Fountain Hills Presbyterian Church has disaffiliated from Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) over what Senior Pastor Bill Good described as a “theological drift from the Scriptures.”

Good said “the last straw” was the mainstream Presbyterian’s definition of marriage between two consenting individuals. The Biblical concept of marriage is between a man and a woman.

PCUSA permits ministers to officiate at same-sex weddings.

The church’s action does not reflect an anti-homosexuality bias because the church membership includes both gays and lesbians, said Good and Brown.

The decision to disaffiliate from the mainline Presbyterian Church came two-and-a-half years of discussion and consideration that the denomination had “left us behind,” said Good.

The local congregation is pursuing membership with the more conservative ECO, a Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. The two pastors said the organization would be a “theological and cultural fit” for the church.

On Oct. 1, the Presbytery, the regional governing body, granted discernment to the local congregation. Four other churches in Arizona have left and two more are expected to follow the trend.

Good and associate pastor Kenneth Brown talked last week about the reasons behind the split and the future of the 250-member congregation.

“It began with the Session, the local governing body, with a single question: ‘Do we have a problem. What’s going on in PCUSA?’” recalled Good.

“They did a number of things that were not scripturally sound,” said Good, referring to decisions at the June 2014 General Assembly.

“A lot of us were seriously bothered,” he said. “A number of folks from this church came into my office and said ‘What are we going to do about this?’”

The members implied that if church leaders did not react that they might leave the congregation, said Brown.

“The last thing I wanted to do was to interject this into this church,” said Good.

He said he prayed and thought for two months. “It had the potential to cause a lot of dissension in the church and that’s not my role. My role is that of a healer.”

“The last thing I wanted to do was to throw a grenade in the pool,” he added. “But these were serious issues, very serious issues.”

Brown’s response to members who questioned whether leaving PCUSA was the best solution: “It’s not that you are going to leave the PCUSA. It’s the PCUSA left you. That was a different way to think about that.”

The Session presented the issues to the congregation at several town hall meetings. The congregation’s overwhelmingly decision was to consider alternative options to PCUSA.

Moving forward, the congregation will not see a difference, said Brown, “because we have not changed who we are.”

“We’re still the same family of faith…What we’re going to be doing is reconsidering, rediscovering, re-elevating the traditional church,” said Good.

The “theological drift in the PSUS in the last 30-40 years has gone away from scripture,” said Good.

He referred to a Presbyterian insider who said that the denomination has been following, rather than leading culture.

As culture has become liberalized, so has the Presbyterian church, commented Good.

“You want an answer to the questions in your life, open scripture….you want an ethical answer to what’s going on at work, open scripture,” said Good.

“We are reaffirming the traditional values of the church…the authority of scripture over our lives.”

“We’re pretty much going to look like your father’s Presbyterian church,” added Brown.

PCUSA has 1.8 million members, but it is losing an average of 60,000 per year, according to the denomination. In three years, 2012-2014, the PCUSA’s membership declined by more than 15 percent, according to the Office of General Assembly.