In 2001, the PCUSA General Assembly sent to its presbyteries (173 or so regional governing bodies) an overture that would not allow clergy to perform holy union services for same-sex couples. It did not pass. A year previous, a Presbyterian minister, Rev. Dirk Ficca, presented a speech at a Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference entitled, Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a Diverse World.
In response to that, the Confessing Church Movement was formed. About 1,000 or so congregations of the 11,000 or so PCUSA congregations signed on to this movement. The Confessing Church Movement (CCM) declared that the denomination was apostate and needed to reform to "biblical" principles. Here they are in a nutshell:
1. That Jesus Christ alone is Lord of all and the way of salvation.
2. That holy Scripture is the Triune God's revealed Word, the Church's only infallible rule of faith and life.
Let's look at them one by one:
1. That Jesus Christ alone is Lord of all and the way of salvation.
(Meaning: All other religions are false. All followers of other faiths and all Christians who are open to other faiths as legitimate means to the Sacred are headed for Hell).
2. That holy Scripture is the Triune God's revealed Word, the Church's only infallible rule of faith and life.
(Meaning: All texts in the 66 books in the Protestant canon are the "Word of God" and all on a par with one another. Forget historical criticism of texts. Regardless of what the texts say, they are infallible. This means of course that the most horrific texts are often used as standards for all others).
3. That God's people are called to holiness in all aspects of life. This includes honoring the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, the only relationship within which sexual activity is appropriate.
(Meaning: No homos in the pulpit. All sexual activity in heterosexual marriage=good. All sexual expression outside of heterosexual marriage=bad, regardless of the quality of the relationships).
There you have it. Three dogmas:
1) Our religion is right and the only.
2) The Bible is the infallible Word of God (which to them gives divine and absolute authority for positions #1 and #3).
3) Homosexuality (which is what it is all about) is wrong, sinful, and no clergy who are gay and happy with that should be ministers.
OK, so you call it harmless fundamentalist, homophobic nonsense. I agree. However, what I find especially insidious is the name of this movement. The Confessing Church was a brave movement by Karl Barth, Rudolph Bultmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others who resisted the Nazis prior to and during World War II. The Nazis, among their other atrocities, exterminated Jews, gays, and others.
If you read the Barmen Declaration of 1934 you will find a strong emphasis on the lordship of Christ as opposed to the lordship of the Fuhrer. No emperor can claim to be God. As opposed to Empire and its values, the Barmen Declaration lifted up Christ and his values.
But that in no way meant the superiority of Christianity over other faiths, heterosexuality over homosexuality, or an insipid reading of the Bible as literal truth.
This modern movement among PCUSA fundamentalists is nothing less than using the name of a critical important resistance to Empire to further a narrow theocratic, homophobic agenda.
If Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoller, and Rudolph Bultmann knew what was happening in their names, they would turn over in their graves.
My thoughts on the matter,
john
Oh come now, brother John, the other side took the word "Covenant" for their "covenant network" for exactly the same reasons.
ReplyDeleteThey were using it in historical Presbyterian terms, referring back to the Covenanters of Scotland and their fight against authority. The Covenanters of old would have had nothing to do with today's Christophobic, biblioanarchic, pseudophiles.
John,
ReplyDeleteI am putting this comment here rather than under your Bultmann posting. Neither you nor Seeker addressed my most basic concern; it is almost like you didn’t read what I wrote. The Barmen Declaration was addressing the problem of accepting two or more revelations beside the revelation of Jesus Christ as found in the Scriptures. Are you able to distinguish between what the Confessing Church in Germany ultimately stood against, extra revelation, and what you in your theological postings are doing which is upholding many revelations?
I quoted in my comment under your posting on Bultmann some of the words of Pastor Hans Asmussen who had been asked by other members, and that includes Barth and Bonhoeffer, of the Confessing Church at Barmen to give the sermon that would highlight the points of the Declaration. Remember that Barth, Martin Niemoller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others there on that day agreed with what Asmussen said when he said:
“For it is only a relative difference whether beside Holy Scripture in the Church historical events or reason, culture, aesthetic feelings, progress, or other powers and figures are said to be binding claims upon the Church. All these factors cannot limit the proclamation of Christ, nor can they take a place beside Christ as subjects of proclamation. In proclamation they can have no other place than that of various marks of the one, basically unchanged world, which can find redemption in Christ and only in Christ.”
You are sadly mistaken if you think that somehow these past saints of the Church would cheer you own in your pluralism or denial of the unique Lordship of Jesus Christ as found in Holy Scriptures.
