LOUISVILLE — When a presbytery passes a resolution stating that it will enforce all mandatory standards for ordination from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) constitution — granting no exceptions based on conscience — is that merely an expression of opinion by the presbytery? Sort of a “here we stand” statement that has no practical effect in the individual examination of candidates?
Or does it have a “chilling” impact that will dissuade candidates who might want to declare a scruple, or an objection based on conscience, from ever making an attempt at winning approval in that presbytery?
Those are among the questions the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) is pondering as it considers three cases in which it heard oral arguments on Feb. 8 and on which it is expected to rule soon.
Each of those cases involves resolutions which presbyteries — in this case, Washington, Olympia, and Pittsburgh — adopted in the wake of the 2006 General Assembly.
Some Presbyterians were distraught when the 2006 assembly approved the report of the Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the PC(USA), and were particularly disturbed by Recommendation 5, which allows governing bodies to grant departures from the standards based on conscience for a candidate for ordination or installation as a minister, elder or deacon, if the governing body determines that granting an exception in that particular case does not involve a “failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity.”
What’s before the GAPJC in this matter is not the cases of individual candidates — although already this year two presbyteries have voted to proceed with candidates who have declared such statements of conscience, called scruples. On January 15, San Francisco presbytery voted 167 to 151 to approve as “ready for examination” Lisa Larges, a lesbian who works for the advocacy group, That All May Freely Serve.
And the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area voted 196 to 79 on Jan. 26 to restore the ordination of Paul Capetz, a gay seminary professor who voluntarily set aside his ordination in 2000 in protest over the PC(USA)’s ordination standards, which limit ordination to those who practice fidelity if they are married or chastity if they’re single.
Challenges to cases of individuals declaring scruples likely will work their way up through the church courts to the GAPJC in time.
But for now, what’s before the highest court in the PC(USA) is the question of whether presbyteries can, in advance of individual cases involving scruples, declare publicly that they will not grant departures from mandatory standards of the Book of Order.
Three cases
Each case the GAPJC is considering this time has its own twists and turns.
In the Olympia case, the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Alaska-Northwest ruled that the presbytery’s resolution, passed in September 2006, could stand and “does not preclude Olympia Presbytery from conducting a meaningful examination to assess the fitness of individual candidates on a case by case basis, and the PJC reminds the presbytery that they are obligated to conduct such examinations in a thorough and fair manner.”
That decision is being appealed to the GAPJC.
In the Washington Presbytery case, the Synod of the Trinity Permanent Judicial Commission voted 10-0 to set aside the resolution the presbytery had adopted in March 2007. The presbytery is appealing some aspects of that ruling — in part, that the synod had not required biblically-based efforts to resolve the dispute, as described in the 18th chapter of Matthew, and that the synod PJC had described as “broad and ephemeral” a section of the Book of Order that states a candidate cannot be ordained if that person refuses to repent of “any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin.”
And in the Pittsburgh case, the GAPJC is being asked to consider whether departures of conscience can be declared on matters that relate to behavior as well as those of belief. Those appealing the decision of the Synod of the Trinity PJC in this case are arguing that the authoritative interpretation the 2006 General Assembly passed “does not make such a distinction between belief and behavior,” but that the synod PJC’s ruling does.
Olympia
In the Olympia case, Doug Nave, a lawyer for progressives seeking to strike down the presbytery’s resolution, told the GAPJC that the authoritative interpretation the 2006 General Assembly passed attempts to restore a historic balance to a divided denomination.
“We have been fighting for 30 years about gay and lesbian persons” in the PC(USA), Nave said. The 2006 General Assembly realized that “when we oppress the conscience of a large portion of the church, we will not see peace.”
Nave characterized the assembly’s decision to adopt the authoritative interpretation as “deeply theological,” rather than pragmatic, and a reflection of the historic balancing in Presbyterian life.
“Our standards,” Nave said, “go hand-in-glove with freedom of conscience.”
Nave contended that Olympia Presbytery was, in essence, trying to impose a “super-standard” for candidates in that region by passing a resolution that stated that every mandate in the Book of Order “is an essential of Reformed polity,” and that any violation of those mandates would present a bar to ordination or installation.
