Here is the first-hand account of one (of three) resigning PCA elders from Midway Presbyterian Church in Tennessee.
(Resignation Letter Part 1 of 3)
To the Members, Deacons, and Elders
of Midway Presbyterian Church
Jonesborough, Tennessee
Dear Friends,
After being part of the Midway congregation for five and a half years, and an Elder for three, I have decided to resign from the Session, and my entire family is resigning as members of Midway Presbyterian Church, effective this date.
This action is not taken lightly, but after much thought and prayer. A decent respect for you and your opinion requires me to inform you of the reasons for these decisions. I have decided to state these reasons in writing for the sake of clarity and accuracy, rather than contributing to the rumors that have been circulating for some time. Please read this letter carefully and thoughtfully.
Simply put, my reason for resigning from the Midway Session and church is a loss of confidence in the leadership of Midway Presbyterian Church. Please allow me to explain the basis for that loss of confidence.
Five years ago when we moved to Tennessee, we were delighted to attend and join Midway. Ross was one of the best preachers we had heard, and we considered ourselves blessed to have found a good church so quickly. We have made many friends at Midway, and we hope you continue to be our friends after learning the reasons for our taking the steps we are now taking.
After I had attended Midway for two years, you elected me an Elder. I have been privileged to serve you and Christ in that role for the past three years. Thank you.
Since its beginning only 30 years ago, there have been doctrinal disputes in the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). Controversies over the length of the six creation days and the ordination of women are perhaps two of the most prominent. But the most serious controversy by far is the current controversy over justification and salvation, for it goes to the heart of the Gospel. One can go to Heaven despite the error of thinking that the creation days were longer than 24 hours, but the doctrine of justification by faith alone is a matter of eternal life and death. In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul did not curse those who teach that women can be ordained (though he clearly taught that they were not to be ordained); he cursed those who teach a different gospel. Paul argued in Romans and Galatians, and Martin Luther and John Calvin agreed, that the hinge upon which Christianity turns, and the article of faith by which a church stands or falls, is justification by faith alone.
With this in mind, two years ago I called the Midway Session’s attention to an essay on the covenant, election, and salvation written by Steven Schlissel (who has spoken at Midway Church and other churches in Westminster Presbytery, and lectures at the Worldview Conferences the Session encourages Midway children to attend, as well at the Pastors Conferences Ross attends). Mr. Schlissel was teaching a false doctrine of covenant and salvation, but my concern was dismissed by four of the seven Elders.
The Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America in Monroe, Louisiana, whose Teaching Elder is Steven Wilkins, had published Mr. Schlissel’s essay, Covenant: Keeping It Simple, in the May 1, 2001 issue of its nationally distributed church newsletter, The Auburn Analecta. Ross assured the Session that he knew both men and that both Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Schlissel were Agood men. So Midway Session refused my request that the Session write to Mr. Schlissel about his essay.
One Midway Elder, Joe Neumann, as an individual, but with the knowledge and consent of the Session, did write a brief letter to Mr. Schlissel to ask him to clarify some of the troublesome statements in his essay. Mr. Schlissel sent Joe a reply, confirming our suspicions about his doctrine. But the majority of the Elders, still unpersuaded that there was any problem worth bothering about, refused to address Mr. Schlissel, either to inquire about or to express concern over what he was teaching. Six months after I had initially called Mr. Schlissel’s essay to the attention of the Session, three Elders Neil Smith, Joe Neumann, and John Robbins, as individuals, but with the knowledge and consent of Midway SessionCwrote to Mr. Schlissel about the essay, pointing out his errors, particularly with regard to the doctrine of justification, and asking him to repent. Mr. Schlissel did not reply, nor did he change his mind.
At the time I was very disappointed that most Midway Elders did not seem to understand Mr. Schlissel’s views and why those views were opposed to the Gospel. Out of charity, I thought that their reluctance even to inquire of Mr. Schlissel about his views was simply a result of misguided loyalty and friendship, since some Midway Elders have been friends with Mr. Schlissel for years. But in the past year, after seeing roughly the same pattern of behavior with regard to other men teaching errors on salvation and the Gospel, men such as Steve Wilkins and Peter Leithart, both PCA ministers, I have reluctantly and sadly come to the conclusion that friendship is not the whole explanation.
Let me provide some further details. I shall mention one issue that may seem minor to some of you, but because it is part of a pattern of behavior, it illustrates a serious theological problem.
A couple years ago, the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church (AAPC), pastored by Steve Wilkins, installed kneelers in its auditorium. Last year, while teaching Sunday School at Midway, Ross defended the installation and use of kneelers, on the grounds that kneeling is an acceptable posture for prayer. True, kneeling is an acceptable posture for prayer, but the propriety of kneelers, not the propriety of kneeling, is the issue. If a congregation wishes to kneel for prayer, it can do so without kneelers, and many do. I grew up in a church in which the congregation frequently kneeled for prayer without kneelers, simply by kneeling at their seats or pews.
