Surveys, Belhar and the Confession of the Church

A friend sent me the Presbyterian Panel’s survey of opinions about the Belhar Confession. I have placed it just below and I want to make some comments on his thoughts and mine:

“✓ One in six ministers (pastors, 17%; specialized clergy, 18%) are very familiar or familiar with the Belhar Confession, a 1986 theological statement about church unity that Reformed churches in South Africa developed during the debate over that country’s policies of racial hierarchy and segregation.

✓ About a quarter of ministers (pastors, 30%; specialized clergy, 23%) are familiar with the proposal to incorporate the Belhar Confession into The Book of Confessions.

✓ Almost no laypeople are very familiar or familiar with the Belhar Confession (members, 1%; elders, 2%) or the proposal to incorporate it into The Book of Confessions (2%; 1%).

✓ During the past 12 months only a few panelists in each group (members, 2%; elders, 0.4%; pastors, 8%; specialized clergy, 5%) have consulted a study guide about the Belhar Confession that the PC(USA) Theology and Worship staff published and posted on the Web. Most of those who have consulted the study guide found it to be very helpful or helpful.

✓ Majorities of panelists in each group are not sure if they would support incorporating the Belhar Confession into The Book of Confessions. More members (14%), pastors (25%), and specialized clergy (34%) would definitely or probably support than oppose (5%; 18%; 10%) incorporation. Elders are evenly split (8% each).”

To be absolutely truthful surveys always bore me. Truth is truth no matter what anyone thinks. And at first I disagreed with my friend that a majority of Presbyterians need to understand and approve before a confession is adopted. (To be clear, anyone who has read my blog for long knows that I do not think we should adopt Belhar.) But after thinking about it for awhile I began to find some truth in my friend’s thoughts.

So here are my thoughts on the lack of awareness or care for the Belhar Confession exhibited by Presbyterians.

Last night I began a book by Alister McGrath entitled, Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth. One of his thoughts started me thinking about the Presbyterian awareness of Belhar. McGrath wrote”

“It [the early Church] faced new intellectual challenges that demanded that it prove itself capable of engaging with religious and intellectual alternatives to Christianity, especially Platonism and Gnosticism. This process of the conceptual expansion of the Christian faith was extended in time and cautious in execution. The final crystallization of the process of exploration can be seen in the formation of creeds—public, communal authorized statements of faith that represented the consenus fidelium, the ‘consensus of the faithful,’ rather than the private belief of individuals.” (28)

That statement started me thinking through the historical formation of creeds and confessions and the public awareness of the process. My first thought was of the Nicene Creed. And I remembered an incident in a History of Christianity class at California State University, Sacramento. In the middle of the test a group of people outside started chanting something. Our professor said, tongue in cheek, they are chanting “There was a time when he was not.” One student quipped “and what council was that and what was the name of the heretic?” We laughed.

But the truth is Gregory of Nyssa tells his readers of that time in Constantinople:

“In this city if you ask a shopkeeper for change, he will argue with you about whether the Son is begotten or unbegotten. If you inquire about the quality of bread, the baker will answer, ‘the Father is greater, the Son is less.’ And if you ask the bath attendant to draw your bath, he will tell you that the Son was created out of nothing.”[1]

The point here is that most of that part of Christendom was taken up with the subject “who is Jesus,” although from the statements they made they were in need of a good catechism.

Another and far more recent Confession is the Declaration of Barmen. The need for a new Confession in Germany was bandied about for many years. Barth rejected the idea feeling that it was not the right time But as the church situation in Germany grew worse church lay people as well as pastors and a few theologians, such as Barth, began writing declarations and confessions as well as simple statements. That many in the Church were both aware and concerned can be seen by part of the contents of a letter Barth wrote to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer went to London needing space to think about the church situation in Germany. He was rightly afraid to tell Barth and wrote him a letter after arriving in England. Barth tried to be kind in his reply but his distress is clear. One thing he writes is about the need for a confession. He writes:

“Don’t you see that any biblical saying you like formally cries out to us that we, lost and dammed sinners, should now simply believe, believe, believe? With your splendid theological armoury and your upright German figure, should you not perhaps be almost a little ashamed that a man like Heinrich Vogel, who, wizened and worked up as he is, is just always there, waving his arms like a windmill and shouting ‘Confession! Confession!’, in his own way – in power or in weakness, that doesn’t matter so much – actually giving his testimony.”[2]

My point: the Church is not ready for this new confession because the church is crying out for something else, something more, and that needs to be confessed. The church, many lay people, many pastors, a few theologians, are crying out for the church to more boldly confess Jesus Christ. Belhar is being imposed from the top down while most of the church is seeking something more. Belhar does not meet their cry.






[1] The last two statements are what the Arians believed. That Jesus was a created being although higher and first of all creatures. That is a heresy of course.
[2] Edwin Robertson, The Shame and the Sacrifice: The life martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 102

Submission to God or human opinion

This morning reading in Auguste Lecerf’s An Introduction to Reformed Dogmatics, I noted this statement, “Submission to God is the means and condition of liberation from enslavement to human opinion. If we wish to restore legitimate authority it is only the better to true liberty.” (262)

I read this before listening to the second video make by More Light’s Michael Adee. The videos are entitled God’s New Family. The second one continually insults those who believe it is unbiblical to ordain those who are unrepentant about their homosexual practice. Homophobic, inhuman and unchristian are the terms used. And then there is Adee’s thought that the 1978 Church’s adopted policy that homosexuality is sin actually moved beyond scripture, as well as “medical science, compassion and common sense.”

Submission to God or enslavement to human opinion, these are the two realities the Church must choose between. Choose the first and the Church will be the Church under the Lordship of Christ holding on to Scripture. Choose the second and the Church will succumb to enslavement to the world. Choosing sin, the Church will find only the world’s glory, a sorry, tarnished thing.

If we keep traveling down this same road, pushing for the ordination of practicing homosexuals as well as seeing other sexual sins as normative, the mainline churches, will find what they believe to be a haven. However, the haven will not be the Lord but rather the state.

I am remembering the Scripture where Pilate is so relieved to find that Jesus is from Galilee and that he can be sent to Herod for judgment. Now the interesting thing about that scripture text is that although Herod did not take control of the situation and instead sent Jesus back to Pilate the two leaders who hadn’t liked each other very much, in fact, they were enemies, became friends that day. (Luke 23:1-25)And why was that? They agreed with each other’s opinions.

They agreed that Jesus was innocent but they also agreed that he was bothersome and his words were hard to hear. He spoke with authority and he was too much trouble to save. Each political leader had him mocked and beaten. (Matt 27:26)

Jesus submitted to his Father. They, Pilate and Herod, were owned, each by their desires for acceptance. They didn’t want to submit to anyone who was referred to as the King of the Jews, or the Son of man, or the truth or the only way to the Father. They didn’t want to be overcome by his words. So they submitted to the prevailing opinion.

Yes, Jesus’ disciples, who continued to submit to the authority of Christ, who held on to his word which is the word of God, suffered for their willingness to preach Christ. Still, they now glory in his glory. But Pilate and Herod? One was eaten by worms (Acts 12:23); the other became an obscure politician, whose history is incomplete. Except for this, all those who love Jesus will always remember that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.”

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. (Gal 5:1)”

Radical Islam disrupting our free speech- a form of anti-Semitism Up-date

Radical Islam does not believe in free speech. This is so sad that this is happening in our country in Irvine California. This is anti-Semitism indeed. Pray for our Jewish friends.
I have replaced the video with a much better but longer one. If you are interested in what is happening in the Middle East you will want to listen all of this video.




The Orange County Register:

11 arrested for disrupting Israeli ambassador. Here is part of the text:

Eleven people were arrested Monday evening during a raucous lecture at UC Irvine where Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren came to talk about U.S.-Israel relations. (UCI earlier said that 12 were arrested.)
Here are the identities of the 8 UCI students and 3 UC Riverside students who were arrested.
Oren was interrupted 10 times Monday while trying to give his speech before 500 people at the UCI Student Center, where there was heavy security. Oren took a 20 minute break after the fourth protest, asked for hospitality and resumed his speech, only to be interrupted again by young men yelling at him every few minutes. Many members of the audience also applauded Oren.

