Last month I wrote about what we believe. The Trinity. The person and work of Jesus Christ. The authority of Scripture.
This month, I’d like to move to a more difficult question.
Do our denominations still hold these convictions?
I am not asking this question to worry anyone. But we deserve an honest answer.
Let’s start with the PC(USA). The drift hasn’t happened all at once. No single vote or meeting. Just a slow redefinition over decades, treating Scripture as a product of its time rather than a Word that still speaks with authority today. The PC(USA) is a connectional church, so decisions made in the General Assembly affect every congregation, whether they agree or not. This has shown up in different ways. Some churches have softened the belief that faith in Christ is necessary for salvation. In some pulpits, people are rallying for political causes instead of teaching the Bible. There is ongoing conversation, too, about the historic Christian understanding of marriage and sexuality.
The Baptist side is no exception, but the drift looks different there, because of how Baptist polity works. Baptists have never allowed denominational offices to hand down instructions. No larger assembly can vote on what a Baptist church believes. Yet the same patterns show up here too. Some congregations increasingly explain away Scripture’s commands as outdated rather than treating them as authoritative for us today. Political preaching sometimes takes the place of biblical teaching. Questions surface about the historic view of marriage and sexuality. They just show up quietly, congregation by congregation, region by region, rather than through any single denominational decision. Some ABCUSA churches hold firmly to the Gospel. Others have moved considerably away from it.
So what does this mean for us? We are both Baptist and Presbyterian, and ultimately a United Church. The reality is that no meeting, no assembly, no denominational trend can make decisions for The United Church. This is freedom. Yet it is not a guarantee that we will remain faithful.
This is why TFC (The Fellowship Community) has been so helpful for us. It exists because many Gospel-centered churches inside the PC(USA), churches like ours, saw these dynamics and chose to stay in the denomination rather than walk away. And TFC helps us hold to our essential beliefs, rather than bend to cultural trends. We are not alone. We are one congregation among many.
So yes. The shifting is real, in both of our traditions. We can’t pretend this isn’t true. But to be fair, neither denomination has abandoned the faith outright. We are not sounding an alarm. We are not leaving. We are not panicking. We already know what we believe. That is exactly what lets us look at our denominational homes honestly, without fear.
Next month, let’s talk about why we’re still here.
Wade
This article is part of an ongoing series on The United Church and our denominational connections, including The Fellowship Community. Installments are posted at uccdga.org/tfc.
