Presbyterian Church (USA) Considers Forcing LGBTQ Affirmation
The proposal of OVT-001 is no surprise—the PCUSA has allowed same-sex marriage since 2014. This is symptomatic of the denomination’s more fundamental rejection of Scriptural authority, which has resulted in conservative Presbyterian churches breaking away from the PCUSA and forming other denominations as early as 1936. The PCUSA has not gained the world in return for losing its soul, as the once-powerful denomination’s membership steadily declines.
An increasingly revisionist Presbyterian Church (USA) will take up legislation at its 226th General Assembly June 25–July 4 in Salt Lake City barring ordination of candidates who are not LGBTQ-affirming.
Designated OVT-001, the proposal, known as an overture in Presbyterian parlance, would change two sections of the PCUSA Book of Order. The first change alters section F-1.0403, “Unity in Diversity,” to read (changes in brackets):
“The unity of believers in Christ is reflected in the rich diversity of the Church’s membership. In Christ, by the power of the Spirit, God unites persons through baptism, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, sex, [gender identity, sexual orientation,] disability, geography, or theological conviction. There is therefore no place in the life of the Church for discrimination against any person. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shall guarantee full participation and representation in its worship, governance, and emerging life to all persons or groups within its membership. No member shall be denied participation or representation for any reason other than those stated in this Constitution.”
This addition of “gender identity, sexual orientation” may initially seem unproblematic in the first two sentences of this section. Christ can indeed unite diverse people to himself, including those who struggle with gender dysphoria and same-sex attraction. Implicit in the inclusion of the categories of gender identity and sexual orientation, however, is that there is nothing problematic about gender dysphoria and same-sex attraction.
This becomes clear in the rest of F-1.0403, which bars all discrimination against anyone in these categories (what the Rationale section of OVT-001 refers to as “protected classes”), especially regarding “worship, governance, and emerging life” in the PCUSA.
All humans are created in the image of God and must be treated with dignity and respect, this must not be denied. The imago Dei does not, however, mean that nobody may be denied a role in church governance for practicing transgenderism or homosexuality.
In 1 Timothy 3, the Apostle Paul writes that elders must be “above reproach” and deacons must be “blameless” (among many other qualifications). Earlier in the same epistle—and in multiple other epistles—Paul follows the Old Testament’s condemnation of practicing homosexuality, demonstrating along with Jude that it is no more licit under the New Covenant than it was under the Old. Given this, it seems reasonable to conclude that homosexual activity would be worthy of reproach and blame, disqualifying one from holding church office.
Related Posts:
You Might also like
-
The Golden Rule Liberates Us From Selfish Love
God expected that we would love him, but we failed point blank to meet that expectation. He himself, in his Son, did for us what he expected of us, loving us to the point of offering his Son for our sins to make us his own. God’s love did not end in wishful thinking, he washed us with the blood of his Son, fulfilling his own expectation so that we can have a relationship with him.
Most devotional books present one or two verses of the Bible each day and give a brief explanation of them. Many Christians use these devotional books and never study the Bible on their own. But if you were to study the Bible on your own, how could you make sense of a Bible verse? How could you find its meaning? How could you do your own daily devotions? With only a little attention to the context and careful reading, below I want to demonstrate that you can read the Bible for yourself. With understanding. So let’s apply this to a verse that has often been called the Golden Rule.
In Matthew 7:12 Jesus says, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them for this is the law and the prophets.”
The Golden Rule in Context
The first step to understanding a Bible verse is to consider its context. What comes before this verse? Well, immediately before it we have Jesus’ teaching on prayer (Matthew 7:7-11). And before that, a sermon that Jesus is preaching to his disciples (Matthew 5:1-7:6). You know this as the Sermon on the Mount. Throughout this sermon, Jesus shows his disciples what kind of righteousness is required to enter the kingdom of heaven. He gives many specific commands touching on anger, lust, divorce, and more.
Is Jesus saying something new in Matthew 7:12? No, this verse acts as a summary of all these previous commands for a righteous life. The commands—to not be angry with a brother, not to look at a woman and lust after her, to not divorce, to not take oaths, to not take vengeance, to love your enemies, to not judge others—are well summed up by the Golden Rule. “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.”
