PCUSA takes another step away from the Scriptures

[Faith.Man]

I would say it's symptomatic. I know our church has had other problems with the denomination, including changing the understanding of the Trinity from Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to "Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer," the fact that PCUSA is increasingly adopting universalist theology, the spreading of feminist theology (the Sophia Movement), and encouraging of joint worship with non-Christian groups.

But the thing about blessing immoral sexual activity is that it is so clearly against the Word of God that you know that if someone is willing to disobey God in this area, disobedience is going on in a lot of other areas as well. It's like a generic marker, if you will, that a church is no longer aligned with God.

Can you explain the thought process behind changing the trinity? I had not heard this before and find it strange.

 

[supersoldier71]

I predict that even the conservative PCUSA churches will be accepting gays within a generation, and I wouldn't be shocked to see an occasional one now. If the OPC accepts many more PCUSA congregations, it will spread to them within the same timeframe.

(Why? Because conservatives honestly believe that there are is no such thing as a gay Christian. One way or another they're going to be forced to work with an increasing number of gay Christians. There are just too many accounts of former conservatives who after that experience ended up abandoning their ideas. Our conservatives aren't stupid, and they know that hate and bigotry are wrong. Experience will eventually change them. The same thing happened with Southern Christians and blacks. I really respect the many white Southern Christians who intentionally avoided passing their prejudices to the next generation. Despite the rhetoric from the left, conservative Christians aren't hateful people. So I know where they're end up.)

So you predict that within a generation, "conservative" churches will be accepting practicing homosexuals as leaders within the church?

And do you see this as a good or bad thing?

 

[Jim the Puritan]

Can you explain the thought process behind changing the trinity? I had not heard this before and find it strange.

This is part of the movement to feminize the church. "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" are seen as masculine and patriarchal. The alternative Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer are meant to neuter God and make Him into a genderless entity.

Similar efforts are found in the NRSV and sadly, the new TNIV, to rewrite Scripture to de-gender it on the grounds the Bible is sexist. Similarly, the Sophia Movement seeks to recast God as feminine, playing off the fact the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to in early Church literature as "wisdom," Greek sophia, and sophia is a feminine noun in the Greek. Essentially, it is also related to various Gnostic heresies which claim God is feminine. (Related to this are other heterodox beliefs such as believing that Jesus was the lover of Mary Magdalene, and that she actually was His successor until her followers were suppressed by the patriarchal church--the whole myth found in the movie The Da Vinci Code.)

The feminization of the church has proceeded the furthest in the Episcopal Church, where it is now led by a female Presiding Bishop who directed her prayers to "Mother Jesus" at her installation.

 

[supersoldier71]

This is part of the movement to feminize the church. "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" are seen as masculine and patriarchal. The alternative Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer are meant to neuter God and make Him into a genderless entity.

Similar efforts are found in the NRSV and sadly, the new TNIV, to rewrite Scripture to de-gender it on the grounds the Bible is sexist. Similarly, the Sophia Movement seeks to recast God as feminine, playing off the fact the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to in early Church literature as "wisdom," Greek sophia, and sophia is a feminine noun in the Greek. Essentially, it is also related to various Gnostic heresies which claim God is feminine. (Related to this are other heterodox beliefs such as believing that Jesus was the lover of Mary Magdalene, and that she actually was His successor until her followers were suppressed by the patriarchal church--the whole myth found in the movie The Da Vinci Code.)

The feminization of the church has proceeded the furthest in the Episcopal Church, where it is now led by a female Presiding Bishop who directed her prayers to "Mother Jesus" at her installation.

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!

 

[supersoldier71]

Again, do we view the Bible as the word of God, or as containing the word of God?

To me, I believe that by some means, God has managed to get me a working copy of His will. I can call my mother from Afghanistan and ask her to bake me a batch of her chocolate chip cookies; I can ask for chopped walnuts and I can suggest that she use the USPS flat rate shipping boxes. I am just a man, but it is within my "power" to ge that message to my mom back in the States.

Is it unreasonable to assume that God, Holy, Perfect, Unchanging, Timeless and Omnipotent, can get me an accurate version of his intent? To say that the patriarchs of the early church "hijacked" the Bible, to me, is to say that someone - anyone - is capable of diverting the will of God.