Viola,
ReplyDeleteYour starting point is
"The Barmen Declaration was addressing the problem of accepting two or more revelations beside the revelation of Jesus Christ as found in the Scriptures."
Don't think that is right. It was addressing the separation of Church and State, and clearly establishing that the head of State does not have any authority over the Church, nor does the Church have any obligation to support the State.
An important message not to forget.
Jodie
What would disturb me about that list is everything that it leaves out: it's almost totally focused on the concept of salvation, the Bible and homosexuality. There's no mention of concern for the poor, or liberating the oppressed, or anything like that. Jesus seemed more concerned about people following him than worshipping him, and that's not apparent here.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone ever noticed that no one's ever called a heretic for not loving as Jesus did? One can bring up that he was very much oppposed to the Pharisees, but that was because they were constantly critiquing his 'rule breaking,' and he was countering with their distinct lack of concern for the every day person.
Jodie,
ReplyDeleteHave you read the Barmen Declaration? Remember this was written in the 1930's of Germany not the United States with our debates about separation of Church and state.
It was about establishing the Lordship of Jesus Christ as found in Scripture over the Church. You can't get around that. Did you read what I wrote that Pastor Asmussen said? That is not about the separation of Church and state it is about the Lordship of Christ and the need for the world to find redemption in him.
The Declaration clearly states what the writers were apposing. They write:
"It is [The Evangelical Church in Germany] threatened by the teaching methods and actions of the ruling Church party of the 'German Christians' and of the Church administration carried on by them. ... This threat consists in the fact that the theological basis, in which the German Evangelical Church is united, has been continually and systematically thwarted and rendered ineffective by alien principles, on the part of the leaders and spokesmen of the 'German Christians' as well as on the part of the Church Administration."
The very first truth that the Declaration confesses is "I Am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." (John 14:6) Also John 10: 1,9. Then they state:
"Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and death.
We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides the one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation."
Jodie please read the Declaration.
Thanks all!
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks to Doug King who posted this last on Witherspoon
Good thoughts, Jodie,
ReplyDeleteAnd Heather,
"There's no mention of concern for the poor, or liberating the oppressed, or anything like that. Jesus seemed more concerned about people following him than worshipping him, and that's not apparent here."
Exactly. If we had to pick three dogmas that were most important, the three of the modern CCM would be at the bottom.
John,
ReplyDelete**Exactly. If we had to pick three dogmas that were most important, the three of the modern CCM would be at the bottom. **
Yup. With the three criteria listed already, those can be followed by someone who is incredibly self-centered. Especially if the word "holy" gets thrown into the mix, because that can easily lead to someone distancing themselves from the very people that need grace and love the most.
Note: I'm not saying that everyone who follows those three criteria is self-centered. And it's also possible to follow a 'love your neighbor' policy and be self-centered as well, because one can slip into the concept of loving one's neighbor means that one knows what is best for the neighbor.
Hmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteNow why would you remove my comment introducing your readers to a gay magazine publisher who has recently embraced the love of Christ and renounced her homosexual lifestyle? Could it be that you prefer to keep your readers in the dark? I thought you said, "Welcome back, Alan"? That doesn't make me feel so welcome.
Here's that website address again. I've also enclosed her testimony to her readers at Venus magazine.
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/180565.aspx
http://www.venusmagazine.org/cover_story.html
Alan,
ReplyDeleteI will answer you one time. Better write this down.
I have gay and lesbian members of my congregation. They have heard enough lies about so called change ministries. I do not need to debate with anyone about them.
I frankly don't care if you read or comment on my blog at all.
The point is...it is my blog and I will delete if I want to.
John,
ReplyDeleteRe: Alan's comment; Calling people liar's whose experience is something different than what you say 'is.' Not a particularly pluralistic posture, that. Sort of hard to live out your world view, when it moves from the abstract into the concrete, eh?
I'm just sayin'...
all the best,
dm
Regressive,
ReplyDeleteHe's shown his real colors now, hasn't he? Rainbow only! I get this all the time when I try to debate gays and their pastors(and I have a homosexual brother-in-law whom I love very much, so it's not that I "hate" them -- a favorite smear they like to use). The gays fear the truth, and their pastors try to shield them like mother hens.
Even Darwin, who said: "A fair result can be obtained only by fully balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question" had a more open mind about his opposition than many gays today have about theirs.
Frankly, debate tends to scare them, I've found, because they enjoy their sin (as so many of us do) and they refuse to repent. So they demand that their god allow them to continue to revel in their sin. This in spite of Romans 6:1-6. They even to so far as to call what God says is wicked "good".
