This left the names of 20 ministers and 24 elders commissioners on the petition; to call the Assembly back, 25 in each category are required.
Abu-Akel’s decision is not necessarily the last word on this — a remedial complaint against him and others involved in the decision already has been filed with the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, which is scheduled to meet at the end of February. And Alex Metherell, the elder from California who led the petition drive, has said he is considering filing a lawsuit in a civil court.
Reached in California shortly after the news conference, Metherell said he did not intend to file a lawsuit immediately, because the session of a congregation in Canton, Ohio already has filed a remedial action against Abu-Akel; the PC(USA)’s stated clerk, Clifton Kirkpatrick; and the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly, saying they were wrong in not immediately issuing a call for the Assembly to reconvene when on Jan. 14 Metherell filed petitions with 57 signatures from commissioners asking for that action.
Metherell, a physician from Laguna Beach, had led the petition drive to recall the Assembly, to address what he calls a constitutional crisis over ordaining gays and lesbians. Some sessions and pastors say they cannot in conscience comply with standards in the denomination’s Constitution that limit ordination to those who practice fidelity if they are married or chastity if they are single — and Metherell argues that defiance over ordaining gays and lesbians is threatening the very foundations of the church.
On Jan. 21, following a meeting of San Diego Presbytery, Metherell handed Abu-Akel a letter indicating that he would file a lawsuit in civil court if Abu-Akel didn’t issue a call by Jan. 27 for the Assembly to reconvene. On the same day Metherell gave Abu-Akel the letter, Paul Rolf Jensen, a lawyer from northern Virginia, filed the remedial case on behalf of Westminster church in Canton, Ohio.
Metherell said Monday that he will not immediately sue. “I had actually decided not to do that when the remedial case came up, which I have nothing to do with,” he said in a telephone interview. “I don’t have anything planned right now. I have to review the situation.”
Metherell said he’d just received word of Abu-Akel’s decision, and declined further comment until he could learn more of the details.
Gradye Parsons, director of operations for the Office of the General Assembly, said Monday that “we don’t think the civil courts have jurisdiction.” If Metherell were to sue, “we think we’ll be joined by several other denominations who want to say that too.”
Abu-Akel’s decision not to recall the Assembly comes after nearly two weeks of tumult, in which the Office of the General Assembly contacted each commissioner who had signed the petition to verify if it was still their intent that the Assembly be reconvened. Kirkpatrick and Abu-Akel have contended that, because the business before the reconvened Assembly could involve either a proposed change to the PC(USA) Constitution or a constitutional interpretation, a 120-day notice was required. That would mean that the 2002 Assembly couldn’t reconvene before May 15 — almost immediately before the 2003 Assembly was to start on May 24.
Metherell has contended that only a 60-day notice is required, and that commissioners who signed the petition should not be allowed to withdraw their names. Kirkpatrick said that, under the rules, there’s no time left for Metherell to submit more names; and that without enough signatures, Abu-Akel could not have called the Assembly back.
“It was not an easy decision to make,” Abu-Akel said in a letter to the commissioners, mailed Jan. 25. “There are no winners in this situation. Not only have I been mindful of and sensitive to the commissioners who signed the petition; I have been mindful of and sensitive to all 554 of you who are commissioners to the 214th General Assembly.”
And Abu-Akel wrote that “I still believe that a special Assembly would create needless confusion in the church; the purposes stated are vague and it is questionable if the General Assembly could act on them; and the time, energy and money (as much as $500,000) that we would spend on a special Assembly would be that much less that would be spent on mission in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Kirkpatrick said he believes the “very core” concerns over defiance of the Constitution probably will be addressed by the 215th General Assembly (2003) when it meets in Denver at the end of May. “We are a church that is built on honoring the Constitution and honoring Jesus Christ,” Kirkpatrick said during the news conference. When there is open defiance, “we really do undermine the basic covenant that holds us together.”
Kirkpatrick said the issue likely will come up through an overture from Redstone Presbytery, which asks the Assembly to remind synods of their responsibility to provide oversight to presbyteries, and asks the Assembly to give the synods guidance and support in dealing with both the frustration of those who want the ordination standards enforced, and those who believe those standards ought to be changed.
Abu-Akel and Kirkpatrick participated in the news conference Monday by telephone — the moderator from the airport in Atlanta, and Kirkpatrick from a hotel in Pasadena. Abu-Akel said that as he struggled over the past two weeks to decide what to do, he received e-mails, letters and phone calls from Presbyterians “asking me to focus on the main issues” of ministry and mission, peace and unity.
Some have accused the moderator of pressuring the commissioners — in an earlier letter, he voiced opposition to calling the 2002 Assembly back and asked commissioners who had signed the petition to change their minds.
But some of the commissioners who withdrew their names cited as a reason for doing so the issue of timing — the prospect of having the 2002 and 2003 assemblies meeting just a week or two apart.
“I have changed my decision only because it took so long to arrange/obtain the needed signatures, thereby making a separate meeting totally impractical because of its timing relative to the 215th GA,” William Wythe Hull, an elder from Abingdon Presbytery, wrote on his response form. “However, I still feel that the situations causing the brouhaha have not been handled properly or firmly. Hopefully the 215th GA will address the issue.”
