And the presbytery now is scheduled to meet on Feb. 10 to decide what to do with an administrative commission report involving the session itself. That commission, led by former PC(USA) moderator Pat Brown, is recommending something extraordinary: a determination that Mount Auburn be granted “provisional” status in the presbytery, an approach that is so unusual it would require an amendment to the denomination’s Constitution. The administrative commission has also proposed an overture that, if approved by a General Assembly and a majority of the denomination’s 173 presbyteries, would achieve the constitutional change needed to provide the provisional status.
But the presbytery’s own Ecclesiastical Affairs committee has recommended, unanimously, that the presbytery defeat the proposed overture. If that were to happen, there would be no proposed constitutional change in the works — so whether the presbytery could then do what the administrative commission is proposing is anything but clear.
Here’s what is known.
The administrative commission was appointed in Sept. 2002, charged with determining how the presbytery should work pastorally with Mount Auburn. The commission’s work was interrupted from November 2002 to May 2003 by a stay of enforcement from the Covenant Synod’s Permanent Judicial Commission. Van Kuiken lost his ordination in June 2003.
The commission now is recommending that:
• Mount Auburn be give provisional status as “an intentional, consistent and conscientious objector to certain responsibilities” in the PC(USA)’s Constitution — presumably, those stemming from the denomination’s ordination standards, which limit ordination to those who practice fidelity if they are married or chastity if they are single.
• The provisional status would last for two years, although it could be extended. During that time, ordained representatives from Mount Auburn would have voice at presbytery meetings but could not vote.
• The presbytery would also establish a three-year moratorium during which member churches of the presbytery would voluntarily refrain from legal or procedural challenges to one another involving the ordination standards.
The commission’s report states that Mount Auburn has been resisting the PC(USA)’s ordination standards since at least 1992, out of theological conviction, and that “Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church has pursued this stance with courage, integrity and at great cost to the congregation.” The report also states that Mount Auburn has experienced “serious financial hardship.”
During that same time, however, the PC(USA) has repeatedly considered the question of whether to ordain sexually active gays and lesbians, and has not adopted the inclusive position that Mount Auburn advocates. But the report states that “it must be admitted that the Church in recent decades has not always spoken unequivocally or univocally on this issue” and that “Mount Auburn has a legitimate basis for its perception that the issue is not yet resolved within the church and therefore open to debate.”
But the report also says “there must be consequences for ‘noncompliance,’ even when a congregation describes their activity as in ‘good conscience.’ For the sake of the integrity both of conscience and of our Constitution such consequences are critical.”
In recommending provisional status for Mount Auburn, the administrative commission articulated its hope that doing so could give time for discussion in the presbytery — that it will “allow the member churches to address issues of disagreement while building Christian trust and understanding.”
It also states that it would provide an alternative to “lengthy judicial and legislative solutions” that often are adversarial, and would avoid “the forced ejection of a dissenting congregation” from the denomination.
