By a vote of 145 for, 75 against, and 4 abstentions, the Presbytery of New Covenant (Houston, Texas) approved the following policy at its August 22, 2006 stated meeting:
“The Presbytery of New Covenant in its discernment of the essentials of reformed polity and for the sake of preserving the peace, unity and purity of the church does adopt the principle that compliance with the standards for ordination adopted and held authoritative in the Book of Order shall remain essentials of reformed polity and any departure from said standards for ordination set forth in the Book of Order will disqualify a candidate for ordination or installation by the Presbytery of New Covenant. Those provisions of the Book of Order deemed to be standards and therefore essentials of polity include those statements using “shall,” “is/are to be,” “required,” “requirement,” or equivalent expressions.
This discernment of the essentials of reformed polity shall remain in effect until removed by a majority vote of the Presbytery of New Covenant.”
Rationale
The 217th General Assembly meeting in Birmingham, Alabama approved an authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order, G-6.0108, permitting presbyteries to qualify certain requirements of the Book of Order as non-essentials of polity for ministers. Yet this authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order, G-6.0108, also states “Whether the examination and the ordination and installation decision comply with the Constitution of the PC(USA), and whether the ordaining/installing body has conducted its examination reasonably, responsibly, prayerfully, and deliberately in deciding to ordain a candidate for church office is subject to review by higher governing bodies.”
There is quite a bit of discussion about what this AI really means for the life of the church, and in some sense we will not know for sure until the GA Permanent Judicial Commission issues rulings in the future. But we do know these things:
A. The Authoritative Interpretation (AI) of G-6.0108 gives the Presbytery of New Covenant the right to declare in its own life, ministry and practice that all statements in the Book of Order using shall, all requirements, and all mandates are essentials of reformed polity.
B. Earlier the Presbytery passed by a strong majority an overture to the 217th General Assembly which would have altered recommendation 5 of the Theological Task Force Report on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church by affirming that all mandates, statements using “shall,” and all other requirements of the Book of Order shall remain for all governing bodies mandatory and therefore not eligible to be classified as non-essentials of polity. While this overture was not adopted by the Assembly, and in no way binds the presbytery at this time, it may now show us a way forward in our own life that is entirely consistent with what we are allowed to do under the new AI (Authoritative Interpretation) of the 217th General Assembly.
The motion was brought to the presbytery by the session of First Church of Pearland, Texas, with concurrences by the following sessions: Trinity Church of Port Neches; First Church of Lake Jackson; Waverly Church of New Waverly; Formosan Church of Houston; Gulf Prairie Church of Jones Creek; First Presbyterian of Houston.
In the debate of this overture before its passage, it was mentioned that passage of this overture would insure ministers received into the presbytery would be willing to abide by Book of Order provisions such as the requirement that they perform baptisms in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that ministers live in fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.
With 39,416 members the Presbytery of New Covenant is the sixth largest presbytery in the PC(USA). It contains 107 congregations and 11 new church developments spanning Southeast Texas. It is probably the only presbytery in the PC(USA) to contain three congregations with over 3,500 members each — First, Grace, and Memorial Drive–all in Houston. But it also contains many small membership congregations and many racial ethnic congregations.
Among those who spoke in favor of this overture were the pastor of one of the presbytery’s smallest churches, Waverly Church, the stated clerk of one of its racial-ethnic churches, Formosan Church, and the senior pastors of its three largest congregations. which together contain nearly a third of its congregants.
