Presbyterian Predicaments

Here's another one from the vaults, when I thought that I would be allowed to live out my calling in the PCUSA. Orignially written in August of 2007.

Jesus asked us to remember Lot's wife. We also remember Lot. Abraham and Lot were family. Lot was the younger, more cosmopolitan of the two. When the squabbles between the household of Lot and household of Abram stood a chance of damaging their sense of family, they separated. Whatever bad blood was there, they let it go. The more spiritually mature man let the younger one seek his life among the hipsters of the day, who had wealth and prestige (Sodom had a king!). Abram knew that it didn't matter where he was sat on earth - so long as he knew where he stood with God.

We've come to a time where gracious separation (in the PCUSA) may be the only peaceful way out. It will require the mature - those who claim to trust completely in God's provision - to risk being set out to the un-lush plains. We'll have to choose whether or not we really believe it when we say that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is our treasure and the one thing we cannot do without.

I say this knowing that some have been fighting for a long time to be good stewards of the funds faithful Presbyterians have given over the years. I honor that work. I had planned as a minister to put at least some of my hope for financial security in the endowments given. But if it costs me the gospel - or I waste my life fighting with people that I should recognize as family (even if they are distant relations, and questionable in their covenant keeping) - then I will have been unfaithful to my calling to be a steward of the mysteries of God.

I count as friends several executives in the Foundation, and they are dashingly good at what they do. But I'm a steward of the mysteries, called to build the church as the pillar and ground of the truth. Anything less is a diminishing of my calling.

Ministers of Wreckonciliation

Just in case you had any doubt as to what the Confession of 1967 ultimately meant to do (i.e., undermine the Westminster Confession of Faith), here's all the proof you need. It seems that reconciliation largely consists of throwing venomous barbs at those whose form of evangelism is actually working.

There is an overture to the 2008 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to no longer recognize the Evangelical Presbyterian Church as a Reformed denomination. Frankly, coming from an institution that could best be described as "reformerly" - dear friends in the EPC - I'd take that as a complement.