You watch. I've tried to be polite and interactive here. But darkness hates the light, and deception hates truth. John'll kick me off shortly. Like many liberals I've debated on this issue, he's likely more interested in being adored for his views than being honestly challenged on them. That's why he's so annoyed at me right now.
Oh, and John -- you said: "I frankly don't care if you read or comment on my blog at all."
Why the "welcome back" on another post, then? Being a little disingenuous my friend?
**Calling people liar's whose experience is something different than what you say 'is.' Not a particularly pluralistic posture, that. **
ReplyDeleteThe problem with this viewpoint -- which I believe you are using the it's hypocritically pluralistic, due to not tolerating intolerance, is that the whole point of tolerance is standing against intolerance. Tolerant people are also anti-racism, and anti-sexism. To be so does not make them hypocrites.
Heather,
ReplyDeleteHow is someone who talks about their personal experience, intolerant? I don't think the point of a person's testimony who's encountered the transforming grace of Jesus, is to condemn others. It seems the point is to say- 'hey, Jesus has found me and changed me. And its brilliant!' or, to put it in scriptural language, 'all I know, is that I was once blind, but now I see.'
That hardly seems intolerant. Only so to folks who would be so full of themselves, that they cannot imagine an experience or truth that is not theirs.
Touting tolerance as the highest virtue, and intolerance as the lowest of sins, and then saying its ok to be intolerant in a certain direction, just begs the question, why? Based upon what?
To follow your direction, it would seem alright, even virtuous to be intolerant and discriminate against those who are experiencing healing and wholeness in their sexual desires and orientation. Thats their experience, who is anyone to call them liars? It seems you wish an openness only in one direction, a tolerance of the narrowest sort.
I wish you the best in your journey...
dm
dm,
ReplyDeleteGiven that you sign your posts with that name, I assume it's how you wish to be addressed?
**Thats their experience, who is anyone to call them liars? It seems you wish an openness only in one direction, a tolerance of the narrowest sort. ** This can be reversed, though, in terms of those who are still gay. That's their experience, so how can we call them liars?
**Touting tolerance as the highest virtue, and intolerance as the lowest of sins, and then saying its ok to be intolerant in a certain direction, just begs the question, why? Based upon what? **
The problem is that the speaker of the story wasn't a person who posted. The story was posted for her, and used to show who those who are still homosexual are in fact wrong, and can be "healed." The story seems to come across as a method of attack,and not a method of grace or healing. If she did find freedom, then I rejoice for her.
And again with the intolerance in a certain direction: that still leads me back to saying that tolerance is meant to fight against intolerance. Are we to be tolerant of those who are racist? Or sexist?
It can be claimed that the homosexual discussion falls into a different category, but to those who are homosexual and those who support that view, it is right up there with racism and sexism: and to fight against those viewpoints doesn't fall into an intolerant category.
**Only so to folks who would be so full of themselves, that they cannot imagine an experience or truth that is not theirs.**
Given that I'm straight, I honestly can't imagine either viewpoint: one who is still homosexual, or one who has switched and gone to heterosexual. All I can go on is based on those who are in those positions. For every story of someone who is "healed" of homosexuality, there are ten or twenty who have begged God to be healed, and are still homosexual. And that is why I found find a third person using this story to be intolerant: because it is saying to a group of people that we know them and know their struggles better than they do. That is why I think John deleted the story, because of the stories he's no doubt heard from those who are homosexual, and what they would say in reaction to this story. No, it's not hiding from the truth, or demanding that they still be allowed to live in sin (though, granted, there are some who flaunt the lifestyle, but there are hetersexual people who flaunt a sex-filled lifestyle as well). The reaction would be pain.
On a side note, to this comment: this can be used in other circumstances. This blog gets frequent posts informing the non-conservative posters that we are risking hellfire, or those who died who didn't hold that viewpoint have just found out how wrong they are. Even on this post, there's a comment about how the "darkness hates light and deception hates truth."
Doesn't that also fall under the category of not imagining an experience or truth that isn't theirs?
Please know that this isn't meant to be an attack, or trying to find a mote in one's eye when there is a beam in mine. But it gets a little tiring to watch everything so quickly disintigrate into being told that I hate the truth or I'm eagerly planning my next sin-fest. And no, it's not tiring because I'm "finally being confronted with the light" or something. It's tiring because it often seems that someone else's experiences are filtered through a lens, rather than us (this is us as a whole, in both liberal and conservative posters) taking the time to listen to the other person. Am I at times as guilty of this as the next person? I'm sure. We all have blinders of one sort or another.
