wfn.org | OneByOne Group Told To Uphold Authority of Scriptures

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

18-June-1997 
GA97064 
 
          OneByOne Group Told To Uphold Authority of Scriptures 
 
                           by Bob Gorman 
 
 
SYRACUSE -- The church's growing unwillingness to submit to the authority 
of scripture is leading to the  moral chaos now found in the Presbyterian 
Church (USA), according to a leader in Christian ministry to former gays 
and lesbians. 
 
    Bud Searcy, executive director of New Creation Ministries in Fresno, 
Calif., was the keynote speaker to some 100 people who attended a Tuesday 
evening, June 17 dinner hosted by OneByOne, a Rochester, N.Y.-based 
organization of PCUSA clergy and laypersons who develop  programs for 
churches to help gays and lesbians who are struggling with the choices they 
have made in their lives. 
 
    Also giving her testimony was Marie Cardenas, an elder in San Gabriel 
Presbytery, who said she had become sexually active when she was 10 and was 
an active lesbian by the time she was 17. Through the prayers of her 
parents and church and the help of ministries such as OneByOne, she said 
she was able to leave her lesbian lifestyle behind. 
 
    Searcy said today's church is much like what the Apostle Paul found in 
his day. After quoting from  II Timothy chapters 3 and 4, Searcy said Paul 
"was talking to a church that was starting to lose its way because it had 
merged Christian thinking with pagan culture." 
 
    Searcy said today's church is merging its theology with paganism when 
it blesses same-sex unions, which is counter to the lifestyle Christians 
are called to uphold  in the New Testament. 
 
    "For some, authority is in science or in subjective experience," said 
Searcy. "But we only have moral chaos when we have other standards (than 
the scriptures) for deciding truth." 
 
    Yet Searcy blamed heterosexual church leaders for creating much of the 
chaos the church finds itself in today. The condemnation of homosexuality 
as a sin greater than other sexual sins has led to "moral arrogance, in 
which we've been so caught up in being right, that we've ended up being 
more wrong." 
 
    He said the church "loses its ability to call people back to God" if it 
does not perform the delicate balancing  act of preaching both truth and 
grace with regard to all sexual sins. 
 
    "Grace without truth leads to compromise," he said. "And truth without 
grace leaves people alienated." 
 
    Searcy said ex-active homosexuals in the PCUSA who have renounced their 
former lifestyles are "courageous." But he warned that too many church 
members are withdrawing from the fight to challenge those in the church who 
believe same-sex relations can be holy. 
 
    "Christianity is inclusive to all, but it's exclusive to those who 
won't submit to its standards," he said.   

------------
For more information contact Presbyterian News Service
  phone 502-569-5504             fax 502-569-8073  
  E-mail PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org   Web page: http://www.pcusa.org 
  mailed from World Faith News <wfn-news@wfn.org>  

--