Exiled Christian

[Joshua119]

Hello, thank you for taking the time to read this.

My wife and I have recently left the Catholic church because they will not validate our marriage. She was married to another man for about two months a decade ago, but the church has ruled that to be the valid marriage, and not ours. Consequently, our son cannot be baptized because his mother is not in good standing and I have been declared an adulterous man.

I have long been an admirer of the writings of Matthew Henry, and ancestry.com says that many of my ancestors were Presbyterians from Scotland, which led me here. Would the three of us be welcome in the Presbyterian Church?

Thank you for any insight that you can provide.

 

[hedrick]

At least in the PCUSA, the fact that your wife has been divorced would not automatically disqualify you. I can't speak for the more conservative Presbyterian bodies. The PCUSA constitution does not permit us to reject someone who confesses Christ as Lord and Savior. My congregation has a number of former Catholics, who ran into one or another of the Catholic rules on sexual / gender issues. We ask people to examine themselves in the light of the Gospel, but don't make judgements except in fairly extreme cases.

Most of the members of this forum are from the more conservative groups. They are more willing to make moral judgements, but even they don't do so legalistically. They would likely talk with you and your wife, but I'm guessing you could satisfy them.

 

[Joshua119]

Thank you for the response. We both know that divorce isn't something to be flaunted proudly, but we were both very hurt by the judgment that we received for a mistake that she made ten years ago. As you say, I have heard that many Catholics who leave the Roman church head to the Presbyterian, so perhaps this is the natural progression of God's will in our lives.

 

[Winepress777]

Hello, thank you for taking the time to read this.

My wife and I have recently left the Catholic church because they will not validate our marriage. She was married to another man for about two months a decade ago, but the church has ruled that to be the valid marriage, and not ours. Consequently, our son cannot be baptized because his mother is not in good standing and I have been declared an adulterous man.

I have long been an admirer of the writings of Matthew Henry, and ancestry.com says that many of my ancestors were Presbyterians from Scotland, which led me here. Would the three of us be welcome in the Presbyterian Church?

Thank you for any insight that you can provide.

You'd be welcome in any Christian's home Thank our Lord Jesus for His forgiveness that our sins don't follow us around like ever sniffing inquisitors huh

 

[Joshua119]

You'd be welcome in any Christian's home Thank our Lord Jesus for His forgiveness that our sins don't follow us around like ever sniffing inquisitors huh

Thank you for the kind words I was feeling pretty downtrodden when I made the op, but I am feeling much more invigorated thanks to the two responses that I have received.

 

[AMR]

From what you have described, among NAPARC members there would be no claim that one is living in a continual state of adultery. Rather, the sin is committed, the damage is done, yet is not beyond the bounds of forgiveness and restorative grace from genuine repentance. Rome's view leads to the irrational conclusion that even converts from Buddhism are still ongoing idolaters.

The woman at the well had 5 husbands, and the context was she had unlawfully married the other 4, but they were still husbands.

 

[BryanW92]

At least in the PCUSA, the fact that your wife has been divorced would not automatically disqualify you. I can't speak for the more conservative Presbyterian bodies. The PCUSA constitution does not permit us to reject someone who confesses Christ as Lord and Savior. My congregation has a number of former Catholics, who ran into one or another of the Catholic rules on sexual / gender issues. We ask people to examine themselves in the light of the Gospel, but don't make judgements except in fairly extreme cases.

Most of the members of this forum are from the more conservative groups. They are more willing to make moral judgements, but even they don't do so legalistically. They would likely talk with you and your wife, but I'm guessing you could satisfy them.

The PCA (one of those "more conservative bodies") would accept a married couple regardless of whether they had been divorced or not. My church did turn down a cohabitating but unmarried couple last year for membership until after their wedding.

 

[Joshua119]

The PCA (one of those "more conservative bodies") would accept a married couple regardless of whether they had been divorced or not. My church did turn down a cohabitating but unmarried couple last year for membership until after their wedding.

This is part of what hurt us so badly. We didn't cohabitate and courted properly (as the RCC defines it), so we felt like we were doing things right. Plus, we had been assured by a Deacon that the circumstances of the previous marriage would warrant an annulment, but the Archdiocese obviously felt different. That's why we chose to leave; how can you be a "universal" church if you don't allow certain believers to take part? As AMR said, Rome was punishing not just us, but our children as well, for mistakes made years ago.

Thank you all for the responses. As a supplemental question, I am used to a 73 book bible, but I know that this is not the case for most(all?) protestant groups. Do Presbyterians recommend a specific translation (kjv, esv, etc.)? Or is it different from place to place? We have decided, thanks to all of you, to attend a local church this Sunday, so should I wait to see what they use?

