CREC Polity

I was recently asked if the CREC is Presbyterian. This is part of my response:

It’s a very attenuated version of presbyterianism — small “p” presbyterianism, I suppose. We certainly are presbyterian in a fundamental sense because we have presbyteries and they perform many of the roles traditionally granted to presbyteries (eg, appeals court, examining pastoral candidates, settling doctrinal disputes, etc). Classical presbyterianism had no objection to a first among equals at the local level (the pastor) and the presbytery level (a bishop, president, or, in our case, presiding minister). So we approximate what is traditionally meant by P/presbyterianism in clear ways. 

On the other have, we give local churches a lot more autonomy than traditional presbyterianism, including setting up their own polity. Traditional Presbyterianism is 3+ office, while we have many 2 office churches (a more egalitarian and Americanized form of presbyterianism). Also, for reasons I cannot explain, we have churches as members of presbyteries but not pastors. That means we have presbyteries that contain no presbyters. There is no reason why our pastors could not be members of local churches AND presbyteries.

My suggestion: We require each church to have (at least) one man who has passed a presbytery level examination in order to have representation at the presbytery level — and the man who has passed the exam must be a permanent delegate (functionally, a member of presbytery). The second representative from each church does not need to pass a presbytery level exam. In my opinion, this would bring a much needed degree of consistency and integrity to the way our polity works. It would close loop holes and strengthen the role of presbytery in helpful ways.