June 10, 2002
Presbyterians to tackle divergent views on nature of salvation
___By Kevin Eckstrom
___Religion News Service
___COLUMBUS, Ohio (RNS)--When the Presbyterian Church (USA) meets in Columbus next week, the hottest topic in the denomination--homosexuality--won't be on the agenda.
___That does not mean there won't be fireworks.
___The 2.5-million-member denomination will hold its 214th general assembly June 15-22. More than 500 delegates will set policy and budgets and elect a moderator to serve a one-year term as top spokesperson.
___This year's meeting likely will see a push by the church's conservative wing to define exactly how the church views salvation through Jesus Christ. A compromise statement passed last year in Louisville, Ky., failed to satisfy many evangelicals.
___"Both heresy and unbelief have crept into our ranks," said Joe Rightmyer, executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal. He believes the church must take a definitive stand that salvation comes only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
___"If that's up for grabs, then we have no basis for unity and purpose as a church," he said.
___At least five of the church's 173 regional presbyteries will seek to have delegates affirm a document that was issued after last year's meeting by the church's theology and worship office. That statement, "Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ," received widespread support but has yet to be officially endorsed by the entire church.
___The statement says: "No one is saved apart from God's gracious redemption in Jesus Christ. Yet ... we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith."
___Congregations in California's San Joaquin Presbytery, a bastion of conservatism, said in its resolution that "many people have asked if we still believe in what the Scriptures and confessions teach about Jesus Christ, or if those are forgotten statements that we no longer preach and teach."
___For years, liberals and conservatives have lived in an awkward embrace in the denomination. Recent years have seen the rise of the Confessing Church Movement, a loose network of nearly 1,300 congregations that have affirmed the infallibility of the Bible, salvation through Jesus Christ alone and sexual purity in marriage.
___Liberals are uneasy with the growing movement and see it as an attempt to force theological uniformity across the historically diverse denomination.
___Both sides are clearly tired of the yearly back-and-forth struggles on homosexuality and other divisive issues. Officials at church headquarters in Louisville have endorsed a plan to move assemblies to every-other year, which would shave costs off the $5 million annual meetings.
___Conservatives support that plan because it would make it harder to change church law on gay ordination and other issues. Conservatives also support a proposal to increase the margin needed for constitutional amendments from a simple majority to a two-thirds majority.
___Churches in Olympia, Wash., even want to change the meeting schedule so that major changes could be made only every five years.
___"These things are so expensive and consume so much of the church's money that it's absolutely obscene to be spending this kind of money on annual assemblies," said John Mulder, president of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
___The issue of late-term abortion also will be hotly debated, with a new report that clarifies the church's position that it should be allowed only to save the life of the mother, for pregnancies damaged by genetic deformities or in cases of rape or incest.
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