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To the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest
The action of the 2014 General Assembly to permit same-sex marriages by ministers of the
PCUSA and to redefine marriage as a covenantal relationship between “two people” rather than
between a man and a woman places the PCUSA in irreconcilable conflict with both Scripture
and its confessional tradition. As a consequence of this action, I can no longer endorse or be
governed by the polity of the PCUSA. With this letter I hereby demit my ordination as a
teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America.
It is the plenary teaching of Scripture that humanity has been created male and female, and that
this creative order is the one proper basis for the covenant of marriage. Jesus cites and
authorizes this order when he quotes Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in relation to marriage: “From the
beginning of creation ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ Thus, they are
no longer two but one flesh” (Mark 10:7-8). Whenever same-sex relations are mentioned in
Scripture they are always and without exception condemned as an improper deviation from this
order (Gen19; Lev 18:22; 20:13; Judg19; Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9-10). In no place are such
relationships affirmed, and in no place are such relationships regarded as a God-ordained form of
marriage. In its missionary outreach the early church was repeatedly brought into direct contact
with cultures that practiced and celebrated same-sex relations, but no early Christian text affirms
such relations, and all early Christian texts known to us uphold the Scriptural rule in declaring
such behavior outside God’s revealed will in Scripture.
This same understanding governs the confessional tradition of the PCUSA. The Second Helvetic
Confession (5.246), the Westminster Confession (6.131), and the Confession of 1967 (9.47) all
expressly define marriage as a covenant before God between one man and one woman. The
wording of other confessions that “God condemns all unchastity . . . within or outside of the holy
state of marriage” (Heidelberg Catechism, 4.108), clearly presupposes marriage as a union
between one man and one woman. The admonition of the Confession of 1967 is particularly
relevant in light of the 2014 decision of the General Assembly, “Anarchy in sexual relationships
is a symptom of man’s alienation from God. The church comes under the judgment of God and
invites rejection by the world when it fails to lead men and women into the full meaning of life
together, or withholds the compassion of Christ from those caught in the moral confusion of our
time” (Confession of 1967, 9.47). C-67 testifies to the positive role that orthodoxy plays in
demonstrating compassion to people caught in moral confusion, whereas the decision of General
Assembly does not acknowledge such moral confusion, or if it does, rejects historic orthodoxy in
its attempt to demonstrate compassion.
I know of no doctrine or practice in Christianity that better qualifies for Vincent of Lerins’s
famous definition of orthodoxy—that which has been believed and practiced “everywhere,
always, and by all”—than the definition of marriage as one man and one woman before God.
The approval of the 2014 General Assembly to allow teaching elders discretion to perform “any
such marriage they believe the Holy Spirit calls them to perform” separates the Holy Spirit from
the word, to which the Spirit bears witness, and from the life of the believing community,
through which the Spirit bears witness. This effectively relegates sexuality and marriage to the
subjective judgment of each individual minister. This can—and surely will— be used to justify
other unions equally contrary to the divine will. In condoning same-sex marriage and redefining
marriage the General Assembly of the PCUSA has heard another voice regarding gender and
marriage than the univocal voice of Scripture and tradition, and in its decision to embrace that
voice it has chosen to follow another lord than the one and only Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ.
An ecclesial body that turns from its orthodox heritage and teaches its members to do the same
can no longer command, nor does it deserve, allegiance from the faithful. What the Apostle
Peter said to the Sanhedrin I must say to a denomination that has substituted an alien
anthropology for a Biblical and Christian anthropology: “I must obey God rather than man”
(Acts 5:29).
In submitting this letter, I wish to reassure the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest that this is not
a renunciation of either the Presbytery or its members, whom I honor as faithful servants of
Christ. Nor do I intend this letter to be a renunciation of my original ordination vows, which I
have endeavored to uphold since my ordination on October 2, 1971. This letter is, rather, a
renunciation of the decision of the 2014 General Assembly, and the status to which it would
oblige me, which would necessarily require me to disavow the integrity of my original ordination
vows. I therefore, regretfully, demit my ordination as a teaching elder in the PCUSA.
James R. Edwards June 27, 2014
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