LOUISVILLE — The
Rev. Linn “Rus” Howard, pastor of Peters Creek Presbyterian
Church in Venetia, PA, has announced his candidacy for stated
clerk of the General Assembly.
Howard filed his application with the Assembly’s Committee
to Review and Nominate a Stated Clerk on Feb. 27, the deadline,
saying that he will “keep my ‘run’ simple, sweet
and prophetic.”
He joins a field that includes the incumbent clerk, the Rev.
Clifton Kirkpatrick, who is seeking a third four-year term, and
the Rev. Bob Davis, an Escondido, CA, pastor and lawyer who also
is executive director of the renewal group, the Presbyerian Forum.
The Presbyterian News Service reported in November that Howard
planned to run against Kirkpatrick. He had objected that the report
was premature.
In a statement released with his announcement, titled “Anarchy
in the PCUSA,” Howard said: “The PCUSA cannot afford
four more years of Clifton Kirkpatrick’s failed leadership!
He must be replaced!”
Howard charged that Kirkpatrick “has failed us as a constitutional
leader, as a denominational leader, and as an ecumenical leader,”
and said the current clerk’s “unwillingness to openly
defend and uphold our constitution is leading us into a state
of anarchy.”
Kirkpatrick has repeatedly reminded presbyteries and synods
of their constitutional responsibility to exercise ecclesiastical
discipline in response to alleged acts of “defiance,”
mostly having to do with the ordination of gay and lesbian Presbyterians
to church office and the performance of same-sex union ceremonies.
But because sessions have disciplinary authority over elders
and deacons, and presbyteries have similar authority over ministers,
Kirkpatrick has not interfered in judicial cases progressing through
those governing bodies.
Howard characterized Kirkpatrick’s approach as “silence”
and said it has “encouraged the anarchists in our midst.”
He also said in his statement that he believes Davis, of San
Diego Presbytery, “would make an excellent stated clerk.”
Howard recently presented an overture to Washington Presbytery
that would have endorsed “gracious separation,” a
plan put forward by Bob Howard (no relation), a member of the
Presbyterian Lay Committee, to divide the Presbyterian Church
(USA) along theological lines. The presbytery defeated the overture
at its January meeting.
In October 2002, Howard and five other ministers taped a “Call
for Confession and Repentance” at the entrance of the Presbyterian
Center in Louisville and declared the PC(USA) “irretrievably
apostate” under current management. The group contended
that the denomination is “decaying and dying in the belly
of the beast” (Rev. 13: 1-8).
The statement also urged PC(USA) congregations to “refrain
from giving undesignated mission money to governing bodies”
and to divert per-capita gifts “to ministries faithfully
engaged in God’s ministry of compassion.”
Howard’s own church has withheld its per-capita payments
to the General Assembly for the past two years.
The stated clerk’s office is funded by per capita. |
