Category Archives: news

Reaction to Rev. Kirkpatrick’s decision to not run for fourth term

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To summarize the reaction to Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick’s decision, it has been predictable.  Those that he is closely associated with praise his service, those on the conservative side thank him for making a wise decision for the good of the denomination.  Some examples…

The World Association of Reformed Churches, of which he is currently serving as president, has issued a nice press release praising his service and being a person of “deep faith, biblical and theological depth of understanding, vision, courage and leadership skills.”

Most progressive organizations and blogs, such as the Witherspoon Society, seem to just cite or reprint this release or the Presbyterian News Service release about Rev. Kirkpatrick’s departure without additional comment.

On the conservative side, the reaction is led by the Institute for Religion and Democracy’s Presbyterian Action arm that issued a press release thanking Rev. Kirkpatrick for “graciously” not running again.  In the press release, James D. Berkley, the Presbyterian Action Director, is quoted as saying “I commend Clifton Kirkpatrick for his characteristic graciousness in
displaying the courage to step aside to allow new leadership to emerge.”  If you want more free-wheeling commentary on this you can check out Mr. Berkley’s blog appropriately named “ The Berkley Blog,” especially his entry titled “ Stated Quirks.”

Another interesting blog post on the subject comes from Jody Harrington in her blog Quotidian Grace where she has a concise post titled “ Kirkpatrick to step down.”  In there she writes:

While it’s tempting to view his retirement as paving the way for positive changes for the denomination, the truth is that renewal of the PCUSA is not the job of the Stated Clerk alone, but of all of us who care about the church, with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

But maybe the best part of her post is in the comments section where there is a “Draft QC for State Clerk” movement.

Dr. Ian Paisley to step down as moderator of the Ulster Presbytery

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While the decision by Rev. Kirkpatrick to not run for another term as stated clerk was awaited news to US Presbyterians, an even more notable Presbyterian departure was announced over the weekend.

It was announced late last  Friday night in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that after a five hour presbytery meeting, the Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley decided he would not run for another term as Moderator of the  Ulster Presbytery of the Free Presbyterian Church.

This is  a significant event from both a secular political viewpoint as well as an ecclesiastical and polity perspective.

Politically, this is important because the 81 year old Rev. Paisley is also the First Minister of Northern Ireland and the political leader of the Protestant side of the government.  Up to this point, with his continuing religious involvement, there has been a certain overlap of church and state.  This overlap will continue to a degree because the Rev. Paisley will continue as pastor of Martyrs Memorial Church of Belfast, but not to the degree it had while he was moderator.

This religious overlap is due to the fact that not only is the Rev. Paisley the Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church, but he has been for every year but one since he essentially founded the denomination in 1951.  While the Free Presbyterian Church has taken a more international turn over the last decade or so there is still a recognition of its roots in Northern Ireland and Rev. Paisley’s role in its history.

As a good GA Junkie would recognize, there are some apparent differences here with Presbyterianism as we recognize it in most other circumstances.  In particular, most of the time a Moderator of a Presbytery or General Assembly only serves for one term honoring the Presbyterian value that power is vested with the body not with any individual and multiple terms in leadership would tend to enhance power.  As you might suspect, a significant power base has build up around Rev. Paisley because of his near-perpetual office.  But, it might not surprise you to know that the Free Presbyterian Church, at least in Ireland, does not have a written Book of Order, or equivalent so the use of the word “polity” here is a bit loose.

Because of the political implications there are numerous news stories out about this.  Here is one from the BBC.  It will be interesting to see if any of the church order repercussions make it into the news or blogosphere.

PC(USA) Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick will not seek fourth term

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It was just announced by the PC(USA) Presbyterian News Service that the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) will step down when his current term ends at the General Assembly in 2008.  Rev. Clifton Kirkpartick has served three four-year terms and says he will now devote his time to his family and his other position as the president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Rev. Kirkpatrick’s full statement can be found in the press release.

