Let’s pretend we jump ahead a year.
Let’s pretend the 2006 General Assembly has already met, and it has done exactly what the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has asked it to do. So how will things in the church be different?
That’s a question many in the church are trying to figure out — they’re trying to parse the report and figure out how the landscape of the PC(USA) would change if the task force recommendations were to prevail. That’s difficult, because the task force report is not simple — it’s full of complicated, interlocking parts.
And, not surprisingly, different folks come up with different answers.
Some contend that the task force is basically recommending local option in practice if not in technical fact — that if the recommendations are approved, some sessions and presbyteries will routinely ordain and install sexually-active gays and lesbians even though the PC(USA)’s ordination standards, which limit ordination to those who practice chastity if they’re single or fidelity if they’re married, would not themselves change.
Others disagree. They say it’s close to miraculous that such a diverse 20-member task force could, after several years of difficult work, reach a unanimous recommendation with no minority report — and they commend the task force for asking the PC(USA) to set aside some if its divisive ways and to return to a sense of balance, based on historic Presbyterian principles.
Some argue that the changes could lead to more fighting, not less, but that the fiercest battles would move from the national stage to the local level.
Others say there already are considerable regional differences in how the PC(USA) applies ordination standards, and that having more rigor and consistency in the way that presbyteries and sessions examine candidates for ordination or installation would be a good thing. And if there are to be disagreements, some say, it’s better to fight them out on local ground, where at least folks know one another and may be more inclined to show some grace.
First reactions
So far, the reaction is still trickling in. The task force members plan to hit the road to sell their report — appearing at as many presbytery meetings and other gatherings as they can pack in before next summer, and also holding a pre-assembly event for commissioners just before the assembly convenes in June.
Before the report came out, one task force member said it would have features to make all sides in the sexuality debate a little uncomfortable — something in it to make almost everyone mad. And both supporters and opponents of the current ordination standards have so far offered criticism.
On the evangelical side, Presbyterians for Renewal executive director Michael R. Walker has written that the task force recommendations would amount to “local license” and are “disappointing and troubling,” although he supports many of the theological statements the task force made.
He argues that the task force is trying to make a “super-standard” out of one part of the church’s constitution — that allowing freedom of conscience within limits — and the impact will be “to permit ordaining bodies to overlook clear violations of a constitutional standard” prohibiting the ordination of people who are sexually active but not married.
The Presbyterian Coalition plans to release its own paper on the Reformed doctrine of the church this fall — presenting perhaps other options so “commissioners have more than a choice of saying thumbs up or thumbs down” on the task force report, said Coalition co-moderator Jerry Andrews, a pastor from suburban Chicago.
While the Coalition by early September hadn’t released a formal response to the task force report, chances are “it’ll be fairly severe,” Andrews said in an interview.
“It’ll be difficult for us not to come to the conclusion that presbyteries and sessions will come to the conclusion that sexuality is not essential. We’ve already heard the statements — it’s a small thing, it’s a private matter, it’s what people do behind closed doors. It’s not a concern for the church.”
As Andrews sees it, the church should decide collectively whether fidelity and chastity are essentials of Reformed faith and practice — it shouldn’t be just a local decision, because ordination is for the whole church.
And he’s troubled that the task force recommendations were sculpted behind closed doors. “The decision was not made in public,” he said. “The presentation was made in public … It’s fair to say the moral authority of the task force was diminished by its unwillingness to do its work in public.”
Walker also sees a conflict between the task force’s theological affirmations and its policy recommendations. If the church is to in some circumstances embrace or at least accept monogamous gay or lesbian partnerships, “then the church needs to be brought to a place where we recognize that this diversity is consistent with the teachings of Scripture,” Walker said. “That is not something that the task force demonstrated.”
Task force member Jack Haberer, a Houston pastor and former president of the board of Presbyterians for Renewal, disagrees with some of the criticism. The evangelical mantra through the ordination wars has been “national standards, local enforcement,” Haberer said. “This is that policy in spades.”
And Haberer said the task force report “returns us to believing that in theology, practice and governance there are matters that are essential to be maintained and nonessentials where there’s room for negotiation.” And “that’s more biblical than the pattern we’ve fallen into that says there’s a lot of wiggle room on theology but only absolutes in the area of behavior,” he said. “That’s not good Bible. That’s not biblical.”
Groups that oppose the fidelity and chastity standard, such as the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, are trying to figure out what to do about the five overtures already submitted asking the 2006 General Assembly to take that standard out of the PC(USA)’s constitution.
The task force wants the assembly to leave the ordination standards unchanged and also to leave untouched an existing authoritative interpretation, which says “homosexuality is not God’s wish for humanity.”
