A Presbyterian Political Manifesto

[Cartoonist]

For the last two decades or so there has been an apparent increase in the amount of conservative Christian political activism in North America. Many evangelicals and fundamentalists who had previously shunned politics began to see the necessity of political participation in order to prevent the encroachment of the state upon their legitimate activities, such as Christian education, or to prevent national sins, such as legalized abortion.

Undoubtedly, this Christian political activity is a positive development in Canada and the United States. More Christians are taking their biblical social responsibilities seriously. But Christian political activism also raises important questions. Is the ultimate political goal of Christians simply to achieve certain conservative government policies, or is something more needed for a completely biblical agenda? Every true Christian can agree on policy outcomes such as eliminating abortion, stopping the homosexual agenda, and protecting parental rights in education, but is that all we can gather from the Scriptures as to God's will for civil government?

The learned men who wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith spelled out the basic biblical position on civil government. The "civil magistrate" (i.e., any power- wielding government official such as an elected politician or an unelected judge) is a minister of God (Romans 13:4). He must reward good and punish evil. How is such a person to distinguish "good" from "evil"? By God's authoritative Word, the Bible. Government officials must rule in accordance with the Bible. To put it in different words, Christianity must be the established religion of any society that wants to please God.

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I won't link to this nuttery. My only comment here is how unchanged such nuttery is. Note the reference to the Westminster Confession of Faith, a piece of nuttery from the 17th century.

[MineralMan]

1. The Westminster Confession is a Calvinist thing.

Calvinism is at the root of right-wing Republican nonsense. It is a danger to our democratic republic, but was instrumental in founding it. There's a paradox in that.

The Presbyterian Church is a Calvinistic church, overall. Different branches of it have different levels of the toxic parts of Calvinism.

[Ken Burch]

2. I was raised Presbyterian in the Sixties and Seventie(born in 1960) with none of the Calvinist stuff

Then again, that was at the height of the ecumenical era(something we really need to bring back, btw), and we the sermons we had were largely about our role in life and the need to be of help to those who were and are suffering or oppressed.

That was also the era when the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.-A.K.A. the "Northern" Presbyterians-helped fund Angela Davis' legal defense, and when Maggie Kuhn, before founding the Gray Panthers in her possibly forced retirement, invited the Black Panthers and other radical groups into dialog with the church.

And the Presbyterian form of church governance has always struck at least some of us as a good model for a way to run a socialist society, with decisions being made from below and then being adopted at the top.

[MineralMan]

3. The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. is the most liberal of the Presbyterian

church organizations, by far. It was in the 60s and 70s when there was a great schism in the Presbyterian Church. Today, that old Church has splintered into many separate sub-denominations.

However, Presbyterianism has always been Calvinistic, with root beliefs like predestination as part of its core doctrine. How that Calvinism is expressed in a social sense depends today on which sub-denomination you're talking about.

Here's an interesting sketch of a rundown of the history of Presbyterianism in the United States. Links in this article will take you to additional information about the splinter groups:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Presbyterianism

[Ken Burch]

6. Here's the thing: In the congregation I was raised in,

Nobody ever mentioned predestination or the elect or any of that.

I didn't hear of those things until I read about them in a high school history text. And I thought the schism in American Presbyterianism dated from the antebellum era...my impression was that it was Southern Presbyeterians defending slavery(and then Jim Crow) with Northern Presbyterians at least nominally opposed, although there was undoubtably some hypocrisy about that among the Northerers.

And in Northern Ireland, Ian Paisley, the "Unionist" extremist who devoted most of his life to sowing hatred of Catholic "Nationalists", formed his own denomination, the "Free Presbyterians", when mainline Protestant communions weren't being paranoid, repressive and vicious enough towards the minority community for his taste.

As to the document in the OP, I think it can be fairly asked if it is in any way valid to judge the Presbyterians of today by, and hold them responsible for, something written in the Oliver Cromwell era?

What is quoted there shaped history in damaging ways...but it's not as though it has anything to do with what Presbyterians in this era believe. And I think the vast majority of them reject the proto-Dominionist" theology that documente reflects.

[MineralMan]

7. Neither was it mentioned in my congregation.

I discovered it in reading a history of Presbyterianism and had a discussion about it with that church's pastor. He had a difficult time with the subject. I found it interesting, and asked him about it, because I could see implications in it that were troublesome. It was one of my first serious theological discussions with someone who was a minister. Very interesting it was, too. He admitted that it was part of the doctrine, but wasn't something he emphasized. "Why not?" I asked him. That got the conversation started.

