The Committee on Church Polity on Saturday disapproved four overtures stemming from what several speakers and committee members described as an untenable number of frivolous accusations against leaders in the church.
But it requested that the Office of the General Assembly study the inappropriate use of the judicial process and report back to the 218Th General Assembly in 2008, and it urged individuals and governing bodies to pursue actions against church members filing such accusations falsely or in bad faith.
Revising the disciplinary process involves a delicate balance between the rights of people who seek to use the church’s judicial system to repair injustice and the rights of the people they accuse. Overture advocates argued that in recent years, a few people have abused the process by filing repeated, widespread accusations to further a particular agenda — most often, opposition to the ordination of gays and lesbians. When any accusation is filed, the Presbyterian rules of discipline require that an investigating committee be appointed — and although no violation was found in the vast majority of cases speakers complained about, resolving the issue can take as long as a year.
‘Lots of time, lots of money, lots of people’s energies,” said Ray Kersting, recently retired stated clerk of Santa Fe Presbytery and advocate for Overture 05-20. ‘We need some additional safeguards to prevent abuse of the system.”
Jane Spahr, a minister and lesbian activist from San Raphael, Calif., asked the committee on Friday to support the overtures. ‘Please stop this kind of thing from happening.’ Spahr was the subject of a disciplinary accusation related to performing the wedding of a lesbian couple but was found not guilty of misconduct in 2005; that case is under appeal.
Paul Rolf Jensen, who has filed 25 accusations against church leaders, often related to the ordination of gays and lesbians, expressed confidence Friday that the overtures would fail. ‘It is a double-edged sword that these overtures bear,’ he said in a telephone interview. ‘I don’t think that they’re well taken,’ and would severely limit the ability to enforce discipline.
Two of the overtures (05-20 and 05-21) would allow accusations to be filed only by people who have been personally harmed, or by people who live in the same presbyteries as those they are accusing. They would also allow an individual who receives an accusation to decide whether an investigation is necessary.
A third overture (05-15) would mandate attempts at discussion, mediation and/or reconciliation. And a fourth (05-16) would allow charges to be thrown out if an investigating committee found that an accuser had failed to attempt to resolve the dispute without formal proceedings.
All four overtures included exceptions for allegations of sexual abuse; and all spoke of abuse of the judicial process or frivolous complaints.
While the Advisory Committee on the Constitution recommended disapproval of all four items, chair Margy Wentz said the committee took the underlying issue seriously. ‘We want to acknowledge that when you have four overtures, in one year, in one way or another addressing an issue, it’s probably an emerging problem in the denomination.”
Still, she said, ‘None of the four solutions presented will address the problem without infringing on the rights of others.
‘I will admit that the judicial process of the church is slow to address these things,’ Wentz said. ‘The judicial process of the church puts more emphasis on an appropriate response than on a quick response.’
This is not the church’s first attempt to grapple with this issue.
In a 2004 survey conducted by the Office of General Assembly about the possible misuse of disciplinary process to promote theological, social or political interests, seven presbyteries reported having had such proceedings, at a total cost of about $10,000. While investigating committees may determine that the allegations were filed for frivolous or intentional purposes, that didn’t happen in any of the cases. Had an investigating committee made such a finding, it could have filed allegations against the accuser for disruption of the peace, purity and unity of the church, the OGA said in its report to the Assembly.