Do those who’ve been working for years to ditch fidelity and chastity as unjust to gays and lesbians stay the course and ask the 2006 assembly to remove those standards from the constitution? That’s what More Light Presbyterians seem prepared to do.
Or do they buy into the task force’s recommendations and hold off — hoping that even with the current ordination standards intact, more gays and lesbians would, in fact, likely be ordained?
The Covenant Network’s executive committee released a statement August 31 calling the task force report “theologically sound, solidly Reformed and faithfully wrought,” but also saying that their organization remains committed to changing the PC(USA)’s ordination standards.
It cites the unanimity of the task force report as “perhaps a sign of God’s guidance.” And — while stopping short of staking out a definite position — the committee states that “the Covenant Network believes all Presbyterians must take the full report of this task force very seriously …”
What the Task Force did
To reach any judgments about any of this, it’s important first to understand what the task force, in approving its report on August 25 in Chicago, did and did not do.
It did not ignore theology. The opening sections of the report discuss in detail foundational principles of Reformed theology the task force members all affirmed. “The fact that a group that’s as diverse as we are can put this together and everybody signs it really puts the lie to the claim that there are two different religions in this denomination,” said task force member Barbara Wheeler, the president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York.
The task force spoke out strongly against schism. It states that its most important recommendation is that Presbyterians learn to live with one another and “to avoid division into separate denominations.”
And it asks the next assembly to approve a new authoritative interpretation under which local governing bodies would determine whether candidates for ordination have departed from the ordination standards — and whether a departure in a particular case “constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity,” or would not be so severe as to bar ordination.
The task force makes it clear that it’s not endorsing “local option,” in which local governing bodies could create their own standards, and it doesn’t think sessions and presbyteries can ignore the fidelity — chastity standard.
But it’s also trying to leave room for freedom of conscience to some extent in the way candidates for ordination or installation live their lives as well as in their theological beliefs. In other words, some variation would be permitted. Candidates could declare scruples — perhaps with a gay man acknowledging that he was living in a committed, monogamous relationship with a partner and didn’t agree with the fidelity and chastity standard.
The local governing body would then have to decide whether that departure from the standard was essential or not — and whether that admission, taken in the context of the rest of the candidate’s life and beliefs and gifts for ministry, rose to an “essential” enough level to prohibit ordination.
Higher governing bodies also would retain the right of review — meaning they could look at the local governing body’s actions and determine whether they were following the rules and conducting adequate examinations.
And the proposed authoritative interpretation urges Presbyterians to “outdo one another” in honoring decisions those governing bodies make, and asks them to initiate judicial or administrative proceedings “only when other efforts fail to preserve the purposes and purity of the church.”
Will there be more peace?
One question being asked is whether, in a denomination clearly weary of the sexuality battles, the task force recommendations would bring more peace.
Some say definitely not.
“This is not a recipe for peace,” Andrews said. “I think it creates regional division. I think the Northeast does something different than the Southeast,” cities may make different choices than the rural areas, the West Coast could be a patchwork. And such regional divisions, he said, “take generations to overcome.”
With this change, “you just might get a national peace,” Andrews said. “I doubt it. What you do is you have fights ordination by ordination, presbytery by presbytery, session by session here on out …And it’s a huge step away from the purity of the church.”
Wheeler said she thinks the recommendations would return the discussions that have caused so much debate the national level to the presbyteries and the congregations — debates over such issues as sexuality and Christology.
“And some people have said that would just be a relocation of the conflict, but I don’t think so,” Wheeler argued. “I think it would lower the level of it … I don’t think the differences would go away, but I think the working out of the differences would become a lot more humane.”
For one thing, the debate at the national level “is fueled by substantial-sized organizations” that don’t always have local equivalents, Wheeler said. “My experience at the local level is that people’s views and affiliations are a lot more mixed” — they have connections and relationships that cut across party lines. And people are likely to conduct themselves differently, she said, if they’re talking with people they already know, as opposed to “engaged in combat with a bunch of people they’ve never met before.”
Task force member John “Mike” Loudon, a pastor from Florida, put it this way: “I think it will maybe bring a little more peace as far as General Assemblies are concerned, but I think it will make things at your local church level and local presbytery level very interesting. There will be some tough questions asked.”
More rigorous examinations?
Task force members said they expect that, if the recommendations were adopted, examinations of the candidates would become more consistent and rigorous — but that local governing bodies would also be given more discretion.
The report states that “though current practices vary from session to session and presbytery to presbytery, it is often reported that examinations lack rigor by not fully investigating the scope of each officer-elect’s beliefs, practices, gifts, willingness to uphold the governance of the church, and scruples. The authoritative interpretation lifts up the obligation of the ordaining or installing body to gain the broadest visions of each officer-elect’s faith, manner of life and promise as it applies standards and makes determinations about essentials.”
