CHICAGO — Tweak here, clarify there, make the sentences crisp and clear.
On Aug. 25, the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will announce its long-awaited recommendations. But today — the day before the big day — the task force spent about an hour editing and improving draft sections of the report it had made public in July. The task force went back into closed session after that for more private discussions.
That leaves about a three-hour block of time scheduled for Aug. 25 to make the recommendations, discuss them and vote on the final report.
Many of the editing changes suggested were minor, meant to sharpen a point or clear up cluttered language — there were certainly no roaring discussions. The task force members have seen these drafts before; any major differences of views, if they existed, apparently have been worked out in private.
So they concentrated today on the fine points.
For example, the task force has added language about the church’s commitment to mission. At first the new section started by saying: “The church’s mission flows from God’s gracious act of reaching out to welcome us in Jesus Christ through the work of the Spirit.” But at the suggestion of Mark Achtemeier, “welcome us” was changed to ‘welcome, redeem and recreate us.” A later reference to God’s “gracious welcome” was changed to God’s “gracious and transforming welcome.”
Achtemeier, who teaches systematic theology at the University of Dubuque School of Theology, said the changes would emphasize God’s ability to transform people and move the task force away from a “we love you just the way you are” approach.
The group also gave attention to language asking the church to consider what it should say about the way that “God’s gracious drama of creation, reconciliation and redemption” might embrace baptized gays and lesbians who are committed to exclusive, covenanted relationships.
Frances Taylor Gench, a New Testament professor, wondered whether there should be a word here also regarding single people who don’t have partners — to affirm that they have a place in “God’s gracious drama” too.
And Achtemeier said part of the “freight” of this section is “to make it clear that at least no one in this group was interested in making the case for single people in promiscuous lifestyles.”
The suggestions followed like that — smaller in scope, but sometimes changes in nuance as well as grammar.
Language that referred to the task force seeking God’s forgiveness “for our sin and hateful attitudes and actions” has been changed to “hurtful attitudes and actions.”
And a section on things task force members have learned from one another — which earlier contained statements about what liberals and conservatives have learned — has been changed in the draft report to also say that moderates on the task force “came to understand how alienating it is when those with passionate concerns on either end of the theological spectrum are labeled extreme and divisive.”
The task force has already said in its draft report that it does not plan to propose changes in the PC(USA)’s ordination standards, which currently limit ordination to those who practice chastity if they are single or fidelity if they are married.
Tomorrow, it will raise the curtain on the rest of its recommendations.
