with a GA-approved statement
affirming that Christ is the only way to salvation. That document was
written and approved in response to a controversy that erupted over a
conference speaker's speculation in 2000 that a sovereign and merciful God
might provide a way for non-Christians to be saved. Conservatives criticized
the Assembly's statement as wishy-washy, preferring language that was
rejected by the Assembly.

"The Confessing Church Movement got a huge boost with the decision of the
Assembly, both to recommend elimination of (the) 'fidelity, chastity'
provision from the Book of Order, and to adopt a Christological statement
that was more ambiguous than a lot of folks wanted," says the Rev. Jack
Haberer, pastor of Clear Lake Presbyterian, a confessing church in Houston,
TX.
"That unleashed a lot of deep disappointment and discouragement, with people
just wondering, 'Is there any hope for the denominational structures as they
exist?'"

Haberer, a former moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition, says the movement
has had the positive effect of prompting churches to adopt confessional
statements that are "more theologically thoughtful and consistent with the
reformed tradition."

Haberer acknowledges that the movement has had a negative effect as well:
"Some outspoken confessing church pastors are promoting schism, which is
producing a credibility gap for the Confessing Church Movement."

Haberer says this divisiveness is contrary to the movement's purpose, which
is to promote unity. "They really need to come together around a vision for
unity of evangelicalism," he says.

The confessing churches maintain that churches and presbyteries should not
ordain or install anyone who cannot affirm and abide by their three
confessional standards, and that PC(USA) program personnel should be
required to uphold them.

Roberts, the Butler pastor, says: "Our interest is being the Church again,
and getting back to saying, 'This is what we believe. How can we help each
other in developing these beliefs?'"

Summit invited other churches to adopt similar confessions of faith, and in
late March, when 5,400-member First Presbyterian Church of Orlando, FL, the
denomination's third-largest congregation, joined the movement, the media
began paying attention and the movement gained momentum.

Other confessing congregations range from Highland Park Presbyterian Church
in Dallas, the fourth-largest PC(USA) church with 5,200 members, to several
with 10 or fewer members.  For a list of all 837 confessing churches (as of
Sept. 5), click
http://www.laymanconfessingchurch.homestead.com/contacts.html.

That's part of the Web site of The Presbyterian Layman, an independent
conservative publication that has endorsed the movement, giving rise to
speculation that the movement is a project of the stridently conservative
Presbyterian Lay Committee, which publishes The Layman. In addition to
providing and maintaining the web site for the movement, the Lay Committee
has committed to provide extensive coverage of the movement and to make
teaching materials and other resources available.

On Sept. 5, The Layman reported that the movement included 837 congregations
in 44 states and Puerto Rico (out of about 11,300), representing about
280,000 Presbyterians (out of about 2.5 million members in all), that have
adopted Summit's statement or written their own. The average-sized
confessing church has 335 members, according to The Layman.

"We really think it's growing very nicely," says the Rev. Parker Williamson,
Editor in Chief of The Layman. "We see the interest. We had offered a little
packet of materials on the Confessing Church Movement for those sessions
that were considering it, and they have just been pouring out of here."

At the end of April the movement had five congregations. In the next two
months that number climbed to 558.

Exactly what the movement is giving rise to is hard to say, partly because
it has no official leadership and no budget.

"It's growing, but it's growing in a diffused kind of way," Williamson says.
"It's hard to talk about the confessing churches when there is ... no
structure."

Another pastor close to the movement echoes Williamson's comments.

"I don't know what the appropriate sociological phrases are here," says the
Rev. Jerry Andrews, co-moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition and pastor of
First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn, IL. "It's either a movement or it's
not even quite a movement yet."

It's also hard to say just how many members of each confessing congregation
support the movement, because the statements typically are approved by
sessions, which consist of only a handful of church members.

"I'm sure that you can find almost any congregation where somebody wouldn't
agree with the session," Williamson says, "but the session is the governing
body."

Williamson and Roberts agree that the movement has grown faster than
expected - and may be picking up speed.

Says Roberts: "We think September will be a big month, given that a lot of
churches take the summer off or slow their pace down, and sessions start
meeting again in September. The amazing thing is that during the slowest
period, usually, of the church's life, July and August, we have had
unbelievable growth going on."

