Free at Last!

In the last issue of ARPTalk, I said Chuck Wilson, the Reprobate and Heretic, may his name be cursed by all ARPs, was wrong. Well, yes, he was, but he was also right.

Wilson miscalculated the actions of the Executive Board. In refusing to take up and declare the complaint against Second Presbytery by Dan Eller as an emergency matter, Eller was left with mud on his face. At Eller’s request, the moderator called for a meeting to take up Eller’s complaint but later reversed his decision. Something was afoot, and it didn’t include Eller.

Wilson said there was a high probability the matter of the congregations of Second Presbytery which refused to be sucked into Catawba Presbytery and chose the dismissal route of escape would be left in the hands of Catawba Presbytery to unentangle. And so it came to pass: the following email was sent out by the clerk of Catawba Presbytery:

That Catawba Presbytery Transition Commission at a duly called meeting on September 24, 2024 made the following motion which was passed:

That Catawba Presbytery in order to promote the peace, purity, and prosperity of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in light of their failure to submit in Christian love to the General Synod and Catawba Presbytery we dismiss from the roll of Catawba Presbytery the following churches: Lower Long Cane ARP Church, Newberry ARP Church, Troy ARP Church, Unity ARP Church, and Young Memorial ARP Church.

What does this mean?

One, it means the folks in Catawba Presbytery can’t help themselves. If one has to hang out on the street corner with a placard declaring one’s piety, it isn’t piety.

Two, it means the Lower Long Cane Presbyterian Church, the Newberry Presbyterian Church, the Troy Presbyterian Church, the Unity Presbyterian Church, and the Young Memorial Presbyterian Church are free from the clutches of the ARPChurch. Their properties, buildings, and money are theirs.

Three, it means the statements regarding congregations leaving the ARP Church in the Form of Government and other constitutional documents are null and void. The only thing left for the ecclesiocrats to do is edit their documents to reflect reality.

Four, it means the end of imperial Presbyterianism among evangelical Presbyterian denominations. This was the death knell of the idea that the presbytery/denomination owns the congregations and congregants. This last vestige of imperial domination as practiced by the historic mainline Presbyterian denominations no longer infects evangelical Presbyterianism.