For any State Clerk candidates out there here is your chance.  The Stated Clerk Nominating Committee will post the application materials on the PC(USA) web site soon.

EPC update on the Transitional Presbytery

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The latest issue of the “ EP News,” the on-line newsletter of the General Assembly office of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), has an update on their Transitional Presbytery to provide a path for PC(USA) churches, especially those who are part of the New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC), to join the EPC.  The newsletter says:

As of August 21, the following churches and
pastors have been received into the NW/EPC Transitional Presbytery: 
Central Presbyterian Church, Huntsville, AL (Randy Jenkins, pastor),
First Presbyterian Church, Quincy, IL (Rod Bakker and Kevin McGinnis,
pastors), The Forks of the Brandywine Presbyterian Church, Glenmoore,
PA (Andy Curtis, pastor), Great Valley Presbyterian Church, Malvern, PA
(Dan Stewart, pastor), and Upper Octorara Presbyterian Church,
Parkesburg, PA (Bill Kelly, pastor).  Hope Presbyterian Church of Rogue
River, OR (Brian Boisen, pastor), has been received pending their
dismissal from the PCUSA.  Also, Sean Martin has been received as a
minister member of the presbytery.  He will be laboring outside the
bounds at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Simsbury, CT.

The article also lists one more church, Grace Chapel of Madison, MS, which has also been received by the administrative commission.  I interpret this differentiation to mean that Grace Chapel is moving to the EPC but is not a NWAC church.

Headlines

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No, once again I have not fallen off the face of the earth, and I have not given up on being a GA Junkie.  But between work, family, and getting myself into a presbytery issue and also a synod issue, I have little time left to report on Presbyterian happenings here.

So today, I give you a selection of recent happenings in their barest form with links to more information.  My integration and analysis will have to wait.

In the Church of Scotland news, the new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, is still dropping hints about cutting state oversight of the Church of England.  But what about changing the law so a non-Protestant can be monarch the Scottish Catholic bishop asks?

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America adopted the report declaring that the Federal Vision Theology is out of line with the orthodoxy of the Westminster standards.  Now the discussion is getting hot.  The Rev. Steve Wilkins (or TE Wilkins as the PCA’ers would say) has issued a response to the adoption of the report.  That and much more is available at his church’s Federal Vision Page.  There is also a public response from the Rev. Peter Leithart, another proponent.  In addition, the blogosphere is alive

At the General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America there was a special motion “that a study
committee be created to read and evaluate reports and responses from other
Reformed denominations and institutions regarding recent controversies on the
doctrine of justification.”  In other words, they will also be studying the Federal Vision theology.

The General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church spent a significant amount of time revising their Directory for Public Worship.  This was a monumental task and after multiple sessions revising and word-smithing the document, they in the end only got through the Preface and five of the eighteen sections.  The whole project has been referred to the 2008 GA.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church took the unique step of electing co-moderators of the GA.

And finally, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church GA approved the proposal to create the New Wineskins transitional presbytery for churches interested in leaving the PCUSA and exploring membership in the EPC.

More on these and other stories as my time permits.

State of the PCUSA: II — Departure of churches from the PC(USA)

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This past week the Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA) issued a formal response to the New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) document that details their perceived problems with the PC(USA).  The New Wineskins Strategy Team Report, A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven, was adopted at their Winter Convocation in February.  While there was some general response at that time, this week the PCUSA sent a letter from Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick and General Assembly Council Executive Director Linda Valentine to all the middle governing bodies promoting new materials from the Office of Theology that directly addresses the NWAC concerns (the PCUSA letter calls them “mischaracterizations”).  The Presbyterian News Service has issued a press release on the letter and materials and the letter, a one page summary, and the four page detailed commentary can be found as a single PDF file on the PC(USA) Middle Governing Body Connect site.  (The titling of the file as “wineskins-letter-brief” had me looking for the long version but as best as I can tell that is the whole thing.)