This is not a public debating forum or public bulletin board. This is John's blog. Every single person who posts a comment here is a guest in John's blog. He has the right to delete any comment for any reason he wants. In particular, as a pastor, he has the right to delete comments that he believes to be hurtful to members of his congregation.
ReplyDeleteI have sometimes deleted comments that I have posted here or in other blogs when, after second thought, I felt that what I wrote was inappropriate given my role as a guest. I sometimes have written comments and then changed my mind before clicking the "publish" button, for the same reason.
Others who write comments here would do well to remind themselves of their status as guests.
Heather, you said: "If she did find freedom, then I rejoice for her."
ReplyDeleteAre you agreeing, then, that homosexuality is something that she needed to be freed from?
Why then is it cruel for me and others to approach homosexuals who are caught up in this slavish sin to offer a glimmer of hope when a woman who published a gay magazine for 29 years finally found freedom in Christ?
To suggest that we should withhold these stories from the gay community because there are some who have not experienced this freedom after they have prayed, is like saying that we should never send a fireman into a burning house because if he can only rescue one or two out of 20 occupants that would be unfair to the others who wanted help but didn't get it.
For John to delete this story and not make it available to anyone who is eager to find freedom, is to withhold truth and hope from those who need it. And that, Heather, is to act irresponsibly with one's flock.
Here's a little reality check for all of us: Jesus WILL deliver each and every one of us from sin if we ask with sincere hearts. He NEVER turned anyone away in the gospels who sincerely asked for help.
He also said "Be it done to you according to your faith." I've found that many people caught up in either homosexual or heterosexual sins are of two minds: they want deliverance, but they don't. And as James warns us in the first chapter of his letter, the double-minded man shouldn't expect that he will receive anything from God.
Alan,
ReplyDelete**Are you agreeing, then, that homosexuality is something that she needed to be freed from?** I am saying that she found a sense of freedom. For her, she felt a need to be free of it, and if she has a sense of peace now, then I'm happy for her.
**Why then is it cruel for me and others to approach homosexuals who are caught up in this slavish sin to offer a glimmer of hope when a woman who published a gay magazine for 29 years finally found freedom in Christ? ** Because that is one person compared to the mutltide of others who have prayed with a sincere heart, and not found that "freedom". A story like this is telling someone who is still homosexual that they simply haven't repented hard enough, or been sincere enough in their faith, and we don't have the right to do that. We don't have the right to tell another person how they feel about something that directly affects them.
**is like saying that we should never send a fireman into a burning house because if he can only rescue one or two out of 20 occupants that would be unfair to the others who wanted help but didn't get it.** Except we're in equal agreement that a burning house is dangerous and everyone must be rescued. That is something that is easy to rescue someone from. One second you're in danger, the next you are out of danger. Internal matters are never that simple.
**For John to delete this story and not make it available to anyone who is eager to find freedom, is to withhold truth and hope from those who need it. ** According to you, and your interpretation of the Bible, though. Someone who is eager to find the truth that you describe as no doubt already seen this story, or stories like those. But for someone who has prayed for years and not seen a change, this story will only cause pain. As it is, there is a difference between shoving something at someone, and letting the person come to you and ask for help. If someone comes to John and begs for stories where people were no longer homosexual, I'm sure he'd respect their wish and help them find such stories.
People have to be ready for the truth, regardless of how one defines truth. In general, if we try and tell someone a truth before that person is ready, and after the person has expressed the position in no uncertain terms, then we're only damaging our own position. Because if that is how the truth makes one act, what is appealing about the truth?
**I've found that many people caught up in either homosexual or heterosexual sins are of two minds: they want deliverance, but they don't.** Haven't you ever struggled with something where you pleaded for deliverance for a long time -- say a year or so -- before finding relief? And since it took that year, couldn't it be said that you wanted deliverance but not really for that year, due to the time factor?
Say you were struggling with hating someone, and told me that you really wanted to be healed of that. Five years later, you still had hatred for that person. Wouldn't it be arrogant of me to tell you that you must not really want to be healed of that hatred, since you still hated the person? And what right would I have to tell you that, since I'm not going through it, and can't speak for your heart?
"We don't have the right to tell another person how they feel about something that directly affects them."
ReplyDeleteWhy not? Counsellors do it all the time. Ever watched Dr. Phil? Is he just an arrogant jerk? Or is he confronting people with some hard truth about how they feel and act?
"Internal matters are never that simple."
They are VERY SIMPLE when you allow the gospel and God's Word to work its wonderful truth and power.
