Two Wrongs (Part Two)

Posts like this upset me almost as much as the posts that say harmful behavior is okay and the Constitution needn't really be followed. I suppose I should remain silent, since this minister has done this for far longer than I have and, truth be told, probably far better. But this position of leaving the denomination seems to me to suffer the same problem the pro-homosexual movement suffers: Egocentricism. The homosexual community says that this is the way God made them and their experience validates God's presence in their life and Scripture is to be largely interpreted through that experience. Such a position is egocentric; anthropology dictates theology, instead of the other way around. Or, to put it differently, what the person feels and does is the primary piece of evidence in theologizing. The conservative separatists would seem to evade this charge, since the main reason they are leaving is that the denomination has abandoned God's will as it is made known to us through Scripture. But not so fast. That sounds good, but it takes God out of the picture: The congregation decides what the sufferable level of abandonment is; the congregation decides what that leaving is appropriate; the congregation decides which mandates of Scripture can be violated and which must be observed. Or, again in other words, why was it okay to stay with the denomination when it advocated abortion, but suddenly permitted gay ordination is the last proverbial straw? If conservative congregations are so passionate about obeying God's Word, why didn't they leave over the right to life? I fear that such groups have not sufficiently entertained the idea that God has them in the PCUSA for a reason. (Yes, I know, they will say that they prayed over it and cried over it and this is where the Spirit is leading them and so on and so forth. But that's precisely what churches said in the antebellum South when they supported slavery.)

And, too, the congregation has decided that it need not adhere to part of our Constitution, just as those who wish to ordain gays and lesbians have decided that they need not adhere to part of the Constitution. The more this drama goes on, the more the two sides seem cut from the same proverbial cloth.

In the end, God places us in marriages; he places us in congregations; he places us in denominations; he places us in specific workplaces. Perhaps we should leave the places God has put us only when our faithfulness means that we are booted out, and even then, only with fear and trembling.