Ecclesiastical structures are power structures of a similar sort to the ones we have been discussing. And an ecclesiastical structure has a dominant culture, just as a nation or a corporation does. It sets up rules which tend to benefit those who are members of the dominant culture and which tend to perpetuate their tenure of power.

I read yesterday about the continuing court battle over the property of Olivet Presbyterian Church in Evansville, Ind. I have a long connection with that church. I served there as the director of youth and family ministries when I was a seminary student at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in the mid-1990’s. Rev. David Mills showed me great patience and kindness as I found my theological and ecclesiastical bearings.

I transferred my ordination from the PCUSA to the PCA in 2002, but my wife and I still have many dear friends at Olivet with whom we converse regularly. I was also under care of the Ohio Valley Presbytery, first as an inquirer and then as a candidate, so I’m not unfamiliar with the culture of that presbytery, though I’m sure a lot of the faces have changed in the last 10 or 11 years.

Though I am addressing this communication to The Layman, I hope to speak past The Layman’s natural audience to those on the other side of the theological and ideological divide. I hope to speak truth and to speak it charitably but firmly. I hope to do so as one who has some familiarity with the issues and the culture involved, and yet as one who is far enough removed to have a different perspective.

When I was a student at Louisville Seminary I was presented with the critiques of power which are offered by both liberation theology and feminist theology. Those who are in power tend to sinfully use that power to perpetuate the status quo and keep themselves in power. They build power structures which are fundamentally unjust and oppressive.

Indeed, many strands of this sort of theology locate sin primarily or even exclusively in this phenomenon. We see these unjust power structures all over the place. They exist where any group oppresses another group. They can happen in business, in government, in race and gender relations.

One of the key insights of this stream of thought is that those who are the beneficiaries of the unjust power structures seldom recognize the fact that they are the beneficiaries of injustice. They point to the rules to justify their behavior, but of course their group set up those rules in the first place. They claim to be wiser or more fitted for power than those they are oppressing.

Sometimes they will claim a special divine warrant for their behavior. The cry of feminist theology and liberation theology is that these people do not have a divine warrant for their behavior, and that God is actually on the side of the oppressed.

And, of course, there will be those in the minority who are anxious to curry favor or receive protection from the majority. They envy the power of the powerful and try to emulate them while still being what they are. They are willing to give lip service to the status quo, and validate the perpetuation of power by the majority in exchange for tokens of acceptance by the majority.

They are seen by the majority as the “Good (fill in the blank.)” They know what side their bread is buttered on, and they are enormously useful to the majority to deflect criticism about their treatment of the minority. They are also usually hated by those members of their own group who are not willing to compromise their identity. This phenomenon rears its ugly head wherever there is longstanding conflict between groups of unequal power.

And though my own theological convictions have taken me in a radically different direction, to classical Reformed orthodoxy, I have always thought that these insights do have some truth and some explanatory power. For instance, both of my daughters are adopted. One is Caucasian and one is from a different race. Her people have been horribly abused by my people in the not-too-distant past, and there is a racism that still tinges relationships between the dominant culture and her people.

I know that when my daughter gets to a certain age there is a very real possibility that store security personnel will follow her around while she shops, but never think to surveil my blue-eyed, blonde-haired daughter. I know that it is possible that she will be discriminated against in a job application, or be the recipient of an ugly racially motivated comment that breaks her heart.

Even though she is only five years old I have begun to see, from the inside out, what “white privilege” looks like. I also know as a white man that I didn’t ask to be privileged, nor is it particularly “my fault” that I am privileged. It’s just a side effect of living where and when I live. I did not create the power structures that benefit me. But as a leader in the Church and a father I have a responsibility to do what I can to dismantle them. Sometimes that means “speaking truth to power.”

Hence my purpose in writing this essay. I wish to examine your conduct in light of your own principles.

Ecclesiastical structures are power structures of a similar sort to the ones we have been discussing. And an ecclesiastical structure has a dominant culture, just as a nation or a corporation does. It sets up rules which tend to benefit those who are members of the dominant culture and which tend to perpetuate their tenure of power.

