Why Yes, We Should Defrock Schismatics Just Like the #PCUSA

Grace Presbytery in Texas has officially defrocked a former renewal leader who led the charge to remove Highland Park Presbyterian (one of the larger churches in the Presbytery) from the Presbyterian Church (USA).  According to the report, Joseph Rightmyer lost all credentials with the church of his ordination:

“The censure imposed…was removal from the ordered ministry of teaching elder. This means that he is no longer a minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and is no longer a teaching elder member of Grace Presbytery. This is the highest level of censure permitted by the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”

The charges all stem from Rightmyer’s leadership of and participation in the process that removed Highland Park Presbyterian from the PCUSA and brought them into the ECO fold, including the charge of: “advocating and facilitating a process for Highland Park Presbyterian Church to determine whether to remain a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”

My guess is that this won’t actually bother Rightmyer all that much, since he will likely be enjoying the friendly embrace of ECO’s schismatic arms soon.  If it does, so much the better: there should be consequences for violating one’s covenant.  It’s even more troubling to me that Rightmyer led this effort in his capacity as an interim.  Funny enough, when you look on Highland Park’s website under “Our Denomination,” one of the things for which they praise ECO is a commitment to covenant: “To connect leaders in accountable relationships and encourage collaboration.”  I don’t they know what that word “covenant” means.  This is, after all, a new denomination built on stealing congregations from the PCUSA.

This story caused a bit of a stir among some United Methodists.  I find it encouraging, actually.  Yes, schismatics – people who tear the fabric of our fellowship – should be defrocked.  This is as much a no-brainer as there can exist in the church.  Many UMs seem to have little stomach for something that is rather common in other professions (and yes, I know that clergy represent neither a business nor a “regular” profession).  One regularly hears of lawyers being disbarred or doctors losing their license for malpractice of some sort or another.  Some state medical boards even publicly list those whose licenses have been revoked or are facing disciplinary action.  When one’s vocation can seriously impact the lives of others for good or for ill, a lack of faithfulness to that vocation should lead to consequences.  We either care about the church or we don’t; refusing to hold schismatics, abusers, and incompetents accountable is not grace, it is spiritually sanctioned indifference.

It’s one thing for a pastor to find themselves at odds with the denomination that ordained them; it’s quite another to lead an exodus of clergy and/or churches from that denomination.  The former is unfortunate, the latter is unconscionable.

Every healthy organism has boundaries; like a cell, a healthy boundary is permeable – it’s not a wall, but it does have substance.  The UMC needs some of the intestinal fortitude shown by the PCUSA to maintain some semblance of boundaries, otherwise the organism can only grow more sick.

And remember, friends, there are schismatics on the left and the right.

Ignatius of Antioch on Unity in the Church

Icon of St. Ignatius, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

In a letter to the church at Philadelphia (the ancient one, not Rocky’s city), Bishop Ignatius exhorts the church to unity under Christ as he prepares for his impending martyrdom.  Christ, he says, “is our eternal and enduring joy” particularly when the church is “in unity with the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons.”  He sounds downright Pauline when commanding them to run from division:

“Wherefore, as children of light and truth, flee from division and wicked doctrines; but where the shepherd is, there do ye as sheep follow. For there are many wolves that appear worthy of credit, who, by means of a pernicious pleasure, carry captives those who are running towards God; but in your unity they shall have no place.”

Ignatius suggests serious consequences for schism, which, while quite harsh to Protestant ears, reflects a view of church discipline that is sorely lacking in most communions today:

“For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of repentance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren. If any man follows him that makes a schism in the Church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Talking schism is all the rage now in the United Methodist Church.  Jack Jackson of Claremont argued breaking up was “hard, but the right thing” for the denomination last year.  As if whispers and worries over a split were not bad enough, recently a Facebook group was formed named Clergy For a New Methodist Denomination (though, happily, it hasn’t picked up much steam).  The newly formed Wesleyan Covenant Network is not proposed as a new denomination, though it sounds (in its title and its core values) very much like the new ECO Presbyterian denomination that has been stealing prominent churches – like John Ortberg’s Menlo Park – from the PCUSA.  I could easily see something happening with the Wesleyan Covenant Network that has happened with the Fellowship of Presbyterians and ECO: what begins as a network of likeminded folks within a denomination very quickly gives way to schism.

Ignatius is a strong tonic against such temptations, which treat the unity of the church as a small matter.  How telling it is that one of the original Apostolic Fathers, possibly a disciple of John himself, writes with such conviction in the generation after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension? This is not some medieval Catholic reactionary speaking, but one of our earliest witnesses to the faith.  We could learn much from his teaching that the unity of the Church is both the will of God and to the benefit of the gospel’s proclamation, as he also indicated in a letter to the Magnesians:

“As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to Him, neither by Himself nor by the the apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and presbyters. Neither endeavor that anything appear reasonable and proper to yourselves apart; but being come together into the same place, let there be one prayer, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and joy undefiled. There is one Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is more excellent.”

In the icon above, Ignatius is depicted at his martyrdom, torn apart by lions.  There are many forces that seek to tear the UMC apart, from different directions.  My prayer is that we can avoid the fate of other Mainline denominations and find a way to live together.  What God has joined together, let us not tear asunder.  As Jesus said, “May they be one.”

(Quotes courtesy of the Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan).