Orthodox Presbyterians Apologize for Racism at General Assembly
The moderator at the 2022 General Assembly asked the people who made the statements to Eastern students and staff to come forward a second time on Monday morning. By Tuesday, one commissioner had come forward and personally apologized for making statements about “slave labor,” which he said was meant as a joke. Another apologized for the conflict with the staff worker. No one had claimed responsibility for saying a racial slur.
The General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) apologized Friday [6/10/22] for four racist incidents at its annual gathering.
In a statement of “sorrow and regret” passed without dissent, the General Assembly said “there is no place in the church for such conduct” and “we repudiate and condemn all sins of racism, hatred, and prejudice, as transgressions against our Holy God, who calls us to love and honor all people.”
The 126 commissioners from the Reformed denomination’s 296 congregations gathered in Philadelphia at Eastern University on Wednesday. The annual meetings do not normally involve much controversy and could even be considered boring when compared to the dramatic conflicts within the Presbyterian Church in America or Southern Baptist Convention.
The OPC commissioners came prepared to hear two amendments to the Book of Discipline, receive reports on giving and Sunday school attendance, and vote on a resolution of thanks to Richard B. Gaffin Jr., a Westminster Theological Seminary professor who is retiring from the Committee on Foreign Missions after 52 years.
On Thursday afternoon, the proceedings were interrupted by a report from moderator David Nakhla, who said the General Assembly was in danger of getting kicked off the Eastern University campus for violating its contract and not respecting the Christian school’s policy on racism. One person attending the General Assembly had made multiple comments about “slave labor” to students of color who were working at the school, another had gotten into an argument with a staff member, and a third had used a racial epithet.
Peter Bringe, an OPC minister and General Assembly commissioner, told CT it was painful to hear.
“The initial announcement of the moderator left the assembly in shocked silence,” he said in an email, “and we used that time until dinner to let the situation sink in and pray.”
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On Parenting Wisely in a Foolish Age
Since we don’t live in Mayberry any longer, parents need to reject the wisdom of this age and the foolish counsel from state officials. Instead, the way of wisdom, maturity, and love calls for parental engagement, which sometimes means telling our kids, “Wait…trust me…[while we] try to keep temptation away” for your present good and everlasting joy.
In a 1961 episode of Andy Griffith, a drifter who was hanging around Andy’s hometown of Mayberry had exerted some influence over Andy’s son, Opie. The drifter, while being confronted by Andy, told Andy that he should let Opie make his own decisions about life and how Opie wants to live.
Andy’s reply is a display of parenting wisdom.
You can’t let a youngun’ decide for himself. He’ll grab at the first flashy-with-shiny-ribbons-on-it-thing he sees. It’s difficult for him to tell the difference between right and wrong. When he finds out there’s a hook in it, it’s too late. The wrong kinds of things come packaged in so much glitter, it’s hard to convince him that the other thing might be better in the long run. All a parent can do is say, “Wait…trust me”…and try to keep temptation away.
Fast forward to 2023 and this type of wisdom is in short supply in our culture.
Instead, many in our culture believe we need to let our kids make their own decisions, without any input, challenge, or correction from the adults…parents included! Listen to Minnesota Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan: “When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them…That’s what it means to be a good parent.”[1] According to this elected official, a good parent merely listens and believes all children. There is no nuance in this statement, and it reflects the increasingly common ideology of unquestioned expressive individualism. That is, every individual, no matter their age, should define their own reality, including something like their gender.[2] And parents, have no authority or permission to offer a corrective.
If a girl thinks she’s a boy, though genetically a girl, then the parent is slave to the child. They must do what she wants. And if, under the counsel or coercion of a teacher, physician, or YouTube influencer, that child wants to have top surgery, bottom surgery, or some combination of the two, the revolutionaries of our day tell parents they have no authority to challenge the child.