But William Holt, a lawyer for Olympia Presbytery, told the GAPJC that the presbytery, in passing the resolution, was expressing an opinion and “sending a signal” to congregations who wanted to know where their presbytery stood.
They wanted to know “is this presbytery a traditionalist type of presbytery” or more liberal, “maybe one that believes in local option,” Holt said. The presbytery, in adopting the resolution, was saying it’s “going to be conservative, it’s going to be traditionalist, it’s going to be connectional,” and “we view the mandates to be important. We’re going to follow them,” he said.
So this case asks the question, Holt said, “Is a presbytery entitled to a belief?”
But Nave argued that the Olympia resolution wasn’t “an innocent effort to express an opinion,” but would have real consequences in deterring candidates from pursuing ordination or installation if they have disagreements with the ordination standards. In this case, “the presbytery attempted to set its standards, not to follow the church’s standards,” Nave said.
If policies such as these are permitted to stand, he argued — and Nave said they’ve been presented in 20 or 30 presbyteries already — “conservatives won’t show up in liberal presbyteries, liberals won’t show up in conservative presbyteries,” and “ultimately we’ll see a wider rift” in the PC(USA).
But Holt contended that the resolution does not preclude Olympia Presbytery from considering on a case-by-case basis candidates who might declare objections to the national standards based on conscience. “It’s not making any final decisions,” he said. “It’s setting forward the sense of the body.”
Washington and Pittsburgh
In the Washington Presbytery case, some of the discussion centered on whether the synod could or should require what Rebecca Bowman, a lawyer representing the presbytery, described as efforts at biblical peacemaking when Christians are in dispute with one another. Bowman said that, based on what she reads in the 18th chapter of Matthew’s gospel, “whether the Book of Order requires it or not, Christ did.”
There also was discussion about whether the denomination actually does require candidates for ordination to adhere to every practice “which the confessions call sin.”
Bowman argued that Washington Presbytery was attempting to make it clear to candidates where it stood — that it considered such things essential — so that candidates would know, if they disagreed, that they needed to declare a scruple.
Is the church going to say, “The confessions have stuff in them that we’re not going to hold anybody to anymore?” she asked.
But Thomas Vreeland, a lawyer for the parties who challenged the presbytery’s resolution, said the GAPJC needs to understand “the atmosphere in which these documents were prepared.”
Initially, the presbytery adopted a statement of “Biblical Standards for Christian Leaders” that every minister, deacon, and elder in the presbytery was expected to sign. The Synod of the Trinity PJC found that statement to be “unconstitutional in its application of subscriptionism” — but initially, the executive presbyter had said, Vreeland told the GAPJC, “if they don’t sign it, we’ll know who they are.”
That document, along with the resolution the presbytery passed declaring that any departures from standards mandated in the Book of Order would bar a candidate from ordination — a resolution the synod PJC also found to be unconstitutional — essentially “creates a chilling effect,” Vreeland argued. People would say, “I’m not going to apply there. I don’t need to be held up to a second standard,” beyond the Book of Order and the new authoritative interpretation.
In the Pittsburgh case, Stephen Paschall, a lawyer for those appealing the decision to the GAPJC, contended that the ruling of the Synod of the Trinity PJC was “internally inconsistent” by making a distinction between being willing to allow exceptions to the standard based on belief but not on behavior.
“Faith is not only mental assent, but also a pattern of life, and freedom of conscience applies to behavior as well as belief,” Paschall told the GAPJC. And he said later: “You cannot prescribe at the synod level that all mandatory behavioral standards are essentials.”
Susan Dobbins, a lawyer representing Pittsburgh Presbytery, said she was in an awkward position — because the presbytery is not appealing the ruling of the synod PJC. In this case, it was the parties who essentially prevailed in that decision who were appealing certain language in the synod PJC ruling.
“We respect the opinion of the Synod of the Trinity PJC” and its rationale, Dobbins said. And “we are not going to defend the decision which ruled against us.”
The GAPJC is expected to issue its rulings in the cases by early next week.