If we obey this one command, we will obey all the others, fulfilling the Law and the Prophets. To love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves (see Matthew 22:34-40).
What Matthew 7:12 Doesn’t Teach
Now that we have the context, let us look at the verse itself. First, let’s think about what the verse does not say. Jesus does not say whatever others have done for you do also to them. He does not say, let others treat you well and based on their example you treat them the same way. The Law and the Prophets do not teach that we wait for others to reach out to us in love so that we can reach out to them in love. It is selfish, self-centered, and prideful to wait to be loved. Waiting for others to love you first says, “I am important. You are not. I am king. Everyone else is my servant.” The righteousness God requires loves differently.
Jesus says, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” The verse does not suggest that others have fulfilled our expectation of them yet, it is at the level of our wishing still.
Read More
Related Posts: -
A Sheep Speaks: A Testimony to the National Partnership, Part Four
You also say that “strangers have attacked strangers behind the safe confines of computers, news agencies, and conferences,” which “proliferates fear and distrust,” and that “there will always be people who are all about power.” In all of this I remind you that you hide yourselves behind confines safer than the things you mention here, all of which are at least public, and that your organization has a clever scheme to use committee assignments and other machinery of the General Assembly and presbyteries to accomplish a desired agenda.
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Argumentative Method and Use of Scripture
Your appeals are essentially emotional in nature and misuse Scripture, as seen in the following excerpts from “The Letter.” Perhaps you will say that this is no creature of yours, but it was written by one of your number, you discussed and commended it among yourselves, and it bears the signature of many of your foremost members who are known. He who signs a document attests his assent to the veracity thereof, and so the arguments of the Letter might be deemed your own, even if they are accepted by many others as well.
In the Letter you say that in the midst of our controversies “specific brothers in good standing have been labeled.” All offenses in the church are committed by people who are in good standing; if they were not in good standing they would not be in the church. You should not be zealous to use such an argument which was widely used by liberals in other denominations to deflect criticism. The, too, you seem to object, not so much to the particular labels used, but to the mere fact that polemic labels have been applied to some, since you draw a contrast between the labels and the “straw men” you say have been erected “even more frequently.” Labels are permissible in our discourse: Christ himself denounces the Nicolaitans, and he refers to a false prophetess as Jezebel (Rev. 2:14, 20).
You later say that “if the sins of unbiblical practice and unconfessional belief that are currently being voiced with such vigor were true, we would agree that they should be opposed.” Men are not known by self-testimony (Jn. 5:31), but by their deeds: “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16). A professed orthodoxy that does not stand at the point at which truth is attacked is useless speculation, not the robust, active faith that confesses Christ before men. So it is with you in this matter, for the culture’s view of sexuality invades our communion and rather than joining the battle you criticize the war effort and plead the glories of making peace in parliament. You continue:
We hear the concerns of our brothers and rarely disagree with the principles behind them. We believe that we desire the same commitment to Scripture and our Standards that they do!
It is hard to see that there is as great an agreement as you suggest when you maintain a secret organization where others act publicly, and when you elsewhere dispute the propriety of public polemics and favor private interactions between those that disagree. In questions of polity there is of course utter disagreement between your view of subscription and that of others, concerning which it also makes for a strange claim that you have the same commitment to the standards when you consider the permissibility of taking and even teaching exceptions to be essential to the PCA’s effectiveness and assert it incessantly. You then denounce:
Social media characterizations that turn suspicions into speculations that become accusations without proof – to achieve political ends within our church. Where compromise or sin is true and can be proven, we have sessions, presbyteries, and judicial processes to engage.
As “wisdom is justified by her deeds” (Matt. 11:19), so also do the nature and consequences of bad deeds testify against them, whether done in public or brought there by exposure. We do not dream up our criticisms, but use as proof that which you yourselves have furnished. A thing is not proved true by the judgments of the courts but can be witnessed and testified to by those who act outside of official processes. You continue:
If we do not find more ways of speaking charitably and biblically to one another in our national discussions, we run the risk of doing damage to the nuanced work of individual local churches.
“You brood of vipers! Who told you to flee from the wrath that is to come? . . . do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’” (Matt. 2:7,9). Was John’s personal address there uncharitable? No, for he bore sound testimony to the Pharisees’ true nature – and no one who speaks truth rightly can be deemed uncharitable. Why then do you imagine we wrong you when we testify to the course of your deeds?
Instead of raising and publishing suspicions about brothers we do not know in other regions and presbyteries, it is far healthier and more biblical to trust our churches and sessions to follow our Standards, to believe that they were acting in as good faith as we were, when they took their vows to uphold the Faith. If we can prove otherwise, then we have processes to adjudicate error. But until error is proven, restraint of suspicious expression is a key mark of true faithfulness.
This demands a level of trust that the Holy Spirit works beyond our immediate setting – that pastors will continue to preach “the gospel of God’s grace,” and “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:24, 27), and presbyteries and sessions will address sin and sins as they and their sessions see fit in their contexts.
These are the next four verses of Acts 20:
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.
Blind trust in other professing believers is not a gift of the Spirit, nor is it a virtue. Discernment, however, is. Your point above directly contradicts the passage to which you allude and supplants true wisdom with a naïveté that is not commanded, but rather warned against repeatedly. As for your claim that “until error is proven, restraint of suspicious expression is a key mark of true faithfulness,” I remind you again that all process is instituted against men who are in good standing when charged. If we are not able to oppose the bad behavior of some because they are in good standing and the offense has not been proved by the courts, then you condemn, by implication, Peter’s rebuke of Simon Magus (Acts 8:20-22), Paul’s of Peter (Gal. 2:11-14), and John’s concerning Diotrephes (3 Jn. 9-10), in all of which condemnation of wrong was public (or via letter to a third party) rather than private, and in which it apparently occurred toward people who were in good standing who had not been censured under the prescribed form of the Matthew 18 process. You later say that:
Before the Internet connected everyone, and before online news agencies became conduits for agendas, we trusted local churches, Sessions, and presbyteries – We want to propose that we continue to see this as the most excellent way of caring for the Church, and to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
This is historically doubtful. What is done now via the Internet was done in print with equal vigor in previous generations – The Presbyterian Journal comes to mind – and far from trusting others, our forefathers organized and published against them, and eventually separated to form our present denomination. If you mean the period between the PCA’s formation and the popularization of the Internet, your remarks still run counter to what I have heard of the tone of our own polity in its early days. In addition, Jude’s enjoinder to recognize and resist heretics is twisted to say ‘trust other professing believers without question,’ the direct opposite of his point. You continue:
Yes, there will be inaccuracies, even heresy – not because we trust one another, but because God’s Word tells us that there will be. Demas will always be in the church (2 Timothy 4:10). There will always be wolves (Matthew 7, Acts 20).
Misplaced confidence in man does in fact allow the proliferation of heresy, which can only be stopped by decisive action (as is the church’s duty, 1 Cor. 5:1-6; 1 Tim. 1:20; Tit. 1:9, 11) or else divine judgment (Rev. 2:15-16). Such mistaken trust receives God’s censure: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength” (Jer. 17:5). As for Demas, whether or no he was a final apostate or one who stumbled temporarily, his failure recorded in 2 Tim. 4:10 was not being in the church when Paul needed him (“Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me”). As for the universality of wolves, that is no excuse to an apathetic trust, which is what you imply at several points in this letter. You say later:
When we pick apart words and statements, often out of context, we do damage to the fabric of our Witness – We are the better to not go there (and all of us have been guilty!), because to the watching world, we would no longer appear as a community that graciously holds forth truth, but one that is torn and divided – and this invalidates our proclamation.
What you call picking apart words is simply exercising prudence, and far from it being better to “not go there,” we are commanded to test all things in order to hold fast what is good and reject what is bad (1 Thess. 5:21-22). My own belief is that your statements have not been frequently taken out of context by others; and I can attest that I have done my utmost to avoid doing so myself, for I have scoured this letter and other primary sources for many hours and have excised many points, including several full paragraphs, because further reflection made them seem debatable. You also say:
When we speak in extremes, in order to press a position, we hurt those we love, and do damage to our Witness
Scripture deals in extremes: life and death, truth and falsehood, wisdom and folly, wickedness and righteousness. This is no quirk of Hebrew literature but is a true testimony to the nature of our world. There are many matters in which the question is one of two or more alternatives that are largely questions of preference, and which bear consequences that touch rather upon form than essential substance. It is not so with many of our present controversies, which touch upon the essential form of our denomination and the course it will follow in the coming years, not least the question of whether we will be faithful to the truth about sexuality or will follow after other denominations in increasingly tolerating wrong conceptions of it. You later say:
Under the flag of, ‘they said it publicly, so we can challenge them publicly,’ friends have been pitted against friends – with no attempts to contact one another personally!