It also has its benighted minorities, those who are “different” or “other.” Those who, for whatever reason, are at odds with the dominant culture and power structure.

Think seriously, my theologically liberal friend, about what sort of jockeying goes on behind the scenes in a presbytery to make sure that only certain people with the “right” theology and views gets on the key committees in that presbytery. Think seriously about who gets sent as a commissioner to the General Assembly in the years when some bit of legislation which is important to your group is up for a vote.

A hundred years ago theological liberals mounted a very carefully considered and subtle campaign to go from minority status to majority status in both the Northern and the Southern Presbyterian churches, which are the historical forbearers of the PCUSA. It was a very successful campaign. By the 1920’s the traditionalists were vanquished. Though the average person in the pews probably did not realize it, any traditionalist who came through the seminaries or who was ordained into ministry was keenly aware of that fact. The traditional believer is the other. We are the minority.

Tolerance for them has fallen over time to the point where a traditionalist who really understands and believes the tradition will have a very hard time getting ordained in your denomination. When a person is an inquirer or a candidate you have the most power over him or her. I know from personal experience as a person under care in three PCUSA presbyteries that you use that power to extract obeisance from the minority. We must kiss the ring of the majority. We must bow and scrape in order to convince you that we are “Good Evangelicals” who won’t take the Reformed heritage enshrined in the Book of Confessions too seriously.

I dared to actually quote, almost verbatim, from the Westminster Confession of Faith during my ordination examination on the floor of both the Ohio Valley Presbytery and the Cincinnati Presbytery. I received sharp criticism for that in both presbyteries. The other candidates who were examined with me didn’t even get a question from the floor. I have felt firsthand your intolerance in the name of tolerance.

You have systematically ratcheted up the pressure on the minority for a long time, until now it is to the point of causing even those traditionalists who have been quiescent and compliant for years to consider leaving. But they do not want to leave in dribs and drabs, like those of us who have left before. They want to leave as a cohesive group, with mutual support and care for the hazards of the journey. They want to envision a new future for themselves and build it.

And they want to take the property and resources they paid for with their own blood, sweat and tears with them. And you extort them and take them to court to prevent it. You point to the rules you wrote to perpetuate your tenure in power and say “See, it’s the right thing to do.”

Tell me, liberal friend, do you exult in the part of the Exodus story where the children of Israel plunder the treasures of the Egyptians as just payment for their slavery? Have you preached sermons on how the oppressed have a right to seize the means of production for themselves in the context of their liberation?

Would you feminists countenance any sort of law written onto the books which would not allow a woman to divorce her abusive husband unless she left all of her worldly goods in his possession and left the home destitute? Do you not rail against any laws anywhere in the world which treat a woman’s property as her husband’s and allow him to keep it?

For all the supposedly sharp-eyed speck removal in the eyes of others, the theological liberals in the PCUSA have a remarkably large log in their own eyes. While decrying the unjust use of power, you use power unjustly. While issuing thundering condemnations of abusers everywhere, you abuse everywhere you can. While denouncing theft from the poor and the weak you steal from the poor and the weak in your own household.

Why? Do you really want an empty church building? Is the real estate market so vibrant that you can even profit handsomely from your thefts? Do old, empty churches command high prices in our day? No they do not. You do what you do simply to cause fear and to wound. You betray your very deep loathing and hatred of the other in your midst by what you do to them. You say what every abuser says to the one he abuses, “You are mine to do with what I wish, and if you try to leave me I will hurt you.”

Now that I confront you with this, will you shrug your shoulders and say what those members of the majority who have been complicit by their silence often say, “It’s just the way things are and I can’t do anything about it.” Where is your passion for justice then?

You are behaving hypocritically. You are now hoisted by your own petard. You are Pharoah. You are the abusive husband. You have become the oppressor and the racist and the homophobe you so abhor. As the Prophet Nathan said to King David, “Thou art the man!”

Have done with this sickening behavior. Please, for the sake of some kind of integrity with your own principles, let my people go.

Brian Carpenter is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He serves as pastor of the Foothills Community Church (PCA), Sturgis, S.D. This article was written for and first appeared at The Layman online and is used with the author’s permission.

[Editor’s note: Original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed.]