wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Pennsylvania pastor will run for clerk

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Note #8161 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Pennsylvania pastor will run for clerk
04130
March 11, 2004

Pennsylvania pastor will run for clerk

Linn 'Rus' Howard plans a 'simple, sweet, prophetic' campaign

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE - The Rev. Linn "Rus" Howard, pastor of Peters Creek Presbyterian
Church in Venetia, PA, has announced his candidacy for stated clerk of the
General Assembly.

Howard filed his application with the Assembly's Committee to Review and
Nominate a Stated Clerk on Feb. 27, the deadline, saying that he will "keep
my 'run' simple, sweet and prophetic."

He joins a field that includes the incumbent clerk, the Rev. Clifton
Kirkpatrick, who is seeking a third four-year term, and the Rev. Bob Davis,
an Escondido, CA, pastor and lawyer who also is executive director of the
renewal group, the Presbyerian Forum.

The Presbyterian News Service reported in November that Howard planned to run
against Kirkpatrick. He had objected that the report was premature.

In a statement released with his announcement, titled "Anarchy in the PCUSA,"
Howard said: "The PCUSA cannot afford four more years of Clifton
Kirkpatrick's failed leadership! He must be replaced!"

Howard charged that Kirkpatrick "has failed us as a constitutional leader, as
a denominational leader, and as an ecumenical leader," and said the current
clerk's "unwillingness to openly defend and uphold our constitution is
leading us into a state of anarchy."

Kirkpatrick has repeatedly reminded presbyteries and synods of their
constitutional responsibility to exercise ecclesiastical discipline in
response to alleged acts of "defiance," mostly having to do with the
ordination of gay and lesbian Presbyterians to church office and the
performance of same-sex union ceremonies.

But because sessions have disciplinary authority over elders and deacons, and
presbyteries have similar authority over ministers, Kirkpatrick has not
interfered in judicial cases progressing through those governing bodies.

Howard characterized Kirkpatrick's approach as "silence" and said it has
"encouraged the anarchists in our midst."

He also said in his statement that he believes Davis, of San Diego
Presbytery, "would make an excellent stated clerk."

Howard recently presented an overture to Washington Presbytery that would
have endorsed "gracious separation," a plan put forward by Bob Howard (no
relation), a member of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, to divide the
Presbyterian Church (USA) along theological lines. The presbytery defeated
the overture at its January meeting.

In October 2002, Howard and five other ministers taped a "Call for Confession
and Repentance" at the entrance of the Presbyterian Center in Louisville and
declared the PC (USA) "irretrievably apostate" under current management. The
group contended that the denomination is "decaying and dying in the belly of
the beast" (Rev. 13: 1-8).

The statement also urged PC(USA) congregations to "refrain from giving
undesignated mission money to governing bodies" and to divert per-capita
gifts "to ministries faithfully engaged in God's ministry of compassion."

Howard's own church has withheld its per-capita payments to the General
Assembly for the past two years.

The stated clerk's office is funded by per capita.

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