If the friends in question, whomever they may be, are worthy of the name they will no doubt contact each other personally rather than allow strangers to stir them up to mutual distrust. Also, there is no mandate to speak privately with those whom one believes err publicly, and the scriptural data suggest the propriety of public confrontation when it affects third parties (Prov. 18:17; Gal. 2:11-14; 1 Tim. 5:20).
You also say that “strangers have attacked strangers behind the safe confines of computers, news agencies, and conferences,” which “proliferates fear and distrust,” and that “there will always be people who are all about power.” In all of this I remind you that you hide yourselves behind confines safer than the things you mention here, all of which are at least public, and that your organization has a clever scheme to use committee assignments and other machinery of the General Assembly and presbyteries to accomplish a desired agenda.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Simpsonville, S.C. -
Polity Is Spiritual
Polity is essentially an organized way to put biblical convictions and principles into practice. It is how we as a branch of the Body of Christ may best be faithful to our Lord and His Word in particular parts of the church. We seek to be organized in this way because of our convictions that Presbyterian polity is the prescribed polity of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
I no longer believe myself to be a young minister, but my time as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is still in its early days. Four years ago, I entered the PCA after serving as a Baptist pastor for nine years. I came into my new church with a love for Presbyterian doctrine, worship, the denominational emphasis on the means of grace, the connection to other local churches that make up one national Church, and various other biblical distinctives. My affection has only increased in my time in the PCA, but one thing I have come to appreciate even more is Presbyterian polity, and particularly the spiritual nature of our polity.
When I first began studying for licensure and ordination, the exams on the Book of Church Order (BCO) were most daunting. While I was comfortable explaining the biblical foundation of Presbyterian polity, I was a bit taken aback when having to study the intricacies of the BCO. At first, I assumed I would need a lawyer to help me discern some of the language and cadence; but as time has elapsed, I have grown to understand more, and I am growing more adept at navigating through the BCO.
But much more than learning simply how to navigate the BCO, I am growing more appreciative of the BCO’s clear intention to promote godliness. In its preface, the PCA BCO says in Preliminary Principle 4, “Godliness is founded on truth. A test of truth is its power to promote holiness according to our Savior’s rule, ‘By their fruit ye shall know them’ (Matthew 7:20).” The BCO continues, “On the contrary, there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth and duty. Otherwise it would be of no consequence either to discover truth or embrace it.” From the outset, the polity of the BCO is framed such that the PCA would be a church ordered in a biblically faithful and wise manner, so that God may be glorified, and for His people’s blessing. In short, I am growing to appreciate Presbyterian polity more because polity is not inherently legal, but is inherently spiritual.
Polity is essentially an organized way to put biblical convictions and principles into practice. It is how we as a branch of the Body of Christ may best be faithful to our Lord and His Word in particular parts of the church. We seek to be organized in this way because of our convictions that Presbyterian polity is the prescribed polity of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. I do not intend to defend this conviction, but rather to show that polity is inherently spiritual because it is attempting to be as faithful to the Scriptures as a connectional Church can be. It is seeking to be faithful to God’s Word for the good of the Church, which glorifies God, and this is why polity is neither legal nor bureaucratic, but spiritual in nature. Polity can be made too legal or bureaucratic and lose its spiritual potency, but when polity is based upon God’s Word and seeking His glory and our good (as we are called to do in Scripture), then polity will remain spiritual.
Consider some situations that a church of any kind will inevitably face in its existence: How must a church be organized? Who may pastor a church in its first days? What type of training must he have? What are the expectations of his character? Who can call this man to be the pastor? Who will approve and oversee his work? Who can give him wisdom and council? Read More
Related Posts: