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 (as opposed to echo, which is a hollow, after-the-fact, ever-diminishing noise).
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 is 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 taking hold of 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 that 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.
* * *
Related Post: Our [Presbyterian] Church: “Sign This Anti-Gay Statement, or Leave”
(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.”)
Additional Reading in Christian Issues...
- From hell to Crazy Town
- They’re here; they’re queer; they’ve plenty to fear: LGBT students form secret club at conservative Christian university [now including updates]
- When evil is serious, it reaches for a Bible and cross
- Guest post: “A Good Week to Hate Christians”
- From gay-hating fundie to righteously angry lesbian. Now what?
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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I want to say, for all my grousing and complaining, that God Exists.
God Exists, separate and apart from all scripture, churches, and believers.
It is unfortunate that 2000 yrs after Jesus, we have so many churches, and believers, doing their best to prove how separate and apart from God they really are.
Please forgive us all Father. We know not what we do.
Cool!
W.W.J.H.
Who Would Jesus Hate?
Like everything else in the economy, they will live or die by the number of congregants that follow them; alhough that may be hard to determine if they stay within the larger body. And the fact that they stayed within the larger body for purely financial reason shows their hypocrisy.
Where’s the “like” button?
like like like
I watched a movie DVD last night: The Changeling. At the end, the guy who kidnapped and MURDERED innocent young boys, 20 of them (this was based on a true story) was led up the gallows at San Quentin to be executed. Along with him was a minister, who prayed and reassured him spiritually. Well, the thought occurred to me: how is it that Christian ministers will attend, bless, and pray for and with a man who so brutally murdered 20 innocent young boys, but many of these same fine ministers of the gospel of Jesus can’t bring themselves to even consider that homosexuals, who, like themselves, are far better off in a stable relationship with someone who they can truly love and care for and be cared by? What became of their belief “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? or “when you do it unto the least of these you do it unto me”? or “judge not, lest ye be judged”? or “he who is without sin, cast the first stone”? Gandhi was right: I like your Christ, but it is your Christians I do not like.
I think death-row clergy are traditionally supposed to be trying to get the person to repent before they die? And presumably not sin any more because they will then be dead. And probably the same ones would be just delighted to accept gays, if gays would repent and not do it anymore.
The problem is where they think that being gay is a sin just the same as doing a murder …
(we may be making the same point; i couldn’t tell, so i thought i would add this. May need more coffee.)
Maybe I’m just naive (highly likely) as I thought the purpose of a minister attending someone to be executed was to comfort him/her in that awful moment. Of course, you’re right too: they are there to offer them the opportunity to repent and sin no more, which is kinda hard to do while walking to their death. I just marvel at how willing the “righteous” are to help a murderer but totally unwilling to even consider what gay people are trying to say. Christians seem to need an enemy. Since the fall of communism, gay people have been on their chopping block. If they stop persecuting gays, who will their next victim be? Or could they rise to the heights of actually practicing Christianity finally?
Could they? No, probably not. But I am not alone in believing this is the last gasp of a mindset and way of being Christian whose time has passed. As I think Dr. King reminded us, the wounded animal is still very dangerous; but it will not be here much longer. If that makes any sense.
Bieds of a feather?
Wow. They are using exactly the same types of phrasing we’ve seen all over ACNA as it split from the Episcopal church–”this isn’t about gay people, it’s about reconnecting with a gospel-centered Christianity” or anything else they can think of to come out and say honestly, “yeah, we’re splitting because we think being gay is bad and the other guys don’t.” Probably because if they could put that on their websites and in their “statements” they’d realize that they ARE the problem, as you suggest.
It’s gotten to the point where anytime I see a church website that says “Bible-centered” or “Jesus-centered and Bible-believing” I run for the hills. Which is just darned sad!
“It’s gotten to the point where anytime I see a church website that says “Bible-centered” or “Jesus-centered and Bible-believing” I run for the hills. Which is just darned sad!”
Yeah, this is me too and has been since at least the late eighties.
I thought I was the only one that did that.
A woman once proudly told me that she lived by the Ten Commandments.
I asked her to name them and was met by a deer-in-the-headlights stare.
I said as a Christian, surely you know Jesus’ two Greatest Commandments.
Love God. Love One Another.
She made a hasty retreat.
Bible-believing = I don’t read, my pastor spoon-feeds it to me.
they’re making room for anyone with this problem to come.
I don’t get it. As I understand it, the PCUSA has an essentially (effectively) congregationalist form of polity; i.e., their local congregations have the ability to hire only the clergy that they want to hire. I know several ordained PCUSA female pastors who have a hard time finding churches to hire them because they are female. Hence, their congregations don’t have to hire ordained pastors who happen to be homosexual. If I’ve got my facts right, there’s no need for those conservative congregations to split away from their denomination. Again, I don’t get it.
Publicity?
Lenore: you must be new to my work. I’m so happy you’re here! But … yeah. I pretty much only take big steps.
Maybe you can cross a bridge one step at a time, But sometimes you need to take a BIG step to cross a chasm – you can’t do that in small steps!
And don’t forget the first lines in the Cowardly Lions song: Yeah, it’s sad, believe me Missy
When you’re born to be a sissy
Fantastic. Thank you, Tom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2itQkiQUOE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWiJ3JA9tao
If I Only Had The Nerve :
(Cowardly Lion)
Yeah, it’s sad, believe me Missy
When you’re born to be a sissy
Without the vim and verve
But I could show my prowess
Be a lion, not a mowess
If I only had the nerve
I’m afraid there’s no denyin’
I’m just a dandylion
A fate I don’t deserve
I’d be brave as a blizzard
(Tin Man)
I’d be gentle as a lizard
(Scarecrow)
I’d be clever as a gizzard
(Dorothy)
If the Wizard is a wizard who will serve
(Scarecrow)
Then I’m sure to get a brain
(Tin Man)
A heart
(Dorothy)
A home
(Cowardly Lion)
The nerve
I could watch/listen to The Wizard of Oz and never get tired of it.
I feel it is truth and beauty personified.
Well, the ECO/Fellowship website is not totally “silent” on their LBBTQ stance: http://www.fellowship-pres.org/wp-content/uploads/Forum-on-Homosexuality-and-the-Bible.pdf
I think they meant “the right(wing) kind of diversity.” And it is incredible that they have the noive to actually say it.
More than outraged, this breaks my heart. Completely makes it ache and respond immediately in prayer.
When was Jesus EVER about exclusion? Yeah sure the road is narrow that those follow Christ take… But the road TO Christ, to His grace, is so wide that boundaries can not exist. To determine who gets to come before God… that list by our standards would include most of the disciples in some form or other (if each denomination added their list of “not enough” to each other, and were retrospective, we would have no early church let alone a current one!)
Anybody telling anyone they can not come to Christ is against everything Jesus came and suffered for.
The only time that Jesus was angry was when the Gentile court in the temple, the part set aside for non-Jews to come closer to God, to worship, had been turned by the Jews into a market place. Access to God by the “other” had been removed by the “chosen”.
This breaks my heart. And my response will be to not only pray and cry with Gods broken heart, but proactively go and find someone today who has been hurt like this and let God love through me.
They won’t know us by our rules and exclusions but by our fruit. Today the fruit I am growing is love.
Your insight into the cleansing of the temple was new to me. Thank you!
What Lyn said is true for me as well. Thank you for that insight.
I am so tired of the hypocrisy and self righteousness of these so called Christians. Mention the word gay and they start frothing at the mouth with pious indignation. Yet Jesus never said a word against homosexuality but did speak out against divorce. So how come these parishioners are not threatening to create a new branch of people opposed to divorce? Because divorce is favored by heterosexuals and is a convenient bonus in being able to throw out the old and bring in the new. These people are not Christians, by Jesus’ own definition, they are Pharisees.
There are a lot of fudamentalists who are still anti-divorce, ie. divorced men not allowed to be ministers. And no women at all. So I guess, they’re at least not hypocrites.
As a gay person who questions if I have any future left with Christianity (once you are forced to find your own way through a wilderness imposed on you by others, there is really little room left for faith in anything other than what is right in front of you), it was the modern church’s hypocritical stance on divorce and remarriage that was one of the final coffin nails for me and the faith I once had. For a biblical literalist, which I was once and obviously now am not, the Bible is clear that divorce and remarriage is right up there with homosexuality. Yet, I see no denominations coming undone over this. I see no political parties building platforms on this issue in the name of God. I only see church’s splitting up and political parties building platforms over people like me.
Peace to all: straight, gay, single, married, divorce, and remarried.
And just to clarify, I mean NO direspect for divorced people. What bothered me was that most churches (and I mean evangelical/fundamentalist here) were able to develop a rational, compassionate, and realistic approach to divorce and remarriage in light (or in spite?) of what scripture said. But, apparently something along the same lines won’t extend to homosexuals for the moment.
