Did anyone else happen to see the amazing miracle that occurred at the 218th General Assembly of the PC(USA). I know most of my congregation thinks it was atrocious and nothing short of heresy, I did too. I was even thinking we were at the point of a confessional crisis. But now I see it was nothing short of a miracle. In fact, it was the miracle to end all miracles, the culmination of the Gospel, the perfection of faith, the restoration of the true essence of the incarnate Christ.
“What was this miracle” you ask? Our blessed General Assembly, in its superior wisdom and by direct revelation of the Holy Spirit (no Bible necessary) has declared that what the scriptures and the church has for centuries taught to be sin is no longer sin. God has apparently removed it from His/Her/It’s vocabulary. Instead, we are “christian” because of the self-actualizing power that Jesus offers when we realize that we are who we are (and there isn’t anything wrong with that), and the true mission of the church is not to expose sin (after all it doesn’t exist) but to liberate the world from patriarchal and puritanistic oppression and welcome everyone, regardless of creed or sexual orientation.
Silly me. Here I was thinking that the General Assembly had outright rejected the clear teaching of scripture which calls those who are alive in Christ out of the ways of darkness, such as sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these (Gal 5:19-21). I was under the impression that my conscience was bound to the Word of God, that as a recipient of the grace of God I was to live a life that pleases Him. Now I see I was wrong. Some of those things in Gal 5 sound interesting (tempting wouldn’t be the right word – because their not sins…). I’d better get busy.
Christianity just got a whole lot easier. I can be the ranting, raging, drinking, adulterer that my genetic makeup inclines me to be and society says I am. I don’t need saved from Satan, he’s a bogey man invented to keep the ignorant masses in line; after all, evil is just something the rich, white, straight do to the oppressed. I certainly don’t need saved from myself, I’m just fine the way that I am; never mind that gnawing feeling that something’s missing in my life. I only need saved from the theology of the dead white man and liberated to the new Utopia of the PC(USA). Wow. Thank God for GA.
Now my only problem is, what to preach this Sunday. Did anybody read Doonesbury?
C’mon Ethan, tell us how you really feel!
These non-Biblical leanings/trends are the very reason many of us at a former PC(USA)church of yours left and formed Grace Community Fellowship ( http://graceinottawa.wordpress.com/ ), an Evangelical Presbyterian Church ( http://www.epc.org/ ).
I feel your frustration, but remember…..”He did it again!”
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Jeff
Once again, sorry it’s been a while, friend. But WOW… this is scary stuff. Being a PCA member now, I am not up on all of the hoopla taking place with the USA folks. Sounds like GA was quite the disaster. Sounds like they’re halfway down a very slippery slope.
Hey Ethan, just thought I’d check out the blog and see what’s been on your mind, (that you are willing to post anyway) I think you have done a fair job of laying out the implications of the GA’s decision. This is something to be justly angry about, but also to weep over. (Psalm 119:136)