Posted on 07/09/2008 6:51:21 PM PDT by markomalley
San Jose, CA., Jul 8, 2008 / 11:57 pm (CNA).- Reaction continues to the decisions of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), which took place between June 21 and June 28. The assembly nullified proscriptions against sexual behavior outside of marriage and called for a vote to delete the church’s constitutional standard requiring fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness. It also initiated a process that could remove mention of the Bible’s prohibition against homosexuality form the Heidelberg Catechism.
The moves are seen by some as an attempt to clear a path for the eventual ordination of practicing homosexuals to the church offices of deacon, elder, or minister.
Further, the assembly authorized the creation of a $2 million legal fund to litigate against churches which seek to transfer to other Reformed denominations while retaining their property.
Amendments to the Heidelberg Catechism and the constitution are not final, but become effective if approved by the 173 regional governing bodies, called presbyteries, of the Presbyterian Church USA.
The Board of Directors of the Presbyterian Lay Committee decried the decision as a “frontal assault on Biblical Christianity,” saying in a July 8 statement that the General Assembly “disregarded historic Reformed standards, undermined its Constitution and failed to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ with its actions.”
“The PCUSA has jettisoned the solid rock of Biblical authority and morals and is now floundering in the sea of cultural relativity. In desperation, it lays claim to the property of congregations that love the Word of God more than denominational loyalty,” the Presbyterian Lay Committee said.
Jim Berkley, Director of the Institute on Religion and Democracy's Presbyterian Action Committee, lamented the decisions, saying in a statement:
"With a handful of rushed votes this morning, this General Assembly has turned its back on God's gracious plan for our lives. It has abandoned scriptural morality. It has caused us to deviate from the belief and practice of the church throughout history and around the world to this day.”
The General Assembly elected as its General Moderator the 39-year-old Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, pastor of Mission Bay Community Church in San Francisco. As General Moderator, he will represent the denomination and preside over General Assembly business. Rev. Reyes-Chow made known his support for the ordination of homosexuals as ministers, though he has not publicly stated his position on same-sex marriage.
The only public opponent to homosexual ordination and marriage in the moderator's election was the Rev. Bill Teng, a pastor from Heritage Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Virginia.
Writing in a release prior to the assembly, Rev. Teng voiced his concerns over churches leaving the Presbyterian Church USA: "there needs to be someone who could stand up and remind our church what its primary calling is, and that is to go back to the basics, to put our emphasis on mission and evangelism."
Rev. Teng received 35 percent of the vote on the second ballot, while Rev. Reyes-Chow received 55 percent.
According to the Philadelphia Bulletin, PCUSA lost 46,544 members between 2005 and 2006.
Gamecock/Alex, is this an accurate story or propaganda?
Satan is cleverly working his way through the mainstream Protestant denominations and they are falling like dominos.
PCUSA = Politically Correct Union of Sodomites and Adulterers?
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
Seriously, why bother having a religion?
of sheep?
The senior pastor, when questioned, merely passed it off to the Session, who punted for over 6 months then didn't issue a ruling. Meanwhile the sr. pastor wrote to headquarters, who affirmed that that was the "tradition" in the church and if any pastor who was asked to so baptize, refused to do so, not be allowed to baptize any longer.
We received his letter quoting the "word from on high" 8 1/2 months later (we had long since left by that time hearing no response to our inquiry.)
That was God's "wake up call" to us and got us out of that church. We attended the Covenant Church for a time then wound up becoming born-again So. Baptists, praying to receive Christ, as it states in the bible and were given "believers baptism" as an affirmation of our testimony of having received Christ (not the other way around after being sprinkled as we had as Presbyterians.)
It's truly sad that today's main Presbyterian group (PCUSA) has embraced apostacy but they have and if there are any in this audience, I would ask you to open those bibles I know that you all have in your homes (we had 6 but rarely read them excepet some scriptural excerpts from time to time) read them ALL the way through but start first with the 4 gospels and find out for yourselves just Who Jesus Christ truly is and what He desires for your life.
Surrender your lives to Him, not any denomination, pastor, priest or other book but to the true Jesus as told by those who walked with Him and knew Him first hand, witnessing his death, reserruction and ascendency into Heaven. You will learn that He IS ALIVE today, He is also God, not merely His one and only Son. He works today through His Holy Spirit in your lives, if you allow Him to do that.
Pray to have Him work a good work in you.
I think PCUSA is trying to become a club rather than an organized religion.
Amen! Praise God for your decisions! I am with you all the way. Left the PCUSA church and mourn for those I love who are still there. Most of the people in the pews in the PCUSA churches I have been associated with have no idea what the heirarchy is doing do destroy every last vestige of Biblical Christianity from that “church”. My forefathers, many of whom were Presbyterian ministers in the Southern Presbyterian church - and before that - before the Civil War - The Presbyterian Church that was united before the war.....are, no doubt, seeing this from heaven and wondering how long God will tolerate this apostasy .....
They may not shed tears in heaven - they do not - but we who have loved the heritage of the Presbyterian Church - both in this country and throughout the world (it was Presbyterian missionaries who took the gospel to Korea, for instance).
