Many observers also expect something will come up before the Assembly about gay marriage, considering how hot that issue is on the national political scene — and that could add fuel to the discussion over ordaining gays and lesbians as well.
Doug Nave, a lawyer who’s on the Covenant Network of Presbyterians board and wants the ordination standards changed, said the news coverage of gay and lesbian couples standing outside City Hall in San Francisco, waiting hours or days for marriage licenses, has “put a whole different face on this for people who always thought gay people were the folks who marched in the parade in feathers and leather.” Now they can see examples of gays and lesbians who are “normal, really nice people who are living committed lives,” Nave said. “It’s an enormous educational event that’s taking place.”
On the other hand, other folks — including President George W. Bush — have responded to such accounts by saying that the vital traditional understanding of marriage as being between a man and a woman is under attack and needs to be defended and protected. The 214th General Assembly (2002), declined to support the idea of amending the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. Who knows what this year’s Assembly might do?
And then there’s the “authoritative interpretation.” Even before “fidelity and chastity” was added to the Constitution in 1996, the General Assembly had adopted an authoritative interpretation, which says, in part, that “homosexuality is not God’s wish for humanity” and that “for the church to ordain a self-affirming, practicing homosexual person to ministry would be to act in contradiction to its charter and calling in Scripture, setting in motion both within the church and society serious contradictions to the will of Christ.” Identical statements — considered “definitive guidance” at the time — were adopted by the northern branch of the Presbyterian church in 1978 and by the southern Presbyterians in 1979, and were made an authoritative interpretation by the General Assembly of the reunited church in 1993.
This year, however, the General Assembly in Richmond will be asked to remove “fidelity and chastity” and to rescind the authoritative interpretation. There are a handful of overtures pending regarding this — some asking for both things to happen, some for just one.
And that produces an interesting question of both polity and politics: what would be the impact if the Constitution did not change — if fidelity and chastity were still the denomination’s ordination standard — but the authoritative interpretation were removed?
Not surprisingly, there’s some disagreement about that. Some say that for the ordination standards to significantly change, both would have to be removed — that’s been the position, for example, of the Advisory Committee on the Constitution. Even if fidelity and chastity were taken off the books, the advisory committee has said, the authoritative interpretation speaking against the ordination of “self-affirming, practicing homosexuals” would still stand.
Others see it differently.
Western Reserve Presbytery in Ohio has submitted an overture asking this year’s Assembly to issue an authoritative interpretation stating that governing bodies aren’t bound by statements about homosexuality and ordination that predate fidelity and chastity being put into the PC(USA) Constitution.
The overture argues that the definitive guidance and authoritative interpretations that came before fidelity and chastity “had the effect of amending our constitutional standards for ordination without the ratification of the presbyteries” and “have contributed to conflict and confusion in the church” — and the language that’s actually in the Constitution is what should prevail.
Nave, of Covenant Network, also argues that the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission essentially acknowledged that the authoritative interpretation is no longer in force in its ruling last year involving Katie Morrison, a lesbian who was ordained as a minister by Redwoods Presbytery in October 2001. It’s like writing a new will, Nave said — when the new will is written, the old one no longer applies.
In its decision in the Morrison case, the judicial commission made it clear that a 1993 church court ruling — a ruling in a Minnesota case popularly known as the LeTourneau decision, a case that predated fidelity and chastity — was not the prevailing standard anymore. Instead, it relied for precedent on language from a more recent permanent judicial commission ruling — a ruling from 2002, which was decided after fidelity and chastity was put in place. In the Morrison decision, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission ruled that the standard used in the 2002 decision (in a case brought by Ronald Wier against the session of Second church, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) “cured the theological defect” of the standard imposed in the LeTourneau case and should be used instead.
Those cases dealt with questions of how candidates for ordinations could and should be questioned. Lynne Reade, a lawyer for Redwoods Presbytery, argued to the judicial commission that the denomination’s prevailing rule involving ordination is the fidelity and chastity standard, not the 1978 and 1979 “definitive guidance” that later became the authoritative interpretation. The fidelity and chastity standard, added to the PC(USA) Constitution in 1997, “altered, superceded and replaced” the definitive guidance, Reade argued, saying, “the time has come” to clarify “this denomination’s current official position with regard to ordination standards involving sexual activity,” and that doing so could avoid unnecessary litigation in the future caused by confusion.
Some folks find all this way too confusing to think about.
But the special interest groups have put the kettle on to boil — and on this issue, things are starting to heat up.