"As it is, there is a difference between shoving something at someone, and letting the person come to you and ask for help."
Then Jehovah God has been quite the jerk, hasn't He? Always shoving and pushing at the Israelites.
BTW. I never "shoved" anything at anyone. I simply posted a couple of helpful websites. If that's "shoving" then you are a little hypersensitive.
"....after the person has expressed the position in no uncertain terms, then we're only damaging our own position."
Which apparently God Himself is guilty of, huh? Silly God. "I am the Way the Truth and the Life. NO ONE comes to the Father but by Me." Silly Jesus.
"Repent and you will be saved". Silly Peter. Silly Jesus.
"Wouldn't it be arrogant of me to tell you that you must not really want to be healed of that hatred, since you still hated the person?"
Not at all. I'd consider it helpful and honest. And it would cause me to re-evaluate my feelings.
You see, Heather, your answers to me indicate that your thinking has been shaped far more by our culture than it has been by God's Word. I understand your desire to be sensitive and inoffensive, but sometimes God calls us to probe and be blunt. Jesus did it! Paul did it! Even secular counsellors do it!
And sometimes, so should we.
Alan,
ReplyDelete**Why not? Counsellors do it all the time. Ever watched Dr. Phil? Is he just an arrogant jerk? Or is he confronting people with some hard truth about how they feel and act?**
People ask the counsellors for advice, though. Just as people ask Dr. Phil. The person who has asked has then opened themselves for an answer, and has given an indication that they are looking for truth. Those in John's congregation have not come to anyone here, asking for advice.
**Then Jehovah God has been quite the jerk, hasn't He? Always shoving and pushing at the Israelites. ** There is a *huge* difference there, because that is God. God has the 100% perspective on everyone. We don't, and trying to give advice too early can do way more harm than good. If someone isn't ready for help, it can come across as judgemental, rather than concerned.
**BTW. I never "shoved" anything at anyone. I simply posted a couple of helpful websites. If that's "shoving" then you are a little hypersensitive. ** From your perspective, it was helpful advice. From another's perspective, such as the people the website was aimed it, it could very well be seen as shoving.
**Which apparently God Himself is guilty of, huh? Silly God. "I am the Way the Truth and the Life. NO ONE comes to the Father but by Me." Silly Jesus. ** Again, that is God. We are not God, and we're always coming from a subjective position. Having access to God's truth does not always mean we'll use it wisely, or even correctly, because we've got that subjective viewpoint attached.
**Not at all. I'd consider it helpful and honest. And it would cause me to re-evaluate my feelings.** Many who I've known who are in this position can't say the same. If anything, being addressed like that is actually more painful, because it's a way of browbeating. Perhaps not if the person is sincerely asking me for my judgement, but in a situation where someone only knows one or two details and then goes dispensing advice, it actually makes things worse.
**You see, Heather, your answers to me indicate that your thinking has been shaped far more by our culture than it has been by God's Word.** Jesus had a direct line of access to God that the rest of us don't have. He was most critical of those in religous authority who followed the food laws at the expense of pursuing justice and love for people. But other than that, he also said that if someone is rejecting the message, shake the dust from one's feet. Paul had different interactions, depending on the person. Many of his letters were in response to letters sent to him by Christian congregrations, asking for help. He didn't go around telling everyone this, but those in specific situations, where he was required to.
**but sometimes God calls us to probe and be blunt. Jesus did it! Paul did it! Even secular counsellors do it!** God was/is most often calling us to probe ourselves, and be blunt with ourselves. In terms of situations with others, and the condition of their spiritual battle, it requires a great deal of caution, because of our perspective.
Just wanted to note: I had the privilege of meeting Dirk Ficca. He's the head of the council for a Parliament of World Religions. He came to speak to the local ecumenical council and to the campus ministry.
ReplyDeleteThe thing which will surprise some on the right is not only does he get the Christian faith, he's passionate about the mainline doing a better job of instilling an identity in it's membership. But it makes sense, interfaith work happens when we all have something distinctive to bring to the table.
He was gracious all the way around, especially spending time and hearing the students of the campus ministry.
As a side note, I've just gotten a copy of the book Gifted by Otherness by William Countryman and he suggests that the church doesn't have a gay issue. It has a heterosexual issue. A helpful starting point imho in engaging this issue. Thanks for your post.
Well, you certainly have a very interesting perspective on the Scriptures, Heather. Very utilitarian. Very relativist. Very postmodern.
ReplyDeleteI guess that's why you're always a leftie, and I'm always right. ;0)