I believe that you have been misled. Local option destroys the connectional nature of the Presbyterian Church USA – let’s just become liberal Baptists and call it a day! Standards are standards or at least they were. Biblical catch-all interpretation without truth is a waste of everyone’s time. Why would a person searching for something solid, such as the redeeming life changing power of the gospel, want to be part of something so watered down and weak. The church looks just like the broken communities around us that Jesus calls us out of. What happened to ‘transformation’ doesn’t this include wholeness? Can God redeem and transform? I am a broken sinful man and I need redemption does not the PCUSA need the same? And could you please define ‘essential tenets?’ I can’t seem to find any listed anywhere for the PCUSA except on a video that Jack Rogers starred in so many years ago that even he has now turned his back on them.