Starting a Dialog …
I am a member of a PC (USA) church in Illinois. We are a conservative congregation; a member of the Confessing Church movement and the New Wineskins Association of Churches.
I have a belief that the left wing that has taken over our denomination is a very small but very vocal minority. I believe that those of us who stand behind Scriptural integrity, refuse to deny the Lordship of Christ and choose to submit to the Confessions are still a majority. Call me Pollyana if you wish, but that’s my belief.
I also think that while we wring our hands about the apostasy, we have no real hope of affecting change because we are scattered all over the place and don’t consolidate our efforts the way those on the left do — they have a very specific and clear agenda and they don’t deviate from it much from season to season. That’s why they’re so successful in sounding like “The Voice” of the PC(USA).
I feel called to start a grass-roots movement to bring together those of us who would like to stand up and fight against the apostasy - not necessarily clergy or even elders - plain old vanilla church members. If we lift our voice as one, we’ll be loud enough for the leadership to hear us and take notice, right?
If you share my concerns and would like to join together, please drop me an email message at jeanette@concerned-presbyterians.org or join the conversation here. I look forward to joining with like-minded brothers and sisters in Christ as we fight to wrestle our denomination back from the hands of the apostate.
I think we are going to have to work outside the cumbersome and unresponsive political process in the PCUSA. We will need to take uncharted routes to getting the denominational leadership to abide by our constitution.
Comment by pbu — October 5, 2007 @ 6:07 pm
The New Wineskins Association has one sole purpose: leave the denomination so their organization can make money, period. It has nothing to do with what anyone believes.
Take a look at this website: http://www.presbywine.com/ just one year ago, the New Wineskins were not interested in leaving the denomination. Bring in Dean Weaver and Gerrit Dawson’s timeline to aggressively leave the denomination, leaving a trail of destruction for everyone who doesn’t agree including the attempted demolition of everything ordained women have tried to accomplish in the last 50 years, and the result is a complete disaster.
Are there legitimate concerns regarding the “plain vanilla” feeling in the PCUSA? Of course. We are regarded as “God’s frozen people”. We could be so much more, become more with the holy spirit, evolve and morph into a more perfect church while striving to follow God and reconcile our sins. The people left in the PCUSA are trying to deal with the New Wineskins problem and our ministry is mostly left in distraction.
Now that journey will be much more difficult with the destructive work of the New Wineskins with Dean Weaver and Gerrit Dawson jet setting around the world using PCUSA’s funds to gather momentum and power for their organization. While they are doing this they are trampling so many people.
Comment by KC — October 10, 2007 @ 1:45 am
KC,
Thanks for weighing in. I don’t really want to be in a position to defend New Wineskins, and I would have to say that many of us who are members are a bit disappointed in the direction they’ve gone. On the other hand, we wouldn’t NEED renewal groups if there wasn’t so much apostasy in our franchise. I am not convinced we can turn this ship around but for as long as God calls me to remain I will do so, and I will fight with all that is in me to educate the people who are content to sit in their pews week after week and pretend that what Louisville does doesn’t affect them.
Your comments about NWAC existing to make money sound a bit cynical. Our church happens to be a member of NWAC but to my knowledge we have not sent them any money, nor have they requested any. I will also tell you that we are withholding per capita because of the PCUSA’s pro-choice stance.
Regarding NWAC becoming aggressive about pulling out, they actually have two strageties to be faithful - one for those who feel the last GA constituted a breach of the covenant, and one for those who feel we should stay and try to make a difference. This was in direct response to the GA’s actions of 2006. My husband and I attended the NWAC convocation in Tulsa last July and I will tell you that they received a LOT of pressure to pull out immediately and encourage churches to do the same. They didn’t, and were very deliberate in seeking God’s answers to this very tough question.
As for dealing with the New Wineskins problem, I see it differently. I can’t speak for all churchces but I will tell you that mine is distracted by having a covenant relationship with people who deny the Lordship of Christ, who support abortion on demand in spite of GA policy that says otherwise, and who are opening the door pretty wide to the ordination of those who refuse to abide by G-6.0106b, the fidelity and chastity clause of the Book of Order. The New Wineskins is not a destructive element, but rather a response to a problem that the PCUSA has refused to deal with. This didn’t start in 2006, KC - it started with the Auburn Affirmation when the 1926 GA decided it was okay not to believe Scripture is the infallible, inerrant Word of God and the authority for our lives today. We are now dealing with the consequences of that early refusal to confront apostasy.
As for Garritt Dawson and Dean Weaver trampling people, what do you think Cliff Kirkpatrick and his cohorts have been doing for the past 12 years? And especially since the last GA and the famous Louisville Papers.
I’m praying that God will take this meger effort of mine and use it to His glory. I’m not sure how He will do that but I do know that creating this website was WAY over my head, and His hand is all over it.
Thanks for joining the conversation.
Jeanette
Comment by admin — October 10, 2007 @ 3:26 am
I wish you well in all your efforts. I believe your perception is correct in the main - the Presbyterian Panel’s own statistics to tend verify it. Basically, the actions of the national denomination really are out of step with majorities of Presbyterians.
The problem many have with the PC(USA) has very little to do with it being “vanilla”. It has much more to do with the widespread incidence of apostasy - sheltered and tolerated in the denomination; it has much more to do with a system wide culture of corruption that permits officials at many levels to simply fail to abide by legitimate actions of GAs or constitutional provisions - and worse, shows no regard when denominational officials give false information to Presbyterians and others.
While I agree that majorities of Presbyterians don’t participate in these practices - though our bureaucracy certainly does - I also suspect majorities of Presbyterians don’t really care enough to carefully examine them.
Comment by will spotts — October 18, 2007 @ 11:10 pm
I agree with the admin regarding “plain vanilla” church members. All too often our congregation is left in the dark about the happenings inside of our denomination. Our two pastors and one elder attend the presbytery meetings but never really report back what is going on to the congregation – at least not in any formal informative way. We might hear a quick “pray for our leaders” during a pastoral prayer, but never any real discussion about the problems within the PC(USA). I think the fear is that people might get upset and leave if they heard the real story. I believe that if the average Presbyterian was informed about the problems and they cared about their church, they would start putting pressure on the local leadership to do something. All too often, the local leadership seems more concerned about building expansion and VBS, than the bigger picture. When I look through are annual report and see the amounts of money that we send to the GA and presbytery, it sickens me. I know some of it is used for mission work and there are bills to be paid, but too much of it is used to support un-Biblical things like some of the “start up” churches that are not held accountable or even monitored regarding the message that they are spreading.
Just recently, I started informing my fellow church members about the local Presbytery happenings and where some of the money is going and I caused quite a stir. Our session has now been fully informed and both of our pastors are now actively involved in the process of putting an end to some errant funding – all because the congregation found out and people got upset. Ruffled feathers are good, it makes people pay attention and for myself, it forces me to really figure out what it is that I belive since I now have to explain those beliefs and sometimes even defend them.
As the Admin said, “we have no real hope of affecting change because we are scattered all over the place and don’t consolidate our efforts the way those on the left do”. We need to join together as one uniform Body of Christ and allow Christ to not only be our Savior, but our LORD. Remember, He doesn’t serve us, we serve HIM and He commanded us to spread His Word and only His word.
We will all never be able to “just get along” because there is a battle going on (read Eph 6:10-19) and we are not all on the same side, and according to the Bible, compromise is not an option. If it was, Christ wouldn’t have had to die for us and Truth would be relative.
Dave
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