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Centrists address gathering at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

By Ann Rodgers-Melnick, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The serious divisions in the Presbyterian Church (USA) can be mended if members cross party lines to work on Presbyterian theology, spiritual renewal and mission, three candidates for the denomination's top office told 75 people yesterday at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

The Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, the Rev. Laird Stuart and the Rev. Jerry Tankersley differed slightly on how badly the church is divided. Each of their presentations was centrist.

But Stuart is known as an advocate of gay ordination and Tankersley is clearly an evangelical. Abu-Akel seems to fall between the two. One will be elected moderator of the 2.5 million-member denomination at its annual General Assembly this June in Columbus, Ohio.

Annual battles over the place of active homosexuals within the denomination have polarized the church. Last year, a Butler County pastor founded the Confessing Church Movement, in which congregations declare that they believe in the lordship of Christ, the authority of Scripture and the call to holiness, especially regarding traditional Christian sexual ethics. More than 10 percent of the church's 11,200 congregations have joined the movement.

All three candidates said the Confessing Church Movement could help the church.

"The Confessing Church Movement ... is part of who we are. We desperately need to stop attacking each other," said Stuart, a former pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper St. Clair who is now a pastor in San Francisco.

He told those who questioned the movement to stop denouncing it and engage in dialogue. But, while the movement may prompt healthy discussion, its three affirmations are not an adequate expression of Presbyterian belief, he said.

Tankersley, a pastor in Laguna Beach, Calif., said his church had not joined the Confessing Church Movement because its principles are already in the denomination's Book of Confessions.

"I do think the Confessing Church Movement represents a grass-roots cry for help. There is deep anger, and anxiety and confusion that somehow this denomination is in theological drift," he said.

All three had attended a national meeting of the Confessing Church Movement in Atlanta, where Abu-Akel ministers to international students.

"Any time I see 1,000 Presbyterians ... coming to sing praise to the Lord and study the word, that to me is a sign of hope and renewal," Abu-Akel said of the Confessing Church meeting.

Asked whether Presbyterians share any common ground, Stuart gave the most negative assessment.

"There is not a common vision in the Presbyterian Church these days," he said.

Although such a vision is spelled out in its confessions, Book of Order and the Bible, "we are a denomination that has become sharply divided," he said.

To reclaim that vision, he said, Presbyterians must unite around faith in Christ, even if there are differences over what it means for Jesus to be savior of the world. They must work together on mission, show loyalty to each other through respectful dialogue and renew an emphasis on the Reformed theology that the church is based on, he said.

Abu-Akel and Tankersley said the church has a common vision of faith in Jesus Christ.

That has been obscured "because some issues are overwhelming the church to the point that we are becoming a one-issue church," Abu Akel said.

To move beyond fights over sexuality, he said, he wants every Presbyterian to spend a year in prayer for the renewal of the denomination. Every congregation should work on one local mission project and one global mission project, he said.

Tankersley said the denomination must reverse its decades of decline.

"We need to re-establish priorities for more evangelism and discipleship on the local level, and pour all of our resources there," he said.

All three agreed that local congregations need help from the national church to mobilize for local mission.

Abu-Akel pointed out that in Korea and Kenya, lay leaders in the congregation are capable of preaching because a pastor is able to visit only every few weeks. American lay leaders should be able to provide such spiritual leadership, he said.