WE CONFESS that too often we have not practiced what we demanded of others.

WE CONFESS that we have been too quick to condemn those with whom we differ, and too slow to pray for them and ourselves.

WE CONFESS that we have contributed to the problems within our denomination by our isolationism, our prideful independence, and our greater concern with our congregations and local spheres of influence than with the connectional corporate witness of the church. NEVERTHELESS, by this Call to Renewal we are bold to affirm our faith and our strong concerns for certain areas in our church’s life and witness.

We affirm the historic Presbyterian confession of a Triune God: the Father, who created all things; Jesus Christ, his Son, who alone is Savior and Lord; and; the Holy Spirit who empowers the church for its mission in the world.

We affirm that this God is revealed in Holy Scripture, which is in a unique sense the word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

We affirm the Reformed confessions as reliable guides to the Christian faith revealed in Scripture

I. THE UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST

We affirm the historic position of the Presbyterian Church that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God and the only Savior and Lord of the world. We believe that God calls people into a living relationship with him by faith, and that the proclamation of this message is the starting point for the work of the church.

We repudiate the creeping universalism found in some parts of the church’s life and program, which we believe has compromised our obedience to the Great Commission, seriously inhibiting our efforts in evangelism and directly contributing to the church’s disastrous decline in membership over the past two decades. We believe it has also drastically diminished our involvement in world missions.

We repudiate the tendency to pursue social justice to the neglect of evangelism; and with equal force we also repudiate the failure to pursue social justice in preoccupation with evangelism.

II. THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE

We affirm the authority of Scripture as the foundation of our faith and life, in a world hungry for absolute truth in the face of relativism and chaos.

We, therefore, repudiate any attempt to build the church on secular foundations:

• By giving precedence to the insights of secular resources, neglecting the witness of Scripture as the basis for its ministry and program:
• By abandoning biblical language about God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in order to conform to current ideologies; or,
• By so compromising with theological pluralism that we lose the distinctive standard set for the faith by our Reformed confessions.

III. THE HOLY LIFE

We rejoice in the thirst expressed throughout our church for spiritual vitality, resulting in lives of more disciplined godliness.

We repudiate the empty formalism which results from failure to seek presence and power of the Holy Spirit. We repudiate the denial of individual responsibility for personal morality. We repudiate the acceptance of homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle and the efforts of some within the church to promote the ordination of practicing homosexuals to church office, as we would object to the ordination of one known to be cohabiting heterosexually out of marriage.

IV. THE CHURCH

We proclaim our loyalty to the Presbyterian Church (USA) as an integral part of the body of Christ, and recognize that our separation from the church would be a critical wounding for that body. Therefore:

We affirm the importance of connectionalism as an essential element of church structure.

But we repudiate the inversion of that connectionalism which seems to expect the constituency to support and follow the administrative structure, when that structure should exist to serve the constituency, discovering and implementing the convictions of that constituency.

We affirm the role of the Session as the primary governing body responsible for the oversight of the local church.

We repudiate the disproportionate growth of staff and budget at Presbytery and Synod levels at a time when church membership is declining and the gulf between membership and leadership is perceived as widening.

We affirm that we are blessed and enriched by our diversity. We believe we are called to be an inclusive people: to nurture, equip, and elect to leadership, as their spiritual gifts might recommend them, women and men of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. We insist that in the leadership selection process the criterion of spiritual maturity be given primacy.

We repudiate the application of any system which fails to accept this primacy.

We commend these concerns to the church at large, and offer them as a rallying point for those who share our hope for continuing reformation and renewal in the Presbyterian Church (USA).