PCUSA General Assembly Lost It’s Way?

Paidiske said:

I found this article yesterday which might be an interesting take on the question of how Protestants, in particular, tend to navigate such issues: A Protestant View: Bibliolatry or Conscience?

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It's an interesting perspective, but I'm not sure how helpful it really is. Yes, it's true that many discussions within Protestant churches are about the limits of interpretation. But that article doesn't give much help in deciding where those limits should be.

It is also more appropriate to a Baptist group than a Presbyterian one. Presbyterians are confessional. Hence interpretation of Scripture isn't just an individual matter. While there are individual disagreements over details, most Presbyterians interpret Scripture within our specific tradition. However there are by now two different Reformed traditions, which differ on fundamentals, starting with what Scripture is.

The other problem with the article is that it doesn't deal with one of the core issues: how do people understand the way other people work? Just about everyone has not only their own beliefs, but beliefs about those who disagree. That seems pretty inevitable. I think it's obvious that X. How in the world could anyone believe non-X? When you think people believe not-X because they don't have the courage to maintain the truth against pressure from outside, or that they are operating in bad faith, it's unlikely that you're going to extend the limits of acceptable behavior to include them.

Midas said:

Good morning,

The recent wave of state abortion legislation (including NY’s not-covered expansion) got me wondering last night what the PCUSA GA has provided as guidance on the topic, so I researched it. 3 hours later I am not sure I want to remain in a PCUSA church (it’s a good church, I’ll probably step back from that cliff):

Abortion
Gay “marriage”
Taxes
Climate Change

It’s like the PCUSA is the 23rd candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2020. When did it turn into such an organ of American political (particularly social) liberal thought? So many of these positions fly in the face of the Bible, church tradition (abortion is forbidden in the Didache), and rational interpretation that it’s hard to believe it got through on anything more than a popularity vote among a very determined group of people. How can this be reversed?

More importantly, for an individual Presbyterian, how do we reconcile belief in Jesus, the Bible, Christian tradition, reformed theology, and Presbyterian church governance (which heretofore seemed to reinforce each other), when Presbyterian governance is deliberately undermining the religion?

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PCUSA lost its way 100 years ago when it rejected Biblical innerancy. The fact that they celebrate abortion and homosexuality today should surprise no one. They and our nation are following the outline provided to us by God in Romans 1:18-32 for nations (and in this case churches) that reject faith.