The letter to the commissioners is a response to an appeal by one of the elder commissioners, Alex Metherell of Los Ranchos Presbytery, to call the Assembly back into session. In an “urgent and confidential” e-mail to a select group of commissioners, Metherell says the PC(USA) “faces a full-blown constitutional crisis.”
“Storm clouds that were developing in the months before we gathered in Columbus have now developed to such a degree that the constitutional integrity of our denomination is being threatened. If the defiance that we are witnessing continues to go unchecked, we will no longer be a constitutional church,” writes Metherell.
“At our meeting in Columbus in June, we chose to remain silent in dealing with the early stages of this crisis. At the urging of the Stated Clerk and his advisory committees, we adopted “a pastoral approach” to defiance. We decided to remind defiant ministers and sessions of the Permanent Judicial Commission ruling (Londonderry vs Presbytery of Northern New England) that defiance is not an appropriate expression of dissent from the Constitution.
“We hoped and prayed that those who are defying the Constitution would heed our counsel. They have not, and as their defiance has become louder and more specific, without any meaningful response from higher governing bodies to discipline such behavior, others have joined their cause. What once was limited to a handful of offenses is quickly reaching epidemic proportions,” writes Metherell.
According to the Book of Order, the moderator shall call a special meeting at the request or with the concurrence of 25 elder and 25 minister commissioners, representing at least 15 presbyteries, under the jurisdiction of at least five synods, all of whom must have been commissioners to the last preceding stated meeting of the General Assembly.
Metherell reportedly has signed statements from close to half of the number of commissioners needed.
The COGA letter, written during the committee’s regular meeting in Louisville this past week, states that “the constitutional process is working. Our church has a network of competent stated clerks and judicial commissions at all governing body levels and a vast array of Presbyterians who uphold the Constitution. We are confident that as judicial cases move through these governing body levels, the Constitution will be upheld in content and process. When processes do not move as some would prefer, or decisions are made that do not match particular expectations, it does not mean that the system is faulty or broken.”
COGA also cites Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick’s Aug. 21 letter to the church that says the PC(USA) Constitution protects the right of dissent, but provides no right of defiance.
Specific cases concerning persons and sessions who have made these declarations “are at various stages of the judicial process within their appropriate governing bodies of jurisdiction as set forth in our Constitution,” and ” it would be unconstitutional and beyond the authority of any regular or special meeting of a General Assembly to intervene in any ongoing judicial case,” says the COGA letter..
COGA also notes several technical concerns. First, “the Book of Order requires that a request for a special meeting of the General Assembly must specify exactly the items of business to be considered, and all proposals for changes to, or interpretations of, the Book of Order would still require a 120-day deadline before the session of the General Assembly could begin.” It also estimates that it would cost more than $400,000 to hold such a session, requiring “a special per capita assessment to the presbyteries or other extraordinary means.”
And COGA adds a historical note: “It is worth reminding the church that, despite often difficult and trying times in our denominational life, there has never been a special meeting of the General Assembly.”
The members of COGA who signed the letter are Sandra L. Peirce, Moderator; James M. Collie, Allie B. Latimer, John Bartholomew, Katherine Cunningham, Lena P. Prewitt, Vernon Carroll, William R. Forbes, Catherine Ulrich, Brian Child, Kyung-II Ghymn, Kathleen Walker, Helen Baily Cochrane, Stephen S. Grace and Steven T. Yamaguchi.
