This is a conversation about relationships: The relationship of congregations to specific denominations, the mobility of congregations between denominations, and the relationship of denominations to one another.
First Presbyterian Church of Anytown, U.S.A. will be our exemplar. FPC has always been a Presbyterian church. At its formation it was affiliated with denomination “X,” which subsequently became denomination “Y” and then in 1983 became a part of the “Reunion” denomination known as the Presbyterian Church (USA). First Presbyterian Church really didn’t change, but its denominational moniker did. FPC saw no reason at the time to exercise the right to “not participate” in reunion and also saw no reason to protect itself against the assertion of a denominational trust over its assets.
FPC hasn’t changed much since then, but the denomination with which it is affiliated never seems to get beyond bickering over things that the members of FPC see as Biblically crystal clear. As a result, over the past 27 years, FPC has grown increasingly alienated from the denomination. It no longer uses denominational Christian education materials. Its pastor was educated in a theologically Reformed, but not officially PCUSA seminary. Its people believe in the broad Christian theology articulated in the Apostle’s Creed, the small percentage of them that grew up Presbyterian remember some of the Westminster standards, but very few have any familiarity with the library of material contained in the Book of Confessions.
The people of FPC are largely pro-Israel, pro-life, pro-traditional marriage and pro-Jesus. They are kind, generous, thoughtful people whose faith is fairly personal and whose social politics are fairly conservative. They are more interested in their local community than in the national church and they are more concerned with winning their neighbors to faith in Jesus Christ than in participating in another round of debates about things on which they believe the Bible is uncompromisingly clear.
Think I’m overstating things? Ninety-seven congregations just like that grew so weary of their relationship with the PCUSA that they initiated the very painful process of re-aligning with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC). Fifty-five of those congregations were dismissed from PCUSA presbyteries into a geographic presbytery of the EPC. Another 42 congregations are making their transition into the EPC through the New Wineskins non-geographic presbytery.
Ninety-seven congregations are a lot to lose, and a lot to absorb. The loss of large congregations like Fair Oaks in Sacramento (Calif.), First Baton Rouge (La.), Signal Mountain (Tenn.), Memorial Park (Pittsburgh, Pa.), and Covenant (West Lafayette, Indiana) has resulted in significant adjustments on both sides. For presbyteries like San Joaquin, dismissals to the EPC may result in the presbytery’s demise. Admittedly, there is stress on both sides of the bridge and there is tension between.
When this migration began in earnest three years ago, the EPC had 180 congregations. Imagine absorbing nearly 100 new congregations into a denomination of that size. Examinations related to adherence to The Westminster Confession of Faith have to be administered to teaching and ruling elders. Issues of property and polity have to be settled. The people of the EPC have to trust that those arriving from the PCUSA aren’t just a liberal Trojan horse and the immigrant Presbyterians have to learn to live in a new reality. The EPC itself is now struggling through the process of living into its own affirmation that gender is a non-essential and what to do in those presbyteries where praxis does not line up with their espoused theology.
Feeling the sting of being “left behind,” and looking elsewhere for someone to blame, some in the PCUSA have alleged that the EPC is actively recruiting congregations or, as one person put it, “they’re obviously poaching our sheep.” Peace River Presbytery was so sure that the EPC had recruited one of its congregations that it asked the 218th GA of the PCUSA (2008) to investigate its concern that the EPC is “actively pursuing a strategy to persuade Presbyterian Church (USA) churches to disaffiliate with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and be dismissed to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.”
In response to that allegation, the GA Formed an investigative committee chaired by the Rev. Krystin Granberg (New York City Presbytery), who is also a member of the General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical Relations (GACER). Joining her are the Revs. Terry Epling (Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery), Joy Kaufmann (Huntingdon Presbytery), Eugene Turner (Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery) and Jeffrey Vamos (New Brunswick Presbytery). The Rev. Robina Winbush, associate stated clerk and director of the Department of Agency and Ecumenical Relations for the Office of the General Assembly, is serving as staff to the group.
The task force began its work by conducting interviews with representatives from all parties involved in congregations that had made, or were in the process of making, the transition from the PCUSA to the EPC in nine presbyteries. Presbytery staff, congregational leadership, and members who were both supportive and non-supportive of the decision made by the congregation to re-align were interviewed in Eastminster, Northern Alabama, Peace River, Pittsburgh, Redstone, Sacramento, South Louisiana, Wabash Valley and Western North Carolina. It is not clear if other PCUSA presbyteries that have dismissed congregations to the EPC since the 2008 GA have been included in the investigative process.
The process employed by the Joint Commission of the EPC and the New Wineskins Association of Churches to accommodate PCUSA congregations desiring to re-align actually assures that no conversations are ever initiated from the EPC to those in the PCUSA. And when a congregation makes contact with the EPC, the process followed is designed to ensure that the congregation isn’t just trying to “get out” of the PCUSA but is fully informed and has a real desire to “be in” the EPC.
After more than 18 months since its formation and only six months prior to the GA to which it is scheduled to report, the investigating committee finally had a meeting with representatives from the EPC in mid-January. The outcomes of that meeting are not being made public.
The committee will report its findings and recommendations to the General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical Relations, which will in turn report its recommendations to the 219th General Assembly in July. Only after the commissioners to the General Assembly have the opportunity to hear and take action, will the future of the relationship between the PCUSA and the EPC be clarified.
Beyond the EPC, PCUSA congregations are also actively re-aligning with other denominations including the Presbyterian Church in America and the Evangelical Covenant Church. It is not known whether investigations by the Ecumenical Relations Committee of the PCUSA General Assembly are underway regarding those dismissals.