Some of my thoughts about the PC (U.S.A.)'s General Assembly and Western culture in general

Sitting in the Middle East Committee watching all of the manipulation by staff and resource people and hearing all of the misunderstandings and lies offered by the same, I found my denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) slipping away from me. Sitting in plenary as an illegitimate Authoritative Interpretation was passed because various leaders and committee members would not admit that it was not interpretive but redefining the constitutional definition of marriage, I once again found my denomination slipping away from me.

 It was like a movie screen fading to a blur. There was and is nothing left between us. If there is a silver cord of life that holds all members in connection with one another mine was destroyed during General Assembly.

Except, there are those who love Jesus and in that loving, are faithful, honest and truthful. It is the faithful loving commitment to the Lord of the Church and submission to his word, the Bible, that hold the orthodox together. Those inside the PC (U.S.A.) and those outside.

And they are held together in the universal Church, not just in the PC (U.S.A.). While the denomination is constantly seeking ecumenical partners, the orthodox are already a part of the huge universal body of Christ. They do not need to dialogue, their connections are in Christ; they find joy in the fellowship of the saints.

So some will stay in the denomination, a few, and some will go. But either way we are in the world, and as the world invades the denomination both those in the PC (U.S.A) and those who have left will experience the same trauma. In either case the orthodox need to be in churches that uphold the word of God and the Lordship of Christ. There are times when one is alone in their faith. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about that in his book, Life Together. But as he also points out, Christian fellowship is a gracious gift of God.

The trauma in the PC (U.S.A,) is knowing that God’s word is being broken. Christology is shattered as the denomination ignores or refuses the redemptive and transformative work of Jesus on the cross.  The many symptoms of our sinful nature come at once. Lack of pity for the baby aborted live, failure to uphold the holiness of Christ in our lives, calling sin no sin, greed. And in the world? Darker days while the tolerant become intolerant.
 
In the last several days I have listened to a City Council meeting in Nanaimo British Colombia where a conference on leadership was rejected at the last moment because it was partly sponsored by Chick-Fil-A and because one of the speakers was Dr. Henry Cloud, a Christian psychiatrist, who believes homosexuality can be cured through therapy. (He has also written many books including Boundaries which I found very helpful.) It didn’t seem to matter that Laura Bush and Desmond Tutu were also speakers.

The words coming from these city council members display the world Western Christians are beginning to face. I care little anymore for a denomination that has opened the door to worldly lifestyles and that in a deceitful manner. But I do care for the people left in the bondage of sin, and those who want to be faithful to Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the body of Christ.

Israel/Palestine Mission Network: they are against the purposes of God

The Presbyterian Layman in their article, “Report asserts antisemitism references on IPMN’s Facebook page,” written by Nathan Key, noted that “The NGO Monitor issued a 69-page report entitled ‘The Role of Antisemitism in the Presbyterian Church (USA’s) Decision to Support Divestment.’”

In Key’s report and the original article the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church was highlighted for its antisemitism. Having once removed its Facebook page, which was constantly being used to promote antisemitism, IPMN evidently opened a new Facebook which was closed to all but its members but according to The NGO Monitor not secret. [1]

In the report several instances of antisemitism were highlighted. Some examples are:

“a. a “Zionist controlled America [has a] desperate lust” for war with Iran

b. “Jewish interests” are “corrupting” the US government, and the media is “owned” and “operated” by these same “Jewish interests.”

c. the “Christian Holy Land” is “occupied” by the “zionist (sic) instigator”

d. Racial theories of Jewish origins claiming Ashkenazi Jews are not racially “Semitic,” are actually “Khazars,” and therefore should not be in the Middle East.

 e. Israeli Jews should be ethnically cleansed: “Helen Thomas was right, ‘Go back to Russia, Germany…’ Just leave.”

 f.  “IRAN! Thank God for them! The only Zionist-free land left on earth.” 

I looked for the site, which seemed to be under the name “Friends of IPMN-PC (USA) Israel/Palestine Mission Network,” but I did not find it. And then I found out that after the NGO Monitor report, IPMN made their site secret. And the question remains, “Should an organization of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) be allowed to have a secret Facebook?

Of course the bigger question is, “Should the PC (U.S.A.) be allowed to have an organization that constantly spews out anti-Semitic rhetoric?

IPMN, as though to more thoroughly reveal their character, on Twitter, tweeted:

“IPMN @IPMN  ·  Jun 25

NGO Monitor hacks into IPMN's private facebook group, accuses us of anti-Semitism after losing divestment vote.”

