The church’s ‘judicial season’ begins quickly

For the governing bodies and judicial commissions involved, each accusation must be answered. The presbytery’s stated clerk must refer the accusation to an investigating committee which will determine whether charges should be filed. Finding that out in each case will take time, expense, energy and work.

For many evangelicals, the issue of what will happen with defiant churches is critical.

“Where there is open defiance, if a constitution is going to mean anything at all, that defiance has to be redressed,” said Joe Rightmyer, executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal. “If the governing bodies do not govern according to the Constitution, then the Constitution means nothing.”

Some point to the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission’s decision in the case of Christ church, Burlington, Vt., and say that the church’s highest court has already spoken on the matter. The Vermont congregation publicly stated its dissent from G-6.0106b in 1997. In July 2000 the GAPJC said that there are limits to dissent and ordered Northern New England Presbytery to bring the session of Christ Church into compliance with the Constitution.

Despite that decision, the battle lines for new judicial challenges are forming. Some congregations, such as Mount Auburn church in Cincinnati, are voicing very publicly their unwillingness to comply with the fidelity and chastity standards. (Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick has already written to the Mount Auburn session, telling them that parts of their dissent are not legal.)

Manning the trenches on the other side are those who believe that the fidelity and chastity standard is exactly what the Bible calls for and that the denomination has reiterated clearly and repeatedly its support for that standard. They feel compelled by their consciences to challenge those who will not comply.

This latter group is considering several approaches to challenging dissenters. One method is making accusations against pastors and elders involved in disobedience. Another involves an interpretation of the concept of “renunciation of jurisdiction.” This view says individuals or sessions that say “we have not and will not abide” by certain provisions in the PC(USA) Constitution are renouncing the church’s jurisdiction as per D-10.0303e. When a church officer voluntarily renounces the church’s jurisdiction, he or she is automatically removed from office and loses his/her ordination.

“I do not want to fight with anyone on this issue,” said Joseph Gilmore, a minister with South church in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., one of more than a dozen congregations in Hudson River Presbytery that have openly declared dissent. “At the same time, I refuse to retreat” on what he views as a matter of conscience, “on what is a much deeper issue than the integrity of the Constitution” — which, for him, is a question not of polity but of theology and of faithful witness.

“There’s a real sadness that we’ve gotten to this place, because it shows a complete breakdown of the covenant community,” said Bob Davis of the Presbyterian Forum, an evangelical group. But this may be “the fire we need to go through before real reform takes place.”

How far the challenges will go remains to be seen.

To start with, the accusations made so far have involved situations where the dissent can be discerned from several states away. For example, the Mount Auburn session notified PC(USA) Stated Clerk Kirkpatrick that it intended to continue ordaining non-celibate gays and lesbians and to perform same-sex unions. In an earlier statement, the Mount Auburn session characterized the fidelity and chastity standard as “not Christ-like, not scriptural, not Reformed and not Presbyterian.”

Jensen, a 43-year-old lawyer who lives in Reston, Va., and also has a home in California, read about Mount Auburn’s statement on the Internet and send accusations to Cincinnati Presbytery against Mount Auburn’s pastor, Steve Van Kuiken, and its pastor emeritus, Hal Porter.

Jensen also has made complaints regarding the ordination last fall of Katie Morrison, a lesbian who has said publicly that she lives in a committed relationship with a female partner. Jensen said he has accused six Presbyterian pastors in Redwoods Presbytery of “willful and deliberate” violations of their ordination vows for participating in Morrison’s ordination as a minister last October at First church in San Anselmo, Calif., and has alleged that Morrison tried to mislead presbytery examiners and that she does not comply with the constitutional fidelity and chastity standards.

Jensen said he also has made accusations against other ministers in other presbyteries — Yellowstone, Baltimore and National Capital among them — all involving people he does not know and situations he became familiar with by reading the Presbyterian Layman and the Web sites for the Presbyterian Coalition, an evangelical group, and That All May Freely Serve, an organization that’s working to open ordination in the PC(USA) to non-celibate gays and lesbians.

He argues — and others agree — that for someone to openly state defiance is in essence to invite a disciplinary challenge. Even some on the other side admit that “If you say, ‘Here we are, come and get us,’ you can hardly complain when they come,” said one minister who disagrees with the “fidelity and chastity” standard.

“I’m trying to uphold the Constitution and to enforce it,” Jensen said in an interview. “Every one of these individuals that I’ve [accused] has himself or herself taken the initiative to not only defy the Constitution, but have publicized their defiance . . . These are not shy people.”