Gnosticism, by any name, is as foul a blasphemy as has ever escaped the depths of hell. To presume that only by "secret knowledge" that has been denied to most peoplem even most believers, is to say that we DO NOT worship a loving God. That would be the most pernicious of lies. But indeed, those who "liberalize" Scripture almost invariably seek refuge in one of two houses: "the house of mistranslation", or the "house of changing times". Neither of these can stand if we presume in a loving, all-powerful God who has through means both natural and supernatural made HIS revealed will available for all those who earnestly seek to worship Him for who He is.

But we also know that only God in the person of the Holy Spirit can change a man's heart, and only through that change can we become conformed to the likeness of His Son, His only perfect servant, Lord Jesus Christ.

So we should be in prayer for those brothers and sisters who have lost their way, and have fallen away from the truth as revealed by a plain-language reading of Holy Scripture. Neither the height of our logic, nor the depths of our convictions can convince anyone of anything pertaining to the Spirit, but only through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Good day and God bless.

 

[hedrick]

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!

You just got an explanation from someone who opposes the changes, and who didn't give you exactly a sympathetic explanation.

There are several things going on. The one that I think is acceptable, even though I don't like it, is based on a concern that many of our cultural assumptions were based on males being the norm. A generic person was described as "he". Siblings of unknown gender were referred to as "brethren." Even God was affected. He is called "father" even though of course he really isn't either male or female. Some of this language isn't present in the original. Greek has a word for human that isn't male or female, which is often used in the NT, but was translated "man." There were even a few studies showing that some girls did have difficulty thinking of Biblical passages as fully including them. (Now that this trend has taken hold, the number might reasonably increase.)

So for several decades there has been an attempt to use gender-neutral language, or to alternate male images with female. New translations of the Bible, including the latest NIV (not just the TNIV, but the mainstream NIV) are using neutral language. This often involves moving language to plural or making it more abstract, which I don't' like. Terminology for the Trinity was part of this. Father and Son are masculine. Nobody much liked calling God Mother, Daughter and Holy Spirit, if only because Jesus was in fact male. So a number of people tried (and to some extent still use) creator, redeemer and sustainer. These are, of course, Biblical terms for God. The problem is that the Trinity is about personal relationships within God, so replacing the personal terms Father and Son with functions is questionable. However they are Biblical terms, and many people did not intend anything unorthodox by using them. You'll often hear other language like this, calling God the God of Sarah and <list of women> rather than the God of Abraham and <list of men>. They have also located female imagery in the Bible, and it's there. E.g. Jesus' passage about wanting to gather Jerusalem like a mother hen her chicks. Moderate alternation of language involving feminine images seems acceptable to me, although I'm personally not that happy about it. Speaking of "mother Jesus" is presumably a reference to the passage about Jesus as mother hen. Whether the person using it is orthodox I'm not going to speculate. The Episcopal church has leaders who are more liberal than is typical of the PCUSA, and I see no trend for the PCUSA to move further in that direction.

"sophia" is a Greek term for wisdom. It's used in the NT, although not in the way this approach uses it. It is used in the Greek of the OT for the personification of Wisdom as quasi-divine in Proverbs (which unfortunately for this movement is probably part of the background for the Word, i.e. the Son, more than the Holy Spirit). It was thought that while father is inherently male, it would make sense to balance this by regarding the Holy Spirit -- who is often (incorrectly) thought of in impersonal terms -- as female some balance could be added to the Trinity. Again, I'm not that pleased, but if done carefully this is probably orthodox. The problem is that it isn't always done carefully. But conservatives do sometimes misrepresent this as worshipping a separate false God called sophia. Personally I consider it a perfectly understandable experiment that didn't quite work out, but some people do still think it's a good idea.

There are however other things also going on. There are more radical moves to feminize Christianity. Some theologians claim that Christianity is inherently male-oriented. The whole idea of one God, of demanding justice, or dying for people, is taken to be based on male psychology. This approach rejects the idea of redemptive death and the resurrection, and of one God. It wants to use supposed female approaches involving mother nature and softer views of God. All of these are, of course, rejected by Scripture. There's no question that there are people within the PCUSA who take this approach, just as there are Catholics and members of other traditions. Most in the PCUSA have rejected it, and I don't think it's likely to make any progress. But it's easy to see the change towards gender-free language and alternation of male and female-orieted imagery as representing this heretical tendency if you're hostile to all change.

