A Cautionary Tale from History

In the 1850’s, the United States was convulsed by a similar moral problem: slavery. Some thought slavery was a moral evil, and sought to exclude it from the Federal territories west of the Mississippi River. Others thought it would be unjust to prevent citizens from taking legal “property” with them as they settled in those territories. There was no way to compromise the point, because slavery could not be both good and bad at the same time. Slavery could not be both legal and illegal in the territories at the same time.

The United States Congress decided to inject “local option” into this situation in the form of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Passed in 1854, the act allowed the citizens of the newly organized territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not slavery would be allowed within their bounds.

This act simply moved the contest from the national to the local level. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers rushed to fill up Kansas, each side desiring to form the majority so they could write the laws for the new state. Arguments and vote fraud led to violence, and the new territory soon became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”

When he was running for Senate in 1858, Abraham Lincoln commented on the Kansas-Nebraska Act with these words: “Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.”

Lincoln then quoted the words of Jesus, found in Matthew 12:25: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln went on to say, “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

In the same way, the PCUSA may not be dissolved, but it must cease to be divided. The Church of Jesus Christ cannot condone either bigotry or perversion, but it must do one of these two things if “local option” becomes the law of the land. Eventually, a crisis must come.

The crisis may be acted out in 11,000 Presbyterian congregations, with every election of officers forcing the issue of sexual purity to be debated over and over again. The crisis may be acted out in 173 presbyteries, as every candidate presented for ordination becomes a battleground for one of the two parties to gain the upper hand. In either case, trust will be lost with every charge and accusation that is leveled, with every vote that is taken. The feeling of unity at every level of the church will weaken, and many members will leave the church to avoid the unpleasantness. One way or another, local option will always force Kansas to bleed.

But there is, of course, a more horrifying option. In 1858, Lincoln did not expect the Union to be dissolved, but that is exactly what happened less than three years later. It eventually cost the blood of over 600,000 Americans to rid the nation of slavery once and for all. The nation did eventually become “all one thing,” but only after 4 years of war.

Only time will tell if that sort of cleansing cataclysm will come upon the PCUSA. Only one thing is certain – the words of our Lord Jesus: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” One way or another, local option will guarantee the fall of the PCUSA.