wfn.org | The moderator's commentaries on VoiceLine

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

Note #6813 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

24-August-2001
01293

The moderator's commentaries on VoiceLine

(Editor's note: Jack Rogers, moderator of the 213th General Assembly, will
be recording weekly commentaries on VoiceLine, the recorded information
service of the Office of Communication. To hear these commentaries, call
VoiceLine at 1-800-872-3283. The texts of Rogers' commentaries are available
on the PC(USA) website at www.pcusa.org/pcnews - Jerry L. Van Marter

Christology 
Recorded Aug. 23, 2001

The 213th General Assembly was a Confessing Assembly. The Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) is a Confessing Church. I came to the General Assembly
committed to having it confess our common faith in Jesus Christ as Savior
and Sovereign if I was elected Moderator.  I remembered the sad situation in
1979 when the Assembly wanted to confess its faith in Christ and was told it
could not. That year there was much ado about the Kaseman case, a judicial
proceeding against a minister in National Capital Union Presbytery who
allegedly did not believe in Christ as Savior and Lord. The Stated Clerk,
William P. Thompson, told the Assembly that it could not act without
interfering with the judicial process. While that judgment was no doubt
legally correct I always felt that it was pastorally wrong. During the
following two years, the United Presbyterian Church lost 92 congregations,
most of them re-gathering in what was called the Evangelical Presbyterian
Church. There were no doubt multiple reasons for the discontent of those
congregations, but they used the Assembly's lack of action as a rationale
for their separation. I did not want that to happen again.

The Commissioners to the 213th General Assembly had all taken ordination
vows that included a commitment to Christ as Savior and Lord. We reaffirmed
those vows at the beginning of the Assembly. I then announced that I wished
to be remembered as the Confessing Moderator. During each plenary session
that I moderated the Commissioners and Advisory delegates stood and
confessed their faith in the words of one of the doctrinal statements in
Part I of our Constitution: The Book of Confessions. We began with the
Apostles and Nicene Creeds and concluded with A Brief Statement of Faith,
adopted in 1991.

The Assembly had before it an item of business in which two Presbyteries
were asking the Assembly to confess Jesus Christ and Savior and Lord. The
request itself evidenced deep distrust, on the part of some, in the
leadership of the church. It asked the Assembly to send to the presbyteries
an overture that proposed calling Jesus the "singular" Savior and Lord.
Further, it proposed that this particular wording be made a new standard
both for ordination and the hiring of all church employees.

I was not present in the Assembly Committee that dealt with this matter. I
am told that some people testifying suggested that there were perhaps other
saviors as well as Jesus. Here we must make a critical distinction. It is
one of the glories of Presbyterianism that in a discussion people can say
anything they want to. That protects the right of each of us to state our
convictions. There is, however, a significant difference between what some
individuals may think or say, and what an Assembly, by majority vote, does.
It is also the case that there is more than one form of words that can
express a biblical insight into Christ's saving person and work.

The Assembly did two things. First, it adopted the recommendation of the
Assembly Committee to ask the Office of Theology and Worship to prepare
materials for study and worship that would help congregations use the
theological richness of our Book of Confessions in affirming our faith in
Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. People have asked me for the statements
about Christ in the Book of Confessions that the Assembly confessed. The
action of the Assembly will make those statements and others available to
congregations.

Second, the Assembly adopted a statement, giving its own witness to Christ.
The statement said, in part: "We confess the unique authority of Jesus
Christ as Lord. Every other authority is finally subject to Christ. Jesus
Christ is also uniquely Savior. It is `his life, death, resurrection,
ascension and final return that restores creation, providing salvation for
all those whom God has chosen to redeem.' Although we do not know the limits
of God's grace and pray for the salvation of those who may never come to
know Christ, for us the assurance of salvation is found only in confessing
Christ and trusting Him alone." The statement was proposed by a former
missionary to Indonesia and gladly adopted by the Assembly. For many, it
expressed the pious hope that God may have some way, that we do not know, to
bring people who have not heard under the saving power of Christ's death and
resurrection. For example, the Westminster Confession says that "all dying
in infancy are included in the election of grace, and regenerated and saved
by Christ through the Spirit, who works when and where and how he pleases"
(6.193).

Why, then, with all of this affirmation of Christ as Savior and Lord, are
some people saying that the Assembly refused to confess its faith in Christ
as Savior and Sovereign? As I have traveled around the country and listened
carefully to what concerned Presbyterians are saying, I have been forced to
conclude that many people are being misled by those who choose to distrust
any statement of the denomination that they themselves did not create.
Attention has been focused on the word 'singular" which was used in the
Minority Report (not adopted) to describe Christ's role. Some objected to
the use of the word, "unique," in the majority statement of the Assembly,
claiming that it could mean that there were other saviors besides Christ. 
That misunderstands the English language, and misrepresents the intent of
the Assembly. In the Oxford English Dictionary the word "singular" is
defined by the word "unique." They are synonyms. They mean the same thing.
"Unique" is hardly a "weasel word" as some have wrongly portrayed it.

The 213th General Assembly seems to be having the same difficulty that Jesus
himself experienced. In Matthew 11:16-17, Jesus is recorded as saying: "But
to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the
marketplace and calling to one another, `We played the flute for you, and
you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn."' Some people seemingly
refuse to acknowledge a witness to Christ unless they can chose the
language, unless they can call the tune.

That is the other reason for the reluctance of the Assembly to adopt the
particular words proposed by some. We already have Confessions that
represent the rich heritage of the Christian, Protestant, and Reformed
tradition. And we already have democratically arrived at procedures for
determining who is ordained and who may be hired and terminated as church
employees.

The most widely used Reformed Confession of Faith during the 16th century
Reformation was the Second Helvetic Confession. Heinrich Bullinger, pastor
in Zurich, and the senior pastor of the Reformed movement, lost his wife and
two daughters in a plague. He believed that he also would die. He wrote the
Second Helvetic Confession as his last will and testament, and his gift to
the city of Zurich. Bullinger's confession says: "JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY
SAVIOR OF THE WORLD, AND THE TRUE AWAITED MESSIAH. For we teach and believe
that this Jesus Christ our Lord is the unique and eternal Savior of the
human race, and thus of the whole world .... Jesus Christ is the sole
redeemer and Savior of the world ... so that we are not now to look for any
other" (5.077). No one has ever accused the Second Helvetic Confession of
being unorthodox. Neither is there legitimate reason to claim a lack of
orthodoxy on the part of the 213th General Assembly.

As Moderator, I feel obligated to tell the truth about the actions of the
213th General Assembly. It does not support the peace, unity, or purity of
the Church for blatant misrepresentations of the Assembly's action to be
continually repeated. Our faith in Christ as Savior and Sovereign is central
to our life as a Christian community. So also is speaking the truth in love.

Jack Rogers, Moderator
213th General Assembly
------------------------------------------
Send your response to this article to pcusa.news@pcusa.org

------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send an 'unsubscribe' request to

pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org