Our Pastoral Letter:
The Presbytery of Carlisle, in official
meeting on April 9, 2015, approved two action items by clear majority votes: 1)
we voted to dissolve the pastoral relationship between the Rev. Wayne Lowe and
our Faith Church; 2) we elected an Administrative Commission to function as the
council of Faith Church, replacing their session. Immediately following the
meeting, Rev. Lowe formally renounced the jurisdiction of our PC(USA). Our
Administrative Commission has already fully engaged with a committed group of
people at Faith Church who are motivated to move forward together.
Unfortunately, these actions have been
wrongly characterized in recent publications. On behalf of our Coordinating
Council, we believe it is important to get this story right. In our opinion, getting
the story right was not important to the Harrisburg Patriot News in their
recent article concerning our Faith Church; neither does it seem important to
the Layman.org website which has copied the Patriot News story.
Our actions concerning Mr. Lowe and the
Session at Faith Church were not in response to their strongly held theological
convictions. Many Teaching Elders, Ruling Elders and active members of the
PC(USA) hold conservative and evangelical theological convictions. Many people
within our presbytery who voted in favor of these action items hold such
convictions. The characterization of our actions as some mighty battle in the
culture war between liberals and conservatives is wild hyperbole and simply
wrong. Evangelical pastors are not being “forced out the door” as the
Patriot-News alleged.
Our action was motivated by the observed dysfunctional
exercise of pastoral authority and leadership in Faith Church. People were
silenced, and verbally bullied, which resulted in open dialogue and discernment
being stifled. A disdain for the PC(USA) was set by the pastor and a few leaders
without conversation and discernment across the congregation. In a phrase, mutual forbearance (see Book of Order F-3.0105) was crushed
resulting in a fractured congregation.
The conclusion that the congregation at Faith
Church was fractured and divided was not arrived at casually. Our Committee on
Ministry, after extensive review of the situation which included several
conversations with Mr. Lowe, members of session as well as members of the
congregation, concluded that this division was a result of dysfunctional
pastoral and session leadership. Consequently, the Committee concluded such
pastoral leadership was not equipped to lead the congregation to reconciliation
and healing. This conclusion was the basis of our Committee on Ministry
recommendations to the Presbytery; the Presbytery agreed by a large majority.
Today there are over 200 Protestant
denominations in the United States, of which our PC(USA) is one. Our denominational
structure is based on a foundational commitment to mutual forbearance,
tolerance and a commitment to holding different convictions together in one
church. This style and culture of church is not for everyone. Mr. Lowe’s
decision to renounce jurisdiction and to leave the PC(USA), even though that
was not the action of Presbytery, suggests that he has determined that the
style and culture of PC(USA) is not for him.
This has been a difficult time in our
Presbytery. We are grateful for the careful discernment of our Committee on
Ministry and the orderly deliberation of the whole presbytery at our special
meeting. We are grateful for the work of our Administrative Commission moving
forward with the congregation at Faith Church into a new day.
“Now to him who by
the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all
we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and Christ Jesus to all
generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3: 20, 21)
