wfn.org | Pull the plug on dying church, panelist says

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7064 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

25-February-2002
02075

Pull the plug on dying church, panelist says

Confessing Church group told to 'put resources in Godly causes'

by Jerry L. Van Marter

ATLANTA - Blaming membership declines and theological disputes in the Presbyterian Church (USA) on "a failed management team," a workshop panelist at the Confessing Church Movement (CCM) Celebration urged CCM supporters Monday to "break the supply line to a Presbyterian Church (USA) that is dying a sad and languishing death."

The Rev. Jim Conner, pastor of Granger Presbyterian Church in Granger, IN, who was a commissioner from the Presbytery of Wabash Valley to last summer's General Assembly, said the denomination reminds him of a redevelopment congregation. "I don't want to be negative, but you have (in Louisville) an entrenched bureaucracy ... (of) hard-working people who are ineffective," he said.

The only solution for an institution as weak as the PC(USA), Conner said, is to withdraw support, point out its failures and set up a parallel institution that can assume control when the existing structure collapses. 

"We need to let what's not working die, remove our support that keeps it alive, and put our resources in Godly causes," he said.

Other panelists in the workshop, titled "How Do We Build God's Church Upon Theological Confessions?," were less draconian in proposing cures for what ails the denomination. 

Terry Schlossburg, executive director of Presbyterians Pro-Life, suggested a combination of educational efforts and political reforms. "We have bypassed our responsibility to catechize our people," she said. "Many of the people in our pews don't even know the Book of Confessions exists."

Schlossburg urged the CCM to "catechize our people," noting that Presbyterians have a set of common confessions.

"We don't come to the church telling it what we believe," she said, "but the church tells us what Presbyterians believe, and we're called to affirm those beliefs."

Because the church is self-governing, she continued, "if we care about the confessions and theology of the church, we have to care about its government and polity."

One way to bridge the "chasm" between the bureaucracy and people in the pew, Schlossburg suggested, would be to change procedures so that presbytery and synod representatives to the General Assembly Council (GAC) are elected by the governing bodies, not by the Assembly itself. "The Council would look much different if presbyteries and synods elected their own representatives," she said.

The Rev. Paul Roberts, pastor of Summit Presbyterian Church in Beaver-Butler Presbytery - the first church to adopt a CCM statement - charged that the denomination, from top to bottom, "fell asleep theologically about 30 years ago." He said his church decided a year ago to "begin running things theologically," and subsequently a group of evangelical pastors in the presbytery decided to do the same in their own congregations. 

"Start locally, then your presbytery, then the General Assembly," Roberts said. "Everyone knows there's a theological crisis in this denomination. We have to go back determined that we're going to run the church by the Bible."

In response to a question about the social gospel, panelist Nancy Cross, a leader of Presbyterians for Renewal, said, "We can't forget that the purpose of all this is so we can do acts of compassion." 

Cross said the church talks about confessional and theological issues all the time, but doesn't always identify them as such. "We need to recast the issues we address in that light, and claim them as confessional issue. ... Along with the 'head work,' we have to do the 'heart work' and the 'hand work,'" she said.

Schlossburg agreed, saying: "Churches aren't doing nearly enough to minister to those caught up in sexual sin. We have no credibility if we only address these issues politically."
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