The material is basically what many of us PC(USA) watchers would have expected out of Louisville:  It is well written, contains numerous references to the confessions, particularly the confession of 1967, explains in detail the actions of the General Assembly with respect to different reports, like the Trinity Report, and overall is a great rebuttal to the NWAC document.  There are however two problems.

The first problem is that it will have difficulty getting into the hands of the members in the pews and when it does it is written at a level that will put the average person asleep faster than a slow sermon on a hot day.  There is an obvious reason for sending it to Middle Governing Bodies and that is because that is the place that it will be used and understood.  I can’t see this getting much “trickle down” from there the way that the NWAC strategy report got distributed.

The second problem is the persistent one in the PC(USA) about our words matching our actions.  As much as the NWAC is a relatively small percentage of the churches in the PC(USA), there are also a small number of churches on the progressive side whose theology and actions, when they become known through the media (including this blog), seem to contradict the nice words in this document.  (If you want examples I refer you to my blog posts of Sept. 28, 2006; Nov. 11, 2006; April 19, 2007)  This is not helped by actions at the national level which include the infamous “Re-imagining Conference,” the “Louisville Papers,” and the publication of “Christian Faith and the Truth behind 9/11.”  I realize that there is a rational explanation behind every one of these and I am lumping three very different issues together.  But that is the way that many of the PC(USA) members view what has been happening in the denomination over the last couple of decades.  In their minds all these things can not be separated!

This is not to say that there are not good things coming out of Louisville.  In particular I point to the Director of Evangelism and Church Growth, Eric Hoey’s comments in the June Perspectives where he realistically assesses the declining rate of adult baptisms and membership decline and says:

This tells me very clearly that Presbyterians do not know how to share the “Good News” of their faith and welcome people into our churches through baptism… If we continue down this path of not being able to share our faith, the apple of the PC(USA) will soon fall apart! (emphasis his)

This almost seems to reinforce the NWAC contention that the PCUSA has lost its missional interest.

Anyway, I’ll get down off my soapbox now, but it is important to remember that the PC(USA) operates on several levels and it has been my experience that what happens at higher governing bodies has little day-to-day importance or visibility to the “member in the pew.”

We will see what will happen with this document.  In my experience, it will get a limited circulation to people who already know this material.

In the mean time there is serious action with NWAC leaving the PC(USA) in favor of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  While several churches are moving in this direction, I will highlight two.

The first is Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church in Signal Mountain, Tennessee.  This departure is notable because of the size of the church and the amicable way in which it happened.  It is a church of 1800 members and following the congregational vote of 1,082-10 on January 28 the Presbytery of East Tennessee established an Administrative Commission to review the situation.  The report of the Commission in the presbytery meeting packet (report begins on page 7) is interesting, if for nothing else than it’s generally positive and friendly tone.  For example, from the forward:

We wish to acknowledge the cooperative spirit and non-confrontational approach evinced by the Session of SMPC, and especially the Clerk of Session, Steve Frost, in their interactions with the ARC. Every request from the ARC to the Session for information and records were met in a timely and gracious fashion. The character of conversations moved quickly from cautious to cordial to trustful. This alone distinguishes the current situation with most other dismissal requests in the denominations, which have been characterized by hostility, distrust and, oftentimes, aggression. The ARC has tried to find a different way that, while recognizing our obvious differences with the members of SMPC, emphasizes our commonality resulting from being a part of the Body of Christ. If we have succeeded, it is due in no small measure to the like-minded approach taken by SMPC’s Session. Indeed, the letter of January 10, 2007, was notable for its pastoral and gracious tone, and made a pastoral approach by ARC possible. We thank God for these, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

In the action items the recommendation is:

That Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church be dismissed from the Presbytery of East Tennessee, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), with property, real and personal (i.e., all assets), to the Presbytery of the Southeast of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, effective immediately upon receipt by the Stated Clerk of PET of notification of acceptance of SMPC by the Stated Clerk of the Presbytery of the Southeast of the EPC; said dismissal being contingent upon no other conditions.

