One thing in common

Challengers in stated clerk’s race agree that Kirkpatrick has to go

by Jerry L. Van Marter

      They do have a few things in common: They’re all from the evangelical side of the Presbyterian Church (USA). They’re all of the opinion that the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the denomination’s stated clerk  for the past eight years, ought to be replaced. And they all want his job.

      The 544 commissioners to the 216th General Assembly, which starts this weekend in Richmond, VA, will elect one of the four to the highest ecclesiastical office in the 2.5-million-member PC(USA).

     The Rev. Bob Davis, the lawyer-minister, told the Presbyterian News Service in a recent interview: “Polity and process are my strengths. The first line of mission and ministry of our church are its congregations, and I believe the stated clerk must be able to equip, encourage and hold accountable the churches.”          

    Davis, from the San Diego Presbytery said the clerk must help PC(USA pastors and congregations “work through practical problems with theological understanding and integrity.”

      The Rev. Linn “Rus” Howard, the lifelong pastor, said in an interview that his “firmness of belief” and his 23  years as a pastor give him an edge.

      Howard is pastor of Peters Creek Presbyterian Church in Venetia, PA, in Washington Presbytery.

      “I’m used to having no authority except to preach the word of God,” he said. “I understand that you’ve got to be strong and courageous — to stand firm on the lordship of Jesus Christ as the world’s only savior, and to stand firm on the Bible as the inspired, authoritative and infallible word of God — then lead with a pastoral-care sensibility.”

       Alexander Metherell, a member of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, CA, and the only elder in the race, said he believes his “great variety of life and professional experience” sets him apart from the others in the race. He told PNS he is “organized, realistic and analytical,” qualities he has demonstrated as a physician who is also an engineer and holds patents on a number of inventions .

    “There’s a lot of pain in the church,” he said, “but pain is a gift from God, letting us know something’s wrong. We cannot treat it by ignoring it. We have to treat it Biblically and theologically. It’s easier than a physical case ¾ all it takes is confession and repentance. And we’re not terminal. ... But we’re in denial, and it’s going to take a change in top leadership to cure us.”

      The challengers agreed that the membership decline that started before Presbyterian reunion in 1983 and continues today is an illness awaiting a cure.

      Davis said the stated clerk can do little directly to stem membership losses, but said the clerk can and should be “actively involved in equipping people to the discipleship work to which they’ve been called.”

      He said membership has declined because “we’ve convinced people they aren’t good enough, that evangelism ought to be left to professionals.”

      As the spiritual leader of the denomination, Davis said, “The stated clerk should publish materials to help people understand why their personal witness is so important ¾ what they believe, why they believe it and how to share it with others.”

      “The stated clerk can’t take a direct personal role,” Metherell said, “but the clerk can sure provide spiritual leadership in taking pro-active actions when synods, presbyteries and congregations are not doing their jobs.”

      The result is that “trust is broken between the pews and Louisville,” he said, partly because of “scandals going on all over the denomination … and the stated clerk tolerating subversion of the constitution.”

    Church growth will come, Howard said, “when pastors see church leaders speaking and acting courageously — so the clerk should be preaching and teaching at every opportunity.”        

    “There’s a perception out there that (Kirkpatrick) is too liberal, or doesn’t know what it believes, or is uncertain or unclear about what it believes,” he said. “The clerk should reestablish clarity of belief.”

      Metherell said truth is self-evident, in Scripture and in the denomination’s Book of Confessions. “We’ve always relied on the plain meaning of the texts,” he said.

      Today, he said, truth is being distorted and ignored — as evidenced by the growing number of church court cases of alleged defiance of the constitution.

      “In practice, we’ve abandoned scripture and the confessions as authoritative,” he said. “I can’t remember a court case where the Book of Confessions or the Bible was cited. We’ve completely forgotten that the Book of Order is nothing more than a procedural manual. If we forget what we believe, then we lose who we are.”

      The church’s judicial system is “built on trust and good faith,” Davis said, asserting that church courts don’t have authority to enforce their decisions, “and too many middle governing bodies are unwilling to deal with cases of defiance.”

      “If we don’t do ordinary discipline locally, then how can we do extraordinary discipline nationally?”

      Howard said discipline and constitutional interpretation have become “disordered,” and to restore order “we need to start with the Bible, then with theology as its expressed in the confessions — and then address the polity issues.”

      Davis said the stated clerk is supposed to “preserve and protect the constitution,” and can do so by equipping church governing bodies.

      “Governing bodies need more help procedurally,” he said. “Many of these (constitutional) issues are administrative, not disciplinary. The clerk must help the synods and presbyteries administer properly.”

      With the denomination divided on theological issues and with disputes arising in church courts in many parts of the country — particularly around ordination standards — the 2001 General Assembly created the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church.

      None of the challengers expressed much hope for the task force, which will make a major interim report to this Assembly and its final work product in 2006.

      “I have no hope that the task force will find the unity we seek,” Davis said, as he has many times before. “This is not a criticism of the individuals, but of expectations and structure.” He said asking a group of 20 people to solve the church’s problems “is like hooking a 20-ton rig to a Yugo, and then demanding that it pull the load over a mountain. It can’t be done.”

      “Still, I pray for the task force,” he added, “because I’m afraid they’ll be made the scapegoat when they finish their work and the problems are still there.”

      Metherell dismissed the task force as the product of “a giant compromise that will produce a report that’s a giant compromise.”

      He said “scripture and the confessions are what bind us together and connect us,” and unity will be achieved “when scripture is accepted as the authority” and “people are picked who are faithful to the faith of our fathers.”

      Howard agreed that “the only thing that will bring us back together is God’s word.”

      “We are bound to do it God’s way,” he said. “I know that some will be hurt by this, but we must be firm while loving them all the more.”

      Asked to describe his first term as clerk, Metherell said, “I’ll be the most surprised person in the room if I’m elected, but I’d be satisfied with a denomination back in compliance with the constitution and a church that returned to the scriptures and confessions as our only authorities.” He said the “most appalling figure” in a recent annual statistical report was an adult Baptism rate of less than one per congregation.

      He said there’s “a lack of compelling preachin,g and people are so tied up in this liberal-social-action stuff that they’re doing an appalling job of sharing the Gospel. We need reformation, not renewal.”

      Howard said he’d consider his first term a success if the PC(USA) “came to an agreement that we’re going to do it God’s way.” If that happens, he said, “Louisville will be perceived as spiritual leaders who support the ministry of local churches, and local churches will freely support the ministry of Louisville. Biblical leadership will produce the changes we seek.”

       Returning to his theme that the congregation is the “first line” of mission, ministry and ecumenism, Davis said he consider a first term a success if it brought about “a sense of joint direction and trust between the congregations and the General Assembly, that we are all working to spread the Gospel and feel supported in that work.”

       In that case, he said, “There would be greater integrity in our witness because the standards have been raised, not reduced to the lowest common denominator.”