Thank you all for being so helpful.

 

[hedrick]

There's no official Presbyterian translation. I've seen pretty much all popular translations in use. Mainline Presbyterians (PCUSA) tend to use NRSV for official publications and for serious Bible study. Conservative Presbyterians would use anything else but NRSV. The ESV is generally well regarded by conservatives. Just because the pastor in a Church reads from a specific translation in the pulpit doesn't make it an official translation for that church.

Presbyterians use the 66 book canon. Reading the others can be interesting, but it's not considered inspired Scripture.

Can you tell us what denomination your Presbyterian church is? If you don't know, I can tell from the name.

 

[Catherineanne]

Hello, thank you for taking the time to read this.

My wife and I have recently left the Catholic church because they will not validate our marriage. She was married to another man for about two months a decade ago, but the church has ruled that to be the valid marriage, and not ours. Consequently, our son cannot be baptized because his mother is not in good standing and I have been declared an adulterous man.

I have long been an admirer of the writings of Matthew Henry, and ancestry.com says that many of my ancestors were Presbyterians from Scotland, which led me here. Would the three of us be welcome in the Presbyterian Church?

Thank you for any insight that you can provide.

I am not Presbyterian so I can't comment on your question, but I wanted to wish you well. I hope you both find a welcoming and loving church.

God be with you.

 

[Joshua119]

There's no official Presbyterian translation. I've seen pretty much all popular translations in use. Mainline Presbyterians (PCUSA) tend to use NRSV for official publications and for serious Bible study. Conservative Presbyterians would use anything else but NRSV. The ESV is generally well regarded by conservatives. Just because the pastor in a Church reads from a specific translation in the pulpit doesn't make it an official translation for that church.

Presbyterians use the 66 book canon. Reading the others can be interesting, but it's not considered inspired Scripture.

Can you tell us what denomination your Presbyterian church is? If you don't know, I can tell from the name.

It's a PCUSA church. I live just north of Atlanta, Ga, and they seem to be the only Presbyterian denomination in the area. I actually wasn't aware that there were different styles of Presbyterians until I began researching Presbyterianism as a whole.

Thank you Catherineanne for your kind words.

 

[hedrick]

It's a PCUSA church. I live just north of Atlanta, Ga, and they seem to be the only Presbyterian denomination in the area. I actually wasn't aware that there were different styles of Presbyterians until I began researching Presbyterianism as a whole.

Yes, there’s a big difference. The PCUSA is a mainline Church. It uses modern Biblical scholarship, and accepts things like evolution. (Indeed in these areas we largely agree with Catholics. Also on social policies, to a large extent.) It allows ordination and marriage of gays. The smaller Presbyterian churches believe in inerrancy of Scripture, which means that our handling of Scripture tends to be different. Many of them reject evolution. However there’s a good deal of variation among congregations. Southern churches tend to be slightly more conservative, although the Greater Atlanta Presbytery voted 217-78 to permit gay marriage. (Note, this allows congregations that wish to to marry gays. Many congregations will not.)

On a day to day basis, PCUSA churches won’t seem that different than PCA congregations. Pastors of both preach on Scripture, and try to cover the whole messages of the Bible. Neither liberal nor conservative churches concentrate on hot-button social issues. Mostly we talk about how to follow Christ in our lives. I’m in a very liberal church, but still, most of our sermons would be acceptable to any Presbyterian. We also have a mix of members, including some very conservative members who believe in the Bible literally and reject evolution. Those members are called to be members of Session and otherwise participate in Church leadership even though we know that they don’t agree with the majority. But if you have a problem with being in the same church as people with liberal views, you may not like the PCUSA.

PCA and other conservative churches are strongly committed to the traditional Presbyterian confession of faith (the Westminster Confession), to the inerrancy of Scripture, and to traditional positions on gender and sexual issues. Most of them do not ordain women. They are still less legalistic on these issues than the Catholic Church, however.

If you can tell me either the name of the church or the town in which it’s located, I can try to give you a read on that specific congregation.

I’ve thought about what a former Catholic would think of various Presbyterian churches. You’d probably find the PCUSA more familiar in its handling of Scripture, and to some extent theology. Also social policies. But we’re a lot more liberal on gender / sexual issues than the official Catholic position.

 

[Joshua119]

Yes, there’s a big difference. The PCUSA is a mainline Church. It uses modern Biblical scholarship, and accepts things like evolution. (Indeed in these areas we largely agree with Catholics. Also on social policies, to a large extent.) It allows ordination and marriage of gays. The smaller Presbyterian churches believe in inerrancy of Scripture, which means that our handling of Scripture tends to be different. Many of them reject evolution. However there’s a good deal of variation among congregations. Southern churches tend to be slightly more conservative, although the Greater Atlanta Presbytery voted 217-78 to permit gay marriage. (Note, this allows congregations that wish to to marry gays. Many congregations will not.)

