At the 220th PC(USA) General Assembly in Pittsburgh, the assembly came within a hair’s-breadth of jettisoning Part I of our constitution, the Book of Confessions. Though the actual vote to do so failed, the fact that matters proceeded as far as they did with no official recognition of what was at stake does not bode well for the future of the PC(USA) unless our leaders have a change of heart or there is a grassroots movement to preserve and defend both parts of the church’s constitution.
If only 16 commissioners had voted differently, the GA would have approved an amendment to the Book of Order allowing same-gender marriage — in direct conflict with clear and unambiguous language in four places in the Book of Confessions. If the assembly had done that, it would have violated both the letter and the spirit of F-2.02, which says the confessions may not be “ignored or dismissed,” and it would have violated the spirit and intent of F-2.01, which says that in Part I of the constitution, “the church declares to its members and to the world who and what it is, what it believes, and what it resolves to do.” Moreover, the voting commissioners, all of whom had in their own ordination vows promised to be “guided,” “instructed” and “led” by the confessions, would have — knowingly or unknowingly — ignored vows they had made about Part I of the constitution, the Book of Confessions.
How did this constitutional crisis arise? Broadly, it happened because Presbyterians do not read and study our confessions. Beyond this failing, I see three and a half institutional failures that almost led the 220th GA to throw out the Book of Confessions.
The first major institutional failure was that the Advisory Committee on the Constitution did not fulfill its duty. G-6.04b is clear that when an amendment to the Book of Order is proposed, the ACC has the duty to check “ … for compatibility with other provisions of the Constitution.” Since F-3.04 says that the constitution consists of the Book of Confessions and the Book of Order, it is clear that the ACC is obliged to study the Book of Confessions for places that are incompatible with a proposed Book of Order amendment.
In four places, the Book of Confessions declares that marriage is between a man and a woman — affirmed by three different churches at four different moments in history. The UPCUSA amended the Westminster Confession (B.C. 6.131) around 1958, and the PCUS made its own different amendment to Westminster (B.C. 6.133, 6.134) prior to reunion with the UPCUSA in 1983. There is also the Confession of 1967 (B.C. 9.47) and the Second Helvetic Confession (B.C. 5.246 — the only statement not written or rewritten in the second half of the 20th century). F-3.03 says of our constitution, “Where there are tensions and ambiguities between provisions, it is the task of councils and judicial commissions to resolve them in such a way as to give effect to all provisions.” Therefore the ACC should have studied each of these four confessional statements, helped the assembly identify any tensions or ambiguities among them, and then given its view on what these four confessional statements together say. This the ACC did not do.
Nowhere in its report to the assembly does the ACC evidence even any independent consideration of these four confessional statements. All its report does is to give a citation (from an earlier study paper never adopted by the General Assembly) which deals only with the context of the original 1647 Westminster Confession, not the PCUS and UPCUSA amendments to it and not B.C. 5.246 or B.C. 9.47.
The second major institutional failure was the oral advice the ACC chair gave to the 220th Assembly on July 6, 2012. Here are a few excerpts:
ACC Chair: “Part number one is our Book of Confessions, a gathering of theological statements, stretching from the beginnings of Christianity until as recently as 1987 … . That collection of statements spans … a vast collection … of theological perspectives, and there is no small amount of internal difference within the constitution itself.”
Critique: As to the specific question of same-gender marriage, there is negligible “internal difference” among the four confessional statements affirming that marriage is between one man and one woman. There is only one theological perspective, not “a vast collection … of perspectives.”
ACC Chair: “… [I]t is important to understand that … it is a large sweep of history, and a fairly broad representation of theology … . Part two of the Constitution is the Book of Order. This is a document of much more recent origin, and while it rests on the theology of the Book of Confessions, its specific role is to guide us in the governing of the church.”
Critique: Our ordination vows make clear we promise to let the confessions “instruct” “lead” and “guide” us. We are not only guided by the Book of Order. Also much of the Book of Order is not of more recent origin than most of these confessional statements relating to marriage, since of the four confessional statements asserting that marriage is between a man and a woman, three were written or rewritten in the second half of the 20th century. Also the confessions do contain standards by which we operate. F-2.01 and F-2.02 say: “In these statements the church declares to its members and to the world who and what it is, what it believes, and what it resolves to do. … While confessional standards are subordinate to the Scriptures, they are, nonetheless, standards.”
ACC Chair: “We have been asked occasionally whether it is necessary to amend the Book of Confessions in order to amend a similar provision in the Book of Order. The answer is no. Our Confessions are deliberately broad, and allow us to draw different ecclesiological conclusions on the basis of our theology.”
Critique: On the issue of same-gender marriage only one ecclesiological conclusion may be drawn from our confessions — that only marriage between one man and one woman is authorized in Scripture. The chair misleadingly pointed out the “broadness” and “internal contradictions” of the confessions leading to the possibility of drawing “different … conclusions” — but that could only pertain to other issues not before the assembly on July 6 and not the subject of the motion to dismiss.
Under G-6.04, the ACC has the obligation to “examine the proposed amendment for … compatibility with other provisions of the Constitution … .” Instead, based on its apparent theory that no proposed amendment to the Book of Order could ever be incompatible with Part I of the constitution due to the latter’s antiquity and broadness and because it is not a “rule book,” the ACC clearly re-interprets G-6.04 as if it actually read that its duty is to examine the proposed amendment for “compatibility with other provisions of the Book of Order,” ignoring the plain meaning of G-6.04.
ACC Chair: “It would be the Advisory Committee on the Constitution’s opinion that … a statement in the Book of Confessions might not necessarily pose a specific conflict with a proposal to amend the Constitution.”
Critique: Of course “a statement in the Book of Confessions might not necessarily pose a specific conflict with a proposal to amend the Constitution,” but this proposed amendment did and does conflict with the Book of Confessions.
The third major institutional failure leading up to the July 6 near-disaster can be dealt with succinctly. Independently of the ACC, the GA stated clerk has the unique duty under the GA standing rules to “preserve and defend the Constitution.” The clerk did not defend Part I of the constitution by pointing out its incompatibility with the proposed amendment, nor did he defend those portions in Part II which are clear about the role of the confessions (e.g., F-2.01, F-2.02, F-3.04, and also the ordination vows.)
Third and a half institutional failure: The moderator could have and should have ruled the proposed amendment out of order on the basis of incompatibility with Part I of the constitution when that motion was made, but I only call his not doing so a “half-failure” because, in his defense, he and the assembly had received inadequate and even misleading advice from the ACC and its chair and no advice at all about preserving and defending the constitution from the stated clerk.
Probably the issue of same-gender marriage will come up again in 2014. At least the church has time to “count the cost” (Luke 14:28). The important change before the General Assembly at that time will not be (as will be argued) primarily about approving same-gender marriage. That could be approved decently and in order — though not quickly — by first amending or adding to the Book of Confessions. No, the real vote will be on whether the PC(USA) continues to be a confessional church.
Appendix: Places where the Book of Confessions says that marriage is between a man and a woman: bit.ly/U5IsxO
WINFIELD CASEY JONES is pastor of First Church of Pearland, Texas, and was a candidate for General Assembly stated clerk in 2000 and 2008.
