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DID YOU KNOW? What Presbyterians Believe
from the Book of Confessions
"the Book of Confessions and Ordination"
2. The Authority and Unity of the Church:
The ordination questions make room for freedom in the church but not for unlimited freedom. They also protect the authority and unity of the church:
a. To be an ordained Presbyterian is not only to acknowledge the superior authority of God in Christ as proclaimed by Scripture but also to recognize the church’s confessions as “authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do.” While confessional standards are subordinate to the Scriptures, they are, nevertheless, standards. They are not lightly drawn up or subscribed to, nor may they be ignored or dismissed. The church is prepared to counsel with or even discipline one ordained who seriously rejects the faith expressed in the confessions (Book of Order, G-2.0200 [F-2.02 in the current Book of Order]).
b. To be an ordained Presbyterian is to promise to be “instructed,” “led,” and “continually guided” by the confessions of the church—not just by one’s personal theological and ethical preferences or even by one’s own personal understanding of God or Jesus Christ or Scripture. The church should not “bind the conscience” of those who disagree with its confessions and interpretation of their meaning. When an individual or group of individuals disagree with the consensus of the church, the church must first examine itself to see whether it needs to reform its confessional stance. Nevertheless, in the Presbyterian Church the consensus of the church concerning the meaning of faith and life takes precedence over the opinions and preferences of individuals and groups in the church, and may lead to the refusal of ordination to those who disagree with the church.
c. To be an ordained Presbyterian is to acknowledge the authority of each individual confession in the Book of Confessions and the book as a whole, not just the authority of selected sections from the confessions or the authority of one or another preferred confession in the book. While reception and adoption of the Book of Confessions means freedom from the imposition of a list of specific doctrinal formulations, it does not mean freedom to select from the book whatever an individual or group in the church chooses. An appropriate governing body as a whole may decide that some statements in the confessions are central and others peripheral, some no longer authoritative and others still authoritative for the church in our place and time. It may decide that there is or is not room for difference in the church regarding the authority of this or that statement. But in the Presbyterian Church the decision about what is “essential and necessary” belongs not to individuals or groups in the church but to the appropriate governing body of the church as it makes decisions in particular cases. It is important to emphasize that it is not only individual ordained persons but also general assemblies, presbyteries, and synods that are to be instructed, led, and continually guided by the church’s confessions.
https://pcusa.org/sites/default/files/boc2016
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