BIRMINGHAM — Here’s a question the General Assembly will very likely be asked to consider: Should the presbyteries be given more time — basically a “season of discernment” — to consider the report of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA)? Should the vote be put off for two years, until the next assembly meets in 2008?
Or should this General Assembly vote June 20 on the task force report — deciding now whether the task force has recommended a better way for a divided PC(USA) to handle its disagreements?
The question of whether the assembly should vote on the report now or whether the presbyteries should have more time to talk about it provoked intense discussion in the assembly’s Ecclesiology Committee on June 18.
The committee ultimately voted 41-22 to pass the most controversial parts of the task force report. And it is asking the assembly to consider those three parts of the task force report as “one indivisible motion, recognizing that changes to any of them change the nature of the others.”
In other words, the committee is asking the assembly to consider those recommendations as a whole — and not to cherry-pick the parts they like and try to jettison those they don’t.
But that vote didn’t come until after considerable drama.
When the committee left to get some sleep the evening of June 17, its members appeared to be on the brink of voting on the most controversial parts of the task force report — with the trend of its recent votes indicating the report likely would pass.
Earlier, Richard Randall, a minister from Nevada, had proposed that the controversial Recommendation 5 be stripped from the task force report — a proposal that, after hours of discussion, failed by a vote of 40-22. Randall said he intended to write a minority report and invited others to join him.
But overnight, the winds shifted.
Randall came to the committee June 18 with a new proposal: instead of voting on the task force report, ask the General Assembly to refer it to the presbyteries for two years of discernment, and have those presbyteries report back in some way whether they think the General Assembly in 2008 should adopt the report.
The Advisory Committee on the Constitution had already reported that there was no requirement that the task force report be sent to the presbyteries for a vote — the General Assembly has the power, under the PC(USA) constitution, to make an authoritative interpretation, as the task force is asking it to do.
That authoritative interpretation, in Recommendation 5, would permit a candidate who disagrees with part of the church’s ordination standards to declare an objection or a “scruple” — and the local governing body would then decide whether that step away from the constitutional standards of the denomination “constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity,” or can be tolerated.
Some see that recommendation as giving the PC(USA) — a denomination deeply divided over whether to ordain gays and lesbians — a way to keep its national ordination standards, but also to honor the consciences of those who disagree with those standards. Others say it’s basically a back-door way to allow those standards to exist on the books, but be circumvented in practice.
Kirk Bottomly, an overture advocate from San Diego presbytery, called the proposal to ask the assembly to send the report to the presbyteries for more discussion and discernment of God’s will “a brilliant compromise.”
And the proposal drew support from people concerned that passing the task force report could cause more Presbyterians to leave the church or to withhold financial support.
“There are many who are ready to jump from this boat if this task force recommendation is passed by the General Assembly,” said Gerard Niebauer, an elder from Lake Erie presbytery. “Is this denomination ready to accept further erosion of its members? . . . Are they ready to accept the financial loss from all of this?”
There were differing views about whether the grassroots of the church has had enough time to consider what the task force is proposing.
Task force co-moderator Jenny Stoner said the report was made public nine months before the assembly; it’s been mailed to every congregation; and all presbyteries were invited to hear directly from a task force member about it. Since August, the 20 task force members have traveled to 135 presbyteries and 11 synods, and spoken at seminaries and to congregations as well.
Still, some folks complained that the presbyteries have not been involved enough.
Donald Baird, an overture advocate from Sacramento presbytery, said when the task force made a presentation at his presbytery, “we had three hours of indoctrination and our discernment was not asked for.”
If the report is referred back to the presbyteries, that “will pull the sting out, will be the safety valve,” Baird said.
The task force members may have traveled to 135 presbyteries, but “after all of that listening, how many changes did you make?” asked Howard Soehl, a minister from Michigan. “Was there nothing that could be improved, strengthened? I think the discernment process needs to continue . . . The PUP report may well be the path to God’s preferred future. And if it is, it will remain that for two years.”
But other committee members suggested that the presbyteries have had enough time — and that what the PC(USA) needs is to have some faith that the task force report can work.
Putting off the vote will mean “two more years of rancor, two more years of division,” said John McGarey, a minister from Indian Nations presbytery. “It’s time for our new way to be given a chance. We talk about trusting the presbyteries . . . Let’s trust the task force.”
The task force report offers “a way of being church together,” of building trust and relationships, said Susan Niesen, a minister from Giddings-Lovejoy presbytery.
Some predict that if the task force report passes, presbyteries and congregations can ordain anyone they choose.
“You could take any ordination vow and declare a scruple, and if your session agrees with it, you’re in,” said Robert A. J. Gagnon, an overture advocate from Pittsburgh presbytery. Local governing bodies could ordain “everything from an atheist, to a Baptist . . . to a Hare Krisha — anything,” with “absolutely no limit on belief, no limit on behavior.”
But Niesen said she’s confident that “in our presbytery, ordination standards are not going to be tested” — she trusts Presbyterians will take the standards seriously and conduct careful, rigorous examinations of candidates.
The task force report offers “a way of being church together,” Niesen said. “It asks us to focus on Scripture, on theology. Let us live before God together.”
McGarey put it this way: “We can trust each other to do what’s right. Amen.”
During a news conference following the vote, the committee’s leaders — moderator Blair Monie, a pastor from Dallas, and vice-moderator Catherine Kotfila of New Brunswick, N.Y. said if a minority report is submitted, it reflects the committee’s disagreement over the task force report — not a sense of rancor about the process.
Monie said he had “a palpable sense of the Holy Spirit working” in the committee’s deliberations.
Monie said that “although we have disagreed, and sometimes with great vehemence,” he would not describe the committee’s discussions as contentious, and “I didn’t hear anybody on the committee ready to walk out.”
The assembly is expected to take up the task force report June 20.
