I am a bit amused at the new news coverage of the event about a month ago when there was a letter sent to all congregations by PC(USA) Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick and General Assembly Council Executive Director Linda Valentine.  This letter, dated January 29 and titled “We are better together in Christ’s unity,” encouraged congregations to remain part of the PC(USA) body and not look to move elsewhere.  I don’t remember any real popular media coverage of it at the time.

Fast forward to the New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) Winter Convocation a couple of weeks ago and the news story suddenly “got legs” when the Associated Press issued a story.  The latest printing of this story that I have seen is in today’s inclusion in the Religion News in Brief column in the Casper (Wyoming) Star Tribune.  (It is the third item down.)  While this AP story is honest about the January 29 date of the letter these stories leave you with the impression that the letter was written as a response to the New Wineskins decision, not as an attempted preemptive strike.  The AP story does not give the date of the NWAC Convocation.

A story in the Louisville Courier-Journal titled “Presbyterians ask churches not to leave” gives the impression as well.  It gives the early February time frame for the NWAC meeting but does not give the date of the letter and leaves the reader (at least this reader) with the impression that the letter was a reaction to the meeting.  However, the Courier-Journal article does include more detail, more quotes from both sides, and more background information than the AP story.