I must say, after having written, for many years, on the anti-Semitism of both the left and right, there is no question about IPMN’s anti-Semitism. Look at the statements the MGO Monitor reported. David Duke, Christian Identity, the KKK, they would all agree with the points that IPMN are trying to make.

And as for the NGO Monitor hacking into their Facebook page, if it wasn’t secret they didn’t need to hack, they could just read. And if it was secret IPMN was trying, as they are now, to deceive the PC (USA)’s membership about who they really are.

No they are not servants of God, or even of the Church, and they are not peace makers. They are PC (USA) members who hate all of those Jews who seek to have a safe haven in a world that has through the centuries poured out their blood without mercy. They are unrelenting anti-Semites who will stoop to any act in order to have their own way. They are against the purposes of God who called Abraham out of Ur that a people might be a blessing to the world.

[1] It should be noted with some joy that the PC (USA) will no longer be publishing IPMN's publication, Zionism Unsettled. 

 

Picture:

The Vision of the Lord Directing Abram to Count the Stars (woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld from the 1860 Bible in Pictures) Woodcut for "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860.

A different perspective on the 1001 PC (USA) Worshiping Communities

After having written about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s 1001 worshiping communities’ site, and finding they were offensive hoaxes, surely planted by jokesters and scalawags, I, in most cases, am happy with what I now find. I should add that it is good that I found Vets-Help.org veterans and families because rather than a hoax it was a serious attempt at planting a very bad anti-Semitic site in the middle of the 1001 worshiping communities. I say ‘was’ because the administrators took down the offending offerings which probably never existed except in name as well as the one which was meant to do harm. [1]

I should not blame the administrators for missing the bad link to the anti-Semitic site because those connected to both Veterans News Now and Veterans Today hide behind legitimate links using helpful web spots for veterans.

But what I did find, as I was looking last night, are many new immigrant worshiping communities, including one close to me in Yuba City, California. Hosanna Punjabi Christian Church which is “Evangelizing … immigrants from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan.” There are also communities which are actually new churches, and there are communities which consist of Bible studies and/or action groups in service to others.

Of course I have sorrow at such communities as New Queer Faith Forum which is not so much a community as just a place to communicate ideas and ideals. I find it has a connection to the GLBTQ metropolitan Community churches and includes those of any faith.

 Founder Brian Symonds is quoted in Frontiers LA.Com:

“Faith was never meant to be a destructive force, but somewhere along the line a few hijacked it and used it to really tear down a vulnerable community. They used it to tear us down,” says Symonds who has a seminary background and is a candidate for ministry in the Presbyterian Church.

Symonds has already experienced success with a similar forum in West Los Angeles that meets on the first and third Tuesdays of every month. He wanted to expand into Orange County because he is a resident of Fullerton.

Symonds’ husband serves on the board of The Center's Young Professionals Council, and he connected with Executive Director Kevin O'Grady, whom he talked with about bringing “this new faith movement” to Orange County.

While the West L.A. group has turned out to be Christian-centered, Symonds says “I never say this is Christian or Muslim or Buddhist. This is for anybody struggling with spirituality or faith. Let's explore it together. We are saying come talk to us and let's find out how we can better respond to the faith needs.”

 What I really see in all of these communities is such a diverse gathering of communities, some emerging communities, some very orthodox with even their essentials listed, some open to all faiths and all lifestyles, that eventually they, like the rest of society, will splinter away from each other which is perhaps how it must be. Whatever the direction I am grateful for those communities which are upholding the orthodox faith of the Church.

[1] See 1001 Worshiping Communities: dancing with balloons, a bisexual Jesus and Veterans News Now!! Update

1001 Worshiping Communities: dancing with balloons, a bisexual Jesus and Veterans News Now!! Update

Please read the update at the bottom; two of these are undoubtedly hoaxes. But the last one is not. I now have assurances that these three are all coming down and being investigated. I will do a rewrite when this is finished.

Now see: A different perspective on the 1001 PC (USA) Worshiping Communities

At first I thought it was a joke. I saw it in a comment under a blog posting.  Remember the red balloons and dancing in celebration at the Presbyterian General Assembly less than a week ago. They were celebrating the supposed 1001 new worshiping communities. This was the shameful link I saw:   Bi-Cycling for All. And this is the description:

A place to find and know God for the bi-sexual community while emphasizing the unitarian concepts embodied in the primary geometric symbol of bicycles, round wheels, round gears, and a chain connecting the unity of the drivetrain. We will work diligently to advocate for full inclusion of bisexual individuals into the life of the church, including ordination, bisexual marriage equality, and recognition that Jesus was bisexual [1]

So now we are embracing a group whose only reference to Jesus is that he is supposedly bisexual!