On a day to day basis, PCUSA churches won’t seem that different than PCA congregations. Pastors of both preach on Scripture, and try to cover the whole messages of the Bible. Neither liberal nor conservative churches concentrate on hot-button social issues. Mostly we talk about how to follow Christ in our lives. I’m in a very liberal church, but still, most of our sermons would be acceptable to any Presbyterian. We also have a mix of members, including some very conservative members who believe in the Bible literally and reject evolution. Those members are called to be members of Session and otherwise participate in Church leadership even though we know that they don’t agree with the majority. But if you have a problem with being in the same church as people with liberal views, you may not like the PCUSA.

PCA and other conservative churches are strongly committed to the traditional Presbyterian confession of faith (the Westminster Confession), to the inerrancy of Scripture, and to traditional positions on gender and sexual issues. Most of them do not ordain women. They are still less legalistic on these issues than the Catholic Church, however.

If you can tell me either the name of the church or the town in which it’s located, I can try to give you a read on that specific congregation.

I’ve thought about what a former Catholic would think of various Presbyterian churches. You’d probably find the PCUSA more familiar in its handling of Scripture, and to some extent theology. Also social policies. But we’re a lot more liberal on gender / sexual issues than the official Catholic position.

Thank you for such an informative post. The church is Roswell Presbyterian Church in Roswell, Ga. So far I know that they are PCUSA and that they have ordained women there (I cannot overstate how happy my wife is about this.) I know that there will be some culture shock, but I've read that the liturgy is fairly similar to the RCC, probably due to the backgrounds of both John Calvin and John Knox. Would you agree with such a statement?

I generally vote Republican, but I'm fairly liberal in terms of gender and sexuality, so I don't foresee having a problem with the PCUSA view on such matters.

Thank you for all the insight.

 

[hedrick]

Nothing unusual sticks out about that Church. It's a large, multi pastor church. In the Northeast, too many of our churches just barely have enough members to keep going. This one looks healthy.

Their senior pastor recently retired. But they've got a large enough pastoral staff that that's not likely to be the big deal that it is for us.

Presbyterian worship is fairly structured. The biggest difference from Catholic worship is probably that we only have communion once a month, though the service probably doesn't have as much ritual as you're used to. (Some churches have it less often, but Roswell seems to be once a month, like ours.) A lot of people would like to see it weekly, but we haven't convinced the members yet. The center of Protestant worship is traditionally Scripture and the sermon, though we care about the sacraments as well.

 

[Joshua119]

Thank you for being willing to do some research for me. From their website they seem to be quite active, with lots of ministries, which is good. My wife and I both deeply desire to be involved in a church community, as long as they want us.

I live in Ga now but I grew up in Maine, and as you say, it seems to be a growing trend for churches of all denominations to close from lack of membership. It's quite sad.

So, I understand that the Presbyterian churches don't view saints in the same way that Catholics do, which is fine because even as a Catholic I had a hard time understanding how venerating a saint was any different from worshiping one. However, I have noticed that Matthew Henry, in his commentary, refers to the Gospel authors as saints. (Saint Matthew etc.) Do saints play a role in the Presbyterian churches, or is he just using the title out of respect?

I know that I keep saying it, but thank you all for being so helpful to me.

 

[hedrick]

Most Presbyterians don’t venerate saints, and particularly don’t pray to them. PCUSA people wouldn’t be quite as up-tight about that as more conservative Presbyterians if someone has a particular saint that they admire and want to emulate, but it’s not something we teach or commonly do, and we’d want to make sure that the admiration doesn’t get too close to worship.

As to use of the word, it’s sometimes used to refer either to faithful Christians in the past, or even today. But it’s typically used in a somewhat poetic context. We’ll often refer to Saint NN for historic figures that are commonly called that. That's the reason for referring to St Matthew. It's that way in the KJV and probably other translations.

Here’s a well-known hymn that shows one use of the term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Sing_a_Song_of_the_Saints_of_God. But you won’t hear this kind of language in normal speech.

Our congregation has a fair number of former Catholics. Now and then you’ll see someone cross themselves or some other reflection of their background. We’re OK with things that aren’t our normal custom as long as they don’t get out of hand.