So the church got to leave with their property and name.  In addition, the church agreed to continue to support the presbytery mission budget for another five years and the two parties agreed to a transition support structure for any Associate Pastor that wanted to remain in the PC(USA).  The Presbyt
erian News Service has a press release on the departure as do other media sources.

The second high-profile church to vote to leave the PC(USA) is Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh Presbytery.  On June 3 the congregation voted 951 to 93 to request the presbytery dismiss them to pursue membership in the EPC.  This action is probably not a surprise since the church called the Rev. Dr. D. Dean Weaver in 2005 to serve as senior pastor.  Rev. Weaver is co-moderator of the NWAC.  The yes vote exceeded a threshold that the church set with the presbytery so now negotiations over the details of the departure, including the property, will begin.  According to the PC(USA) press release another church in Pittsburgh Presbytery has reportedly reached an agreement with the presbytery to pay the presbytery $250,000 over 10 years.  The Memorial Park Church has issued its own press release about the congregational vote.

In addition an opposition blog was established last Saturday June 9.  I am a bit hesitant to mention it since it contains one entry with strong language and accusations against the way the meeting and vote was conducted and I do not see an e-mail address or name for contacting the author.  I won’t link to it but if you use “memorial park church blog” in your favorite search engine it should come right up.

And finally a reminder that the General Assembly of the EPC meets next week where they will vote on establishing a special transitional presbytery for NWAC churches that wish to transition to the EPC in that way.

Passings: Ruth Bell Graham

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Ruth Bell Graham, arguably the most famous Presbyterian who is not generally thought of as a Presbyterian, died yesterday at home in the southern Presbyterian capital of Montreat, North Carolina.  While married to the great Baptist evangelist Billy Graham, she was a life-long Presbyterian herself.  I have often wondered if they got into some of the heavy theological discussions that occasionally happen in my household or if they agreed to disagree and left it at that.

I will not attempt to summarize her life and contribution to her husband’s work, there is plenty being written about that in the media today.

I will note two things:

First, according to the news reports she, and when the time comes her husband, will be buried at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte.  This is something that she reportedly resisted strongly for some time but the news reports indicate that she did finally agree to it.

Second, some quotes from the family…

Billy Graham: “I will miss her terribly, and look forward even more to the day I can join her in Heaven.”

Franklin Graham: “My father would not have been what he is today if it wasn’t for my
mother.”

General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America: Approval of the Federal Vision Report

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The 35th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America has just voted to approve the Report of the Ad Interim Study Committee on Federal Vision, New Perspective, and Auburn Avenue Theologies.  The vote was by a show of hands and from the view on the webcast it appeared to pass by a very wide margin.

The time for the delivery of the report and debate was set at one hour and was subsequently extended twice, once for 30 minutes and once for five minutes.  The third vote to extend debate failed.

The debate was decent and in order, but also emotional and strong.  There was a procedural motion that I did not get the exact wording on but which would have referred it back the study committee and added two Federal Vision proponents to the committee with a new report to next year’s GA.  This procedural motion was actually what most of the debate was on. That motion failed by a narrow enough margin that the hands had to be counted.  Sorry, I did not get the count from the webcast.

I’ll give a more comprehensive account of my impressions of the GA as a whole at another time.  At this point the GA moves on to more routine business and we will see what the blogosphere does.

The state of the PCUSA: I — Membership continues decline

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Well, the numbers are out and, to no ones surprise, the membership in the Presbyterian Church (USA) continues to decline.  The annual numbers for 2006 are contained in a press release from the Presbyterian News Service as well as detailed statistics and commentary in the current (June) issue of the Office of the General Assembly’s on-line publication Perspectives.  Looking back at past issues of Perspectives I see that the 2004 stats were also published there in the June 2005  issue with less commentary (at least direct commentary). [It looks like when they don’t have a GA to float them at they go to Perspectives.]