Roberts predicts that 100 to 150 congregations will join the movement in
September - and that it may have as many as 1,200 churches when Presbyterian
confessing church members meet in Atlanta next Feb. 25 for the first
"National Confessing Church Celebration."

"It's to gather all the churches together to celebrate and ask the question,
'Where do we go from here?,'" Roberts says of the national conference, which
he helped organize during a planning meeting last month in Pittsburgh. "How
do we keep standing up for these three essential tenets, and where do we go
from this point?"

The celebration will feature speakers, seminars, small-group sessions and
worship. Organizers have issued "a call for papers" about "basic issues of
life and ministry."

"This is not going to be a pastor's conference," Roberts says. "We're hoping
that the lay person, elders, deacons and the person in the pew is going to
come to celebrate what their church is doing."

During the run-up to the February event, regional groups of confessing
churches will be meeting around the country. The first was held last month
in Omaha, NE; another is scheduled for Sept. 9 in Montreat, NC.

National officials of the PC(USA) are watching the movement closely. They
acknowledge that the confessing churches, like any other
Presbyterian-related entities, have a right to protest GA actions with which
they disagree. They also fear that the movement may encourage some
congregations to withhold contributions to the church's $13 million per
capita budget or to the denomination's $136 million mission budget.

The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly, said he
has received "a few" letters from people connected to the movement who say
they intend to withhold their annual per-capita contributions. That fund is
an easier target than the mission budget because it consists almost entirely
of the per-member apportionment. Sessions also can vote to withhold a
congregation's per-capita contribution, though presbyteries are customarily
obligated - though not required - to pay it anyway.

Uncertain about the possible financial fallout, PC(USA) leaders in
Louisville have asked national staff members to curb spending and avoid
unnecessary travel. They also have put into effect a "hiring delay," in
which vacant positions may not be filled right away.

"There's definite concern that all of this could result in some shortfall
relative to our existing budget, and we urge people to be frugal, (but) 
we've not made any major budget cuts," Kirkpatrick says.

The stated clerk says he also has received letters from some movement
members saying they intend to pay their per-capita contributions.

Kirkpatrick says withholding per-capita funds is not all that unusual for
congregations wishing to protest GA or national-staff actions, but it's
disconcerting that "flash point" issues have upset so many.

"The concern I draw most out of this  is  not just this movement, but in
many ways the loss of civility and respect for one another as fellow members
of the Body of Christ," he says. " It does seem to me that some (people)
related to this effort have fallen in that direction."

In a typical year, congregations withhold less than 2 percent of the total
per-capita budget. The biggest yearly shortfall, of about $300,000, came in
the early 1990s around the time of the controversial "Re-imagining"
conference on feminist theology. The Office of the General Assembly already
has received more than half of all contributions for 2001, so if
congregations decide to withhold funds, the 2002 budget could be the first
to take a major hit.

Per-capita contributions from Beaver-Butler Presbytery, which takes in
Summit Presbyterian Church, will dip in 2001, according to the Rev. Robert
Mathias, the presbytery's stated clerk.

"Right now I would say that we will be in arrears to the General Assembly
approximately $15,000," he says, "out of a total per-capita invoice of over
$80,000."

He says he has received one letter from a church that intends to withhold
its contribution for 2002.  Unlike most other presbyteries, Beaver-Butler
has a policy against using its own money to cover for non-paying
congregations.

"It's not going to hurt the presbytery," Mathias says, "but it does hurt the
General Assembly."
In other presbyteries, such as the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy,
headquartered in St. Louis, MO, per-capita withholding will affect
presbytery budgets.

"It's been the policy of this presbytery to pay the full per capita,
regardless of what the churches send us," says presbytery stated clerk the
Rev. Terry Epling. "I assume we will continue to do that. ... I assume it
would  throw off our budget."

Andrews, the Presbyterian Coalition co-moderator, says he doesn't think
withholding per-capita or mission money is an effective way for confessing
churches to send a message to the larger church.

"Frankly, it makes me nervous," he says, noting that evangelicals have
always talked about withholding per-capita. "I don't see how it advances the
cause, but many of my colleagues do - and they talk about it. (But) I have
not heard the confessing churches say, as a group, 'This is part of the
agenda.'"
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