The state’s highest court rejected a motion for Emergency Temporary Relief, allowing an earlier ruling against the mainline Protestant denomination to be implemented. As a result, The Episcopal Church has to surrender all financial accounts, property and records that it had removed from the diocesan properties that formerly were part of the denomination. “Today’s rejection is the third loss for Episcopal Church parties in the state Supreme Court and permits enforcement of the judgment to continue,” noted the Fort Worth Diocese in a statement.

The Texas Supreme Court has once again rejected an effort by The Episcopal Church to secure the property and assets of a diocese that broke away over theological differences.
For the past several years, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth has been engaged in a legal battle against the Episcopal Church over the property and assets of the regional body.
In an order released Tuesday, the state’s highest court rejected a motion for Emergency Temporary Relief, allowing an earlier ruling against the mainline Protestant denomination to be implemented.
As a result, The Episcopal Church has to surrender all financial accounts, property and records that it had removed from the diocesan properties that formerly were part of the denomination.
“Today’s rejection is the third loss for Episcopal Church parties in the state Supreme Court and permits enforcement of the judgment to continue,” noted the Fort Worth Diocese in a statement.
In 2008, a majority of the Fort Worth Diocese voted to leave The Episcopal Church over the increasingly progressive theological views of the denomination, especially the ordination of the denomination’s first openly gay bishop, the Rev. Gene Robinson.
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Ultimately though, the last names chosen for the OPC and the PCA are probably better than their first. And the tortuous church-naming process the two bodies endured offers a warning to any would-be splitters or leavers: choosing (and keeping) a new denominational name may be harder than anyone expects. And think of all the stationery that might have to be thrown away!

Today, neither the Orthodox Presbyterian Church nor the Presbyterian Church in America bear their first chosen names. Different as the two denominations are, the reasons for their name changes and even their slates of rejected names are quite similar. And the names—those chosen and those passed over—say a good bit about the aspirations and outlooks of the two churches at the tumultuous times of their formation.
The OPC formed on June 11, 1936 when 34 ministers, 17 ruling elders, and 79 laymen met in Philadelphia to constitute the new church as the Presbyterian Church of America. This founding few left the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA), the rapidly-liberalizing Northern mainline church, with their leader J. Gresham Machen, whose 1935 conviction was upheld by the 1936 PCUSA General Assembly. Among Machen’s crimes (besides being irritatingly effective at pointing out the PCUSA’s slide into unbelief) was his role in an independent missions board meant to support only orthodox missionaries.
Though the number of “orthodox” ministers and churches that left the PCUSA with Machen was small, their vision and hopes were large, thus the OPC’s first chosen name was the Presbyterian Church of America.
The fledgling assembly (whose full number would have fit into two or three buses) proclaimed in their Act of Association:
In order to continue what we believe to be the true spiritual succession of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., which we hold to have been abandoned by the present organization of that body, and to make clear to all the world that we have no connection with the organization bearing that name…do hereby associate ourselves together with all Christian people who do and will adhere to us, in a body to be known and styled as the Presbyterian Church of America.
Was the “of” chosen because of some fancy that the eventual OPC was in fact the Only Presbyterian Church for the USA? Probably not, but it must indicate…something. Maybe it was chosen to be as close to their progenitor’s name as possible while still providing differentiation.
At any rate, the first PCA did not remain so denominated for long. Their wayward strumpet of a “mother” church was then well supplied with lawyers, politicians, movers, and shakers so there were plenty of suits ready to swing into action when the PCUSA decided that a tiny church with the words “Presbyterian,” “Church,” and “America” in their name threatened their mammoth brand. The legal letters began to fly and the tiny, cash-strapped PCofA had to give in.
A general assembly (the first of two in 1939) was called expressly for the purpose of re-denominating the three-year-old church. The minutes disclose an astonishing slate of proposed noms d’église:
The following names were suggested: The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, The Evangelical Presbyterian Church, The Presbyterian and Reformed Church of America, The American Pres. Church, The Presbyterian Church of Christ, The Protestant Presbyterian Church of America, The Seceding Presbyterian Church (of America), The Free Presbyterian Church of America, The True Presbyterian Church of the World, The American Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
It took at least four ballots to finally choose The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a name that seemed to guarantee that the church would forever be known as both odd and highly doctrinal. Who can but regret that The True Presbyterian Church of the World was not chosen? Such a name might have at least helped the OPC avoid their several failed flirtations with church union. And did rejection of The Evangelical Presbyterian Church presage the OPC’s “sideline” understanding of itself as a pilgrim church?  Interestingly, that name was adopted in 1961 by an offshoot of the OPC’s early fundamentalist offshoot (the Bible Presbyterian Church) and by other more patient (though unrelated) mainline refugees in 1981.
The loss of their founder (Machen died barely six months into the church’s life), the loss of church property (for most), and the loss of their first chosen name  might have demoralized the infant communion—yet they persisted.
In 1973 the OPC’s Southern cousins (wearing wide ties and earth-tone polyester) left another expression of liberalizing mainline presbyterianism, the Presbyterian Church in the United States. This church’s conservatives were used to nice things, respectability, and cultural influence, and their first chosen name for a continuing church reflected their great expectations: The National Presbyterian Church. But the mainline struck again, though not in the form of a denomination but of a local mainline congregation. And quite a locality it was. The ultra-modern National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC (the cornerstone of which was laid by former President Eisenhower on October 14, 1967) was a sort of last gasp of truly Christian nationalist pretensions. And it was considered the flagship church of the clunkily named Northern mainline body, The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA), later to join with the PCUS to form the current PCUSA.  The local church was jealous for its name, and they, too, could afford great lawyers.
One of the first actions of the National Presbyterian Church’s second assembly (1974) was to find a new name and thus lose the unwelcome legal troubles. The list of proposed names was a wonder to behold:

National Reformed Presbyterian Church
The Presbyterian Church of America
International Presbyterian Church
Vanguard Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church in America
Presbyterian National Church
Historic Presbyterian Church
Evangelical Presbyterian Church
International Reformed Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church of the Covenant
Nationwide Presbyterian Church
Continuing Presbyterian Church
National Continuing Presbyterian Church
American Presbyterian Church
Christian Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church of Jesus Christ
Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States

Some looked back, some looked forward, a few were identical to names on earlier OPC lists, many were quite American or national. Conspicuous by its absence was the term “Southern.” The new denomination’s expansive vision was obvious—they would be a regional church no more.
On Tuesday evening (the assembly’s first day) the name National Reformed Presbyterian Church was chosen. The year-old church had a new name by the addition of only one word. The church’s legal counsel was immediately tasked with clearing the new name with the offended Washington, DC congregation.
The next morning—either because of communication with the DC church or because of second thoughts—the Rev. Kennedy Smartt moved that the name be reconsidered. A gang of eight names included a few that were more international or mission-oriented than national:

Presbyterian Church in America
The Presbyterian Church
International Presbyterian Church
Grace Presbyterian Church
Mission Presbyterian Church
National Reformed Presbyterian Church
American Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church of the Americas

The assembly overwhelmingly selected Presbyterian Church in America—a name very close to the OPC’s original name but with the all-important “in” rather than “of,” reflecting the Southern church’s spirituality-of-the-church convictions. By the end of its second assembly the church was on its third name, but this one would stick.
So what is in a church name? Maybe a little, maybe a lot. The old saw says that seeing the sausage made is not a good idea. Seeing it made quickly and under duress may be an even more unpleasant proposition. Ultimately though, the last names chosen for the OPC and the PCA are probably better than their first. And the tortuous church-naming process the two bodies endured offers a warning to any would-be splitters or leavers: choosing (and keeping) a new denominational name may be harder than anyone expects. And think of all the stationery that might have to be thrown away!
This article originally appeared in the Nicotine Theological Journal and is used with permission. Read more from the NTJ here: https://oldlife.org/2022/06/15/it-may-not-be-april-but-it-is-still-spring-in-time-for-ntj
Brad Isbell is a ruling elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oak Ridge, TN, co-host of the Presbycast podcast, board member of MORE in the PCA and the Heidelberg Reformation Association and is a co-editor of the Nicotine Theological Journal.
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McCord attempts to rehabilitate the Enneagram by using biblical language and is doing so with no one calling her out for it, other than myself (as far as I know). Even pastors who should know better are falling for McCord’s fake gospel Enneagram. By crafting the right-sounding terminology, it can sound biblical. With a modest amount of effort, I could make astrology sound biblical. All I have to do is transpose Christian meanings into astrological terms without changing the content of astrology.