Ghost Ranch : tired by the length of our journey

The imagery in Isaiah 57 is poignant and cuts to the heart of idolatry. It begins with the death of the righteous person as blessing. He will not be present in a time of trouble. She will rest in peace. Picture by Stephen Larson

The idolater in these verses is constantly active in the worship of false gods, even to the point of slaughtering children. But here is one of the poignant images: a person so given over to their false gods or false ways, their denial of the Lord, that in that place where children have been killed they worship the ‘smooth ‘stones on which they were killed.
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Another image: a person so bent on his false ways that he will send his servants into the world of the dead for luxurious items. But the saddest of descriptive language is God’s words to his own people, “You were tired out by the length of your road, yet you did not say, ‘It is hopeless.’”

All of this comes to mind when I read the many retreat descriptions under Religion, Spirituality, Theology in the catalog at Ghost Ranch one of our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)Conference grounds. One would expect retreats focused on God’s Word, Biblical Christology, discipleship as well as peacemaking and justice.

But instead, not among the smooth rocks of the Middle East, but in the middle of the hauntingly beautiful desert and mountains of New Mexico, Christians are encouraged to sit at the feet of other gods. To “deepen” their “connection to the Divine through nature with hikes on the ranch, a labyrinth walk, soaking in mineral springs and a ceremony to connect with” their “spirit animal,” a concept that has its roots in the spiritualism of the nineteenth Century.

Those who belong to the Lord are invited to experience a “new consciousness” which supposedly has to do with “a growing awareness of the interrelatedness of all things.” This retreat which is titled Ancient Wisdom & New Consciousness, tells the interested, “Ancient wisdom from the Hebrew scriptures, the words of Jesus, and the teachings of the Qu'ran can play an undergirding and inspiring role in the development of the new consciousness.”

Yet another retreat allows women to listen to their deep inner wisdom and find their woman soul. Perhaps the most troubling retreat is, “Discovering Christ: Mother & Lover,” taught by Wendy Farley. Part of its description is:

“We will spend some time working with contemplative theologians like Origen for whom intimacy with Christ was a path to our divine nature, Julian who envisioned the infinite compassion of Christ for suffering, and de Chardin whose depiction of Christ healing the mind/matter split provides spiritual resource for meeting the environmental crisis. These are strands of Christianity in which Christ is not an atoning sacrifice but rather a power that heals the wounds which separate us from our divine source, from the earth and from one another.”1

Beyond all of this are retreats that consider the works of many different religions. And one retreat that bypasses any god, focusing on silence with this descriptive tag: “We come from a great Silence, we return to a great Silence. In the interval we call Life, Silence can be our most helpful companion, coaxing us to hear the Wise One Within (WOW!). When we travel in Silence through our inner terrain we can find important clues to the life we truly want.”

Jesus spoke of harming the little ones. Millstones and the sea are better adornments, he said, then harming the little ones.The sheep of his pasture are to be given special care. Paul knew. "Savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men [and women] will arise speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them."(Acts 20:29b)

We are tired by the length of our journey. We have failed to say it is hopeless. We need to return home to our Lord Jesus Christ.



1. Please do not believe this statement. At the least, Julian of Norwich had a beautiful understanding of the atonement of Christ.

Longing for revival or not....?

Part of the Scripture text for my Pastor’s sermon this Sunday morning was Jonah 4:1-2. That is the place where Jonah laments that God is “gracious and compassionate,” that he is “slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.” He is angry because God will not destroy the people of Nineveh although they have repented at Jonah’s preaching.

How sad that God brought about a great revival in an extremely wicked city and a follower of the Lord is angry enough to want to die. I have always wondered what happened to Jonah. Did he learn to walk in the grace and love of His Lord? But we know what eventually happened to Nineveh, she grew wicked again and eventually she was destroyed. But we know something else also.

