Atheist Church Member Update

This is turning out to be a very busy blogging week for your humble correspondent. The Mission Presbytery Committee charged with investigating the admission to church membership of atheist Robert Jensen by St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas has completed its work and filed its report which you can read here in full. My thanks to Classical Presbyterian for the tip.

The bottom line is that the committee recommends that Mission Presbytery:

1) Declare that the reception of Robert Jensen into active membership was “irregular”and thus void.

2) Direct the St. Andrew’s session to move Robert Jensen to the “Baptized” Role. (Jensen was apparently baptised in a Presbyterian Church as a youngster.)

3) Direct the session of St. Andrew’s to work with representatives of COM to create a constitutionally appropriate process for receiving members.

4) Encourage the session of St. Andrew’s, if it so chooses, to re-examine Robert Jensen, if he so desires, according to the process developed by the session and representatives of COM.

The investigation contained several jaw-dropping findings, including:

-- Robert Jensen PREACHED at this church.

QG: What the @#$!!

-- The church's bulletin contains the following statement:

“We are an inclusive, progressive church. As an affiliate of the Center for Progressive Christianity, we define Progressive Christians as ones who.....Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable; including but not limited to: believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, those of all races and cultures, those of all classes and abilities, those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope.”

QG: So St. Andrews is Progressive rather than Christian?

-- One of the session members told the investigators that the question asked prospective new members is "Are you able in your own way to affirm Christ is central to your life?" and added "We recognize that everyone is on a different path."

QG: Do you really think this is a statement of belief in Christ as your Lord and Savior?

--Another said, " We don't use the word 'Lord', we don't believe in that. We adopted a policy five or six years ago that we use inclusive language. We don't recite creeds."

QG: Oh, pardon poor benighted me--you don't use the word "Lord", do you? And you want to be a Presbyterian church, which is a denomination that emphasizes the importance of reciting creeds and confessions in worship--WHY?

-- Jensen is quoted as saying: "I do not believe in God as an external agent. If you ask me if I believe in God as a mystery like the sun coming up every morning is a mystery, then I believe in God."

QG: ~singing~ "I believe that for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows, I believe that in the darkest night, a candle glows..."

I get it! You believe in Frank Sinatra! So change the name of the church to St. Sinatra's Center for Progressive Community Activists and then have the integrity to withdraw from the PCUSA so you can be the progressive, non-creedal, inclusive, community of different paths that you want to be, without the intrusion of the presbytery that wants to make you follow the Book of Order.