Two different faiths in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)?

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is certainly divided despite calls for unity. Some of the division can be seen in a commentary that Carmen Fowler LaBerge of the Presbyterian Layman wrote and her detractors counter arguments. LaBerge's article, "Commentary on a Comment: People are going to hell while you're playing at Presbyterianism,” was supposedly answered by teaching elder, John Vest, with his article, “Playing at Presbyterianism,” and teaching elder Marci Glass' article “More Lines in the Sand.”

Evidently the troubling thought in LaBerge's article was this, “You cannot reach people with a love you have not experienced and you cannot invite people into a relationship with a God you do not really know.”

LaBerge suggests the problem with the divisions is not that there are two different focuses but two different faiths. Of course, both Vest and Glass resent the implications. But is this so, are there two different faiths operating under the name PC (U.S.A.)? I think the answer is yes and no. The division is not complete. But last night as I was reading a historical biography of pastor Paul Schneider, the first martyr of the Confessing Churches during the Nazi era, I couldn't help thinking of some of the similarities surrounding that question in Schneider's time.  

The early ideological bent of the German Christians was not apparent to many in the German church in the early years after 1933. Even Paul Schneider, at the very first, aligned himself with the movement. However many moderates within the German church movement clung to the hope that there could be unity in the German church if the political infighting would cease. For them compromises were possible. They believed that all sides in the 'church struggle,' as it was called, were orthodox in their faith. And then the famous Berlin Sports Palace rally of German Christians occurred. 20, 000 German Christians listened as Dr. Reinhold Krause spoke. [1]

Not only did Krause insist that the Old Testament should not be included in Christian scripture, he also wished to do away with some of the New Testament. Of Paul and various passages and doctrines of the New Testament, Krause stated:

It also will be necessary that our National Church proceed to remove all plainly distorted and superstitious passages from the New Testament and that a firm renunciation of the scapegoat doctrine and inferiority-complex teaching of the Rabbi Paul be announced, for Rabbi Paul distorted the happy and simple good news of “Love your neighbor as yourself:” Regard your neighbor as brother and God as your Father.[2]

This was a renunciation of original sin and the need for Jesus' redemptive death. Krause, defaming Paul and Barth in one breath, went on to proclaim what he and the more radical German Christians believed was the proper connection between God and humanity:

It is indeed correct that the entire development of dialectical theology, from Paul to Barth has made a cerebral game out of our God and Father. Theology has always sought to segregate God and man, to justify its existence by proving the curse of original sin and the role of the Church in redemption from the fall. We know of no segregation between God and man, if man by his own decision, does not segregate himself from God. The Savior demonstrated this truth to us in the parable of the lost son. We are fallen only when we depart from God, and if we have the will to say, “I will return to my Father,” then we are saved. Kant is correct; each person is responsible for himself. No one can release me from my sins.[3]

As for Jesus, he was simply a heroic example. “We must return to the heroic Jesus whose life serves as an example for us and whose death was the seal to that life, the conclusion of a life lived in heroic struggle in fulfilling the task assigned to him by his Father.” Krause goes on to warn the German Christians against “an exaggerated preaching of the crucified one” and suggests that they needed , not a leader in heaven, but one on the earth.

Earlier in his speech, Krause had suggested that Martin Luther followed Meister Eckhart in his mysticism and had freed himself from the bondage of monasticism by arriving at “a subjective inner experience of God,” and that he had achieved “union with the Deity which has been achieved by the Nordic seekers after God.”[4] 

Finally, many moderates in the German Christian movement understood that this was not Christianity and fled the movement. They did not all join the Confessing movement that was developing but they all kept a wary eye on the German Christians. And some who never became Confessing Church members used their positions to aid their brothers and sisters in the Confessing Church. [5]

Intertwined in all of the heresy was a dark racism, nationalism and a particularly vile and aggressive anti-Semitism. But it was the heresy that finally reached the hearts of some of the moderates. They finally understood that another faith was operating in their midst. So one can ask is that kind of heresy evident in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). But lets point out the precise heresies first.  
 

1. The rejection of some scripture; the loss of scriptural authority.
2. The rejection of the doctrine of original sin.
   
3. The rejection of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
   
4. The pelagian heresy that one can accomplish one's own salvation.
   
5. Unity with God is acquired by seeking for an experience rather than through Jesus Christ.
   
6. The demoting of Jesus from redeemer to simply a heroic example.
   
7. Although not predominate in this speech the German Christians also promoted a second and new revelation-supposedly given by the “Spirit”
   
   

Have any of these heresies been advocated in the PC (U.S.A.)? And I am not here asking if any of the confessions of the church teach any of these heresies; the three denominations which formed the protestant church in Germany during the time of Hitler also held Reformation confessions as well as the ecumenical confessions. Nonetheless, the German Christians existed and espoused doctrines which belonged to another faith. And for awhile they became the political leaders and theological leaders in the church. In fact many of the professors in the seminaries backed them and their theology, ideology and anti-Semitism.

We wait. Not nationalism, but a desire to be relevant to the culture under girds the heresy that is in the PC (U.S.A.). Not racism, but a disregard for the moral sensibilities of many of our various immigrant communities is connected to the heresy. Not anti-Semitism, and yet its odor drifts through some of the heresy. We wait and pray for salvation.

Picture by Penny Juncker

[1] Claude R. Foster, Jr., Paul Schneider: The Buchenwald Apostle, A Christian Martyr in Nazi Germany, A Sourcebook on the German Church Struggle, (West Chester, PA: SSI Bookstore, West Chester University 1995) 299.

[2]Ibid, 302.

[3]Ibid.

[4]Ibid, 300.

[5] Kyle Jantzen, Faith and Fatherland: Parish Politics in Hitler's Germany, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2008).