Some say they intend to defy those standards, because they believe it’s wrong to refuse to ordain gays and lesbians who may be in committed partnerships.
On Jan. 14, Metherell presented Fahed Abu-Akel, moderator of the 214th General Assembly, with a list of 57 commissioners who he said had signed postcards or letters asking the Assembly to reconvene to figure out what to do about constitutional defiance. The rules say that if signatures are obtained from at least 25 elders and 25 ministers who were commissioners to the Assembly, representing at least 15 presbyteries and five synods, the moderator must call the Assembly back.
The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the denomination’s highest court, ruled March 19 that Abu-Akel did have the “right and responsibility” to try to verify the signatures of 57 commissioners that were presented to him, to make sure they were valid, and that commissioners did have the right to change their minds about the wisdom of calling the Assembly back right until the time when Abu-Akel actually issued the call for the meeting.
That means the 12-member judicial commission did not buy the argument, made by lawyer Paul Rolf Jensen, that the efforts to verify the signatures — in which the 57 commissioners were asked if they still favored calling the Assembly back — amounted to a “revote” and should not have been permitted. In its ruling, the judicial commission stated that “individual commissioners should remain open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit” and therefore should be allowed to add their names to the list of those seeking to call the Assembly back, or take their names off the list, right up to the time when the moderator formally makes an announcement asking the Assembly to reconvene. And it stated that a request for the Assembly to come back “is not a vote, but a statement of personal intent, which is subject to change until such a time as it effects an action which cannot be undone, such as a call for a meeting.”
The PJC then dismissed the case, which had been filed in January by the session of Westminster church, Canton, Ohio.
The judicial commission did say, however, that Abu-Akel acted improperly when he sent a letter on Jan. 14 “imploring” the 57 commissioners “in the name of Jesus Christ and for the good of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to reconsider your decision.”
It was acceptable, the commission ruled, for Abu-Akel to send a letter last November saying he opposed calling the Assembly back, as he did, arguing that it would be too expensive and “the time, energy and money that we would spend on a special meeting need to be spent in mission in the name of Christ.”
But by January, the moderator was given the signatures of enough commissioners that, had they been valid, would have required him to reconvene the Assembly. At that point, the commission ruled, he was “obligated to cease advocacy of a particular position and act with impartiality” in exercising his constitutional duties. Sending the letter “imploring” the commissioners “had the appearance of seeking to undermine the rights of the commissioners,” the PJC ruled, and “the moderator has an obligation to see that the concerns of all parties, especially those expressing a minority opinion, are given full opportunity to be heard. Any action that appears to abridge this right should be scrupulously avoided.”
But the PJC also concluded that the Westminster session “failed at trial to meet the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence” that what Abu-Akel did had changed any commissioner’s mind.
Regarding the process of verifying commissioners signatures — which was done by asking the 57 commissioners whose names were on Metherell’s list whether they still favored calling the Assembly back — the PJC gave three reasons why that was “not improper.” First, some commissioners had sent “independent, unsolicited communications” indicating they did not want their names on the list. Second, “the requests for a special meeting had been received over an extended period of time” — more than three months — and kept by Metherell, rather than any officer of the Assembly. And third, because commissioners were entitled to withdraw their requests, and that right “was entitled to protection.”
The PJC also ruled that Abu-Akel and Clifton Kirkpatrick, the PC(USA)’s stated clerk, were correct in contending that they’d have to give commissioners a notice of 120 days before reconvening the Assembly, because the business that could be considered required constitutional interpretation. Jensen and Metherell had argued that only a 60-day notice was required.
The PJC also addressed Metherell’s contention that the PJC had “set up” the Westminster session for failure, by denying it “the right to call most of its key witnesses.” But the PJC ruled that the witnesses Westminster wasn’t allowed to call were to present testimony about whether those people had “interfered and conspired” to prevent the moderator from reconvening the Assembly. But those allegations of conspiracy and interference already had been dismissed, the PJC noted, so such testimony was irrelevant.
The ruling states that, in his closing argument, Jensen “emphasized the importance of trust in honoring and enforcing the constitutional duties imposed on the church’s officers. Trust is eroded, however, where, as here, a person groundlessly asserts that a permanent judicial commission has ‘set up (a party) for failure.’ “
Two PJC members, Gwen O. Cook and Christopher A. Yim, concurred in part with the ruling and dissented in part. They wrote that “verification should focus solely on the legality of the signatures” and that the process for doing that “ought to be sterile, neither for nor against the cause of the petition.”
The two also wrote that “it is understandable why the moderator did not want to call the General Assembly back into session. The business that the petition (for doing so) presents is decidedly ill-founded. While it has been highly publicized across the political and theological spectrum that there are governing bodies and ordained officers in bald defiance of the Constitution, the mechanisms that the Constitution provides for dealing with such allegations have not yet run their course. The fact that the judicial process and/or the administrative review process do not run as quickly as some would like is not a valid ground to declare that we are in constitutional crisis.”
Still, added Cook and Yim, someone elected to office in the church, such as the moderator, has the obligation to “fulfill the constitutionally mandated duties of that office regardless of one’s personal opinion,” and “it is fundamental to Presbyterian polity and culture to afford great latitude to all minority positions.” For the 57 commissioners who’d asked the Assembly to reconvene “to be cajoled or implored” to change their mind was improper, and “the appropriate remedy should have been a directive to conduct an untainted verification process.”
In a statement released through the Office of the General Assembly, Abu-Akel said, “I ask the church to join me in lifting up in prayer those who are in disagreement with this decision, as well as those who are in agreement with it, hoping that we will be reconciled to one another.”
Jensen sent out an e-mail statement, calling the decision “a tremendous victory — not a total victory, of course, but one we celebrate.” He said that Stated Clerk Kirkpatrick “will face a disciplinary case should in future he repeat the perfidy he perpetrated regarding this year’s request for a special session.” He called on Kirkpatrick to resign, “given this harsh condemnation by the GAPJC” and noting that “he has lost the confidence of the evangelicals in our church.” If Kirkpatrick doesn’t resign, Jensen said the “confessing churches” should withhold per capita contributions “until such time as a more honorable individual is invested in the office of the stated clerk.”
