Friday, June 16, 2006
For those with registration to the pay portion of the Wall Street Journal, here's a good op-ed by a Presbyterian, Jim Roberts, concerning the turns his church has taken: Turn Left at the Presbyterian Church. [Update: Here is the piece in full.] Quote from the pay portion:
The church also funds fiercely pro-Palestinian committees, sends representatives to Palestinian advocacy conferences, and has written obsequious congratulatory letters to the terrorist leaders of Hamas on their recent election victory. Simultaneously, the church remains remarkably docile on profoundly serious issues such as genocide in Darfur, the Iranian nuclear buildup and mistreatment of Christians in communist and Muslim countries...
...Instead of admitting in 2006 that the Middle East has changed dramatically since 2004 -- the rise of a land-for-peace consensus in Israel, the election of Hamas to the Palestinian government, and the equally (if not more) disastrous election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran -- the Presbyterian Church clings stubbornly to flawed policies that are now all the more embarrassing...
By "falling fast," Roberts is talking about the massive loss of membership and funding the PC(USA) has, along with other denominations taking similar turns like the UCC, taken. Interestingly, however, as far as money goes, the PC(USA) need not worry over-much. Look what just happened: Surprise announcement electrifies Assembly - PC(USA) receives historic $150 million gift for church growth
The money from Stanley W. Anderson of Denver, Colo., for the new Loaves and Fishes Church Growth Fund will be distributed to presbyteries through grants ranging from $250,000 to $1 million each...
Hey, it's Mr. Anderson's money...but there's a reason the denomination is losing members and funding. In fact, one of the only means the folks in the pews have to make their voices heard to what's become an elitist hierarchy is to vote with their wallets in the hopes that the folks in the bureaucracy listen. Mr. Anderson has just removed that check on the brass, that one measure of accountability the rank and file could exercise. There's been a tendency to shift farther and farther off away from the values of long term members, and the folks at the top haven't cared much, letting the "dissidents" go (and it stretches the definition of the word since there are a lot of them) in favor of their ideological agenda. Expect that trend to accelerate.
I only have one question for the elders of the Presyterian Church. When discussing the Middle East, I would ask them how many Christian churches there are in Saudi Arabia, as opposed to the number of Christian churches in Israel.