Current news of other churches shows that we are not alone in experiencing frustrations in seeking to maintain the Bible‘s claim of inerrancy. Two articles in the June 20 Presbyterian Journal (pp. 5–7, 10) tell of similar problems in the 28,000 member Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church as it met in its 175th Synod at Flat Rock, North Carolina. (This denomination was received into “ecclesiastical fellowship” by the Christian Reformed Synod in 1977). At the ARP Synod “three related disciplinary cases” were “resolved by Synod in a manner which left none of the parties fully satisfied.”

A Test Case

Rev. C. Tom Fincher, pastor of an ARP Church in Cayce, S.C. had “asked Catawba presbytery to try two of its ministers, the Rev. C. Donald Coffey and the Rev. R.A. King, both professors at (the denomination’s) Erskine Seminary, on the ground that t heir view of Scripture was inconsistent with the Westminster Confession of Faith.” Mr. Fincher was convinced that “we cannot have a Church in which both their view, which allows for some error in the Scripture, and my view, which doesn’t, are right.” When the presbytery refused to try the professors Mr. Fincher appealed the matter to the General Synod.

Synod Evasion

After a narrow 123-108 decision to even hear the complaint, “delegates stepped and sidestepped through a parliamentary thicket for half the day, never actually debating the substance of the case.” Rev. James Barker, representing t he presbytery, argued, “These professors have said repeatedly that they are committed to the Westminster Confession and to the Scripture as the supreme authority on matters of faith and life.” “Who are we to look in their hearts and say, ‘OK, but you don‘t mean that.’ God will be their judge.”

Mr. Fincher tried to get the discussion to the point at issue, “The question is not, ‘do we believe the Westminster Confession?’ but rather, ‘How do we interpret it?’’ To many of us, it is apparent that the writers of the Confession meant, ‘inerrant’ when they said ‘infallible!’” He asked the Synod to instruct the presbytery in the future to allow no other view than the one that “the Bible contains no error,” and to reconsider trying the two professors. The Synod decided 128-101 not to sustain his appeal.

A Financial Angle

The Catawba Presbytery had also condemned Mr. Fincher’s Cayce Church for “acting unethically in withholding funds committed earlier to Synod’s benevolences,” and the church had appealed that judgment to the Synod. Mr. Barker, again representing the Presbytery, argued, “Much as we should like to, we can’t just forgive t hem. Think of t he crisis we would have in our denominational finances if we were to allow each congregation to declare exactly where each penny of its benevolences would go.” Arguing for a heirarchical application of Presbyterian church order he held that “The part cannot override the whole.” Elder Everett Baston defended the Cayce Church saying, “There comes a time when one has–to do what the Lord would have him do.” Without giving grounds for its decision the Synod in this case simply set aside the “guilty” verdict of the Presbytery. As one delegate observed, “It is easy to crucify one man; nobody wants to hang a whole church.”

The Outcome

With less than a dozen opposing votes the more than two hundred member Synod finally decided to affirm “that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, without error in all they teach.” Mr. Fincher who had tried to move the denomination to maintain its creed and practice its discipline on the point of biblical inerrancy, after the synod’s action in his case withdrew another appeal against the presbytery’s action against himself and announced his decision to resign from the Cayce Church and seek other denominational affiliation.

Efforts To Compromise

The other article in this same Journal tells us how the Erskine Seminary dean, Rev. Randal T. Ruble, and the Synod’s stated clerk, Rev. C. Ronald Beard, had sought to minimize the differences on “the theory that the ARP Church has no liberals—only conservatives and moderates whose differences can be bridged.” A meeting of some 40 influential church leaders, promoted by Mr. Beard, had earlier sought to bridge the differences. Its concluding statement, however, was not signed by Rev. C.T. Fincher and Rev. Steve Irby because it fell short of maintaining the Bible’s inerrancy.

An Earlier Secession

The January 17, 1979 Presbyterian Journal reported that the Prosperity ARP Church near Charlotte had voted unanimously to leave the denomination because of the same issue of t he denomination‘s “growing carelessness with the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy,” claiming that “the faculty of our denominational (Erskine) Seminary blatantly attributes error to the original manuscripts of the Bible, flatly contradicting the Westminster Confession of Faith . . . Worse still, our Synod has not disciplined these false teachers, giving implied assent to these errors. We dare not be a part of such.” Under conditions for possibly rejoining the denomination the session at that time included a satisfactory affirmation of Biblical inerrancy by the Synod and a correction of “un-Scriptural doctrines taught by the Erskine Seminary faculty” (Jan. 17 Journal pp. 6, 7).

Parallels

Many of these details sound familiar to us: Professors and preachers who contradict the Bible, efforts to correct them and maintain the church‘s faith by exercising discipline, delays, evasions and parliamentary maneuvering, deliberate efforts to divert attention from the point at issue in “interpretations” which contradict the Bible to “pious” confessions of faith in t he Bible, and a refusal to exercise required discipline. The same battle for God’s Word continues and must continue in many church circles, including ours, in the prayer and confidence that the Lord will maintain His Word against all opposition . That may demand of us further struggle for reform within an unfaithful denomination: or it may compel secession to find church fellowship with those who will adhere to God’s Word.