Liberal Presbyterians Expelling Conservatives as Money Dissidents
I’ve blogged before about how the great heresy in liberal Episcopalianism (the only heresy?) is to try to divert money from the denomination. I read in Gary Fox’s book about the decline of the American Presbyterians 1860-1936 the same feature. The 1934 General Assembly declared (though it had given up defrocking ministers for doctrinal heresy years before) that a group of ministers who had organized a competing board for donations to foreign missions would be expelled if they didn’t stop diverting funds:
Missionary offerings are one of the ordinances enjoined in a particular church by the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church. The successive provisions of the Confession of Faith, the Form of Government, and the Directory for Worship, which have already been noted, make these missionary offerings just as really a part of the instituted worship of the Church as are prayer, preaching the Word of God, or the sacraments. A church member or an individual church that will not give to promote the officially authorized missionary program of the Presbyterian Church is in exactly the same position with reference to the Constitution of the Church as a church member or an individual church that would refuse to take part in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper or any other of the prescribed ordinances of the denomination as set forth in Article VII of the Form of Government.
North comments on this innovative doctrine:
The Form of Government, from the never-ratified Westminster Assembly version of 1644 until 1934, listed as ordinances the singing of psalms, reading the Bible, preaching, catechising, the sacraments, a collection made for the poor, and dismissing the people with a blessing. These appear under the section, Of the Ordinances in a particular congregation.(23) Three comments are in order. First, this list did not apply to higher levels of Church authority; these ordinances were exclusively congregational in application. Second, what about collections for the poor? The Church never had attempted to impose this as a requirement for ordination or continued membership, although it appears in the same section as the other local church ordinances. This is the only reference in the section to money; there is silence regarding other mandated collections. Third, the Form of Government did not have equal official authority to the Westminster Confession and the two catechisms, which required a two-thirds vote of the presbyteries to revise (not just a majority), and which are silent regarding collections made for the poor. The only explicit reference points for “ordinances” in the Confession are the marks of the Church: preaching and the sacraments (VII:6; cf. XXV:3). The obvious question: When in Presbyterian history had an oath to support financially the Church’s boards been taken by Church officers, let alone its members? The answer: never, before or since.