James Berkley, issues ministry director for Presbyterians for Renewal, wrote recently of what he called “the big lie” — the idea that the authoritative interpretation “is no longer even right, so let’s just get rid of it.” He also described the “big lie” as “the kind of audacious thing that if it gets said often enough and brashly enough with enough certainty, it takes on a life of its own and is treated as if it were indeed the truth. It isn’t.”
In an interview, Berkley said he considers the authoritative interpretation to be “a very pastoral and very even-handed statement” that isn’t obsolete. Instead, he argues, it maintains the historical and scriptural standards the church has always followed. “There has never been a time Christians have allowed homosexual practice. Never,” states a response to a Covenant Network document posted on the Presbyterian Coalition Web site.
And while the Covenant Network blames the authoritative interpretation for conflict in the church, “that blame rightfully rests on those like themselves who agitate to pervert God’s Word and will for our sexual behavior,” the Coalition response states.
Some contend that leaving fidelity and chastity on the books, but removing the authoritative interpretation, would throw things back to the local level — it would be up to local governing bodies, sessions and presbyteries, to interpret what the language in the Constitution’s ordination standards actually means. The current ordination standards also say that “persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained” or installed as deacons, elders or ministers.
If the authoritative interpretation were removed but the ordination standards didn’t change, and a candidate for ordination acknowledged being in a sexually active relationship outside marriage, the session or presbytery involved “will have to determine what it believes ‘chastity’ means, and whether all sexually active relationships outside marriage should be treated as ‘sin’ under the Confessions,” Nave wrote in response to an e-mail question. “If it decides that the candidate’s relationship is sinful, the session or presbytery will have to decide whether the candidate is `”refusing to repent’ of it (or, in contrast, if it is right to say that someone is `refusing to repent’ if she is living out a sincere conviction that she believes conforms to Scripture and God’s will for her life).”
If a session or presbytery decided that such a candidate could be ordained, and people disagreed, that decision could be appealed to higher governing bodies, Nave wrote.
Others argue, however, that the current ordination standards already are clear.
Berkley said he doesn’t think there’s any doubt among Presbyterians about what the fidelity and chastity standards really mean. “If you’re married, you must remain true to your spouse; if you are not, married, you must abstain from sex,” the response on the Coalition Web site states. “No flex about that.”
There is also disagreement among those who want the PC(USA)’s ordination standards to change about strategy — about whether this year is a good time to lobby for another vote by the presbyteries on ordination standards, or whether they should hold off until after the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA) reports to the church in 2006.
More Light Presbyterians and That All May Freely Serve aren’t willing to wait. They describe this as a matter of justice and will try to convince this Assembly to recommend to the presbyteries that the fidelity and chastity standard be taken out of the Constitution. “The position that More Light Presbyterians has always taken is we have people who are bearing the brunt of these discriminatory policies today,” said Bill Moss of California, the organization’s co-moderator. “How can you put limits on what’s just?”
(Despite their agreement on trying to push the issue now, however, More Light Presbyterians and That All May Freely Serve have decided not to merge. A news release on the More Light Web site, dated Feb. 14, states that the More Light board considered the possibility of merger at its winter meeting and “voted to decline to engage in a merger process with That All May Freely Serve,” an idea that had been informally discussed for the past two years. The two groups will continue to work together, but More Light “believes there is strength in diversity,” the news release states.)
But Covenant Network favors trying to remove the authoritative interpretation this year, and waiting until the theological task force has made its report to ask the Assembly to vote again to remove fidelity and chastity — a position that some in the church find respectful of the theological task force, but which some gays and lesbians think is just wrong. “Neither the Task Force nor any other group can hope to change the church unless Presbyterians on all sides are ready for change,” the Covenant Network said in a statement released last fall. It urged prayer, study, conversation and “especially listening, to the Holy Spirit and to each other,” and said: “We will pour our energies and our organization’s energies into preparing for change.”
Whatever happens, the 216th General Assembly will have no shortage of possibilities to choose from — all told, five presbyteries submitted overtures involving the ordination standards and homosexuality, and others have submitted concurrences.
Detroit Presbytery is asking that the authoritative interpretation be removed.
Twin Cities Area Presbytery wants both fidelity and chastity and the authoritative interpretation to go away.
Baltimore Presbytery wants fidelity and chastity to be removed from the denomination’s Constitution.
And Western New York Presbytery is asking that the ordination standard be revised. Instead of requiring fidelity within “the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman,” this proposal would change it to “fidelity within a covenanted relationship between two persons where a lifetime commitment is intended.” And “refusing to repent of any self-acknowledge practice which the confessions call sin” would become “refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which does not conform to this discipline” under the Western New York proposal.
