I am a conservative Presbyterian. Theologically I am a neo-Calvinist strongly influenced by Reformation theology. Also, I am heavily influenced by not only the neo-Reformed Theologian Karl Barth, but also Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

As a Reformed Christian, I adhere to all of the Orthodox Creeds before the 4th Latern Council and its corruption of Catholic Church in the West. As with the Reformers, I see the division of the Church as a scandal to Christianity and place the blame on human pride of the leaders of the Roman Church who refused to submit solely to the Word of God as revealed by Holy Scripture. Although Vatican II has led the Roman Church toward the Path if taken at the time of the Reformation would have kept the Western Church united but the Roman Church has not rid itself of human traditions and supersitions which keep many people ignorant of Christ's true Church as revealed by his word.

Although I am a rather orthodox and conservative Presbyterian (who since 1999 have strong Anglican inclinations), I nonetheless hold that scripture does not limit or prohibit women from being ordained in any office of the Church. This is to say that I believe that their is no valid theological principle, discernable from Scripture, that would deny or prohibit the ordination of women in the Church. Yet, this is not to say that their exists some practical and pastoral arguments against Women being Ministers, those primary being Women fear and have greater concern for their physical safty than do men and Ministers of Christ are often called to go in the most dangerous and life-threatning of places. This was also the main reason why the Western Church, the Christian Church in the Western Empire.. which became known as The Roman Catholic Church.. sent single and unmarried men as Ministers and Priests, in that to send a married man and his family into such an environment would not be a wise thing to do. In that I believe that there is no valid theological principle to exclude the Ordination of Women I cannot accept the teachings of either the Presbyterian Church in America [PCA] or the Orthodox Presbyterian Church; hence I am a member of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America [PCUSA]. Although a member of the PCUSA, I nonetheless oppose attempts, by liberal and radical elements of the church, to undermine the orthodox teaching of the Church regarding homosexual ordination and the undermining of the authoritative place of the creeds and Holy Scripture in informing Church dogma.

My personal faith history is rather odd. Born into a religiously mixed household... my father was a American Baptist [albiet a very fundamentalist one] and my mother was Greek Orthodox. My Father came from a likewise Religiously mixed household, his mother, Baptist and his father, a High Church Anglican. Although I attended the Greek Church on important Holy Days [especially Holy Week], I was generally raised as a Baptist, according to my father's wishes. Yet, in my teenage years, I became disheartend by Baptist theology and church politics and reverted to the Great American Protestant Tradition of being Un-Churched. It was during my attendance at Roman Catholic Colleges and attempts by Conservative Catholic friends to convert me to Rome that I discovered the Reformed theologicans and discovered the Church to which I should belong. I was baptised in a PCUSA church in Irving, Tx [Woodhaven Presbyterian Church] in 1988 and have been an active member of the PCUSA from that time until I arrived in Poland. Between 1993-1998 I was an active member of The Greenwood Community Church, Presbyterian. IN Jan 99 I went to teach in Central and Eastern Europe, where in Slovakia I was exposed to the Evangelical/Lutherian tradition of this region. There the reformed tradition was strongly influenced by the rationalism of the enlightenment and had an over legalistic and rationalistic character to its religious practice. In September of 1999, I started to teach in Poland and began attendence at an Anglican church there. Although I find myself staunchly theological reformed, in matters of worship and Church structure (i.e., the need to take seriously the role of bishops in the history of the church [e.g., what is meant when we profess to believe in "one catholic and apostolic church"?, sure apostilic sucession is no small thing to be chopped off because of Anglo-Scotish Political History] and their role in teaching and pastoral supervision [which is itself found clearly in Scripture... you NIVer 'overseers'='bishop']. Although the Current Anglican Church in the UK and the States has much more pockets of liberalism and anti-Christian influences in it than the PCUSA, my christian experience since 1999 has led me into other direction when I originally wrote this page in 1996.

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Last Updated July 26th 2002 by Clifford A. Bates, Jr

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