Two previous General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) created task forces to look at sexual misconduct and abuse prevention in the church. The reports of these task forces were among the business referred from the 2020 General Assembly to the 2022 General Assembly. Both are on the docket of the Health, Safety and Benefits (HSB) Committee of this year’s assembly.
The Safe and Sacred Space Task Force was created by the 222nd General Assembly. Made up of representatives of lower governing bodies, it was asked to “Work with congregations on implementing child/youth/vulnerable protection policies” and to “Find, use, and/or create appropriate resources.”
This task force presented an interim report to the 223rd General Assembly as an information item and made their final report to the 224th General Assembly. Due to time constraints, this report was relegated as referred business and is included as an information item for the HSB Committee this year. No items requiring General Assembly action are recommended by this task force and the final report was not updated from the original.
The 223rd General Assembly approved a new Survivors of Sexual Misconduct Task Force with five members that was recommended by the Advisory Committee for Women’s Concerns with reference to the Safe and Sacred Space Task Force. It had a much larger mandate to oversee the implementation of particular actions of the General Assembly, examine PC(USA) policy and process, evaluate the collection of information about sexual misconduct allegations and charges and return with recommendations to the 224th General Assembly. As noted, this report was also referred to the upcoming assembly and the HSB Committee will consider their recommendations, including five proposed changes to the Book of Order. This report reflects a moderate number of changes from the report since the last assembly.
The task force’s report discusses their work with the Rules of Discipline (ROD) Task Force that will also be reporting at this assembly. There was a bit of back-and-forth with that task force, as described in its report, but the two groups ultimately agreed on a set of revisions for the Book of Order.
Additionally, one of the recommendations in the Sexual Misconduct Task Force report has been moved to the ROD Committee’s business items on the recommendation of the OGA to avoid confusion with two committees working on the same item. The ROD Task Force will recommend including an “appendix to the Book of Order on the judicial process in cases explicitly involving sexual misconduct” which the Survivors of Sexual Misconduct Task Force “eagerly supports.”
One of the themes in the polity changes presented by the Survivors of Sexual Misconduct Task Force is to have allegations of sexual abuse addressed at the presbytery level. A proposed change to the Rules of Discipline would add a section to the current D-10.0104 to have allegations of sexual abuse by a congregation member be automatically and immediately referred to the presbytery’s stated clerk who will initiate the judicial process with the formation of an investigating committee. Another proposed change to the Form of Government section in G-2.0605 makes it so that individuals in the inquiry or candidacy phase while working towards ordination as a minister of Word and sacrament are members of their particular church, but are under the “concern and discipline of the presbytery.”
As expressed in the rationale, the task force believes the presbytery is better equipped with the experience and resources to properly investigate allegations and is less likely to have the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The report also recommends adding requirements for boundary training for spiritual leaders for candidates for the ministry of Word and sacrament to be certified ready (a new G-2.0607e), commissioned ruling elders (G-2.1002), and certified Christian educators and certified associate Christian educators (G-2.1103b). The presbytery is responsible for deciding what training is acceptable and the training must be renewed every 36 months.
Based on this new policy, authorized individuals must commit to renewing this training every three years. As the advice of the Advisory Committee on the Constitution (ACC) points out, it does not provide guidance regarding whether those ministers already ordained must start complying with this requirement. It made suggestions for rewording this section and adding language to the section requiring councils to have sexual misconduct policies and adding a section (G-3.0307) to cover the boundary and sexual misconduct prevention training.
In fact, the ACC recommends against all of the proposed changes to the Book of Order as the report is currently written. For the other amendments that require training for commissioned ruling elders and Christian educators, the objection is on the technical language and undefined terms. For the amendments to move discipline from the congregation to the presbytery for members, and those in inquiry and candidacy, their objection is that the change “undermines the covenant relationship between members of congregations and their sessions.”
These considerations will give the HSB Committee some interesting discussions around PC(USA) polity and the opportunity to craft language that helps bridge this gap.
Finally, the report includes a recommendation directing the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency to develop support for presbyteries and congregations as they educate members about sexual misconduct in the church, respond to allegations of sexual misconduct, and provide training and resources for these entities in the church to appropriately help survivors and those in the church around them.
In addition to these topics, the HSB committee will also consider proposals relating to the mental health ministry, reproductive justice and paid family leave when they meet June 23-25, 2022.
