A Question for PCUSA Conservatives: Why Now?

I read Parker T. Williamson's latest editorial on the continuing mainline Presbyterian crisis with interest. As most of us are aware, the progressive wing of the PCUSA finally succeeded earlier this year in removing the "fidelity and chastity" language from the church's Book of Order, thus excising the constitutional impediment to the ordination of practicing homosexuals. In addition, a new Form of Government (nFog) was also approved to replace the old Book of Order, and some expect it will result in a less defined and perhaps more hostile procedural environment for conservatives in that denomination. If past history and the tenor of the large-scale meeting of PCUSA conservatives in Minneapolis this last week are any indication, another Presbyterian body may well eventually emerge.

Williamson makes the point that the denomination's recent declension and refusal to take doctrine seriously are nothing new, and he cites the Mansfield Kaseman incident as a case in point. While the editorial perhaps does not get all the details precisely right (Kaseman was already ordained in the United Church of Christ [UCC]), Williamson's larger point is well taken. Kaseman was a UCC minister who was called in 1979 to pastor the Rockville United Church (a joint UPCUSA/UCC congregation). When he was examined for reception by Capitol-Union Presbytery of the then UPCUSA, a Time Magazine report at the time indicated that Kaseman denied the deity of Christ, expressed doubts about the bodily resurrection of Christ, and was fuzzy on the doctrine of the Trinity. His examination was nevertheless sustained by the Presbytery and this decision was eventually affirmed on procedural grounds by the Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) after conservatives had twice complained the Presbytery's action.

Parenthetically, it is worth pointing out that five years earlier procedural screws were being tightened against conservatives in the so-called Kenyon Case (the significance of both cases is explored here and here). Wynn Kenyon was a ministerial candidate in Pittsburgh Presbytery of the UPCUSA. During his examination he declared that he could not as a matter of conscience participate in the ordination of women. The Presbytery decided to ordain him but this decision was then overturned by the PJC on the grounds that candidates for ordination must abide by explicit constitutional polity provisions. The practice of ordaining women was then enshrined in "A Brief Statement of Faith" (1983), and so it now has confessional status in the PCUSA. As far as I can see, this is about the only confessional provision now consistently enforced in that body. To read more, click here.