A Resource Worth Your Time: "Why 'Presbyterian' Will Never Be a Political Party"
The Moderators of the 227th General Assembly including committee moderators, moderator support team, and the Revs. Tony Larson and CeCe Armstrong.
As we mark our nation's 250th anniversary this year, our denomination has offered us a timely gift: a short, accessible resource drawing on "God Alone is Lord of the Conscience," the PC(USA)'s 1988 social witness policy on religious liberty and church-state relations. Prepared by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), it distills nearly four decades of careful theological reflection into five clear convictions, among them that faith cannot be coerced by human authority, that civil government is a genuine gift from God for the sake of peace and justice, and that our obedience to that government is always conditioned by our first allegiance to God.
At the heart of the piece is a claim our tradition has held for almost two hundred years: no political party or system can embody God's will. We advocate for justice as vigorously as we can, but we do not form a Presbyterian Party, and we do not seek to wield the power of the state to enforce our own vision of faith on others.
This is the same theological ground from which the 227th General Assembly, meeting this summer, spoke clearly against White Christian nationalism by naming it a distortion incompatible with the gospel and calling the church to public witness against it. Read together, the two resources show a tradition that has thought hard, and long, about the difference between prophetic witness and political capture.
We commend both to you for your own reading and reflection. Read the full resource here: pcusa.org/resource/why-will-never-be-political-party