God help those who are still in the PCUSA to COME OUT NOW!
So now the 10 commandments are wrong about the whole adultery thing. sigh...
Satan is real and working to co-opt the masses by either having them abandon the structure of the church or follow an immoral path in the name “righteousness”.
If there is nothing wrong with it, don’t make a vow at your wedding and tell your wife when you’ve found someone new. Tell the kids too.
Viva la Reformacion!
lol
Social networking of doctors, lawyers, architects, and their offspring.
Only sometimes there is blowback and the minister will engage in this same free and swinging lifestyle with the wife or adult daughter of one of the congregation. For that they MAY run him off. They did in this town anyway.
Wow.
Viva la Reformacion!
So, you-all don't have whackadoodles?
Lions and tigers and bears... Oh My!
PCUSA — the new TEC.
So, you-all don’t have whackadoodles?
Don’t we all indeed, starting with my Aunt Agnes, but I believe we’re talking about a few people (not unlike the Reformation) changing Church doctrine.
A little too late for the PCUSA to hire lawyers to keep church buildings back from congregations who want to disaffiliate with PCUSA. They lost one of the largest and most beautful churches in the Pittsburgh area, Memorial Park. My relative goes there and said the congregation just had enuf. Vote was overwhelming.
INTREP
What will be next with the PCUSA, sex on the altar maybe. This is my denomination and those yahoos at the national level will not push me out. Grandma took me to Sunday school at the historic First Presbyterian Church in downtown Pittsburgh, I will not leave the denomination where Grandma and Grandpa and my Mum and Dad worshipped and all were laid to rest with a Presbyterian service.
To your first post, yes.
To this post - looks like a solid piece of writing to me. Only thing I’d suggest they change is the last clause: “PCUSA lost 46,544 members between 2005 and 2006” to read ‘PCUSA lost 57,572 in 2007.’
Not to be contentious, but doesn’t the PCUSA support abortion rights, as well?
It wouldn't surprise me if they did. IMO the PC(USA) is in a race with the US Episcopalians to see which denomination can become totally apostate first.
As of 2006 they did. I haven't kept up with the issue since then. http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2006/06291.htm
Thanks for the replies. I thought I had read this, and I wanted to be sure that it was the PCUSA, nor all Presbyterians.
Sad news.
Here is the PCA position on abortion (a long position paper from 1978 and some more recent resolutions).
http://www.pcahistory.org/pca/2-015.html
“...We are convinced Scripture forbids abortion. The premise of the personhood of the unborn child and the premise of the universal validity of the Sixth Commandment, if true, necessitates the conclusion that abortion is wrong...
1. That because Scripture clearly affirms the sanctity of human life and condemns its arbitrary destruction, we affirm that the intentional killing of an unborn child between conception and birth, for any reason at any time, is clearly a violation of the Sixth Commandment; Adopted.
OPC position paper here: http://www.opc.org/GA/abortion.html
The OPC position paper was excellent.
Well...there's a big difference between heresy and apostasy. I wouldn't celebrate ANY Christian making the transition from the first to the second.
Short term memory is one of the first things to go. ;-)
Morning, and thanks for the ping.
Sadly, I would suspect this is accurate. This has been brewing since the early 20th century and still hasn’t run it’s course.
I left the PC(USA) in 1995 and haven’t looked back.
Say good-bye. It’s not longer a church, just a bunch of horny old liberals.
I know so many in the PCUSA - who are staying for the same reason - they don’t want the apostates to push them out. I sympathize with that stance. I took it for many years.
Am out of the PCUSA church now and could never go back...
This latest “move” convinces me even more that it won’t belong before God Himself is going to destroy that once great part of the body of Jesus Christ on this earth.
However, people need to understand that my bet is the Presbyteries who have to endorse these latest moves to endorse licentiousness by the PCUSA - will vote these down.
But - that means little - because the same forces for Godlessness will come back year after year after year until they break through and get what they want - a debauched “church” which no longer bears any resemblance to the historic Presbyterian Church in this country.
Unfortunately, like Scotland, the PCUSA is dark, without the Lord, and bereft of any belief or knowledge of the saving Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thankfully, I no longer count myself in that group, believing that I was a "Christian" merely by having been sprinkled as a child, and being a member of a church for all of my life!
If you think the PCUSA has anything to do with the teachings of the bible at this point, I have some ocean front property in Colorado to sell you.
No, they are doing what revolutionaries always do, which is to redefine the religoon while holding to the forms that are familar to the membership. Moral of the story, if you see a female pastor in the pulpit, do not go there again. Even if she is ok, many of her sisters are not, and she will be bought iinto their orbit over time.
The moves are seen by some as an attempt to clear a path for the eventual ordination of practicing homosexuals to the church offices of deacon, elder, or minister.
*****************
Why would anyone who believes in these changes belong to a church?
Yes, but ours do not control the Church. Right now the pope is trying to clean house, and he is hated for it. He is anything but a personally intimidating person, but after thirty years in Rome, he knows where the bodies are buried, and is gently but firmly trying to get the rats out of the place.
Enough said.
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