Since earliest times of the Reformed Tradition, the marks of the true Church have been: “the Word of God is truly preached and heard, the Sacraments are rightly administered, and ecclesiastical discipline is uprightly ministered.” This triad forms the framework for how we identify the church in our recently approved Form of Government: “the Church proclaims and hears the Word of God, administers and receives the Sacraments, and nurtures a covenant community of disciples of Christ.” F-1.0303. In the Form of Government, this paradigm is declared the fundamental expression of the unity of the Church, G-3.0101, and the duties and responsibilities of all councils are laid out in in that framework. G-3.02-05.
It is a sign of the times that we could not bring ourselves to use the term “ecclesiastical discipline” in the title of the third track, substituting for it “nurtures a covenant community of disciples of Christ.” To be sure, included in this track for councils at all levels is the charge to serve “in judicial matters in accordance with the Rules of Discipline.” But including it at the tail end suggests that at best, the notion of discipline in today’s church seems to be an afterthought.
The citation of the Rules of Discipline is significant, though, for these Rules are designed to ensure that certain behaviors are followed by individuals and councils. That is, the historic notion of discipline does not mean only that individuals are required to behave in certain ways, but that the councils of the church also follow the rules to which we have covenanted when we approved our Book of Order. Such is what it means to do things “decently and in order.”
Discipline in our councils has been on the decline for a generation. Some sessions and presbyteries have intentionally violated the rule against ordaining non-celibate gays and lesbians. Some sessions have intentionally violated the polity rules relating to property. Nearly a third of our presbyteries have not paid their full per capita apportionments. A Presbytery has recently refused to comply with a judicial order to censure one of its members, an order that had withstood appeals all the way to the General Assembly.
And then there is the notion that a person has the right to disobey a church rule when he or she thinks it wrong. Frequently the rationale is the notion of civil disobedience, a concept presaged by Mohandas Ghandi and now common in civil law: A person intentionally and publicly violates a law as a way of saying it cannot stand because it is in violation of the Constitution of the United States or a state. The intent of the action is to enforce the rights granted under the Constitution. In practice the violators admit their violation and willingly accept punishment for the violation. The Church, however is not the state. We do not have laws in the same way the state does; we have only the Constitution. Such actions in the church, then, can only violate the Constitution itself, so the effect is not to strengthen the Constitution of the Church but to fracture it. Which is what we are seeing: The notion that we must comply with the Book of Order or Confessions even though we do not like it is a passing principle.
In all cases, the claim is made that there is some higher authority or circumstance that justifies the refusal of a council or person to comply with provisions of the Book of Order. Because so many in council and in person are refusing to comply with provisions of our Book of Order, discipline in our church is at best moribund.
The results are very serious. For nearly three centuries, the Presbyterian Church in its various forms was glued together substantially by the Westminster Standards. In 1967, the United Presbyterian Church adopted a Book of Confessions because the Standards did not seem to fit the time. In the April 29, 2012 decision of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, Eric Parnell et al v. Presbytery of San Francisco (2010-10), the Presbytery argued and the GAPJC agreed that the Confessions (as well as Scripture) are insufficient to establish a standard to a which presbytery can be held accountable in deciding on ordination. This same principle was stated by the Advisory Committee on the Constitution during the recent 220th General Assembly in Pittsburgh when a question was posed whether the Form of Government could declare that the Confessions are an enforceable standard in ordination matters. The ACC responded, as had the Permanent Judicial Commission earlier, that since there are many confessions, and since they did not all agree, and since people disagreed in their interpretations, the Confessions cannot be an enforceable standard.
The Rules of Discipline calls an offense “any act or omission by a member or a person in an ordered ministry of the church that is contrary to the Scriptures or the Constitution . . .”, D-2.0203b. The Confessions are part I of the Constitution, the Book of Order is Part II. Current interpretations, made under high pressure by those who challenge the standards, suggest the only enforceable offense against an individual is when he or she violates the Book of Order, not Scripture nor Confessions. The importance of this for our Church is simply huge.
More recently, in the disciplinary case Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) v. Laurie McNeill, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission very narrowly interpreted the law, indeed even ignoring its own decision in an earlier case on the same issue, to find a teaching elder’s intentional flouting of the rules on same-sex marriage and fidelity and chastity (the former G-6.0106b) was not a violation. That very same Permanent Judicial Commission broadly interpreted rules on the trust clause to find against a Presbytery on every count when it tried to create a “gracious separation” policy. Tom, et al v. the Presbytery of San Francisco. The distinction in application of law between the two cases suggests that in the common practice, property may be more important than propriety.
Given the general decline of the whole notion of discipline, it was not surprising when at least two commissioners to the General Assembly in Pittsburgh declared their intention to disobey the Constitution. In the course of the extensive and difficult debate on marriage issues, several commissioners tried to persuade the General Assembly by announcing they will conduct marriages of same-sex partners even if the General Assembly did not approve it.
A grounding premise of our polity is that the “the larger part of the church, or a representation thereof, shall govern the smaller.” F-3.0203. In these days, the ethos is strong that an individual’s wisdom is deemed greater than that of the church assembled, and so any individual or council may violate the rules as he or she sees fit. Even more, the idea embedded in our tradition since 1758 that if we cannot go along with the decisions of the greater church, and if we cannot persuade the church to change, we should peacefully withdraw, G-2.0105 fn1, seems to have effect no more. In its place is the assertion that if a person cannot persuade, he or she can simply disobey.
Once upon a time the Presbyterian Church was defined by what we believe. For better or worse, the adoption of the Book of Confessions in 1967 substantially attenuated that identity. Since 1967, the glue that has been the major bond of Presbyterians has been our polity, the elegant covenant we have developed over the years on how we shall govern ourselves. It appears that since members and governing bodies feel increasingly free to violate this covenant we have with each other, there is little left to bind us together.
Which helps explain why it is that we are fragmenting. There is no discipline in the land, and everyone does what is right in his own eyes.