I continue to say that all evidence shows the PCUSA as fairly stable in theology since 1925. The female language thing is more recent, because it was clearly sparked by a movement in the culture that's more recent, but the underlying theological approach has been the same for 85 years. If anything the last couple of decades the average Presbyterian pastor has probably gotten slightly more conservative. However this move is clearly making progress in the evangelical community, as represented by the change in the NIV. This bolsters my thesis that a good chunk of the evangelical movement is slowly moving to join the moderate mainline in theology, i.e. the PCUSA, not the left wing of the Episcopal Church.

 

[hedrick]

So you predict that within a generation, "conservative" churches will be accepting practicing homosexuals as leaders within the church?

And do you see this as a good or bad thing?

Yes. Good. It may take 2 generations. Barna's work shows the opinions in today's young people. The question is how long it will take for that to affect the orientation of the Church. My claim was 20 years. That might be a bit too fast. I think the conservative PCUSA may move faster than some other evangelicals, because they're already ordaining women, and circumstances will force them to have more contact with gay Christians. But I could be wrong on the timing, obviously. I actually expected 10-A to fail in the PCUSA. Everyone, including conservatives, knew that G-6.0106b was going soon, but I expected at least 10 more years.

 

[supersoldier71]

So everytime Jesus refers to His "Father" in Heaven, He was actually using some gender-neutral word?

 

[supersoldier71]

Yes. Good. It may take 2 generations. Barna's work shows the opinions in today's young people. The question is how long it will take for that to affect the orientation of the Church. My claim was 20 years. That might be a bit too fast. I think the conservative PCUSA may move faster than some other evangelicals, because they're already ordaining women, and circumstances will force them to have more contact with gay Christians. But I could be wrong on the timing, obviously.

I refuse to believe that God will allow His word to be corrupted to that level. He will not.

Our Lord will be back BEFORE these things you speak of come to pass, because as He said, if He didn't even the elect would be decieved.

And what exactly do the opinions of anyone have to do with Biblical truth?

There is no such thing as a practicing homosexual Christian. No more than a practicing homosexual adulterer, theif or murderer. Indeed, we have brothers and sisters in Christ who have committed all of these sins, and their sins are washed away by the blood of Christ, but can you imagine ordaining a professional hitman as a leader in the church? How about a professional car thief or money launderer? No? Those "lifestyles" are certainly no more or less sinful than homosexual behaviors, so should we allow them to be leaders in the church? Should we then allow someone who is currently suffering under the weight of a debilitating addiction to be a leader in the church. There is certainly enough evidence that addiction can be strongly affected by genetic markers: the evidence of this is at least as detailed at this point as evidence that homosexuality is genetic. Would you listen to a pastor who you knew was unfaithful to his wife? Does it come naturally to men to "love our wives as Christ loved the Church"? I can answer that one: no it does not! But since people are naturally inclined to do what the flesh tells us (versus the will of God as revealed by Scripture), does that mean that we are to remain exactly as we were when we are first saved?

NO!

Christ accepts us as we are, no doubt, and PRAISE HIM for it!

But then begins the process of sanctification, becoming conformed to the image and likeness of Christ, who is by the way, the only "normal" person in the Bible. We are born again, of the Spirit, and while we certainly still sin, we are now equipped by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to fight that sin, to do battle with the lusts of the flesh that Adam passed down to us (or perhaps they don't believe in Original Sin either?). Did we war against our own sin when we were lost? No, because for most of us the very concept was vague at best, or completely absent. But how can we wage war against sin when we have institutuonalized it?

There will be a falling away. Falling away does not imply that something unknown will be revealed: it means that the truth is known, and some will ignore it and exchange it for a lie. I see this happening right now.


Good day and God bless.

 

[hedrick]

So everytime Jesus refers to His "Father" in Heaven, He was actually using some gender-neutral word?