A 2018 article, “The Rise of the Enneagram,” was recently brought to my attention by MCOI Senior Editor, Corkey McGehee. It has a surprising story that begins with fallacies by Beth McCord.
The article first references Enneagram “coach” Beth McCord, who, by her own admission, learned the Enneagram from New Age psychic Helen Palmer and at least five New Agers whom she named. Beth, along with her husband, Jeff, an ordained PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) pastor, founded Your Enneagram Coach in 2015. In 2019 Thomas-Nelson publisher produced her nine-volume set of Enneagram books. Beth also claims to teach a “gospel-centered Enneagram.” Apparently, by just incorporating the words “gospel-centered” or “Christcentric,” into a heretical occult tool you can have a million-dollar business (that is an actual fact for the  McCords). The writer, Tyler Huckabee (not related to Mike Huckabee) quotes Beth:
“They’ll say well that’s not in the Bible,” she says. “Well, the Myers-Briggs isn’t in the Bible. You know, there are lots of things that aren’t in the Bible but are still helpful.
“If they take the time to hear how we use it from a biblical perspective they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this makes sense. There’s no problem there,’” she continues. “It’s when they have misconceptions that they get all freaked out.”
Beth employs false dilemma and red herring fallacies in this first response. The false dilemma is not whether it is in the Bible or not that determines the usefulness of the Enneagram. I know of no sound critique of the Enneagram that rejects it because it is not in the Bible (who would make such a ludicrous statement?). Moreover, it is a red herring to bring up the Myers-Briggs which, unlike the Enneagram, is not derived from spirit contact. Myers-Briggs is not in the same category as the Enneagram. It is claimed the Enneagram is a spiritual tool; Myers-Briggs makes no such claim. While Myers-Briggs claims to assess the personality, the Enneagram was never designed for that. The Enneagram is not to assess personality types but to figure out which of the nine paths to God each one must take to reconnect with their “true self.” In addition, Myers-Briggs is no longer viewed as valid by psychologists. Many have stopped using it.
McCord attempts to rehabilitate the Enneagram by using biblical language and is doing so with no one calling her out for it, other than myself (as far as I know). Even pastors who should know better are falling for McCord’s fake gospel Enneagram. By crafting the right-sounding terminology, it can sound biblical. With a modest amount of effort, I could make astrology sound biblical. All I have to do is transpose Christian meanings into astrological terms without changing the content of astrology.
Facts are not misconceptions. If McCord is referring to factual information on the Enneagram as “misconceptions,” such as its occult origins and the spirit contact involved, those are not misconceptions. If that is freaking people out, that should be a normal reaction for a Christian. Apparently, it does not freak out McCord. She did remove the names of her 6 New Age Enneagram teachers from her website once I made this broader public knowledge. It seems McCord may have thought those facts might have freaked people out.
The Flexible Enneagram
The article continues:
Ask 100 devotees of the Enneagram what it is and you’ll get 100 answers, most of them bespotted with vague language and words that don’t seem to mean much of anything, and several definitions contradicting one another so violently you wonder if these people are talking about the same thing. It’s a personality test. A path to wholeness. A way to process your trauma.
The above only validates my warnings that the Enneagram can be anything to anyone, that it’s flexible and fluid. The reason I made those claims is that the Enneagram has no standard or basis in reality or facts. So, it can become whatever one may want it to be or think that it is.
Ironically enough, a system designed to help people understand themselves is in danger of being misunderstood.
Even more ironically, the Enneagram was not designed to help people understand themselves. It was designed to help people deconstruct the false self (the belief they are a sinner) they were conditioned to be so they can uncover the true Essence of the Self which, in contradiction to Scripture, has never been separated from God.
Enter the Angel & Archetypes
The article moves on to Chris Heuertz, author of The Sacred Enneagram, who cautions against using the Enneagram as Beth McCord tries to use it, as a way to discover your personality. Give credit where credit is due – Heuertz is correct. Read carefully:
“It is helpful,” Heuertz admits. “It is clear that the Enneagram does sort of expose repeating patterns in human character structure archetypes that are sort of observable. But I think if you don’t really understand the essence of what’s behind it, you’re just fueling your own narcissism and you’re weaponizing something. You might be super interesting at a dinner party, but that’s not the point, you know?”
Well, then. What is the point?
“I usually try to say that [the Enneagram] is a sacred map of our soul,” Heuertz explains.
“And, you know this, the map isn’t the journey. The map informs the journey. So, if the Enneagram is a sacred map of our soul, if it’s a compassionate sketch of possibilities of who we can become, then what it actually helps us do is excavate our essence.”
Notice the language:

Archetypes
repeating patterns
what’s behind it (the Enneagram)
map of our soul
excavate our essence

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