AAPC’s Response to the RPCUS Charges
July 18, 2002
Covenant Presbytery, RPCUS Reverend John Otis, Moderator 115 Church Street Cumming, Georgia 30040
Dear Brothers,
We acknowledge receipt of your papers ("With reference to the ‘New Perspective on Paul’ Movement" and "A Call to Repentance") and confess ourselves to be dismayed beyond words.
We categorically deny that any of the speakers at our Pastors Conference have departed from historic, orthodox Christianity or even from historic Reformed orthodoxy. We categorically deny that anything taught at this year’s Pastors Conference was "heretical" in the historic sense of the term (i.e. teachings which deny the central truths of the gospel). Your charges to the contrary appear to us to be groundless, untrue, and ill-considered. It is clear to us that the charges you have adopted reveal a deep misunderstanding of the teaching given at the conference and, thus, constitute a grave misjudgment.
Further, the procedure by which you adopted these charges was devoid of biblical order and common charity. You have not provided any basis for your charges, nor did you investigate your concerns in a biblical and charitable manner. You have not quoted anything any of the speakers actually said, nor did you make any official contact with any of the speakers to discuss what was said in the lectures in an effort to achieve better understanding. You gave none of the speakers prior notice of your intention to bring charges of heresy against them, nor did you give any opportunity to any of them to respond to the charges leveled.
Though we recognize your right to respond publicly to public lectures and would have had no objection to you voicing your disagreements with the teaching given publicly, you do not have the right to declare men heretics without approaching the ecclesiastical bodies which have official oversight of these men and without having them examined in public about their views. This, at minimum, ought to have been done.
Aside from the requirements of Reformed Church order, however, it is plain to us that mutual respect and Christian charity demand that brothers be given the opportunity to answer charges against them before being judged. Responding publicly is one thing. It is quite another, however, to have a church court proceed to make judicial pronouncements and ask the wider Body of Christ to receive them as binding, without that court having made any official contact with the parties charged.
For these reasons, it is our judgment that your action is irresponsible, slanderous, divisive, and one which attacks the peace and unity of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. We therefore reject and deny your charges as frivolous and unfounded. We further denounce the procedure you have followed in making such charges as unbiblical and unjust.
In spite of our judgment of your actions, however, we declare that we have no animosity toward you and would welcome the opportunity to sit down and speak with you about the views expounded at our conference. We have always held you in high regard and have no greater desire than to be reconciled to you so that we may continue to serve with you in the cause of the gospel and the Kingdom of our Lord.
Sincerely in our Savior,
The Session of Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church
Other edifying links regarding a response to the RPCUS
Messiah's Congregation Christ Church of Moscow,Idaho Sandlin