I hear you. But I was raised Assembly of God, and they are against divorce and, of course, against remarriage if divorce does happen. My uncle can not be a minister in that denomination (in which he was raised) because he had a very young, short-lived marriage. It’s sad to me.
I am an Episcopalian now, so pretty much outcast in my family. My pastor, or rector as we call them, divorced several years ago and remarried a year ago. If he were in some other denominations he would not be able to continue the wonderful work he does in our church and community. That’s sad to me too.
I was raised Southern Baptist, and I’m not sure what the official stance is these days on remarriage for pastors. I know my home pastor growing up at first refused to perform remarriages, but then he changed his mind on that. My best friend is a gay, former AG, and he has said the same things about the requirements of pastors in his church. God bless.
“NH” – I hope you won’t let the small minded-ness of some people turn you from the grace and love of God. I was raised Presbyterian and although it damaged me (as a gay man) I realized, too, that there is a spiritual life outside of any denomination. I understand your distress, but if it turns your heart against the so-called “christians”, don’t let it turn you from those of us who believe and support you. God loves you, Jesus came to show all of us the way, and the small-minded are to be pitied, but not necessarily listened to.
You know, I’ve never replied to a blog before, and it’s was nice to vent. I may not be a lost cause after all-especially knowing there are plenty of people like me out there. God bless!
Boy did you nail it right there. I’m a formerly divorced (now remarried) woman, but not too many churches would have refused to perform the wedding for my husband and I. The hypocrisy of it is flabbergasting. That said, I don’t believe being gay – OR being divorced – is a sin. If anything, marrying the wrong person is a problematic issue, and as someone who did that, I know it means I had – and continue to have – a lot of personal growing to do. But there’s nothing problematic OR wrong with being gay. Period.
Someone i know was married 4 times, each of them a mistake in different ways… A pastor (granted, he was one of those fringe guys whose church is his family) told her that she should technically go back to her first husband (the wife-beater), because none of her later marriages were valid.
Pretty sure i have at least occasionally heard something similar from a “real church”, too.
1) Orlando wasn’t just about ECO, and FOP is more than ECO. 2) A friend of mine was there, and reported a very irenic atmosphere. It was more about stopping polity wars and reclaiming a positive mission focus.
3) While there’s plenty I would criticize, and even more I would disagree with, I find the blanket condemnations both analytically wrong and ecclesially unhelpful. The idiotic loud-mouths are easy targets, but they aren’t typical. (Case in point about the dangers of listening to “leadership” — Rick Santorum’s strong placement in S.C., challenging Ron Paul for last place.)
I understand the pastoral issues, the injuries my friends and those who have gone before us received, and continue to receive. I share the frustration. But the situation is more complex, and deserves a more complex approach and response.
So to sum it up this all comes down to money. I guess the phrase put your money where your mouth is doesn’t resonate with these folks. How incredibly pathetic and dishonest.
As a card-carrying member of the PC(USA) I’m glad to see this faction GO. Am I happy that my denomination is splitting yet again? No. But I’m so tired of these people jamming up the work of the church over this. Now that they’re gone, we can do what we’ve been about: serving humanity in the name of Jesus Christ and being authentic about God’s calling us to serve. And for the record, my congregation has been ordaining gay/lesbian members for decades because we called them to be leaders. Period.
“the right kind of diversity” they really have the nerve to say that? wow
That about sums it up (including the comment you added).
AMEN, sister.
Thank you, John, for fighting the good fight. None of us are free until we all are.
Hey John, regarding the comment from the reader. These pastors can serve a congregation of another denomination that is in communion with the PCUSA and still pay into the BOP. Basically the presbytery has to endorse that relationship. They are afraid the rest of us won’t be gracious and allow them to do that. I have no interest in revenge or hostages. Let me participate in BOP but don’t allow them to participate in writing a discipline they don’t submit to. Graceful separate with joint affiliation with the BOP is the best remedy at this point.
