As you may know, this past summer the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) decided to allow the ordination of gay clergy.
Yesterday, a new Presbyterian denomination was born: the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians -- or, for short, ECO.
ECO was formed by pastors and laypeople in response to PCUSA's decision to join the 21st century. They're against gay people being ordained as ministers, and so started their own sub-denomination wherein such a thing would be prohibited.
And that's fair enough. If they want to take their ball and go play with themselves in the corner, that's certainly their right.
What is certainly most notable, however, is ECO's refusal to anywhere, in any way whatsoever, just come out and say that they formed in response to PCUSA's sanctioning the ordination of gay people. Everyone knows that's why ECO formed. It's hardly a mystery or secret. Yesterday's Reuters story on the matter was titled Presbyterian group breaks away over gay clergy. Back in August, Rev. John Crosby, now the president of ECO, said, "We [the Presbyterians] have tried to create such a big tent trying to make everybody happy theologically. I fear the tent has collapsed without a center."
Wow. So, for Rev. Crosby the go-to metaphor on this matter is tent poles. Boy, for a guy who likes to sidestep the big, hot issues ...
And what deft sidestepping Rev. Crosby and his fellow ECO leaders do. A reader can search high and low throughout ECO's online site, and nowhere will they find a single, solitary word about gay people or homosexuality. They'll read how ECO wants to "connect leaders through accountable biblical relationships," to "reclaim a sense of covenanted biblical community," and to "develop gospel-centered leaders." They'll discover ECO's passion for "the right kind of diversity" (which is then carefully stipulated to mean "women, men, young leaders, and every ethnicity"). They'll readily learn of ECO's desire to "unite around a shared theological core."
But beyond that kind of dissembling, Secret Code Fundy Talk, nary a mention will they find of the true and actual reason ECO exists.
ECO honchos! Just say you've formed because you believe that gays shouldn't be ordained! If your convictions are so great they've compelled you to found a "breakaway movement," why aren't they great enough for you to be explicit about what it is you're breaking away from?
That said, though, I'm heartened by the leaders of ECO being so afraid of proclaiming their true nature and purpose. It means they're as uncomfortable as, God knows, they should be, about excluding gay people from full participation in the life that Jesus so passionately offered to all.
It's always encouraging when someone can't force their mouth to say what their heart knows is wrong. It means there's hope for them yet.
In the meantime our would-be friends at ECO are stuck, as it were, inartfully singing along with the Cowardly Lion:
I'm sure I could show my prowess / Be a lion, not a mouse / If I only had the nerve.
(UPDATE: A commenter to this post wrote: "As a PCUSA pastor I can tell you a big reason why ECO was formed was because the pastors in the anti-gay lobby receives very generous pension and medical benefits from the PCUSA that they are afraid to leave behind should they follow their conscience to disaffiliate from the denomination. ... Our pension plan is the envy of most denominations and our benefits are generous. Any minister can leave at any time to seek a call in another Presbyterian denomination that would have them [PCA, OPC, EPC, RCA, CRC, etc.]. But they don't want to give up the perks.")
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Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) |
Frequently Asked Questions - Evangelical Covenant Church
No one says Christ birth was " a divine birth". Your words ridiculing the idea are, therefore, wasted. Was Mary a virgin, yes, plenty of proof, Old and New Testament. Non-historical? There are over 5000 documents from the apostolic era to support the Scriptural accounts. Roman history, Greek history have no where near that number of authenticating sources.
You don't believe the Bible? Fair enough. But you don't need silly arguments to reinforce your atheism. Come on out with it! Admit it.
Like you want the ECO to do.
I love all of these doctrinal and adminstrative "reasons" for not admitting the obvious.
The real problem here is that this breakaway group of presbyteruia ns want to be religious bigots, they just don't want to be called religious bigots. I hear this every time i hear someone tell me they don't hate gay people, they just "disagree" with homosexuality.
Like "love the sinner hate the sin", its a way of camouflaging one's true intetions, one's refusal to look honestly at an issue, and to give authority to badly translated and misused ancient texts that have been used to hurt innocent people for 1700 years, and hwich just happen to agree with one's own personal prejudices.
Why waste another minute trying to join a club that not only hates and fears you, but depends on magic and supernatural to defend their myopic views?
Leave the kennel to Lassie.
G-6.0106b horned in a non-Presbyterian requirement removing the authority of the governing bodies and requiring them to not ordain Lesbians and Gays. But it was cowardice because it did it by language that never mentioned Lesbians and Gays.
Now we've removed that. We've returned to our historical practice of vague and general parameters and letting the appropriate governing bodies decide who fits the standards. This does allow Presbyteries to ordain Lesbian and Gay ministers or NOT. It does allow congregations to ordain Lesbian and Gay elders and deacons or NOT.
That's why it doesn't specifically mention Lesbians and Gays.
So let's quit with the distortions of what's happened. Let's make it clear that what the PCUSA has done was reject a non-Presbyterian top down requirement in ordination experiment that was an innovation of 1996.
Your comments concerning ECO are uninformed and make you look incompetent. I attended the conference as a centrist pastor in the PC(USA). The vision behind ECO has more to do with the fact that in the PC(USA) we are consuming an extensive amount of time and energy squabbling about theological issues that are dividing us, instead of investing in developing leaders and equipping them to fulfill the great commission. The PC(USA) is in rapid decline of its membership; perhaps you have been informed of this. The PC(USA)’s “ecosystem” is not allowing congregations and spiritual leaders to thrive and flourish. This is not only because of the church’s disconnectedness from its reformed roots and confessions, but also because of its bureaucratic structure that creates obstacles to truly discern the mind of Christ and the mission of God. The draft of polity and theology prepared by The Fellowship of Presbyterians board deals with these issues extensively.
The only cowards in all of this are journalists who do not take the time to look beneath the surface of a movement (and now emerging congregation) to understand the heart of the matter. Better luck next time. Try asking more questions before writing scathing reviews of what is quite possibly the most exciting movement that has come out of the PC(USA) in many decades.
The trouble ECO is going to have is getting those among you who are nearly or fully fundamentalists,-- to make peace with those who were solidly mainline -- up until this ordination question.
I suspect there is no clear agreement among you on:
-biblical inerrancy
-the salvation of those who are not Christian.
But about this, the ordination of gay men and women, -- you've found common cause. Am I right?