Disassociating
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Dorothy was a young girl. She could not be trusted on her own. For this reason, at some point before the story starts, she has come to live with, and under the protection of Auntie Em. When the winds began to howl, you'll remember, the brave woman cried out to her niece to come quickly, to get in the cellar where it was safe from the cyclone. But Dorothy didn't make it, perhaps because she had been dilly-dallying with the carnival man.

God knows that we are frail, and fragile. And so He has established authority structures into our lives, giving parents to children, husbands to wives, sessions to husbands, and presbyteries to sessions. But even this system of back-ups doesn't always work. Children disobey and parents abdicate. Fathers disappear, and sessions roll over. Sessions squabble, and presbyteries kick them out of the house.

Such has happened in the Tennessee/Alabama presbytery of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. We have written before about the sad goings on at York Presbyterian Church, and at our presbytery. The short story goes like this. My friend Martin Murphy, who had been the pastor at the church for over five years, was approached by a few elders and deacons, and asked to leave the church. A congregational meeting was held, in which two thirds of the members expressed the wish that the pastor stay. No charges were made against Pastor Murphy. There was assorted wrangling over who had authority over the church, the trustees, or the session. (Trustees are a legal thing. This whole case is a textbook argument against the evils of incorporated churches.) Eventually the presbytery sent a delegation to investigate matters. They instructed the feuding parties to make amends. On the floor of presbytery one of the offending elders clearly affirmed his refusal to be reconciled to the pastor. Charges were brought against him. A failure to read the charge, a technicality in the arcania of church discipline necessitated another called meeting of the presbytery. Between these two meetings the elder asked a judge to grant a restraining order against the session of the church forbidding them to exercise discipline against him, and asking the judge to order the presbytery to fire the pastor. When we gathered to read the charges against the elder, all charges were dropped.

Months later, after continual efforts to gain sufficient votes to oust Pastor Murphy, a vote was taken to, at the same time, dismiss the church into independency, and to remove Pastor Murphy from the pulpit. That measure passed. Still no charges, no trial, no nothing. The church, and the pastor, even the offending elder, were sent out into the storm to fend for themselves.

In March, at the request of Saint Peter Presbyterian Church, ARP, Saint Peter was also dismissed into independency by a unanimous vote of the presbytery. And so we are, for now, Saint Peter Temporarily Oxymoronic Independent Presbyterian Church. I met with the minister and his work committee to talk about the decision of our congregation. One presbyter offered that he would be praying for our church because it seemed to him that we had the attitude of "Things didn't go our way, and so we're going to take our marbles and go home."

Such is by no means the case. When we first came here to plant Saint Peter Church, and to start the study center, we understood the importance of accountability. I know me well enough to know that I could fall off some theological deep end, and maybe take some poor souls with me. And so I sought out a denomination with some history behind it, with a confession I believed in, and placed myself, and later the church, under the authority of the Tennessee/Alabama presbytery of the ARP. In so doing I expressed my trust in the elders of that presbytery that they would be as a father to me, and to our young congregation. We have left not because our Brother Martin was treated badly, but because he was not treated at all. We left because when the call came, when the cyclone kicked up, the presbytery ran into the cellar, and locked the door behind them. We left them, in short, because they left us. (By the way, even that would not have been enough, if we had had legal standing to appeal this decision to the General Synod. But because we have no standing, we cannot appeal.)

In the meantime the session of the church is wrestling over who will be our Auntie Em, who will take us in and offer us the protection we so badly need. We are trying to determine what denomination/presbytery we should join with. As we are searching we have asked a number of godly pastors in the area to serve as a sort of ad hoc presbytery for us, to make sure that I am not leading the flock astray. They have been kind enough to help us in this way.

The session of the church, indeed the congregation, would be very grateful for your prayers. This is not a happy time for us, nor was it an easy decision. And the decision still before us is a very important one. Please pray that we would make a wise decision, that we would find a safe and appropriate home.

I told the men on the committee that I did not believe that the men who had made these decisions did so out of raw malevolence. I told them I did not think these men held secret meetings and made oaths to Satan. I told them their failure was not that they were wicked, but that they lacked the will to do the right thing, that they were cowards. If only the great and terrible true Wizard would grant these cubs what they so desperately need, that they might sit rightly on the throne on which Christ has placed them, and use the keys He has given them.