No. The words normally translated "father" and "son" are actually male in the Greek. The gender-neutral word is "anthropos", which is often translated "man."

Careful gender-neutral translations only produce neutral English where the original is explicitly neutral, such as anthropos, or uses masculine terms where the context makes it clear that the meaning was neutral (e.g. "brothers" where the speaker was addressing a group with both genders in it). I don't know of many if any cases where the NRSV's use of gender-neutral language produces an actual incorrect translation. It's just that it is sometimes awkward, and I think in some cases the plural makes something a bit less specific and personal. The worst example for me is Psalm 1, which I don't like seeing in the plural.

Such translations should not (and as far as I know do not) change the gender of actual people (e.g. "he" pointing to a specific male person), and most do not change masculine language used for God. At least the NRSV doesn't, and that's the one I know best. Perhaps the NIV goes further. I don't know.

Many denominations, including the PCUSA, have gone slightly further in worship. He and she are still used for identifiable human beings, but some people try to avoid "he" for God, or at least tend to use neutral language where it's not too obtrusive. Current hymnals often replace most routine uses of "he" for God, but retain "father" and any Biblical language where changing them would change the image. The usual approach is to add examples of female imagery, not remove all male imagery. The problem is that trying to remove all gender-specific imagery leaves you with kind of an impersonal image of God, which no one in a mainline denomination wants. Somehow "our parent who is in heaven" just doesn't come out right, and I've never seen that except in parodies.

 

[cajunhillbilly]

Nope God is masculine. He is our King and Lord. He is NOT our Queen. Such nonsense is trying to be PC and I am not PC and never will be. What nonsense.

 

[Jim the Puritan]

As seen by the posts in this thread, fortunately, all this stuff is finally now coming out in the open, so people can see it for what it is.

 

[A New Dawn]

Hedrick, I am concerned that the reason that God is called "Wisdom" is being overshadowed by, of all things, the gender of the word. How do you think one is supposed to apply attributes to someone if the word is specified as a different gender than the one being described? I hate to say it, but that is a pretty flimsy reason to base a change on.

 

[hedrick]

Nope God is masculine. He is our King and Lord. He is NOT our Queen. Such nonsense is trying to be PC and I am not PC and never will be. What nonsense.

Let's look at that a bit more. We think of males as being leaders, law-givers, kings. And of course God is that. But you need to be really careful about what you say here.

First, this is partly cultural stereotypes. Women certainly play similar roles, even if not as often. And men also play other roles.

But even if you take the traditional role distinctions, women would then be obedient and nurturing. But if you take the Trinity seriously, the Son is the model for obedience and the Holy Spirit for nurturing.

A question: are women less in the image of God than men? Do we *really* want to take that position? Surely God is the model in whose image we are made, male and female, so he must be the source and ideal form of all human virtues, not just those of men.

To say that God is only masculine seems to deny both the Trinity and the fact of women being made in the image of God. So I hope that's not what you mean by saying that God is masculine.

C. S. Lewis made a statement that at the time I thought was reasonable. In one of his novels, a viewpoint character said that while God is neither male nor female, he was masculine in a way that makes all of us feminine. By this I believe he meant that God was the king, and he saw that as a masculine role. I still think this is true. But I think God is also our source and that he sustains us. So I think in the same way that he transcends the masculine with something in the face of which we are all feminine, he also transcends the feminine with something in the face of which we are all masculine, if you understand what I mean.

So I'd say that the Trinity, while properly speaking having no sex, is the source for both the masculine and feminine roles. I don't see how you can avoid this without denying that both men and women are created in the image of God, and in Christ there is no male or female.

 

[Faith.Man]

Nope God is masculine. He is our King and Lord. He is NOT our Queen. Such nonsense is trying to be PC and I am not PC and never will be. What nonsense.

Amen.

 

[Faith.Man]

Again, do we view the Bible as the word of God, or as containing the word of God?

To me, I believe that by some means, God has managed to get me a working copy of His will. I can call my mother from Afghanistan and ask her to bake me a batch of her chocolate chip cookies; I can ask for chopped walnuts and I can suggest that she use the USPS flat rate shipping boxes. I am just a man, but it is within my "power" to ge that message to my mom back in the States.

