Time to Watch the Water
The recent announcement by the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) stating that their GAC will propose a non-geographical presbytery as a probationary transition for evangelical PCUSA congregations looking for greener pastures will most certainly spark a firestorm of legalistic fury from stated clerks everywhere.
It’s funny--no, tragic--how quickly things change. Five years ago evangelicals were talking about being generous to More Light congregations and the Covenant Network. Conversations went along these lines:
“I think we should let them go and bless them, like launching a daughter off to college--give them their property and their share of the pension, let them follow their conscience and form a new denomination--something like ‘The More Light Presbyterian Church.’”
Now it is conscientious evangelicals who talk about leaving, with the strange twist added that it looks as though the PCUSA will not allow anyone to go without relinquishing property. Let’s pray it doesn’t play out this way (see “Whose Property is it, Anyway?” Oct. 16 post).
Let’s pray that even the most virulently-liberal presbyteries would allow--in cases of overwhelming congregational consensus--evangelical congregations to be dismissed in good form to the EPC, which is clearly Reformed, Presbyterian, and the closest relative of the PCUSA.
Why should we do this? Because the EPC looks more like the Presbyterian faith of 1983 (the time of reform/reunion) than does the PCUSA of 2007. To put it bluntly:
The EPC has not veered from the Presbyterian faith,
but the PCUSA most certainly has changed course.
We in the PCUSA should simply let the evangelical congregations go that want to go. The people of those churches that paid for and have maintained the property should be able to take it with them. The preposterous claims to individual church properties by our denomination must be defended only in cases of severe breaches in reformed theology, debt/bankrupcy, or proposals for the use of properties other than as places of reformed (even Presbyterian) worship and/or mission.
Furthermore, by taking property threats off the table, we approximate the vision of diversity. If there is no extant threat of a liberal presbytery taking away property from an evangelical congregation for whatever reason, then the the impetus to leave is diminished. Evangelicals can trust that their differences of opinion will not amount to eviction.
If they want to go, let them go. Fighting over socialized properties is no way to run the Church, and certainly an abominable witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
