PCUSA: "I am not ashamed of the gospel"
As a Christian, I am not ashamed of the gospel (Romans 1:16-17). Jesus taught his disciples to expect ridicule, even hatred because of him. I’m Ok with that. It’s part of counting the cost of being identified with him.
But here’s what I am ashamed of and what I’m not Ok with. I’m ashamed of my denomination. I’m not Ok with the cost of being identified with an organization that brings ridicule and condemnation on itself – not for Jesus’ sake but for the sake of accommodating the culture and wallowing in political correctness.
- I’m not Ok with being “officially” neutral on abortion and aggressively promoting abortion.
- I’m not Ok with publishing books promoting crack-brained conspiracy theories that play to the “American Empire” fantasies of its publisher and its phony Christian author.
- I’m not Ok with substituting human imagery for God’s imagery of the Trinity.
- I’m not Ok with anti-Semitism, especially when it excuses Islamic terror and blames Israel for all of the violence in the Middle East.
- I’m not Ok with anti-Semitism, especially when it attempts to punish companies who do business with Israel.
- I’m not Ok with anti-Semitism, especially when it means cozying up to Muslim terrorists and calling them humanitarians.
- I’m not Ok with a denomination that can only support one missionary for each 7,874 members while younger, more orthodox Presbyterian denominations support one for each 830 (Evangelical Presbyterian Church) or 437 (Presbyterian Church in America) members.
- I’m not Ok with “Re-Imagining God”; how the heck do you re-imagine something unless you honesly believe you imagined it in the first place?
- I’m not Ok with supposedly Christian attorneys who recommend lying to judges and writing if off as “just lawyers being lawyers”.
- I’m not Ok with a Stated Clerk who is willing to declare a moratorium on constitutional actions he would like to avoid but claims that he can’t declare a moratorium on constitutional actions he wants to pursue.
- I’m not Ok with a Stated Clerk who recommends punishing presbyteries that fail to extract the maximum value from fleeing churches.
- I’m not Ok with a Stated Clerk who routinely abuses his bully pulpit to promote his left-wing political causes. For example, as a member of the Central Committee, he approved a statement by the notoriously Marxist World Council of Churces that implies “U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair might appropriately be charged with war crimes for their ‘illegal resort to war’ on Iraq.” (Source: Presbyterian News Service)
- I’m not Ok with a deceptive “theological” task force that substituted back-room political ploys for constitutional actions.
- I’m not Ok with denominational spin doctors who can’t agree on whether or not the task force’s actions modified the consititution.
- I’m not Ok with a former Moderator who claims to believe nothing more about Jesus than that he is “God’s radical answer to the unbelievable suffering that exists all over the world”.
- I’m not Ok with a church that admits atheists to membership.
I am not ashamed of the gospel. I am ashamed of the PCUSA.
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 27th, 2006 at 10:38 am and is filed under PCUSA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.