While I regret not stumbling on to this blog sooner, I think I may have a little bit to offer to the discussion of what went down in Florida. Having been on the matter of LGBT persons and the PCUSA since the 1970′s, I find all claims to a need to do to us rather than with us suspect. My sense of the matter is that it is a sideshow for a lot of other stuff that matters to various persons without quite the visceral unity which is presumed in talking about those awful fags and dykes. Somewhat as I expected, a quick read of their Polity discussion turns up instructive differences between the polity of the folks at ECO and the normative practices of the PCUSA. I will leave it to folks more acquainted with our polity to work up the details, but my sense of the drift is that this new polity will make it easier for big time preacherfolk to manipulate their (rather smaller) presbyteries and thus the larger church. This does not greatly surprise me, but I do not think it bodes well for their church.
Or a heart.
If they only had a brain…
As an ex-PCUSA lesbian minister… now UCC since 5 years ago feels like a lifetime ago, I wish them well. I keep thinking of the sign I saw on a church in TN. It was the New Bethel Independent Primitive Cumberland Presbyterian Church… (also known as the we-don’t-think-nobody-else-is-going-to-heaven church) “Decently and in order” used to mean that you might not agree with the denomination but you didn’t take your potluck dish and go home sulking when you didn’t win a debate. Then again Presbyterians do have Scottish roots in inter-clan warfare.
They do admit in their “Draft of the Theology” p. 8 this: “7. maintain chastity in thought and deed, being faithful within the covenant of marriage between a man and
a woman as established by God at the creation or embracing a celibate life as established by Jesus in the new covenant;”
That’s the only place I can find that even resembles the anti-gay reasons for their formation.
“a celibate life as established by Jesus in the new covenant”?
Wait… what?
Regarding the celibacy thing, they might be referring to Matthew 19:11-12. I’m going to copy/paste the entire section since context is important here:
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” (Matthew 19:1-12, NIV)
Notice how verses 11-12 are a response to the disciples expression of dismay over the strictness of Jesus’s teaching on marriage.
And let us make no mistake, that is heterosexist language.
I’m with Sharla – when did Jesus define marriage as such?! Thanks for finding this, Leslie – clarifies pretty much everything!
ditto
Leaving aside the historical critical questions: 1) Jesus seems quite firm against divorce (that’s the best documented saying of Jesus), e.g., that Moses gave divorce for their hardness of heart. 2) J’s answer to Sadducees: in Heaven, no giving or taking in marriage. 3) Clear or fairly clear non-marriage of J. & other apostles, e.g., Paul. 4) Paul’s own sense that celibacy best, & marriage o.k. (+ quotation in Eph. of the Gen. “great mystery”). And so forth. Historically, much of this seems informed by the eschatological situation they envisioned.
Some, many of the folks involved are pretty smart and sophisticated. They can mount plausible arguments. I think they’re wrong (i.e., I think over all mine are better), but I can respect the well-made arguments of some.
Leave Paul out of this, please. The original statement on which I commented had to do with what Jesus said about marriage. The saying about divorce is pretty much it. What happens or does not happen in heaven does not constitute a prescription for what is to happen in this life. and I think both of those sayings need to be understood in context; in both cases Jesus was in mid-dispute and not necessarily stating for all time his instructions about marriage.
really? I thought his reference back to the rule at that time (Genesis) was pretty affirming. But maybe I missed the context and the real meaning. Please clarify.
John, that would be Matthew 19:4-6
As a PC. USA clergywoman, I am disheartened by this impending split. However, perhaps soon my denomination can get back to our calling–proclaiming the inclusive love of God in Jesus Christ.
Nice piece, John. I will never accept this sort of hypocrisy as anything but that. Reducing the fundamental and simple message of the NT – love – into hateful reactionary theology is just a shame. The Presbytery was once a relatively liberal bastion – an oasis whose only real problem was a neurotic need for administrative order., IMHO. They have struggled with the perception that homosexuality was counter to family. They finally figured out that the family has and always has had homosexual children, but this is a real step-backwards for the church if it doesn’t step up and tell the ECO so. The creepiest part of ECO’s statement was about “order” . It had that sort of “Golden Age of Rome” flavor, like, “were taking our church back and restoring the natural order of things and that means the gays need not apply.” I just don’t get people like this. Love your neighbor unless you don’t and that’s okay? It makes me very sad. These people need to grow up and look at the damage they’re doing.
Doesn’t “order” have a special meaning in Presbyterian? It’s been a long time since i was one, though. So i might remember wrong.
It is clear why the ECO formed when you recognize that tent poles are phallic.
Gary, it probably needs an editor precisely *because* ECO isn’t willing to just come out and say that they what differentiates them from PCUSA. Even the name they chose for themselves: what the heck does “evangelical covenant (order)” mean, anyway? LOL
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