Highland Park session says the PC(USA)
is "delinquent" and must affirm "Jesus Christ as the only
Savior and Lord."
Re-enforcing the conservative outcry following Dirk
Ficca's thoughtful consideration of Christian attitudes toward other
faiths at last summer's Peacemaking Conference, the session of Highland
Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas has called on the General Assembly
Council to reaffirm what the session views as the only truly orthodox
view: that Christ is the only way to salvation.
Further, they call on the GAC to require that all GA
entities, including the Peacemaking Program, adhere to that formula
"by working towards the proclamation of that witness."
Click
here for the report in The Presbyterian Layman.
A little background
The Highland Park church, one of the largest
congregations in the PC(USA), has long been a focal point of the
conservative movement in the denomination. The late Rev. Dr. B. Clayton
Bell, who was pastor there from 1973 until his recent retirement, played
a leading role in the formation of such conservative organizations as
the Covenant Fellowship of Presbyterians (in the Presbyterian Church
U.S.), and Presbyterians for Renewal. In the aftermath of the
ReImagining Conference in 1994, he led a conservative coalition which
called for the resignation of GAC executive director James Brown, and
his congregation withheld $1 million in contributions to the national
church.
Highland Park will apparently continue to guard the
orthodoxy (as they understand it) of the Presbyterian Church, now
focusing not on sexuality, nor on right-wing politics, but on a narrow
insistence on the monopoly of self-proclaimed Christians on the grace of
God.
For more background on Highland Park Church, see A
Moment to Decide, pages 24 and 64-66.