Is it unreasonable to assume that God, Holy, Perfect, Unchanging, Timeless and Omnipotent, can get me an accurate version of his intent? To say that the patriarchs of the early church "hijacked" the Bible, to me, is to say that someone - anyone - is capable of diverting the will of God.

Gnosticism, by any name, is as foul a blasphemy as has ever escaped the depths of hell. To presume that only by "secret knowledge" that has been denied to most peoplem even most believers, is to say that we DO NOT worship a loving God. That would be the most pernicious of lies. But indeed, those who "liberalize" Scripture almost invariably seek refuge in one of two houses: "the house of mistranslation", or the "house of changing times". Neither of these can stand if we presume in a loving, all-powerful God who has through means both natural and supernatural made HIS revealed will available for all those who earnestly seek to worship Him for who He is.

But we also know that only God in the person of the Holy Spirit can change a man's heart, and only through that change can we become conformed to the likeness of His Son, His only perfect servant, Lord Jesus Christ.

So we should be in prayer for those brothers and sisters who have lost their way, and have fallen away from the truth as revealed by a plain-language reading of Holy Scripture. Neither the height of our logic, nor the depths of our convictions can convince anyone of anything pertaining to the Spirit, but only through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Good day and God bless.

Gnosticism, New Age Movement, etc., are just lies from the "father of lies" trying to separate believers from a relationship with God. It is blasphemy, no other word for it.

 

[JustAsIam77]

"God our Father", try twisting that in any other fashion than what scripture clearly states, it can't be done without altering the Word.

Sola Scriptura

 

[heymikey80]

Let's look at that a bit more. We think of males as being leaders, law-givers, kings. And of course God is that. But you need to be really careful about what you say here.

First, this is partly cultural stereotypes. Women certainly play similar roles, even if not as often. And men also play other roles.

But the originating Hebrew view is, "Honor your father and mother." And yet, they have strongly distinctive roles, even then. Authority is one thing. Medievalism is another.

You know, there are numerous situations in the PC(USA) that make it a problematic denomination. I've known of pastors remaining pastors after engaging in adultery, so I didn't think this would be a far leap for the PC(USA) under any circumstances. But the clarity with which Romans 1 & 1 Corinthians 6 condemn homosexuality, that is highly likely to stick in the minds of true evangelical churches for more than a generation. The conventional liberal view that conservatives adopt things that liberals adopted a generation before, that's clearly not the case. My grandmother was a leader in her church. My church and I myself still oppose the concept.

Even membership among people who are in sex sin seems to be highly prevalent throughout the Christian landscape. That seems to be a double whammy of churches that seem to want to keep people, and other churches that can't defend their moral standards without getting embroiled in legal defamation cases. At some point the government needs to realize that the First Amendment applies against cases of this sort as well. At another point the churches need to realize that the reputation of Christ is at stake.

The PC(USA) has been slipping for decades. I quit attending one PC(USA) church in the 1980's and shifted to another more conservative one over these issues, where a PCA church wasn't around. I doubt my second PC(USA) church is conservative now. But frankly, I doubt some of the churches I attended earlier even exist. They're probably shadows of their former selves. Or gone.

I've little doubt the PC(USA) will slip wildly from now on. They'll be far afield in another generation. But they won't be a church by any evangelical definition. I've already run across PC(USA) churches that don't say anything about Jesus -- a result of a punitive policy introduced in the 70's against conservatives by the UPC. I doubt they'll stay above a million. Who would want to be one?

 

[supersoldier71]

If salt loses its saltiness, what good is it?

 

[heymikey80]

Well, it's good for paving the pathway & trampling underfoot toward something better! =grin=

I expect I'm like other people, with doubts about my own viewpoints and interpretations. But the problem is this: when Scripture says something that's really flatly contrary, it really takes a massive suspension of my own trust in myself, to allow it for very long.

Reality eventually hits home. For people who see what the Apostles wrote as the reality of what Christian ministry and doctrine are about -- that's a huge wall to overcome. It's not "traditional cultural interpretation" that's in the way. It's flatly Scripture saying it's wrong.

Christians have been marginalized for millenia over our distinctive moral view. So that's not going to stop us, culturally.