Large churches with monstrous budgets are big sticks, but size and dollars do not establish moral authority, and it is foolish to think they do. Evangelicals who stay in the PCUSA will remain stuck in the impotence of rage until they find a way to reestablish moral authority.

The greatest philosophical problem of the past century involves authority. You and I both have authority problems. We all have issues with the question of what authorizes one person or thing to hold legitimate superior position over another.

Authority is the chief issue behind denominational conflicts over sexuality, and perhaps behind the decline of Christianity in the west altogether. As affects the Presbyterian Church (USA), the crisis over gay ordination reveals the root issues, which all involve authority; specifically, Biblical authority, political authority and moral authority. Even a cursory glance at these reveals why the evangelicals lost the PCUSA.

1. Biblical authority
The authority of Scripture is confessed by Protestants across the board, so why are there so many different and divided Protestants? Denominations are precisely those communities that have coalesced into agreed-upon interpretations. The Bible only carries authority within communities where there is agreement on what the Scriptures say. If all Protestants interpreted Scripture the same, there would be one Protestant denomination.

The PCUSA is made up of (at least two) opposing interpretive communities, both of which maintain their confession of Biblical authority. In terms of the sexuality arguments, the appeal to Biblical authority is irrelevant unless and until agreement on the texts can be reached. The only reasonable alternative is division, which is the DNA of Protestantism. Better to allow two groups to operate independently of each other in good conscience while maintaining their mutually-exclusive definitions of Biblical authority than to throw out Biblical authority in favor of some substitute (and certainly inferior) bonding principle. In the PCUSA, as regards sexuality, the appeal to Biblical authority is sadly invalid.

2. Political authority
While some evangelicals have departed the PCUSA, others continue their attempts to stand firm in their understanding of Scripture against the movement of the sexual revolution. Like protesters in front of a bulldozer with their backs to the edge of a cliff, they rage, wave the Bible and mount insignificant campaigns to stop the machine’s movement from pushing them over the edge into utter irrelevance. They have none of the political authority they once enjoyed.

The politics of the PCUSA is all left-of-center and has been for at least a generation. Liberals have control of the flow of legislation and the bureaucracy. They are likely to lean on it pretty hard as long as they can. When political authority is a trump card, loyalism is a cardinal virtue – neither faith, nor piety, nor spirituality, nor scriptural competence, nor intellectual prowess – just denominational loyalty. Leaning exclusively upon political authority is a losing prospect for any church. It does not work; by numbers it has already been not working for decades.

Evangelicals seem to know better here. Even at the cost of the denomination’s demise they will not commit themselves to activism in the higher governing bodies. The appeals to do so have fallen upon deaf (or wiser) ears for decades. Political authority is the only way in which the liberals have been winning, but it has accomplished little for us.

3. Moral authority
Here is the key: the PCUSA is in crisis because of an absolute dearth of moral authority.

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[Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]
Noel Anderson is the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Upland, Calif.