wfn.org | Coalition members say 'heretical' speech brought theological dispute

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Note #6255 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

into sharp focus
7-November-2000
00396

Coalition members say 'heretical' speech brought theological dispute into
sharp focus

"Now we're getting to the root issue: what we really believe."

by Alexa Smith

INDIANAPOLIS -- Although there's no doubt that members of the Presbyterian
Coalition are riled up by a Presbyterian minister's statement that there
might be other ways to salvation than through Christ, there is also, oddly
enough, relief that someone finally said 'it' out loud.

	'It' is what PC(USA) evangelicals have suspected all along: that the
divisions that have split the left, right and middle in the 213-year-old
denomination go right to the heart of the Gospel.

	'It' is not just that liberals and conservatives interpret the Bibles
differently, which anyone can see. 'It' is that some interpret Christ
differently. In fact, the Coalition suspects that many do.

	"The sense is, now we're getting to the root issue: what we really believe
about the most essential elements of the faith. Who is Jesus Christ and what
has he done?" said Joe Rightmyer, executive director of Presbyterians for
Renewal, an evangelical organization with both political and spiritual
renewal on its agenda.

	"You get rid of this doctrine and you don't have a church," Rightmyer told
the Presbyterian News Service at the conclusion of the fifth annual national
gathering of the Coalition, a politically-minded umbrella group for
conservatives and evangelicals who have worked together successfully since
1993 to prohibit the ordination of gays and lesbians in the denomination.

	This year's gathering drew about 400 women and men to the Southport
Presbyterian Church here for a series of lectures by F. Dale Bruner, a
retired Bible scholar at Whitworth College in Spokane, WA, titled, "In
Christ Alone: Christo-Exclusivity in a Dot-Com World" — a topic that was,
prophetically enough, chosen long before the Rev. Dirk Ficca of Chicago
spoke at last summer's Peacemaking Conference in Orange, CA.

	Reactions to Ficca are still coming into the denominational offices in
Louisville, including at least one threat of judicial action against the
institution's second-highest-ranking administrative body, the General
Assembly Council (GAC), from a North Carolina church that accuses the
Council of having failed to "warn or bear witness against error in
doctrine."

	The GAC is the body with oversight of General Assembly programming.

	What's more, Highland Park Presbyterian Church of Dallas, TX, a longtime
advocate of conservative causes, demanded that the council publically state
that Jesus Christ alone is Lord and Savior.

	However, a letter to that effect released by the GAC last month didn't
satisfy many of the evangelicals who attended the Coalition's conference.
They say it started out strong, but got too wishy-washy.

	That's the take offered by Carmen Fowler, a young evangelical pastor from
Rabun Gap, GA, and a member of the Coalition's board. She said she's willing
to put up with a denomination that squabbles over social issues, such as
homosexuality and same-sex unions, although she believes the Bible is amply
clear on both. But she said she's floored by a church that has to spend time
debating the Lordship of Christ.

	"If you're not exalting Christ, you're not a church," Fowler said,
"(although) you may be a wonderful group of caring people."

	Fowler said the secular culture is slowly seeping into the church's life
and diluting its doctrines by giving credence to notions like religious
pluralism, which puts Jesus on a par with Mohammed and the Buddha.

	It is precisely that kind of anxiety that brought the Rev. Harper Brady of
Baden, PA, to Indianapolis, and motivated him to help write one of the most
controversial overtures to come to any GA in years — the "Beaver-Butler
overture," which asked commissioners to acknowledge that the church has
reached "a theological impasse" and, in a corollary action, invited ordained
leaders and entire congregations that could not affirm a constitutional
amendment forbidding the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians to
leave the denomination, taking their property with them.

	The "impasse" overture was rejected by the 212th General Assembly, but a
corollary overture, which would allow churches that cannot in conscience
comply with G60106.b to leave the denomination and take their property with
them, is expected to come up during the 2001 GA.

	Partly because the "impasse" debate obviously struck a nerve that rallied
PC(USA) conservatives, Brady said, he and his colleagues are contemplating a
follow-up overture about the person and the work of Christ.

	"This is not new; it's just the first time we've talked about it openly,"
he said. "Maybe now we can. Maybe now the church can talk seriously."

	Brady said one impediment to dialogue is that polarized camps of liberals
and conservatives within the church speak two entirely different languages,
and understand human experience and divine revelation from two opposite
world-views. "There are different (bases) out of which we do theology, how
we understand the truth, the interpretation of scripture, who God is ...

	"I don't know how it comes together."

