Synod Ben Manring decision, the Jesus test and standing...

 RPCNA Synod met last week. I was most interested in the Ben Manring case, since it was likely that Synod would kick the can on the many issues coming from GLG, but this required some sort of decision.

Ben Manring was disciplined by his church for e-mailing publicly available information about a potential elder candidate to his congregation. The potential candidate had signed a complaint to Synod in opposition to the handling of the IRPC case. Synod had voted against the complaint and Manring thought that the candidate's disagreement with Synod was material to his qualifications as elder. Such a complaint might be seen as a divisive course.

A little bit of irony here is that Professor JG Vos was credited for single-handedly saving the RPCNA from demise. The mechanism that JG Vos used was mass mailing his complaints to any person who might have any impact on a decision. When a controversial speaker spoke at Geneva chapel, JG Vos transcribed his speech and put it in the mailbox of every faculty member. When the RPCNA was considering women in leadership, Vos wrote a letter and sent it to every session and elder in the RPCNA. As far as I know, no one, especially the conservatives who rule the RPCNA petitioned to have Vos disciplined for his actions.

The opinion of the Session, which was supported by the presbytery and ultimately Synod, was that a member did not have the right to e-mail fellow members about elder qualifications. This is a horrible decision on many levels. I'll talk through a few:

It fails the Jesus test

Here is my summary of the Jesus test. Any opinion that makes Jesus a sinner is wrong. Some say drinking alcohol is sinful. Yet, Jesus says, "I come eating and drinking and you call me a glutton and a drunkard." In other words, Jesus drank alcohol. If drinking alcohol is sinful, then Jesus is no longer the perfect Son of God and unblemished lamb. We are still in our sins. It's a pretty powerful test.

So, in the Manring case, Manring was rebuked by his session for telling the congregation something that was not what the session wanted them to hear. Synod apparently ruled that a member does not have the right to e-mail the congregation something in conflict with the view of the session.

Why does that make Jesus a sinner? Jesus publicly rebuked the church leaders of his day. He called Pharisees hypocrites. If a church member is sinning if they make a public statement in disagreement with church leadership, then Jesus is a sinner. The RPCNA is now on dangerous ground. In protecting the authoritarian hierarchy of the church, they are condemning Jesus. Who is their god? Jesus or Hierarchy?

It undermines church elections

Part of philosophical underpinnings of RPCNA elections comes in the interpretation of Acts 6. The church leaders in Acts 6 were elected by the people, then ordained by the apostles. According to the RPCNA, there is a belief that church leaders should be elected from the people. They would reject any idea of prelacy - the Catholic/Episcopal belief that church leaders are appointed by church leaders.

Many Sessions fall afoul of this already in their authoritarian bent by "nominating" candidates, which puts an undue burden on members, who may take this as the very representatives of Jesus saying they approve of a candidate.

But, what is here is even scarier. The qualifications of an elder candidate are material to the election. Manring believed that the candidate's opposition to the handling of the IRPC matter was a significant consideration in whether he could be an elder. In fact, he believed that signing the petition disqualified the candidate from the office.

Given the unique understanding the RPCNA has had about elections, it is surprising that they now want to muzzle members. What would the RPCNA do if a member was convicted in a secular court for writing that a political candidate had signed a petition supporting abortion? Would they say, well, the state is your authority and you should trust God to bring about his desires? Of course not, they would go ballistic!

It's not surprising that an authoritarian, cultish church is going to spiral into prelacy. Of course, they will do it talking out of both sides of their mouths. Like a former church that paraded a candidate around the church, and then when the election came, claimed "we don't want to nominate a candidate, we want this to come from the congregation!" Complete horse crap! In fact, this church conducted the election in such a way that any congregational input was disallowed. It was a session meeting and the only time the floor was open was for nominations. So, a member wanting to bring something up (like Manring would have) would have been in contempt of court.

It destroys accountability and creates a secret society

Presbytery and Synod documents are considered open to all church members. There's a reason for this! At least at the time this was written into the RPCNA Constitution, the pastors and elders believed that light was an antidote to darkness. This was at a time when the church debated whether a member or leader could be a member of the Masonic order. The church ruled that any organization that relied on secrecy and the suppression of truth was incompatible with Christianity. Hear that again. SUPPRESSION OF THE TRUTH IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTIANITY! So, Synod's rule that e-mailing the congregation about concerns with a candidate that are derived from the public record is somehow a rebukeable offense is creating a secret society, in contradiction to the church's own law and order. If members cannot openly speak the truth for fear of discipline, then the church has shut its ears to the truth. Why is the RPCNA so afraid of the truth? On the judgment day they are supposedly preparing their members for, every sin will be publicly exposed. Do these men truly fear God? I honestly have to say, no. They fear other men. This decision seems to come from the mentality of what the leaders might expose themselves to. In other words, if Manring is allowed to expose uncomfortable truths to the congregation, what happens if my sins are exposed? This isn't about serving God, it's about PR and damage control.

It's not surprising, then, that what seems to be the biggest takeaway post-IRPC is putting the church in control of the narrative. The Stephen Rhoda paper sought to make it a chargeable offense to go to the press. The Orlando/RPH paper was about the offense of going to public courts, and now the Manring paper creates a precedent that saying anything that could be taken as undermining the session's narrative is cause for discipline.

Manring's only "win" in this was that the session didn't follow the right procedure. It was okay to rebuke him for telling the truth, but they should have told him first before e-mailing the congregation.

Just remember, in an authoritarian system, it's okay to sacrifice a few lambs to protect the hierarchy. It's okay to send a wife back to her physically abusive husband to "protect the sanctity of marriage". It's okay when one member is told to shut up about another member's abuse to protect the public image of "Christ's Church". It's especially okay when a member is thrown under the bus to protect the power and control of the church structures.

For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation...' (Luke 11:49-50)