Among their answers: “Be forthright and honest about what is healthy about the church and show where the divisions are.” And, “As we disagree, don’t demonize the other side. The lynch pin is Jesus Christ.”
Asked what matters the task force should address, all of the focus groups raised the issue of ordaining gays and lesbians — with a split in opinion on whether homosexuals should be ordained, but with a majority disagreeing with the PC(USA)’s current prohibition on ordaining people who are unmarried but sexually active. Among their comments: “The principle is that ‘God will call.’ To put a human barrier on who can be called is wrong.” And “When you start choosing which rules govern you, where does this stop? Where do you say, ‘This is not changeable at the local level’?”
The task force convened three focus groups in Columbus, Ohio, in June — organized by Barbara Everitt Bryant, a task force member from Ann Arbor, Mich., who is former director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Initially, 75 people who were randomly selected from those who had registered for the assembly were invited to participate — of those, only 24 could do so; most of the others had scheduling conflicts. Those 24 were divided into two groups of 12, each of which took part in a two-hour focus group. Another group of 11 seminarians were involved in a third focus group.
At its recent meeting in Chicago, the task force heard a report on what had been gleaned from the focus group discussions. Bryant pointed out that, because they were drawn from participants in a General Assembly, the first two discussion groups consisted of leaders in the church — ministers and elders, many of whom have been in the church longer and are more knowledgeable about theology and polity than is typical for Presbyterians — their opinions should not be considered reflective of those of all PC(USA) members.
Scott Anderson, a task force member from California, asked whether the groups reflected any basic divisions about Christology, the Christian belief that salvation comes through Jesus Christ, and Bryant responded that such divisions did not surface in the discussions, and that “Christology” probably isn’t a word that Presbyterians in the pews often use. “I’m just very struck that that was an issue referred to us” for the task force to discuss, Anderson said; yet it didn’t seem to be a subject of disagreement in the focus groups.
Some in the focus groups voiced uncertainty about what the task force, which has been given four years to speak out on some of the central controversies in the denomination, actually will be able to accomplish. “You have a daunting task, I pray for you but worry about the possibility of anything coming out,” one said. “I’ve heard the Task Force is a dumping ground for controversial issues,” said another. And, “The rank and file think, ‘GA has another committee going.’ The bigger issue to them is who is going to teach the junior high school class next Sunday.”
People also seemed confused about the meaning of the word “purity” in the task force’s title — language that’s taken from the Book of Confessions. “The source of most division is what it is and what it is not,” one person said. “Can we be responsible for enforcing purity?” Another raised concern that the Nazis spoke of “trying to purify a race, a nation. It makes me very nervous, to be honest, about using that term.”
As Bryant’s summary of the focus group discussions put it: “Most of the GA attendees in the discussion groups knew of the existence of the Task Force but felt little is known of it in the congregations. They wish us well, pray for us, are willing to help us, but think the task force has been given a nearly impossible mission to seek peace, unity and purity, particularly the latter.”
The task force still is considering other ways to communicate with and gather information from across the PC(USA), with its members hoping to send representatives to various meetings that are coming up, to listen to opinions there. They’ve also conducted some in-depth interviews with people who responded to questionnaires indicating that, in their own congregations or presbyteries, they’ve “experienced helpful ways of building relationships across divisive issues.”
Among the preliminary observations from those conversations:
“Engaging with others on divisive issues happens most often when a vote is pending,” yet “the most effective ways to build relationships with, and better understand, those with whom one differs occur when no vote is immediately pending.”
And “many in the church are blaming others for the current predicament, not taking responsibility for what’s going on and hoping someone else (such as the task force) will provide the way through the current tensions.”
