ECUSA and PC(USA): Are they churches?

‘Tis the season of church assemblies. The Episcopal Church USA elected a female bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop. She is an outspoken advocate of homosexual ordination and has never been a parish priest only being a bishop since 2001. The majority of Anglican Provinces do not embrace either female or homosexual ordination. Seems like an “ugly American” response to the world wide Anglican church. See Al Mohler’s view http://www.albertmohler.com/ on this development.

News from the Presbyterian Church USA isn’t much better. They did vote down an attempt to redefine the Trinity in “fresher” terms such as “Mother, Child and Womb” [What are they smoking?] although it was sent back to committee not done away with completely. And, that has been the history of PC (USA) radical movements. They never go away, they keep coming back until the opposition is worn down. Witness the adoption of the so-called Authoritative Interpretation of the Peace, Unity and Purity Report (PUP) that allows ordaining bodies (individual congregations and presbyteries) the latitude to ignore Constitutional and Book of Order standards when ordaining a deacon, elder or minister. So, even though a homosexual cannot be ordained by church law, a position strongly reaffirmed by this same General Assembly, the GA also granted congregations and presbyteries the authority to ignore that ecclesiastical law! Read what one PC (USA) pastor has to say http://markdroberts.com/ about such irrationality.

Stated Clerk of PC (USA), Clifton Kirkpatrick opined on the voting: "We have not in any fundamental way changed our standards. The standards remain the same, but the assembly's action has offered a more pastoral way and spirit to uphold those standards." Barbara Wheeler, a PUP member and author of the controversial report said: "We hope in time that all people in the church are going to come to see that this measure gives those who are a minority the chance to exercise their conscience within the bounds of Scripture in matters that they deem to be non-essential. Those who are minorities today will welcome this. The Presbyterian Church (USA) will coalesce around this because there is something in it for everyone."
Kirkpatrick says the “standards remain the same.” That is balderdash. Granting authority to ignore the standard is tantamount to repealing the standard. There is no standard unless you want it to be the standard. Wheeler says “there is something in it for everyone”. Does this have a post-modern ring: What is true for you may not be true for me. There is no absolute truth. Make up your own standards based on your wants and desires.

It seems there is no end to what the church does to bring about its self disintegration. Many years ago when exploring whether to take a PC (USA) church out of the denomination to the PCA, I met with the venerable John Gerstner. He had just removed himself from the PC (USA) after 50 years as an ordained pastor. He had been prodded for many years by his former students to come over to the PCA. But, he remained, trying to bring about change within the denomination. Here is his explanation to me: “When mother is ill, you stick by her side helping her to get well. But, when she dies, you lay her to rest. The PC (USA) is dead…she no longer carries the marks of a true church.” While in 1990 some may have called his verdict premature…now it is hard to doubt.

Thankfully, man is not in charge of God’s Church. He is building His Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). There are no perfect churches, but churches can, as John Gerstner pointed out to me 16 years ago, no longer be true Christian churches. The Westminster Confession of Faith, one of the confessions of the PC (USA), puts the entire situation in context:

The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so disintegrated as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth to worship God according to His will.
WCF XXV,5.

There will always be a true Church. And, there will always be those so-called churches that are not really churches at all. The question to ask is whether each of us is a part of that one, true Church of Christ.