Anglican Watch has received reports that George McFarland has accepted a nomination to potentially return to the Tenth Presbyterian Session. While we have been unable to verify the reports independently, if true, the news portends ongoing problems for the church.
Why?
The answer is simple: Most of the church’s current issues are the result of McFarland’s extended and corrupt stint on Session. These issues include:
- A culture in which spiritual and sexual abuse are condoned by the church, as evinced by the GRACE report. The latter documented literally dozens of instances of abuse.
- A cultural norm in which the ends justify the means, including Session lying repeatedly to the congregation.
- A lack of transparency and accountability.
- A flawed theology of forgiveness, including the notion that it’s okay to ignore the church’s past sins and corruption. That extends to the church’s criminal perjury in civil proceedings against whistleblower Phil Snyder; McFarland personally provided false testimony in the matter.
- An approach to governance marked not by doing things “decently and in order,” but rather by impression management, control, and manipulation.
In short, any organization is only as ethical as those in leadership, and Tenth is in a state of spiritual and ethical meltdown.
To be clear: a church is not “Exalting His Name, Proclaiming His Word,” as proclaimed on Tenth’s website when it operates in a state of corruption. Indeed, right now, Tenth is living a lie, saying one thing, but doing another.
And while we’re clearly not fans of Susan Elzey, thanks to her abusive conduct towards Phil Snyder, we hope our radar is accurate when we say we believe Susan and her husband are about to sue Tenth Presbyterian. Maybe then, we’ll see some accountability.
As for McFarland, he’s a throwback to the bad old days. The only way the church will turn things around is to clean house, starting with McFarland and going from there.
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