In reading through the associated articles there are some good points made but in some places they appear more like  analyzing the obvious or spin.  In the former, I give you a couple of lines from the end of the article by Kris Valerius (manager of OGA statistics) titled “The Rest of the Story“:

The bottom line: For
growth to appear, our overall losses need to go down and our overall
gains need to go up. The 2006 picture shows we lost fewer people, but
we also brought fewer into the church. Not the formula for growth.

A few other statistics are mentioned in that article, but I’ll take a closer look at those in a minute.

The rest of the articles take a look at the statistics from various views including “look forward and not back” or “look beyond the numbers to the vibrant and faithful congregations” or “today’s young people are not joiners and membership numbers don’t tell the whole story.”  The latter item is a very valid point and while worship attendance is reported by congregations the OGA does not report these numbers in this statistical summary.  I did appreciate the articles by Clark D. Cowden and Eric Hoey who view the numbers as a wake-up call.  Rev. Cowden writes how the church needs to be missional and reaching out and Rev. Hoey looks at the number of adult baptisms reported and their steep decline in the last three years and says something similar about spreading the gospel.

Being a bit of a geek, well actually a major geek and a research scientist, I have gone back a couple more years to get as much info as I could quickly.  Combining this year’s stats with those published in 2005 gives six years data (2001-2006) to better analyze trends.  The interesting thing is that in this data there are few statistically strong trends.  However, three trends come through “loud and clear” and two more are significant.

The first two statistically significant trends are for the decline in the number of congregations and decline in total membership.  (By “statistically significant I mean that the linear regression has an R-squared of almost 1 (in case you care)).  The six year trend in congregation decline is 47 congregations/year and in membership it is 45,469 members/year.  To put this into perspective, this is a loss of one medium sized presbytery worth of churches and one large presbytery in terms of members.

The other strong trend is the growth in ordained ministers at an average of 41 per year.  While some of the writers are correct that in pointing out that this is an encouraging trend, it is also disturbing to realize that even with more ministers it is not doing any good at growing the membership.

In addition, there are weaker trends ( R-squared of 0.55 and 0.80 respectively) in the slight decline in churches received and the trend in the increasing number of churches dismissed.  Both of these are small numbers, but the recent history of a beginning exodus of chruches to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church may reinforce this trend in the coming year.  Stay tuned.

General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America: Federal Vision Report

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With the 35th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America beginning in Memphis this coming Tuesday, June 12, clearly the hot-button issue is the Federal Vision Report.  I have three previous posts on the report from April 26, May 1, and May 31.  In that last post I mentioned a letter signed by ten pastors (Teaching Elders or TE in PCA terminology) that urged caution in approving the report.  A comment to that post from Andrew Malloy, author of the blog A Submerging Church, alerted me to another letter posted June 5th on the blog Humble Answers that supports approving the report. (It is also available as a PDF.)  Furthermore, by e-mailing the blog you can add your name to the letter in support.  The list of signatories has now grown from the original eight pastors and one ruling elder to 36 more teaching elders, 18 ruling elders, and five who did not specify but were usually in academics.  And the list is growing.  It was interesting to note that in several cases several of the ruling elders were from the same church as a pastor who had signed ahead of them, either originally or in the add-ons.

This open letter is long and the content generally addresses the points in the first open letter and some comments on the web.  Specifically, they defend the breadth, if not the diversity, of the Study Committee, the unity of the committee and the lack of a minority report, the completeness of the report, and the narrowness of the interpretation of the Westminster Confession.  Finally, they address the issue of whether the PCA has had the necessary time to discuss and study the issue.  They point out that several other reformed denominations have spoken and that now is the time for the church to speak authoritatively on the topic.

There has been a low level of response so far, most so far it seems is positive.  But it is looking like the lines are being drawn and the politicking is going on.  When it comes to guessing what action the GA will take few seem to be sticking their necks out.  But, in our Presbyterian system, we pray that the commissioners to the Assembly will be guided by the Holy Spirit.