Jensen, who described himself as a “cradle Presbyterian,” said he’s been a member since 1979 of St. Andrews church, Newport Beach, Calif. He lived in California for years before taking a job recently on the East Coast. Jensen said he will make accusations against “everyone I know about” who’s violating the Constitution — so far, he’s made more than a dozen, and is contemplating more, in what he sees as “pretty much of a black and white issue.”

In Jensen’s view, those who defy the denomination’s Constitution are seeking to “destroy our church.” The presbyteries have voted repeatedly to uphold the fidelity and chastity standard and “the issue is settled,” he said. The PC(USA) is a connectional denomination, and “to tear that down is to seek to destroy the Presbyterian church,” Jensen said. “This is not a congregational church. Ordination in one presbytery is ordination for the entire church.” If you disagree, “change the Constitution — fight to change it— but don’t destroy it. I take great umbrage at those who would defy our Constitution.”

Knowing that — that there are people in the church who are more than willing to ask for charges against those who practice disobedience — puts dissenting churches in a difficult position. Some evangelicals have called for the Covenant Network, one of the leaders in the fight to allow gays and lesbians to be ordained, to send an unequivocal message to the network’s supporters that the denomination has spoken and that, like it or not, the Constitution now must be obeyed. And evangelicals also are pushing Kirkpatrick, the stated clerk, to become more aggressive in pursuing disciplinary cases against those who flout the Constitution.

Those who want the Constitution changed say they don’t have, at least for now, a unified strategy. Some favor open disobedience. There’s too much at stake, they say, to be quiet and wait for the denomination to change its mind. Others are less comfortable with that — and the question is difficult for congregations that may include both those who want to defy and those who feel obliged to follow the Constitution. It’s also very difficult for those who disagree with Jensen — who don’t consider the question of ordaining gays and lesbians to be at all settled and done with in the PC(USA) — to do what the conservatives insist they must: submit to the fidelity and chastity rule or leave the denomination.

“Despite this vote, the issues involved have not gone away,” the Covenant Network’s board of directors said in a statement released after the defeat this winter of another proposed amendment to remove “fidelity and chastity” from the Constitution. “We continue to believe that the amendment offered the most faithful way for Presbyterians to serve together, while respecting the conscientiously held convictions of each. We trust that the failure of the amendment will not lead to attempts to enforce a particular point of view on all Presbyterians.”

The flurry of accusations, which clearly indicates that some in the church are more than willing to try to squelch constitutional disobedience, also brings into light some underlying complexities.

Despite the public attention that the accusations will receive, the numbers of congregations or pastors that have openly declared their intent to disobey the Constitution so far does not seem huge. Most observers say they know of a few dozen, at most.

In addition to those congregations publicly stating their intent not to comply, there likely are others that aren’t advertising it, but are willing quietly to ordain single heterosexuals or gays and lesbians who are not celibate. Jensen said he hasn’t decided yet how he would approach that kind of case. “I feel they are equally in the wrong by disobeying the Constitution, but they are not seeking to destroy the church by defying it. I am strenuously opposed to it, but the detrimental impact is much more limited,” he said. Jensen said he “would think long and hard” before making an accusation in such a case.

There also is the question as to what the response will be in the denomination to aggressive pursuit of disciplinary action in instances involving constitutional disobedience. Some congregations that sympathize with those in defiance — those that Michael Adee of More Light Presbyterians describes as “churches that have gone out on a skinny limb” — may become inclined to step out onto the limb too in solidarity. Some may pursue disciplinary action with vigor, but others may not have the heart, or the stomach, for such a direct confrontation. And some who are working hard to change the ordination standards see themselves as operating well within the Presbyterian system.

Just becoming a More Light congregation “does not put you at judicial risk — you’re not outside the bounds of the Constitution or the authority of the church,” said Adee, who’s on the staff of More Light Presbyterians, a group working for full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the PC(USA). But “there are some who would doubt that I’m a genuine Christian just because I’m gay and work for More Light.”

Adee said he believes the judicial season “could get quite ugly,” and “I believe that it will be an awakening for a lot of folks in the middle, sort of the silent majority, to look at that and say, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not the kind of church I want to be a part of.’ And while they might not be pro-gay, they would not be supportive of these attacks . . .. It’s not Christian; it’s not kind. There could be an enormous backlash.”

The specifics of individual cases — if charges are brought by the presbyteries — also could prove interesting. Last summer, for example, some commissioners to General Assembly, both ministers and elders, identified themselves on the floor of the plenary as gays and lesbians, and accusations have been made against some of them. In the California cases, accusations have been made against people who participated in Morrison’s ordination service — an ordination that the presbytery approved and the Pacific Synodís Permanent Judicial Commission declined to halt despite questions being raised before the ordination.