Eventually many Assyrians became Christians. God once again had mercy on them as he has mercy on many of us. I have a wonderful daughter-in-law who is part Iraqi-Assyrian. And she is a vibrant Evangelical Christian. She and my son belong to a Christian motorcycle club. I think of God’s mercy reaching down through all of those years.

But there is another question that I think about when I read the story of Jonah, “is it grace and mercy time for us, will we receive it, or will some grow angry if God changes hearts and lives today, in our nation, our cities, our Church? I remember reading about David Wilkerson and his call to minister to the gangs of New York. I was a young married woman when he started Teen Challenge. Young men and women came off of drugs and out of gangs to live for Christ. I still remember the criticism. Too much emotionalism, too much religion, too much, it wouldn’t last, etc. …

I always think of the Welsh revival when I think of God’s awakening of a nation, a people, a Church. So to end my thoughts, the Welsh song born from that revival:



Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout Heavns eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of Gods mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heavens peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

The Final Report of the Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Union and Christian Marriage: my thoughts

After reading through “The Final Report of the Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Union and Christian Marriage,” several times, I do have some thoughts.1 My thoughts are focused around faithfulness to historical research and the proper use of the Bible for Christian discipleship.

My beginning thoughts have to do with a paradox. The report in its material seems to suggest that marriage norms, even Christian ones, have changed over the centuries. The theme of change runs subtly through most of the report and might be helpful to those people who advocate for same sex marriage, but the paradox here is that in all of those marriage scenarios there is absolutely no record of same sex marriage. Marriage has always been between a man and a woman.

But here is another paradox, the Committee, which is a Christian Committee, looked at the Bible’s historical accounts of marriage. But in doing so rather than using the Bible as the word of God they simply used at as any other kind of historical document. That is they used it as a primary source that you would read to understand how a certain group or groups understood laws and customs in their time. To understand how this works as opposed to using the Bible as the word of God the reader can look at one particular statement.

Under the passage which lists four benefits of marriage, the fourth benefit is:

“A political tool to form alliances between nations and advanced political ambitions (1 Sam. 18:17-27; 19:11-17; 25:44; 2 Sam. 3:13-15; 6:16-23; and 1 Kings 11:1-4).”

Now it is true that people in ancient times, and really through all times have used marriage as a political tool. The Biblical writers tell the truth, they record how people actually lived. But does God’s word insist that this is a proper way to understand the benefits of marriage?

The truth is that Solomon in his attempt to gain many political alliances with other nations married numerous wives and lost his heart to their gods. In Deuteronomy God’s word to Israel about future kings includes, “He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away …” (17:17)

In at least this case in Scripture there is a prohibition about marriage alliances but there is never approval. We are not hearing “thus says the Lord” in this study.

Some help is offered in the latter part of the Old Testament section. There the Committee looks at how marriage is used as analogy concerning Israel’s faithfulness to God and at least allows the reader to see what unfaithfulness means in marriage. But even here one does not hear straight forward words from the Committee about sexual faithfulness in marriage between a woman and a man. The text is still used as simply a primary source.

Looking to the New Testament the Committee uses the text in a slightly better way as they study the words of Jesus, Paul and others. But even here the text is seen more as a primary source concerning what people thought about marriage rather than the Church’s guide about marriage.

And the idea that marriage, even among Christians, is always in flux, is supposedly reinforced by suggesting that ideas about marriage changed somewhat when the Church realized that Jesus’ return would not be imminent. (Although it could be argued that the Church has never let go of their understanding of the imminent return of Christ that is for a different posting.)

One has to laugh somewhat about the first thought given after suggesting that “several trends emerged” as the “church prepared itself to be a continuing institution.” The authors write, “Qualifications for church leaders (ministers) included being married, but only to one wife (3:2).” 1Timothy 3:2 is used and it seems the thought is that now that we know Jesus isn’t coming back so soon instead of telling disciples not to marry we should tell them they must marry.