The problems are readily apparent, particularly in reference to children. What parent hasn’t dealt with a child who simply is not thinking clearly about a situation? Perhaps a girl thinks she is fat, so she makes herself vomit on a regular basis. Do we simply affirm her belief that though she weighs 80lbs, she is obese? If someone identifies as a worthless human being who is better off dead, do we affirm their self-hatred and usher them towards suicide?
Is it not a common thing for kids, and their wild imaginations, to dream about all sorts of fantastical realities? Are we not aware of how fickle the feelings of immature children can be?
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The Resurrection
Paul did not preach the resurrection because it was popular. He preached it because it was true. The resurrection of Jesus confirmed the coming judgment but also secured blessing for the undeserving. However God is pleased to use this truth in the lives of unbelievers, the church’s task remains the same—to tell others that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.
The resurrection of the dead is anathema to the modern mind. Rudolf Bultmann, one of the most famous New Testament scholars of the twentieth century and a theological liberal, declared, “An historical fact which involves a resurrection from the dead is utterly inconceivable.” To the Apostle Paul, however, Christianity without the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was inconceivable (see 1 Cor. 15:1–11). In company with the other Apostles, Paul proclaimed the resurrection as the great fact upon which Christianity stands or falls.
How do we tell jaded and skeptical people about the resurrection? Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry in Athens (Acts 17:16–34) gives us much-needed direction. When Paul arrived in Athens, he preached at the synagogue, but he also went to the “marketplace,” where philosophers and teachers congregated to exchange ideas (v. 17). Paul persevered through initial misunderstanding and mockery, and he accepted an invitation to address the Areopagus, an august body of retired public officials.
In that address, Paul first gently but firmly exposes one of the fundamental and fatal weaknesses of polytheism. The altar “to the unknown god” was the Athenians’ standing acknowledgment that their religion was insufficient and inadequate. Paul then presents to the Athenians the solution that they need but never found on their own—the worship of the one true God.
Paul tells the Athenians about the sovereign and all-sufficient God who made and upholds the world and all that is in it (vv. 24–25). He also tells them about themselves (vv. 26–29). God has made all human beings from “one man,” and He has furthermore “determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (17:26). The entirety of our lives is lived inescapably before the omnipresent God (17:28). We are, furthermore, His image-bearers (“offspring”; vv. 28–29).
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The Light of the Knowledge of the Glory of God
What is your own perception of God? Do you find Him glorious through and in the Lord Jesus? And isn’t that what we need for salvation and for all the walk of faith? For repentance. For humility with hope. For worship. For stability. For courage. For perseverance. For gentleness. For faith’s endeavor. For generosity. For compassion. For mercy and forgiveness. For purity. We must taste and sense His glory if we are to glorify Him.
The Apostle Paul’s description of God’s grace in his salvation, in 2 Corinthians 4, reveals a most significant truth about what our souls need. We need to see and know God’s glory through and in Christ.
Believing, hoping, and trusting in God have everything to do with perceiving in Him goodness, worth, majesty, excellence, capacity, holiness, beauty, mercy. And, of course, not all regard God or His Gospel as glorious. Pauls’ words in 2 Corinthians 4 are especially helpful, because he reflects first on those among his own kinsmen who were not perceiving the GOOD NEWS as good. In chapter 3, Paul affirmed that, yes, God had shown himself glorious at Mt. Sinai. God had delivered His LAW…
2 Corinthians 3:7 …with such, glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ f ace because of its glory…
But as Paul compared the function and impact of the LAW, which he called a “ministry of death” with the ministry of the Spirit and Gospel, a ministry of life, of conferred righteousness, of freedom and transformation, he held out before them a surpassing glory.
But some were not seeing it.
Even though the very word of God through Moses was being read always in their synagogues, Paul described them like this:
2 Corinthians 3:15 … a veil lies over their hearts.
The Apostle went on to say…
2 Corinthians 4:4 …the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
And here is where the wording touches what is so helpful. What was it that Satan sought to prevent them from seeing? Christ’s glory, which is good news. Christ’s glory was real and objective, seen or not. To hope in it required seeing it, tasting and perceiving Christ’s grace and worth and the goodness of His good message.
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