MILWAUKEE — On July 1, the 227th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted 369-98 on overture RIW-01 to create a seven-member commission investigating the 2025 dissolution of Presbyterian World Mission and the termination of all mission co-worker positions. Commissioners spent nearly five hours debating and amending the assembly committee’s original recommendation into something with more reach.
Related reading: Presbyterian Outlook’s reporting on World Mission cuts
The debate spanned two plenary sessions, an overnight recess and nine floor amendments. Commissioners also voted 410-5 to fold into the review process FIN-12, a Presbyterian Foundation review of restricted funds designated for World Mission, and 436-1 to answer RIW-07, a related Philadelphia Presbytery overture, with the action taken on RIW-01.
Task force becomes commission
Last week, the Reformed Identity Around the World (RIW) Committee had recommended a 17-member task force, which was approved 49-8. But on the floor Tuesday night, commissioners voted 375-88 to replace it with a substitute motion establishing a commission instead. A commission exercises a council’s authority while a task force only researches and reports.
Where the original overture called for a general review, the substitute motion approved by the assembly named specifically the review is to include decisions made by staff and leadership of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation (A Corp), Presbyterian Life & Witness (PL&W), and the stated clerk of the General Assembly, as they relate to the closing of World Mission and ending the more than 200-year-old mission co-worker ministry.
The commission may, at its discretion, make recommendations to the governing boards of PL&W and A Corp regarding disciplinary actions or terminations of staff “found to have engaged in harassment or coercive behaviors toward current or former World Mission or Global Ecumenical Partnerships employees.”
Mission co-worker testimony shifts the debate
The debate carried the weight of testimony from the day before, when Karla Koll, a teaching elder commissioner from Pueblo Presbytery and former mission co-worker, told the assembly she learned of her termination over a video call. On that call, a staff member told her, as previously reported by the Presbyterian Outlook: “It would be a shame if you lost your severance package.”
Jihyun Oh, stated clerk and executive director of the newly formed PL&W, addressed Koll’s testimony directly Tuesday night. “I was heartbroken yesterday to hear Karla Koll share what happened to her,” she told commissioners. “This was unknown to me, and an alternative pathway that I believe we need to take is to undertake our own investigation within the agency.”
The assembly rejected Oh’s suggestion of an internal investigation instead of an outside commission, as well as her suggestion to expand the commission’s scope to the last 30 years.
Ann Ditty, ruling elder commissioner from Heartland Presbytery who served on the RIW Committee, explained why she no longer trusted the version of events the committee had been given: “We took what was said as truth, and then the article came out from the Presbyterian Outlook with very different information,” she said of an Outlook report that contradicted committee testimony about the covenant that mission co-workers were told to sign. “Those that gave testimony to us failed or refused to provide the truth.”
Related reading: “Documents contradict PL&W testimony on covenant given to terminated mission co-workers” by Eric Ledermann, Outlook reporting
Prior to publication of the report, the Outlook sought from the stated clerk a response to the apparent contradictions about NDA-like language included in an email and covenant sent to mission co-workers prior to dismissal and what the committee was told by A Corp and PL&W staff. She was unable to respond before publication, but sent this response later:
“The language used during committee sought to distinguish between ‘Non-Disclosure Agreements’ – legally enforceable contracts protecting confidential and proprietary information – and the Employee Covenant. While Non-Disclosure Agreements are binding contracts, the testimony emphasized that the Employee Covenant itself was not considered to be a legally enforceable contract, did not contain a legal damages provision, was not conditioned on continued employment, and was not tied to the offer or acceptance of a severance package.”
Cristi Scott Ligon, co-moderator of the Unification Commission, told commissioners the UC opposed the substitute motion, arguing that employee discipline is operational, not a board’s business. Commissioners voted anyway, 375-88, to make the substitute motion the assembly’s main motion.
Assembly specifies the commission’s authority
After an overnight recess, four narrow amendments passed Wednesday morning: one requiring the commission to interview people directly rather than lean on documents; one prompted by a legal warning from A Corporation counsel April Davenport, routing any misconduct findings to existing personnel and legal channels instead of letting the commission adjudicate them; one adding conciliatory language to the motion’s opening; and one separating the restricted-funds review from the commission’s direct authority.
Two amendments failed — a ninth seat reserved for an independent accountant and a proposal to write expectations for future restructurings into the employee handbook. These were offered amid Carl Sohn, ruling elder commissioner from the Presbytery of Los Ranchos, charging that “this assembly is the most vindictive assembly I have ever seen.”
Commission approved after nearly five hours
Before the final vote, co-Moderator CeCe Armstrong called for a moment of silence and led the assembly in the Lord’s Prayer. Commissioners approved the amended substitute motion, 369-98. The debate that got them there split along a familiar line: institutional accountability against fear of something punitive. “This isn’t about accountability for an individual; it’s about accountability for all of us,” said Jason Russell, ruling elder commissioner from the Presbytery for Southern New Jersey.
Vanessa Hawkins, teaching elder commissioner from New Hope Presbytery and former staff at the national office during a 2005 downsizing, disagreed with Russell: “It’s purely punitive what we’re trying to do. We’re putting a straitjacket on the national office that we will not do in the other areas.”
The seven-member commission, to be appointed by the newly elected co-moderators Marta Pumroy-Cordero and Rev. Dr. Kristopher D. Schondelmeyer, must include a current or former member of the Racial Equity Advocacy Committee and a scholar in missiology, among others, and cannot include anyone who has worked or served on the board of A Corp, the UC, PL&W, the former Presbyterian Mission Agency or the former Office of the General Assembly.
During the debate, commissioners said their intent in creating the commission is restorative, not disciplinary, though the commission has authority to recommend disciplinary action of particular staff. An interim report is due to the 228th General Assembly in 2028, and a final report will be due at the 229th General Assembly in 2030.
New missiological statement also approved
Related to the closing of World Mission and its review, the assembly also approved RIW-02, calling for a new missiological statement to ground the PC(USA)’s future global engagement. Commissioners approved it 447-12 Tuesday night, directing PL&W staff and an advisory group – including at least one missiological scholar and one former mission co-worker – to draft the statement and report to the 228th GA in 2028.
