Comments for Brooding with our brood at http://www.pres-outlook.org , comment 1 to 2 out of 2 comments http://www.pres-outlook.org Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:37:14 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.pres-outlook.org/opinion3/editorials3/9991-brooding-with-our-brood.html#comment-5447 Re: Brooding with our brood (pub. May 31, 2010) Thanks for your excellent editorial reminding us of our common experience with other Reformed Christians! I wish the mainline/branchline dialogue could expand and continue -- which could spare us much poisonous nonsense as the two streams correct one another's imbalances. This reminds me of Tom Gillespie's efforts to alert Princetonians to values in the tradition of Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd, and other vitamins in the Christian Reformed Church, along with B. B. Warfield and others important Reformed theologians. Separation has left all sides weakened -- though full of vitamins which have the potential to renew one another. Richard Lovelace S. Hamilton, Mass. - Richard Lovelace Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:12:07 +0100 http://www.pres-outlook.org/opinion3/editorials3/9991-brooding-with-our-brood.html#comment-5445 One must remember that the PCA, OPC, and to a lesser extent the ARPC are by their nature a "reactionary" church. In that they derive much of the their energy and essence in the percieved sins of the larger mainline PC. So the various follies of the PCUSA are used as cannon-fodder for much of their visioning and self-identity. The issue for the PCA, much like the PCUSA is that the "person in the pews" concepts of church and misson tend to be congregationalist in nature. Many current PCA clergy and elders come from either free church backgrounds or are refugees from the old UPC/PCUS structures. Why would they seek to affirm some sort of larger denominational mission or program, when centralized planning from the old Riverside Drive era of the church, especially over women ordination in the 1960/70s. drove them out in the first place. That cold fact is about to dawn on our more conservative brothers who tend to be "tea-party" types in ideology. Ever watch R.C. Sprull? It may be some centralized denominatinal structure of church governemnt is a failed business model for at least American Presbyterianism, but if that is true, the first cracks in that house will be in the PCA and alike, where folks tend to distrust centalized auhtority far more than in the more chaotic and free flowing PCUSA. - p.w. gregory Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:47:20 +0100