The Book of Order makes use in some references to the true Church and in other cases to the true church. The problem is that people don’t “hear” the lower case or capital letter. When a presbytery recognizes one part of a congregation as the true church it denigrates the people of faith whom it labels as “untrue.”

In debates about the continuing witness of a particular part of a particular congregation in a particular place, presbyteries across the country are debating who from the membership of a congregation constitutes “the true church.” In most cases, the decision to award the property and assets to “the true church” is being made based on loyalty to the Presbyterian Church (USA), not on the marks of a true church as articulated in Reformed theology.

Presbyterians acknowledge the threefold marks of a true church enumerated by John Calvin as the Word of God rightly preached, the sacraments rightly administered and church discipline rightly applied. Those three marks are culled from Calvin’s Institutes. He dedicates the entirety of Book IV to the Church, and Chapters 1-2 are about the “true church.” From 4.1.9: “Wherever we see the word of God sincerely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there we cannot have any doubt that the church of God has some existence, since His promise cannot fail.”

Calvin talks about the matter of church discipline at length in 4.12-4.13. By the writing and adoption of The Westminster Confession of Faith 100 years later, the marks had become understood as, “This catholic Church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them” (WCF, Chapter 25, paragraph 4).

In a universalistic adaptation of the historic marks (removing all reference to repentance of sin prior to receiving the sacraments and removing all reference to the right preaching of the Word or discipline), the PCUSA Book of Order says in F-1.01 paragraph 2, “The mission of God in Christ gives shape and substance to the life and work of the Church. In Christ, the Church participates in God’s mission for the transformation of creation and humanity by proclaiming to all people the good news of God’s love, offering to all people the grace of God at font and table, and calling all people to discipleship in Christ.”

This restatement is a vast departure from the earliest articulation of the marks of the true church recorded between A.D. 50 and 300 in The Didache. The composite of teachings of the apostles lists three identifiable “marks” of a true church: (emphasis added)

• On the Lord’s own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one who has a quarrel with a companion join you until they have been reconciled, so that your sacrifice may not be defiled. For this is the sacrifice concerning which the Lord said, “In every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is marvelous among the nations” (Mal. 1:11, 14).
• Therefore appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are humble and not avaricious and true and approved, for they too carry out for you the ministry of the prophets and teachers. You must not, therefore, despise them, for they are your honored men, along with the prophets and teachers.
• Furthermore, correct one another, not in anger but in peace, as you find in the Gospel; and if anyone wrongs his neighbor, let no one speak to him, nor let him hear a word from you, until he repents.

This list points to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the context of orderly worship, the establishment of an ordered preaching of the Word and instructions on discipline. These ideas stem from Acts 2:42 where the early church is seen devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers.

So, are these the criteria being used by presbyteries today when, following the dictate of G-4.0207 they award the property of churches in schism to “the true church?” Is the PCUSA a representation of the true church? Is the faction in a congregation that pledges allegiance to the PCUSA necessarily the true church in that visible case? Is the true church not the church that pledges allegiance exclusively to Christ as Lord and lives into the essentials of Biblical Christianity? And who within the context of a broken body has enough objective sense to make that judgment?

The Book of Order makes use in some references to the true Church and in other cases to the true church. The problem is that people don’t “hear” the lower case or capital letter. When a presbytery recognizes one part of a congregation as the true church it denigrates the people of faith whom it labels as “untrue.”

But then, remembering Pilate’s question to Jesus, what’s truth got to do with it? This is a matter of demonstrating power, maintaining control of assets and punishing those who depart from the proscribed progressive path charted by the PCUSA. Those who depart from it may well be the true church if judged by the historic marks. But the criteria for judgment has been altered and the litmus test is loyalty to Louisville alone.

Carmen Fowler LaBerge is president of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and executive editor of its publications. This article first appeared on The Layman website and is used with permission. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]