On July 29, 2000 the Rev. Dirk Ficca, keynote speaker at a Presbyterian Church (USA) peacemaking conference declared that much of the discord that fractures humanity is fomented by groups that hold exclusive religious convictions. His solution was to declare an equivalency among many faiths.
After all, asked Ficca, “If God is at work in our lives, whether we’re Christian or not, what’s the big deal about Jesus?”
Ficca’s embrace of non-Christian faiths was not the first instance, nor has it been the last, in which PCUSA spokespersons, councils and agencies have failed to affirm – and in some cases outright denied – the singular saving lordship of Jesus Christ. After a lengthy debate, the best the 2001 General Assembly, the denomination’s highest governing body, could say about Jesus was that He was “unique.”
‘Here I stand’
On March 13, 2001, the session of Summit Presbyterian Church, a small congregation in rural Western Pennsylvania, issued a public confession of faith. “Denominational officials may think Jesus is not a big deal,” said the Rev. Paul Roberts, Summit’s pastor, “but our people do! We can no longer remain silent while the faith is being compromised.”
Summit’s confession included three elements: (1) Jesus Christ is the world’s singular saving Lord. No one comes to the Father but through Him. (2) The Bible is God’s holy Word. (3) Christians are called to live a holy life, which includes the Biblical standard of chastity in singleness and fidelity in marriage.
As news of Summit’s confession traveled rapidly across the country, other sessions made similar declarations, culminating with a record 1,315 signed confessions by sessions in 45 states and Puerto Rico, representing a membership in excess of 434,697. This outpouring of “here I stand” declarations became known as “The Confessing Church Movement within the PCUSA.”
A defining moment
The Confessing Church Movement did not begin as an organization, nor did it ever become one. Its spontaneity was both the source of its vitality and also its limited-term viability. Denominational officials could not ignore a movement that had won such widespread support, but because the confessing churches had no elected leadership, there was no one whom the PCUSA power structure could hold accountable. But the movement’s strength was also its nemesis. Because it was not institutionalized, it never developed long-term staying power. It became a one-time historical event.
Significance
A skeptic might be inclined to write off the significance of this historical moment because it failed to materialize institutionally. But any such analysis would be short sighted. As was true with the many confessions that were adopted during the early days of the Protestant Reformation and with the Barmen Declaration during Hitler’s Third Reich, there is power simply in the fact that a group of God’s people publicly declared a confession of faith.
Each time a PCUSA session took its stand, a line of demarcation was drawn. In declaring what they believed, these sessions were also stating what they did not believe. Presbyterians came to understand that heretofore unexpressed divisions in the denomination not only were real, they were irreconcilable.
Many congregations whose sessions had taken their stand identified this fact on the signs outside their sanctuaries, newspaper advertisements and church stationery by labeling themselves “a confessing church.” Signatory churches were listed by The Layman Online, and Biblically faithful Presbyterians seeking a new church home often refined their search by referring to the list.
From movement to migration
In time, as theological and ethical fissures within the denomination continued to widen, some confessing churches left the PCUSA for other denominational affiliations. Others morphed into institutionally identifiable networks, the most prominent of which was the New Wineskins Association of Churches. That association negotiated with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, creating a transitional presbytery into which departing PCUSA congregations could find a home.
Although many PCUSA congregations continue to identify themselves as confessing churches today, much of the vigor that attended the onset of the movement almost 10 years ago has passed to other realities. Thus it may be more accurate to identify the movement as an historical watershed rather than an ongoing current activity.
The Confessing Churches
Listed in the document below are the names of churches whose sessions declared themselves Confessing Churches within the PCUSA during 2001 and for several years thereafter. Some of these churches are no longer PCUSA congregations, and all of the remaining PCUSA sessions have changed leadership, reflecting, in some rare cases, a change of theological conviction.
We include the list, therefore, as a historical document, and not necessarily as a statement of a congregation’s current affiliation and/or affection.
The Confessing Church list