It's Sarah Williams. Cheaters :-)

Presbyterians and Presbyterians Together
Scott from TheAmazonHasCanoes.com (and late of LyingTruths.com and ZombieLife.com) recently asked me what I thought of the recent and organized suggestion that Presbyterians should be Christians (whoops, showing my hand a little early), and so, with nothing better to do, I thought I'd post my thoughts on the document.

So then, about Presbyterians and Presbyterians Together: I don't mind it really. Though I think it's going about things in a less than great manner. I think it's a bit silly that people need to appeal to a recently fabricated document to act in a manner consistent with their Christianity. The document is, essentially, a recommendation to sanctify ourselves through self-discipline and/or shame rather than through simple embrace of gospel hope. This sloughing off of gospel sanctification in favour of disciplining oneself into righteousness is actually pretty common in Presbyterianism (as well as Evangelicalism) and so it's not like I haven't come to expect it.

One thing is certain, however, Presbyterianism is fraught with the poison of schismatics. This was especially true in the OPC when I was a part of it. I attended a Presbytery meeting once and vowed* to never attend another. It was horrifying to me to see our pastors and elders behaving like ill-behaved children. The poison of asps was, as it were, on their lips. In short, it's good that people are beginning to recognize the horror of the common Presbyterian "discussion."

The sweeping change that needs to occur across the church, however, is not better reminders of how we should act but reminders of who we are. The focus as it stands is a form of legalism and moralism, simply reminding us how to act while forgetting that though we all remember how we are to act, we forget the power to that kind of righteousness. I never forget that it is wrong to lie or gossip or overeat or hate. That stuff's child's play. What I always forget in my unfaithfulness, however, is Christ. What we always seem to forget in our preaching is the simple truth that the gospel of Christ is the power to our salvation (salvation being life-comprehensive more than event-oriented).

In that more outraged than really serious sense of the term.