There are good reasons why our Reformed forefathers removed kneelers from, or refused to install kneelers in, Reformed church buildings: The purpose and effect of kneelers are not to enable the congregation to kneel in prayer (they can do that anyway, if they wish), but to kneel before the wine and the bread, the altar, the cross, and the priest officiating up front, in violation of the Second Commandment. That is why kneelers are commonly found in Catholic, Anglican, and similar church buildings, and absent from Reformed church buildings.
Installing kneelers is merely one outworking of the doctrines of the AAPC Pastor and Session: They have also taken to wearing distinctive clothing; celebrating feast days of saints (their latest church newsletter, dated August 1, 2003, says: Mark your calendars now the Feast Day of St. Augustine, to be held August 30, 2003 at the home of Andy and Janie Barham from 5:00-8:00 p.m.; publishing (and thereby endorsing) essays by Roman Catholics and Anglicans in their church newsletter, The Auburn Analecta, without disclaimers; and promoting false doctrine through their meetings and conferences.
The essays written by Roman Catholics and Anglicans that the AAPC Session has published include excerpts from a lecture by N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham (England) in the apostate Anglican Church, titled Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire. (At the time of his lecture, Bishop Wright was a Dean in the Anglican Church; he recently was named Bishop by the Queen, who is the head of the Church of England.) In this lecture Bishop Wright maintained and the Auburn Avenue Session thought so highly of his statements on the Gospel that they excerpted them from a longer lecture and republished them in their church newsletter that when [the Apostle Paul] referred to the gospel, he was not talking about a scheme of soteriology.
Now soteriology, of course, is that branch of theology that concerns the doctrine of salvation. According to Bishop Wright and The Auburn Analecta, when the Apostle Paul speaks in Scripture of the gospel, he is not referring to a plan of salvation, as Christians have always understood Paul to mean. Rather than salvation from sin and Hell, Paul had something else in mind, Bishop Wright says. (This explains why Bishop Wright titled one of his books What Saint Paul Really Said.)
Furthermore, according to Bishop Wright, as published in The Auburn Analecta, the phrase the gospel never denotes justification by faith: despite the way Protestantism has used the phrase [the gospel] (making it denote, as it never does in Paul, the doctrine of justification by faith.
Now, if Protestantism is in error, and the Gospel is not about a plan of salvation and justification by faith, what do Bishop Wright and his publishers, the AAPC Session, think the Gospel is about? Bishop Wright answered that question in The Auburn Analecta, October 1, 2002: Paul’s proclamation clearly carried a political message at its heart, not merely as one implication among many. Paul’s Gospel, according to Bishop Wright writing in The Auburn Analecta, is not about a plan of salvation, never means justification by faith, and is, in fact, a political message.
Contrary to what Bishop Wright says in The Auburn Analecta, Paul quite clearly did use the phrase the Gospel to refer to soteriology and justification by faith: For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it [the Gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith: As it is written, The just shall live by faith (Romans 1:16-17). Paul clearly says the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about soteriology, salvation, and justification by faith. The Gospel is not a political message at its heart. Protestantism is not in error on this point.
By denying what the Apostle Paul clearly says about the Gospel, and by substituting for the Gospel of Christ a political message, both Bishop Wright and his publishers, the AAPC Session, led by Steve Wilkins, are preaching a false gospel.
When I said this publicly in October 2002, the AAPC Session wrote to the Midway Session asking that the Midway Session admonish me for my criticism of them and their statements, and require me to publish a retraction and apologize for slandering them. The Midway Session refused to do so, by a vote of 4-2, despite Ross’ defense of the AAPC’s publishing of Bishop Wright’s essay, his strong criticism of me, and his accusation that I had sinned by saying the AAPC Session taught a false gospel in their church newsletter. Instead of taking disciplinary action against me, as Ross, Ken, Terry, and the AAPC Session desired, the Midway Session voted to send a letter to the AAPC Session saying that it was ill-advised of them to publish Bishop Wright’s essay.
The AAPC Session, in keeping with its aggressive promotion of false theology, and in a continuing effort to silence criticism of its false teaching, wrote again to the Midway Session defending its publication of the views of the apostate Anglican Bishop in the AAPC newsletter. The AAPC Session refused to admit that it was wrong for doing so, insisted that Bishop Wright did not teach a false gospel, and renewed its demand that I be disciplined for accusing them of teaching a false gospel. The Midway Session refused to do so, despite a minority of three believing that such action was desirable. In fact, Ross agreed with the AAPC Session that Bishop Wright’s statements were not a false gospel, and that therefore the AAPC Session was not teaching a false gospel.
Dr. Sidney Dyer, a Professor on the faculty of Greenville (South Carolina) Presbyterian Theological Seminary, who recently preached at Midway, last year published a review in Greenville Seminary’s theological journal of What Saint Paul Really Said, one of Bishop Wright’s many books. Dr. Dyer had this to say about Bishop Wright’s theology:
The most disturbing material in Wright’s book is that which sets forth his view of justification. His effort to take the doctrine out of the realm of soteriology and to put it in the realm of ecclesiology is undoubtedly motivated by his desire to tear down what divides Evangelicals and Roman Catholics.
