Pooh. . . .
I should also note that this is not the first time that the Great Leader, Christ Church, and the CREC have lawlessly overruled the lawful verdict of another denomination in order to admit a defrocked minister and his renegade congregation into the CREC. In 2000, the session of Christ Church “vindicated” a defrocked PCA minister, Burke Shade, and sponsored a splinter group he lead out from his previous church, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Carbondale, Illinois, for admittance into the CREC. As the correspondence between Christ Church and the Illiana Presbytery (PCA) shows, the session of Christ Church “vindicated” Burke without ever contacting the presbytery that had defrocked him or the session of the church he had previously served (see the respective letter exchanges in this issue of P&R News, pp. 18–20, 22). Furthermore, who appointed the Christ Church session to review this case? From whence did they derive their jurisdiction?
Most telling is this statement from Illiana Presbytery’s response to the Christ Church session:
Please understand our own concern about your objectivity when we have discovered that at least two elders from Christ Church were in communication with Mr. Shade about his reception into the CRE as early as Febrary 22, 1999, halfway through the trial. If the CRE was already interested in talking with Mr. Shade about his reception into the CRE then, how are we to conclude that you were able to objectively evaluate our records since then? (p. 20)
According to the CREC’s own website, it shows that it admitted Shade and his renegade Cornerstone Reformed Church in 2000, even before Christ Church received a response from Illiana Presbytery (which was dated January 7, 2001). In Shade’s case, he plead guilty and never complained about any unfairness in the trial until AFTER the presbytery had issued its censure, which in this case went beyond defrocking and also included a suspension from the Lord’s Supper. Mr. Shade jumped ship from the PCA and was admitted to the CREC, abandoning any appeals he might have had to the PCA General Assembly. Today Shade is a minister in good standing with the CREC, as is Cornerstone Reformed Church.
Is any of this sounding familiar to anyone? Does the Kirk Kult ever revise its playbook? How low can the CREC go? Apparently, they are sinking rapidly and aren’t anywhere close to reaching bottom yet, though this is familiar territory for them. They have been here before. Will the members of Christ Church ever put a stop to the Mullah’s madness and mendacity? I’m not holding my breath.
Patrick