 And then there is the Fellowship of all Species with a description:

The Fellowship of All Species gathers to worship the Creator of All--- not just the human species. We will work for full inclusion of all animal species into the life and witness of the PC(USA). Our desire is to recognize that every living, breathing creature upon this earth is welcome in the church and can serve the church in varied and unique ways, giving witness to the Creator. [2]

 And as though in judgment on our attempts to shape our denomination to secular culture, there is a 1001 worshiping community titled Vets-Help.org veterans and families. On the communities’ site it is described this way:

I am a disabled veteran setting this up as a virtual community for outreach to veterans and their families.  

The person who has set it up is Chuck (Craig) Northacker.  He writes for Veterans News Now the anti-Semitic site connected to the vile site Veterans Today. The latter is the site which the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate Watch states has now entered the neo-Nazi movement after blaming the shooting of children at Sandy Hook on Israeli death squads.

Veterans News Now is posted on the news section of Vets-Help.org.

 While there are many good and faithful worshiping communities being added to the 1001 worshiping page there are many disgraceful entries. When a Church opens the door to darkness expect the demons of hell to enter. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the church, but it must truly be the church, not some outlandish configuration of church. Rather than dancing in the aisles and playing with red balloons we all need to enter a time of prayer, repentance and discernment.   

[1] [2]Update- The first one is, as I originally thought, a joke, because their address is 666. And someone pointed out to me that the Fellowship of all Species is certainly a hoax because its originator is Chuck Darwin.

The PC (U.S.A.) and divestment, it will be a part of the global BDS movement ...

Friday the 20^th the 221^st Presbyterian General Assembly passed 04-04 to divest from three companies doing business with Israel. While the document passed by the GA contains a section that states that the PCUSA has no connections to the wider Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, they allowed both in committee and on the day of the plenary vote, Rifat Odeh Kassis to speak. Kassis is co-author of the Kairos Document which calls for a complete boycott of Israel.

Kassis in an article 0n the Electronic Intifada writing of the Kairos Document states:

“The document calls for a complete system of sanctions of Israel. Not simply a boycott of products generated by settlements or of products in general, or of institutions and organizations that are unabashedly complicit in the occupation, but a total boycott. Our occupation is not selective, and so our opposition must not be.”

The Kairos document also calls for a return of the Palestinian refugees to Israel which would destroy the Jewish state. There would be no need for a two state solution then, only a need to once again find a safe homeland for the Jewish people.

The push by the BDS movement has been so aggressive that one commissioner was handed a piece of propaganda as she sat participating in the consensus part of the assembly’s deliberations. Because of the timing, it rendered mute the two questions the commissioners were supposed to answer in their small group gatherings. That is:

“What did you hear that might lead someone to support the committee’s recommendation? [And the reverse] What did you hear that might keep someone from supporting the committee’s recommendation?

Presbyterians are so careful with order and government that they often forget that there are always those trying in various ways to undermine the polity in order to have their own way. And too often those seeking their own way are being led by those whose self-interest has nothing at all to do with the PC (U.S.A.) and their mission.

Thankfully, the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the P C (U.S.A.) was removed from an item Friday night because of their anti-Semitic booklet Zionism Unsettled and their unhealthy opposition to most things Jewish. Also their publication Zionism Unsettled is to carry information that it is not a publication of the PC (U.S.A.). Still they are the organization leading the denomination into the global BDS movement. A movement in which they are heavily involved.

Until the Israel/Palestine Mission Network is dissolved their aggressive actions and their continuing advocacy will push the PC (U.S.A.) deeper and deeper into the BDS movement whose very goal is to destroy Israel as a Jewish State. And until the PC (U.S.A.) puts away their vision of peace in the Middle East via divestment and boycott, there will be no deepening of their relationships with most Jewish people in the United States.

I do not remember if it was Kassis or a different speaker, but one remark was that the Palestinian Christians are ancestors of the ancient church of the Holy Land, but the original biblical churches in that land were Jewish. While the Palestinian Christians are ancient and treasures to the world of Christianity; it is wrong to use the faith to undermine the reality of the biblical church which from its Jewish roots spread to the nations of the world. The Jewish peoples, alongside the Palestinians and other peoples of the region need peace and the Presbyterians need peace. In neither case will divestment help.

