Just hours before a much-anticipated and controversial vote on whether Presbyterian ministers should be allowed to perform same-sex marriages, the 2014 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) spent time Thursday morning discussing the recommendations coming to it.
The assembly’s Civil Union and Marriage Issues Committee has recommended approving both an authoritative interpretation allowing PC(USA) ministers the freedom of conscience to perform such marriages, and also a change to the denomination’s constitution to define Christian marriage as being between “two persons” instead of between “a man and a woman,” as it currently reads. An authoritative interpretation would be effective immediately, but any change in the PC(USA) constitution also would require approval from a majority of the denomination’s 172 presbyteries.
“This morning, each one of us is encouraged to tell our story and to connect it to God’s story,” said former General Assembly moderator Susan Andrews as she introduced the discussion time. “This is not a debate. There is no vote. There are no deadlines,” but instead “a time to listen deeply. Listen with our hearts and not just our ears.”
Rebecca Tollefson and Jeff Bridgeman, the committee’s vice-moderator and moderator, fielded a series of questions from commissioners for about 10 minutes – intended not as a time for debate, but to offer clarification.
Among them: under the proposals, if a session of a church did not want a same-sex marriage performed at the church, but the minister of the church did want to perform the marriage, what would happen? The answer: the session would decide whether church property could be used for such a marriage. The teaching elder could perform the marriage at another location.
Another question: if a minister were asked to perform a same-sex marriage in a state where that was legal, but the minister worked in a state that did not allow same-sex marriages, would the teaching elder need permission from his or her presbytery? Answer: we’re not sure, but ask again during the afternoon debate, when resource people should be available to provide more information.
Tollefson acknowledged that if the assembly supports the committee’s recommendations, some may feel disenfranchised or wounded, and “others will surely feel at home, at last.”
After the question-and-answer session, commissioners spent 25 minutes in small-group discussions, answering two questions:
- What did you hear that might lead someone to support the committee’s recommendations?
- What did you hear that might keep someone from supporting the committee’s recommendations?
“These are not the issues that define us,” assembly moderator Heath Rada said in leading the commissioners in prayer for those who might be hurt by what the assembly votes to do on same-sex marriage – no matter what that is. Rada prayed: “May we have respect and clarity and love, and be centered, centered on You.”
