Thinking about tomorrow: thinking about the fellowship of the saints UPDATE on Freedom

Up-date beginning here: Presbyweb today has linked to Our freedom of religion at risk – A Presbyterian crisis, a Pittsburgh Presbytery convocation apparently concerned with the loss of religious freedom in the United States. One of the speakers is Mark Tammen, Associate Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, along side Jeff Tindall.

Some of the concern is over the Churches who are attempting to leave with their church property, and the civil law suits involving some.

The Letter of Invitation sent out by the Moderator of Pittsburgh Presbytery states that:

"The current activities of some congregations and ministers encouraging division within the Church can lead to subordination of the Church to the state particularly when congregational sessions/trustees file civil suits against Presbyteries. The religious practices of the Presbyterian Church (USA) are specifically threatened when court orders are sought to prevent Presbyteries from exercising their ecclesiastical obligations pursuant to the book of order as they relate to dealing with division, disorder, dismissal, determination of the true church and Christian support of remnant congregational minorities."

Please note that one of the speakers above, Mark Tammen, is both the Associated Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and the same person who in the report below found that "the viability of incorporating same-sex marriages into our repertoire of celebrations," was a valid opinion.

I am aware it is a long posting but please read my opinion on who is making common cause with the State and preparing to move against their brothers and sisters with the state behind them.

In a recent posting I pointed out this information placed in the Church newsletter of Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco.

“Discussion of recent California Supreme Court decision declaring prohibition of same-sex marriages to be unconstitutional. Steve Taber presented a lengthy and technically researched opinion as to the viability of incorporating same-sex marriages into our repertoire of celebrations. Both the Associate Stated Clerk of the General Assembly [Mark Tammen] and the Stated Clerk of San Francisco Presbytery have found his conclusions valid. Pastor Maggi stated that this is a way for us to show love and support for members who are making a serious commitment, and all her usual pre-marital procedures would remain in place – counseling, etc. We thoroughly discussed this concept and then Pam Byers presented the following motion:

The Session authorizes Pastor Maggi Henderson to officiate at same-sex marriage ceremonies, and will consider requests for use of the sanctuary for these ceremonies, under the California Supreme Court ruling of May 15, 2008. These services will include pastoral and congregational celebrations and blessings following guidelines in the July 3, 2008 letter from Stephen Taber, Esq.”

In an even earlier posting, Davis Community Church, in Sacramento Presbytery & Covenant Network lawyers make plans for pastors to officiate at gay and lesbian civil marriages, I placed somewhat the same information from the November newsletter of Davis Community Church.

In their newsletter, The Courier, is information about their decision to allow their ministers to officiate as “duly authorized official [s] of the State of California.” They “may officiate at a civil same-gender marriage, with no reference during this legal event to the Presbyterian Church or any official action on behalf of that Church or DCC.”

While all of this is somewhat moot until the California Supreme Court rules on the legality of Proposition 8, it does bring up some troubling thoughts that have similarities to other times in Church history.

I have often blogged about the Confessing Churches of Germany, the Declaration of Barmen and how the theological aspects of those times were similar to the situation in the mainline churches today. My emphasis was always theological. It centered on the German Christian's insistence that there is other revelation besides that found in Jesus the Living Word and the Bible the written word. The political circumstances were certainly not the same as today's. They still are not; yet the similarities are deepening and growing stronger.

The German Christians had a connection to the state through their sense of new revelation. They accepted Hitler and his ideology as important revelations for their times. They endorsed his policies and made connections with them. They did this on the basis of a liberal theology which had connected with the romantic philosophical view that the Holy Spirit or God was moving progressively through history bringing new truth with each historical event.

The point is the German Christians became a movement in opposition to what would become the Confessing Churches. They preferred embracing a government willing to feed their own revelatory aspirations rather then biblical truths and brothers and sisters who held on to those truths.
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Contemporary similarities as they deepen have to do with mainline churches using the State’s ruling on gay marriage to align with the culture and the laws of a postmodern society while ignoring biblical revelation about the holiness of God and his transforming grace.
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Among theologians in the gay community there is a growing emphasis on new revelation. In a book published in 2003, Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love, many contributors emphasize sex as a new way of understanding God.
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Rebecca Todd Peters sees the life changes that women experience reshaping the Christian view of God. she writes, "If we start with women's bodily experience of sexuality as a window into the divine, its very mutability can offer insight into redefining the way we think about God/ess." Scott Haldeman uses the male gay sex act as a revelation of who God is. And here it is difficult to quote without being explicit, so I will not.

Seemingly, the two Churches I have written about, and I am certain there are others, are quite willing to use the turn of postmodern culture toward sexual immorality and ignore the moral dictates of the Bible. They are willing, because of a different revelation, to let the State give them sanction even when the Church does not.

Does this mean that those of us who hold a biblical view of sexuality must become tough, hard, fearful or uncaring. Hardly.

This means we must, in humility, draw very close to Jesus Christ and to each other. We must learn what it means to love Jesus Christ at all costs, and what it means to love the habitual sinner who so desperately needs Jesus Christ forgiveness and transformation.
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So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old self which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of the deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. (Eph 4:17-24)