Official immorality enters the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

This afternoon the 221^st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted yes to an authoritative interpretation of the constitution that allows teaching elders to marry same gender couples in those states where it is allowed. They also voted to change the wording in the Directory of Worship from man and woman to two persons so as to allow same gender marriage. The latter item will still have to go to the presbyteries for a vote.

I will leave it to others to say that the authoritative interpretation is dishonest since it does not really interpret but redefines. It allows what is unbiblical, same gender sex, to stand alongside of marriage between a man and a woman. It puts our constitution in crisis. And others may write of how the change in the Directory of Worship does the same since the Confessions of the PC (U.S.A.) speak only of a man and woman united in marriage. And the Holy Scriptures call same gender sex sin while defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Although unbiblical and unfaithful to the Lord of the church, these two actions are not so unusual to church history. The early church experienced Gnostics who held that immoral sex was allowed because the body was unimportant. Some of the Ranters of the 17^th century advocated free love. Although not official, the Catholic Church of the years leading up to the Reformation, was filled with both laity and clergy who lived immoral lives.

In the 1930s the Confessing Church martyr, Paul Schneider, was angered by the loose and official sexual immorality of the Nazi government. His speaking out about such sin was one of the reasons he was arrested and later beaten and poisoned. At the same time Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another pastor in the confessing church, confessed the sin of the church which did not stand against the flood of sexual immorality.   

The Scripture is filled with admonitions against sexual immorality which afflicted the biblical church. The book of Jude gives warning, using Sodom and Gomorrah as examples stating that those who were pushing licentiousness so hard in the church “indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh.” In the book of Revelation, in the letter to the church of Thyatira, the church is warned about Jezebel, she calls herself a prophetess, and she leads Christians astray, causing them to commit sexual sin and idolatry.
 
And the Old Testament? We all should shudder as we read of the Israelites who were apostate. They held their unconfessed sin in bundles; everything intertwined. Greed, idolatry, oppression, child murder were all interlaced with their sexual immorality. God, often, after holding out his hands to them, pleading with them to repent, sent them into judgment and exile.

But there is mercy extended. There is grace and forgiveness. Jesus loves the sinner. He loves all of us in sin, but calls us out to his forgiveness.  In the midst of immorality, Jude tells the church:

But you beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

And then there is God’s promise. He keeps us from stumbling, he doesn’t just allow us, he ‘makes’ us stand in the presence of his glory. We are there blameless and have great joy. Through all of this tragedy we will stand in the presence of Jesus and the fellowship of each other. And may we bring the broken hurting members of our denomination with us, out of their bondage to stand before his glory. To dwell in love in God’s kingdom.

Using Jesus as a talking point in a GA debate about divestment

Right in the middle of morning devotions, given by Virginia Sheets,  vice moderator of the Middle East issues committee, she suggested that Jesus wasn’t afraid to tell the Jews when they were wrong. The rest of her devotions gave the listener, at least this listener, the understanding that she was implying to the commissioners ‘go thou and do likewise.’ And then she, not the moderator, facilitated the commissioners in voting to divest from businesses doing business with Israel. [1] [2]

First of all using a devotion to advocate for your preference in voting is immoral. It is misusing the word of God.

But from a Christian point of view there are two greater problems: Jesus was also a Jew and he was God incarnate. He was the long promised messiah. Because he was a Jew he had the prophetic right to speak to his own people. By reason of fulfilling the promise given to the people of God he had the right to open the door to his kingdom and scold those who because of the hardness of their heart prevented others from entering into the kingdom.

But the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is neither Jewish nor God. And they are, in fact, the ones shutting the door to the kingdom. With their constant politicalizing they are driving many away from the foot of the cross, and many away from the denomination. Jesus is often and only used as a formal expression such as we must do this because Jesus wants us to do so. And because of the hardness of hearts they do not listen to the tears and concerns of God’s people. Their hearts are hard against the real message of the gospel which has to do with redemption and reconciliation.

Whether Sheets understands it or not, in the midst of a debate about divestment, her comment about Jesus not being afraid to tell the Jews when they were wrong is anti-Semitic. It wasn’t even categorized as the Jews of Israel—no it could just as well have been the Jews of New York City, or Palo Alto, or even the Jews living in Germany in 1938.

How shameful that our denomination has sunk to such lows.

Surely, Jesus has some strong words for us as a people.

From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)

[1] It may be that many commissioners did not catch the implications of Sheets remarks but I believe many did.
[2] The committee did vote to divest. This however can change in plenary.