Welcome to Witherspoon on the Web       

News and networking for progressive Presbyterians

Home page

Ordination concerns

Immigrant rights

War on Iraq

Search Archive
2006 General Assembly Global & Social concerns Election 2008 Israel & Palestine About us Just for fun

News of the PC(USA)

Torture --
It's time to resist!
Other churches, other faiths War on Iran?? Join us! Notes from your WebWeaver

What's Where

Our reports about the
2008 General Assembly

You'll find much more on the GA at JustPresbys -- the shared website of 6 progressive Presbyterian organizations.

ABOUT US

The Summer 2008 issue of
Network News
is posted here
- in Adobe PDF format.

Click here for earlier issues
Adobe PDF  Click here to download (free!) Adobe Reader software to view this and all PDF files.

News of the Society
How to join us
Witherspoon's
Global Engagement Initiative
Dancing with God -- reports from the 2005 Witherspoon conference on mission for peace and justice

SEARCH

CONNECTIONS

Coming events calendar 

Do you want to announce an event?
Please send a note!
Food for the spirit
Book notes

Go to  Amazon.com

LINKS

NEWS of the Presbyterian Church

Got news??
Send us a note!
Women's Concerns
Social and global concerns
The Middle East conflict
The War in Iraq
Hurricane Katrina
U. S. Politics
Election 2008
Economic justice
Fair Food Campaign
Sexual justice
Peacemaking & international concerns
Caring for the environment
Immigrant rights
Racial concerns
Church & State
The death penalty
The media
OTHER CHURCHES, OTHER FAITHS
Do you want regular e-mail updates when stories are added to our web site?
Just send a note!
The WebWeaver's Space
ARCHIVES
JUST FOR FUN
Want books?
Search Now:

 

5 pastors demand the church "repent"

Five pastors visit Louisville office, demanding the PC(USA) "repent"
[11-4-02]

Presbyterian News Service has reported that five Presbyterian pastors recently visited the Presbyterian national office in Louisville, to tape near the main entrance their "Call to Confession and Repentance," calling the church "irretrievably apostate under current management."

Their call for repentance, widely circulated, has so far garnered about 100 signatures.

Some Witherspoon members have urged us to comment on this action, and Witherspoon board member Barbara Kellam-Scott offers these thoughts:

~~~~~~~~~~~

It doesn't appear that the PC(USA) is quite rushing to sign onto the "Call to Confession and Repentance" drafted by five self-appointed pastors. Almost a month into their called-for season of prayer, they have only 100 signatures. Unfortunately, they seem to have been moved by this lukewarm reception to even greater misunderstandings of the constitution they would like to reduce to the single provision of G-6.0106b.

We hear from Presbyterian News Service that the five pastors, on the traditional day off for pastors but a day with no other discernable symbolism, took themselves to Louisville to accost the servants of the whole church as they arrived to do the work they've been called to by the voice of that church. They taped their "Call" to the front doors and tried to support analogies to Martin Luther and the doors of the Wittenburg church. It's rather sad that they think that's the center of our church. 

Much as we appreciate and depend on the work done so faithfully at 100 Witherspoon Street, it is decidedly not the center of our church, let alone the Vatican. The Presbyterian Church (USA) does not live behind those doors, but in pews and soup kitchens and day-care centers and literacy training and community organizing across the nation and in missions supported around the world by undesignated mission giving, by extra-commitment opportunities, and by special offerings such as the Peacemaking Offering that was generally received on the first day of the five pastors' season of prayer, the Advent Offering, or the One Great Hour of Sharing that will be received just as this extended self-centered season draws to a close.

PNS tells us that the top two executives of our staff, Clifton Kirkpatrick and John Detterick, graciously invited the five pastors to come inside and pray with them, and that the five pastors accepted only after they'd been in the faces of as many staffers as they could. The five told PNS that they thought they had the informal support of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and "some" other member organizations of the Presbyterian Coalition. It's interesting, though, that they got no coverage from these other sources beyond links to the PNS story.

Perhaps the Layman and others are beginning to tumble to the realization that actions like the five pastors' protest, their "Call to Repentance and Prayer" and its specified actions, and the whole "Confessing Church Movement" (the only place to find the "Call" on the Web) are without basis in the constitution of the PC(USA). These decisions are properly made by duly elected commissioners, ruling elders and teaching elders in parity, and mostly in the presbyteries that the five pastors ignore or would have some Pope of Louisville overrule.

Let's get over it and get to work.

 

 
 

If you like what you find here,
we hope you'll help us keep this website going ... and growing!

Please consider making a special contribution -- large or small -- to help us continue and improve this service.

Click here to send a gift online, using your credit card, through PayPal.

Or send your check, made out to "Witherspoon Society" and marked "web site," to our Witherspoon  Bookkeeper:

Susan Robertson  
9650 Clover Circle
Eden Prairie, MN  55347

 

An index of our reports from

 

 

 

BECOMING NEIGHBORS:
An Invitation
to Global Discipleship

A Witherspoon conference
on global mission and justice

September 16 - 19, 2007
Louisville, Kentucky

 

Check out our report from the Conference
on
Terror, Torture,
and Security

 

To top

© 2007 by The Witherspoon Society.  All material on this site is the responsibility of the WebWeaver unless other sources are acknowledged.  Unless otherwise noted, material on this site may be copied for personal use and sharing in small groups.  For permission to reproduce material for wider publication, please contact the WebWeaver, Doug King.  Any material reached by links on this site is outside the control and responsibility of the WebWeaver and The Witherspoon Society.  Questions or comments?  Please send a note!