	Brady added that he is put off by "fuzzy, wuzzy stuff" that avoids
upsetting subjects such as when and how to apply church discipline, and has
led to what evangelicals call heretical theologies, like those touted by
planners of the highly explosive "Re-Imagining" Conference five years ago in
Denver.

	After a conference speaker in Denver questioned the centrality of the
doctrine of the atonement, and alternative rituals were developed to
accommodate ecumenical women who were unable to take communion together,
PC(USA) churches threatened to withhold financial contributions from
denominational mission -- until the official who permitted the PC(USA) to
bring international guests to the conference was fired.

	GAC Executive Director John Detterick was able to quell some of the anger
this time by promising that denominational speakers will, from here on out,
be held accountable for the likes of what evangelicals call Ficca's
"out-of-bounds" statements. Detterick said a task force is being formed to
evaluate conference planning, and staff will be instructed to "anticipate"
potentially controversial comments and to discuss them in light of
Presbyterian doctrine during any event.

	He also apologized for the slowness of the council's initial response to
complaints about  Ficca's comments, which he said "articulated a perspective
that conflicts with a central tenet of the PC(USA)'s beliefs." It was the
first time Detterick has publically criticized Ficca.

	Detterick's comments were welcome news to people who believe that more
accountability and clearer theological boundaries are long overdue -- not
just among denominational meeting planners, but among leaders across the
church.

	However, at least one academic at the conference, the Rev. Daryl
Fisher-Ogden, of Pasadena, CA, observed that conference planners often
cannot control what speakers say, short of requiring written texts.

	"How do you set that up? Only PC(USA)-certified people?" she asked. "At the
peacemaking conference, the speaker was PC(USA) clergy."

	 The Rev. Jack Haberer, of Houston, TX, an evangelical, said he has been
reflecting on the theological divide. Since he has stepped down from
leadership of the Coalition (he once was its chairman), Haberer has been
readying a book from Geneva Press, "GodViews," which is due in bookstores in
March.

	While liberals don't mind inconsistency, what makes evangelicals uneasy,
Haberer said, is any hint of ambiguity in the Gospel that may start the
doctrinal ball rolling down a slippery slope. That's why the issue of
homosexuality has come to the forefront of the debate and stayed there for
so long, he said. If scriptural texts that plainly state that homosexuality
is forbidden are not taken as authoritative, then, that implies that Jesus,
who speaks through scripture, isn't authoritative, either.

	The peacemaking conference debate, according to Haberer, is just like
"Re-Imagining" in that it questions the uniqueness of Jesus Christ -- "in
spades."

	The Coalition conference speaker, Bruner, tried to dance delicately with
the scripture's more inclusive texts, but he took heat for it from some in
his audience.

	Identifying religious pluralism as "'the' theological issue for our time,"
Bruner said that, while he speaks against it, the church must be
"Christo-exclusive," admitting that Christ can be as inclusive as Christ
wants to be -- an idea that some in a room found unsettling.

	Acknowledging that just how inclusive Christ is is known only to God,
Bruner argued for a stance he calls Christo-centric. He argued that
Christians should hold to Christ exclusively while admitting that certain
texts imply that the "exclusive Christ is very inclusive." He noted texts
proclaiming that "Jesus Christ died for the whole world and not just a few,"
pointed out that the Beatitudes bless not only Christians, and said the Good
Samaritan was an outsider.

	In his closing sermon, "Christ of Unity," Bruner told his audience that he
is absolutely convinced that "the Word" is being preached in the PC(USA) by
both the Covenant Network and the Coalition. He gently admonished those
threatening judicial action against Ficca to take the biblical route
instead, going to the person with whom one disagrees, rather than to an
ecclesiastical court.

	"If we go to court every time somebody says something wrong, or (something)
that offends, that is offensive and schismatic," Bruner said. "God gave us
heart. ... Go to that person, not the General Assembly," he said, lest the
church be tangled up in disputes in a way that is like "swatting a mosquito
with a sledgehammer."

	  To that, the Rev. Parker Williamson, of Lenoir, NC, the executive
director of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, objected politely, arguing that
that discipline allows the church to protect its integrity in an orderly
way.

	Near the end of the conference, the Rev. Lowell Avery, of Oriskany, NY, one
of three evangelical pastors in a presbytery of about 40 churches, said the
denomination's problem now is a long history of personal hurt and
theological suspicion that must be overcome.

	  "Now some can say, 'I told you what these guys were saying all along,'"
Avery said, noting that liberals tend to want more "wiggle room" in
discerning authoritative texts than evangelicals are comfortable giving. "It
seems to some like a bottomless pit. ... There's this history of conflicts.
People forget how to forgive. (Frustration) just builds up and builds up and
builds up."

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