According to task force members, those kinds of thorough examinations don’t always place now. Loudon said he’s been at presbytery meetings where the hardest question asked of a candidate was, “Read any good books lately?” and sometimes people who do pose questions are viewed as troublesome or nasty.
Usually, the closer a candidate is to the background and thinking of others in the presbytery, the fewer questions get asked, Loudon said. But Wheeler contends that for a minister, “someone who gets up every week and says what God says,” a careful examination of that person’s theological convictions is appropriate.
Scott Anderson, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches and the task force’s only openly gay member, said there’s a “tremendous variation” in the examinations now — and sometimes a presumption that the only area of possible sin worth exploring involves sexuality. “We all have sins and we all have sins from which we have not repented,” he said. When people talk of more rigorous examinations, “I think of rigor more in the theological sense rather than delving into people’s personal lives. The level of self-disclosure is going to vary.”
It’s also unclear how overtly questions involving a person’s private life would or could be asked, even under the recommendations. If, for example, a gay person or an unmarried heterosexual was involved in a sexual relationship, would that candidate be expected to divulge that — and then have the session or presbytery discuss the matter fully and decide if that deviation from the standard was “essential” or not?
Might governing bodies stop with just a general question asked of all candidates — something like, “Do you know of any reason why you can’t comply with the church’s ordination standards?” — the kind of question some governing bodies say they now use?
And might a particular candidate just choose not talk about his or her private life?
Michael Adee of More Light Presbyterians responded to the report by saying it will “encourage spiritual violence” against gay and lesbian Presbyterians “by calling for more rigorous examinations focused on sexuality rather than faith.”
A previous General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission ruling — a decision from the PC(USA)’s highest church court in 2002, in a case brought against a gay elder from Fort Lauderdale by his neighbor from across the street, Ronald Wier — held that for a complaint to be brought alleging violations of a constitutional standard, such a complaint “must assert factual allegations of how, when, where, and under what circumstances the person was self-acknowledging a practice which the Confessions call a sin.”
In that case, the elder in question was openly gay — but never discussed his personal life with the session, and had made a private decision to remain celibate while serving as an elder, meaning he would not be violating the fidelity and chastity rule at all.
The ruling states that “if the governing body has reasonable cause for inquiry based on its knowledge of the life and character of the candidate, it has the positive obligation to make due inquiry and uphold all the standards for ordination and installation.” And that any self-acknowledgement of sin “must be plain, palpable and obvious.”
So what if a person doesn’t “self-acknowledge” having concerns about meeting the fidelity and chastity standards — what if he or she just doesn’t talk about it? What if a person doesn’t think “chaste” and “celibate” mean the same thing — in other words, he might be in a committed sexual partnership but not consider that to be unchaste? How rigorous in conducting examinations are local governing bodies required to be?
“The standard would not be license for witch-hunts, which is what some are saying on the left side of things,” Wheeler said. “Committees need to be even-handed in what they ask. They need to ask all candidates the same kinds of questions . . . Departures from standards are mainly self-identified,” she said, unless there’s “plain, palpable evidence” that someone doesn’t meet the standard.
Will more gays and lesbians be ordained?
Some task force members acknowledge that, even with fidelity and chastity still on the books, more gay and lesbian candidates likely would present themselves for ordination or installation if the task force recommendations were adopted — and some sessions and presbyteries would approve them.
It would “absolutely, very clearly” produce a change, Walker said.
If the recommendations are approved, “we are going to see more lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people pursuing candidacy and ordination,” Anderson said.
But Wheeler said a sympathetic governing body can’t decide in advance that it will just approve all qualified gays and lesbians living in committed partnerships.
“You can’t subtract from or add to the standards,” she said. “You can’t make your list of your particular package of standards and then apply it to all cases. The discernment of whether an essential is being departed from happens in every case.”
The new rules also would seem to raise questions about whether local governing bodies can approve their own distillation of essential tenets, as San Diego presbytery did several years ago — because such a determination under the recommendations is supposed to be done on a case-by-case basis.
Anderson said the change, if approved, probably would allow the ordination of some gays and lesbians who haven’t been so far. “But whether it’s going to open up the floodgates — no.”
The task force also is asking the church to give the recommendations time to work — which likely, they acknowledge, include a new round of cases in the church courts, despite the admonition to “outdo one another” in honoring local decisions if the proper procedure was followed.
“I expect that a number of ordaining bodies will test the limits of this, and that will inevitably produce challenges in the church courts against those tests of those limits,” Haberer said. “And so there will probably be a wave of administrative cases filed or remedial cases filed in the first round. … I think that with some test cases things will settle down and we will end up in a more peaceful place. But it will take a year or two, a couple of years.”