Terry Aiello is an elder who runs a jewelry store and is a part-time lay pastor at First church, Roswell, N.M. Aiello said he signed the petition last fall, when it first was circulated, in part because he’d like to give some Assembly the chance to talk about the issue of constitutional defiance in-depth. But “now it doesn’t make sense that we have a special meeting, and the expense of it, when it’s going to be a week or two before the regular General Assembly,” Aiello said in an interview Monday.
Covenant Network of Presbyterians response
to moderator’s decision to not call a special session
The Board of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, meeting in Chicago on Jan. 27-28, 2003, issued the following statement:
In the controversies of recent weeks, the Moderator of the General Assembly and other church officials have come under unprecedented pressure. The Board of the Covenant Network honors the office of Moderator and affirms its respect for the extraordinary person who now holds that office. A chief strength of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is the principles of church order that long have guided Presbyterians in our life together. The Covenant Network urges the whole church to abide by those principles and to remember that “the organization rests upon the fellowship and is not designed to work without trust and love” (G-7.0103).
The Covenant Network remains committed to its goals: (1) to remove any impediment to the full participation of gay and lesbian Presbyterians in the life of the church and (2) to preserve and strengthen the unity of the church.
PFR Asks: Can We Not Stand Down?
by PFR Issues Ministry
Jan. 27, 2003
At this historic time in the life of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), when the first-ever effort to call a special meeting of the General Assembly has fallen short of success, Presbyterians For Renewal (PFR) desires to interject some words of gratitude, admonition, and hope.
Gratitude
First, we are grateful for our church’s heritage of ordered governance within which deep and profound differences of outlook and perspective can be engaged in a fashion that is capable of contributing to the glory of God and the building up of Christ’s church. PFR originally counseled against the re-calling of the 214th General Assembly. But while the wisdom and efficacy of this special meeting were subject to debate, the right to seek it is protected by the very constitution that PFR strongly desires to see upheld. We are convinced that Dr. Alex Metherell and the commissioners who have sought this action are motivated by a genuine concern for Christ’s church, and while reasonable persons may differ over the means employed, we believe that attempts to vilify the signing commissioners or impugn their motives should have no place in the church of Jesus Christ.
Second, we are likewise grateful for the honorable intentions and due diligence of our constitutionally elected officers. While the appropriateness of the Moderator’s most recent plea to commissioners to remove their signatures is debatable, as is the ruling about the 120-day convening delay, there is every reason to believe that both the Stated Clerk and the Moderator have been honest and aboveboard in their actions and within the bounds of their constitutional prerogatives. We applaud the way they have answered softly the loud accusations leveled against them. Efforts to blame or accuse them of underhanded manipulation are uncalled for.
Admonition
There have been many recriminations in the last few days in relation to the attempt to call this meeting. In the midst of rising passions, we encourage all to remember that our first obligation is to Christ and his Kingdom, and that we have a sacred obligation to show the world we belong to Him by the way we treat one another. Unfortunately, some have allowed their passionate views to foment angry and condemning words and threats. Some have acted as if to question their ideas or strategies is to injure them personally. Almost all of us have spoken hasty and uncharitable words during this debate, and thus apologies are most appropriate.
With regard to any possible recourse in civil court, let us be instructed again by the words of the Apostle: “If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? … The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?” (1 Cor. 6:1,7).
The Moderator and Stated Clerk have acted to assure that all is in order. Whether we like or agree with what is happening at any particular time, we hold with our Reformed forbearers that the maintaining of a constitutionally ordered polity for the governance of Christ’s church is an act of faithfulness to God. At the end of the day, we as a church have more to lose by undermining our process than by upholding it.
In the larger picture, we believe the holding of a particular called Assembly matters less than how we behave and treat one another along the way. And it matters greatly that we abide by our chosen constitutional process, because that will determine whether we have any continuing basis for a common polity after any particular initiative becomes history.
Hope
We trust that the Church will learn from this attempt to call a special meeting of the Assembly, and that Christ will not abandon us. Even in the midst of uncertainty and missteps, we have witnessed earnest commissioners working toward the honorable goal of constitutional compliance, a denomination taking a clear and urgent look at the important matters before it, officers of the church responding with integrity and concern as they processed the call, and, in the end, the Constitution providing us a resolution that was decent and in order, even if disappointing to some.
PFR is confident that the concerns and aspirations motivating this attempt to recall the 214th Assembly will carry forward into the work of the 215th. We trust that the God who brings good out of evil and calls into being the things that are not can use that Assembly also for his purposes and his glory!
Presbyterians For Renewal asks all Presbyterians of goodwill to follow the will of Jesus Christ as Scripture reveals it, to uphold our church Constitution, and to stand down from accusations and actions that inflame the tenor of our dispute and hinder its resolution. In these next few months, including the regular meeting of the 215th General Assembly, we urge all of us to pray without prejudice that what is accomplished will be God’s will. May God grant us grace to act like the church as we seek to be the church.
