PC (USA) split: another salvo?

[beej6]

http://www.appealtopresbyterians.org/

 

[Pilgrim]

Appears so. Some have said that the PCUSA in some quarters is becoming more "conservative", but that the liberals have a hammer lock on the hierarchy. I think it's telling that ordaining homosexuals is the last straw for many who didn't find ordination of those denying the deity of Christ to be reason enough to leave.

Others have pointed out, and I think probably rightly, that there are always fewer churches that come out in splits than is initially thought or hoped for by those who leave. This is especially true with the OPC in 1936 and probably with the PCA in 1973 as well.

 

[beej6]

I think it was DG Hart who has remarked that it's sad that denying the deity of Christ wasn't enough for faithful churches to leave the PC(USA), but homosexual marriage/ordination is.

 

[brymaes]

Originally posted by beej6
I think it was DG Hart who has remarked that it's sad that denying the deity of Christ wasn't enough for faithful churches to leave the PC(USA), but homosexual marriage/ordination is.

This is indeed sad, and points to the fact that many Christians are more concerned with curtural issues from a moralistic perspective that the Gospel of Christ.

 

[Pilgrim]

Originally posted by beej6
I think it was DG Hart who has remarked that it's sad that denying the deity of Christ wasn't enough for faithful churches to leave the PC(USA), but homosexual marriage/ordination is.

Yes, it can be found in this recent article by Muether and Hart. I believe this is the part you're thinking of:

The leadership of Presbyterian conservatives is spearheaded by the Presbyterian Lay Committee and its affiliated group, the Confessing Church Movement. To identify with the latter, a Presbyterian congregation must affirm a minimalist three-point "confession" of the lordship of Christ, the infallibility of Scripture, and the sanctity of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. That the sanctity of marriage has proven to be more precious to conservatives than the deity of Christ (which was no cause to leave the church) may be the biggest indication of the theological bankruptcy of the church.