[Ken Burch]

8. He probably felt he couldn't just come out and say "because it's bugfuck crazy talk".

They tend to discourage that kind of openness in most Synods.

It's something I'd say most Protestant communions and Anglicanism(a communion that was always half-Protestant and half-Catholic) more or less held to from the Reformation through the mid-20th Century and that virtually all reject today.

It was, in its way, an extension of the "Dieu et Mon Droit" belief that pre-Reformation monarchs grounded their absolute power in, and which was used to give theological cover for things like war, imperialism, the global genocide inflicted on indigenous peoples, and the creation of the African slave trade

It's possible that rejection of that arrogant, entitled doctrine, as much as any of the tendency towards acceptance and compassion of LGBTQ people and of women's right to choose, that drove a lot of people out of mainline Protestantism and into the evangelical/fundamentalist/megachurch distortions of Christian teaching. The people drawn to those still want something like a sanctified dictatorship.

[MineralMan]

9. Actually, he did believe in Predestination.

He just had trouble explaining it, as though he hadn't really given it much thought. His version of Presbyterianism wasn't as Calvinistic as some. Not long after I moved away from my hometown, that church fired him and joined a much more conservative branch of the Presbyterian church. Eventually, it left the Presbyterian church and became a right-wing "non-denominational" church. When I was back in that town recently, I discovered that the church building was up for sale, with the congregation bankrupt. Like many large non-denominational churches, it had lost its way and with that lost much of its congregation to less radically conservative churches.

What will happen to that once prosperous church, which had grown to be the largest church in that town while I was there? I don't know. They're asking $3 million for the church complex, which is built out over an entire city block. I doubt they'll get that for it. Anyhow, it's interesting. I haven't been inside the building since 1967.

[Ken Burch]

10. All good questions.

There was actually a similar occurrence in my former home in Juneau recently. The only exclusively Presbyterian congregation in town voted to collectively leave the UPC because the UPC had accepted same-sex marriage. I think it has cost them members as well.

Sad thing is, it's in a lovely setting adjacent to the University of Alaska Southeast campus, and a lot of community meetings, some for progressive groups, had been held there over the years.

[HopeAgain]

4. I was raised in a United Presbyterian Church

I don't know much about the branches, but it eventually merged with U.S.A.

My church was pretty liberal in the 70s. They had no issue with things like evolution and did not take much in the Bible literally. I left before I turned 17, but don't remember abortions even being mentioned.

I assumed all Presbyterian Churches were like that and then I moved to Fort Lauderdale where "Reverand" Kennedy and the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church is. I was shocked to find out Presbyterians could endorse such hate.

[MineralMan]

5. Yes. There has been much variation in the Presbyterian denomination

since the beginnings of the splits of the 60s and 70s. It all started with ordination of women, and then became even more destructive when it came to LGBTQ rights. I grew up in a Presbyterian environment, too, in the 50s and early 60s. A lot of the doctrine that ended up becoming poisonous later was hidden in obscure documents at that time.

I remember a long conversation with my church's pastor about predestination when I was 17. He was surprised, first that I even knew about the doctrine, and then that I understood how it could be uses as a tool to promote racism, sexism and other bad things. Predestination was never mentioned in church services at that church, but was still in the core of Presbyterian doctrine, which I had been reading. That was at about the same time my church offered me a full-ride scholarship to Wheaton College, in the mistaken opinion that my interest indicated a desire to study to become a minister. I declined. The reality was that I was actually on a journey toward atheism.

[regnaD kciN]

11. Since you *conveniently* refused to provide a link...

...I would point out that this is certainly NOT a statement from the Presbyterian Church of America, nor does it come close to reflecting their political positions. This is a little like someone providing a quote from the Revolutionary Communist Party's platform, and titling it "A Democrat Political Manifesto" and refusing "on principle" to provide a link so that people could see whether or not it was coming from the Democratic Party.

[Cartoonist]

12. Link

Also, in answer to another post, the piece in the OP is rather current, as you can tell from the topical nature. My point being that there is little difference between current thought and 17th century thought.

As to wether it represents the thought of one man or a sect of Presbyterianism, I don't really care. The author titled it as is.

It should be easy enough to Google. That's how I found it.