Mainline churches, including ours, have many members that come from other backgrounds. When you move to a new town, a church of your old denomination may be too far away, or you may prefer a particular congregation. Our Session, which is our governing body, has many people who grew up in other churches (including Catholic). And of course we’re fairly ecumenical to begin with. So most Presbyterian churches aren’t too focused on being Presbyterian. We’re much more concerned with following Christ. Though there is a distinct theological orientation, and certain approaches to worship.

Officers are asked to promise to be guided by our Confessions. Guided by, not sign in blood. And there’s a range of different confessions. But membership is open to anyone who professes Christ as Lord and Savior.

Note by the way that the Lord’s prayer is normally said in King James language, with “debts.” (Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.) The Apostles’ Creed is also typically said in traditional language, though congregations vary on that. Otherwise we normally use modern Bible translations and language. Most churches use a communion liturgy based on the Anaphora of the Holy Tradition, which goes back to 3rd or 4th Cent, though it’s paraphrased freely. That’s probably older (and briefer) than the current Catholic liturgy. The Words of Institution have been moved to the end, though the current hymn book suggests putting them where they were originally, near the beginning.

 

[Joshua119]

Most Presbyterians don’t venerate saints, and particularly don’t pray to them. PCUSA people wouldn’t be quite as up-tight about that as more conservative Presbyterians if someone has a particular saint that they admire and want to emulate, but it’s not something we teach or commonly do, and we’d want to make sure that the admiration doesn’t get too close to worship.

As to use of the word, it’s sometimes used to refer either to faithful Christians in the past, or even today. But it’s typically used in a somewhat poetic context. We’ll often refer to Saint NN for historic figures that are commonly called that. That's the reason for referring to St Matthew. It's that way in the KJV and probably other translations.

Here’s a well-known hymn that shows one use of the term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Sing_a_Song_of_the_Saints_of_God. But you won’t hear this kind of language in normal speech.

Our congregation has a fair number of former Catholics. Now and then you’ll see someone cross themselves or some other reflection of their background. We’re OK with things that aren’t our normal custom as long as they don’t get out of hand.

Mainline churches, including ours, have many members that come from other backgrounds. When you move to a new town, a church of your old denomination may be too far away, or you may prefer a particular congregation. Our Session, which is our governing body, has many people who grew up in other churches (including Catholic). And of course we’re fairly ecumenical to begin with. So most Presbyterian churches aren’t too focused on being Presbyterian. We’re much more concerned with following Christ. Though there is a distinct theological orientation, and certain approaches to worship.

Officers are asked to promise to be guided by our Confessions. Guided by, not sign in blood. And there’s a range of different confessions. But membership is open to anyone who professes Christ as Lord and Savior.

Note by the way that the Lord’s prayer is normally said in King James language, with “debts.” (Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.) The Apostles’ Creed is also typically said in traditional language, though congregations vary on that. Otherwise we normally use modern Bible translations and language. Most churches use a communion liturgy based on the Anaphora of the Holy Tradition, which goes back to 3rd or 4th Cent, though it’s paraphrased freely. That’s probably older (and briefer) than the current Catholic liturgy. The Words of Institution have been moved to the end, though the current hymn book suggests putting them where they were originally, near the beginning.

Thanks again for all the information. I'm glad to know that the Apostle's creed, and the Nicene creed as well, have some value to the Presbyterian church. I know that many protestant churches don't use them much anymore, but I find them to be important statements of faith.

I like how you say that most Presbyterians aren't focused on being Presbyterian, but on following Christ. I am quite guilty of "denominationalizing". But like anything else, I shouldn't try to judge a whole group. It's something that I most definitely need to work on.

 

[SinnerInTheHands]

Thank you all for the responses. As a supplemental question, I am used to a 73 book bible, but I know that this is not the case for most(all?) protestant groups. Do Presbyterians recommend a specific translation (kjv, esv, etc.)? Or is it different from place to place? We have decided, thanks to all of you, to attend a local church this Sunday, so should I wait to see what they use?

If you want my opinion, go for the ESV. The NASB is also decent, though I often find it a bit wooden. As for historic, I never understood why a Presbyterian would stick with the AV when we have the Geneva.

Sixty-six books, though.

 

[SinnerInTheHands]

So, I understand that the Presbyterian churches don't view saints in the same way that Catholics do, which is fine because even as a Catholic I had a hard time understanding how venerating a saint was any different from worshiping one. However, I have noticed that Matthew Henry, in his commentary, refers to the Gospel authors as saints. (Saint Matthew etc.) Do saints play a role in the Presbyterian churches, or is he just using the title out of respect?

If you go conservative, you'll find a lot of differences between the RCC and Covenantal Presbyterianism. No images, no stained glass [except in certain cases], no musical accompaniment, no hymns or songs in worship outside of the psalms [and metrical arrangements of the psalms], very little liturgy, &c.