But that isn’t the emphasis of the text. It is instead about monogamy; if you are married, you can’t be married to more than one woman. As Greek scholar, Dr. William D. Mounce, in his Word Biblical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles translates the verse, “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he is desiring a good work. Therefore, it is necessary for an overseer to be above reproach: a ‘one-woman man’, clear-minded, self-controlled, dignified, hospitable, skilled in teaching, not a drunkard, not violent but gracious, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, managing his own household well, having submissive children with all dignity ….”

These were attributes contrary to the cultural norms in this particular place and the church was struggling against that culture. This is not a command for overseers to be married.

Another area in which one perceives attempts to push the idea of marriage norms in flux is the history of the Church. The Reformation era at one place in particular bothered me. The authors write, “Some radical reformers extended the principle ‘Scripture alone’ to justify polygamy using the example of the Patriarchs and Old Testament laws. Others understood Christ’s redemptive act as freeing true believers from sin, so that nothing done in Christian love was sinful.”

The Committee goes on to explain that “Reformed church leaders distanced themselves from such unorthodox beliefs and unruly behaviors.” That part is good but the information about the ‘radical’ reformers is so twisted that one can make all kinds of misconstrued suggestions from it.

For example one might think that many, many radical reformers saw marriage differently. That wouldn’t be true, and was a lie that plagued the radical reformers for years causing them exceeding grief and persecution. One might think from the statement that God’s law approves of multiple marriages. But it does not. One might think that ‘Scripture alone’ was what the radical reformers used to justify their actions of both polygamy and freedom in sexual issues. But that would also not be true.

There were three kinds of radical reformers. The Anabaptist, the Inspirationists and the Rationalists, were all considered radical reformers. Only the Anabaptist appealed to Scripture. The Inspirationists appealed to the spirit, the Rationalist to reason. Almost all the extreme radicalism of that period can be attributed to what those involved considered personal revelations of the Spirit. (see: The Anabaptist Story by William R. Estep)

All through the historical part there are problems such as the above. I am disappointed that the Committee didn’t spend time explaining and even using the Scriptures that uphold Christian marriage. If they were going to apply Scripture to the problems it should have been used as God’s word. If they were going to apply history to the problem it should have been done in a more careful and complete manner.

I am praying for those who are preparing a minority report.

1. Read the report and recommendations in their entirety. (from the OGA)

Roseville and Fair Oaks: praying for brothers and sisters

I have just now found the news that I have known for several days. I found it in the Los Angeles Metropolitan News-Enterprise. The headline reads C.A. Reverses Ruling Giving Local Churches Control of Property. That means that unless appealed they have lost their property. Or unless the Sacramento Presbytery takes the problem back under their wings and once again allows First Presbyterian Church of Roseville and Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church to leave with their property, they have lost.

The article has it slightly wrong, they write, “Both the Roseville and Fair Oaks churches reportedly agreed to pay the national church to leave with their property, but the deal was scuttled when another local church said the national church had an obligation to obtain fair market value for the property.” Instead , not a church but a man, a pastor, David Thompson, who is no longer Presbyterian, complained to the Pacific Synod that the Sacramento Presbytery had allowed the two churches to leave with their property.

Now Thompson has interfaith services which began with a sage smudging.

But Christians who truly love their Lord have better options then the Third District Court of Appeal. For the sake of the ministry that both Roseville and Fair Oaks provide to this area the Sacramento Presbytery can rescind their action and they can once again allow these two churches to leave with their property. This would be the gracious thing to do. It is the only thing to do since we are all members of the universal Church whose foundation and Head is Jesus Christ.

Sometimes the waters are muddied by just one set of feet that no longer walk in the stream. The faithful must push through the dirtied water and stand faithful before a holy God. And he is far more gracious then anyone. He is sovereign; we will be righteous and clean in him. I know that all the members of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church will be praying for these two churches, I pray that all orthodox and Evangelical members of the PCUSA will be praying for them as well. And include the Sacramento Presbytery in those prayers.

A very old song and recording for my friends:







The papers can be found here-scroll down http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub.htm