I am one of those ordinands who graduated from Tyndale and then went into ministry in the PCC. I would like to point out that I know of no one who gets an "ordination of convenience" in the PCC. The process I had to go through was akin to starting over from the beginning. Even though I had done my M.Div. at Tyndale, (which incidentally has a large number of influential Presbyterian ministers serving as professors on staff) and had done my undergrad work at Redeemer College (an institution of Reformed thinking par excellence!) I still had to go through all the hoops, guidance conferences, and take 16 courses (two years) at Knox College. (Which incidentally has professors from other denominational backgrounds.) In many of the course I took I had already done the equivalent, or more, at Tyndale. I would hardly call this a convenient course to ordination, but an important one in getting to know the denomination I serve.
That is why I find it ironic that the author laments the demise of the historic traditional Presbyterian Church. Does the author really wish to go back to the time when Knox College flourished under the clear reformed theological vision of Bryden? Those whom I know in the Renewal Fellowship have more in common with Bryden than they do with the kind of biblical fundamentalist which the author tries to link them with.
I think there have been times in our past when we were more confident and sure of what it meant to be reformed – but these would bear no similarity to the picture the author paints of his understanding of being Reformed and the historic Presbyterian Church. When in our traditional history have we been debating the issue of allowing homosexuality a normative status in the church? We must be careful that we do not use semper reformanda as a catch phrase to justify capitulating to our social context. The reformers (William Tyndale among them) understood "always reforming" to mean always examining church tradition and secular society by the standards of scripture and rejecting whatever did not measure up. I see the Renewal Fellowship and their efforts as an attempt to follow in the reformers footsteps, evaluating our church and culture from a perspective which takes neither a liberal or literalist view of scripture. The question is not if our church is recognizablehistorically, but whether it can correctly handle the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). That is what we want.
