It’s that sense of outrage and unfairness — the certainty that in some presbyteries, sessions and pastors will defy the Constitution, and the governing bodies won’t do anything to stop them — that has led some evangelicals to declare that the PC(USA) is in a “constitutional crisis” and that the 214th General Assembly must be called back to do something about it, a recall of the General Assembly that’s never before happened in the PC(USA).
“The issue is schism — not homosexuality,” wrote Bob Davis, a California pastor who leads the Presbyterian Forum. In affirming the decision of a presbytery investigating committee last summer not to bring charges against Stroud, Baltimore Presbytery is “setting precedent that the Constitution does not apply if a presbytery does not want to abide by it,” Davis wrote.
In an interview, Jensen said he wasn’t surprised by the Baltimore PJC members’ ruling, which was made public on Nov. 14, because “every presbytery (in which he has made accusations) has appointed nothing but liberals to these committees. It’s a foregone conclusion how they’re going to decide every case . . . The time has come to act” and to call the General Assembly back.
“The decision of the Baltimore Presbytery in the Stroud case marks the end of the ‘Judicial Season’ and the beginning of the ‘Season of Apostasy,’ ” Jensen, an attorney in Northern Virginia, said in a written statement. “In this decision you have the Baltimore Presbytery interfering in the judicial process in an unconstitutional, unacceptable, unprecedented way. They have decided to use the Constitution as toilet paper, and the moderator and stated clerk of the General Assembly have stood idly by and let that happen.”
Of course, not everyone agrees with that view — for example, Clifton Kirkpatrick, the PC(USA)’s stated clerk, has characterized as “patently inaccurate” claims that nothing is being done to uphold the denomination’s Constitution, and said “there is no constitutional crisis.” Even before the Baltimore PJC decision was announced, the Mid-Atlantic Synod had decided to appoint an administrative review committee to review the actions of Baltimore Presbytery regarding Stroud, although that is a review of the procedures that were followed, not an appeal of the PJC’s decision.
And some who fully support “fidelity and chastity” do not think that calling the Assembly back is the way to go — Presbyterians for Renewal, for example, has taken that position.
Terry Schlossberg of Presbyterians Pro-Life, in an article titled “Just My Opinion,” has written that while defiance of the Constitution is “a matter of grave importance,” she thinks the arguments against calling the Assembly back outweigh those for doing it. “I suspect the vast majority of Presbyterians do not perceive a constitutional crisis,” Schlossberg wrote. Even those who support the constitutional standards on ordination might be “resentful about a move they could perceive to be unnecessarily costly, especially in light of the current budget crisis,” she wrote. “It might look to them suspiciously like an attempt to create a crisis where none exists.”
Schlossberg also raised the prospect that the Assembly, if it did come back, might stick with what it’s already done. That Assembly already voted, by a 70-30 margin, on how to respond to an overture from Shenango Presbytery that had asked the Assembly to act regarding Christ church in Burlington, Vt. The session of that congregation adopted a statement in 1997 saying it could not comply with the “fidelity and chastity” language — a statement the Christ church session decided to “set aside” last summer, just days before the General Assembly was being asked to consider the question of whether there had been adequate compliance with a General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission ruling in the case.
In its overture, Shenango presbytery had asked the Assembly to require Northern New England presbytery to create an administrative commission to deal further with Christ Church — something the Assembly, after considerable debate, was unwilling to do. And Schlossberg wrote that “in fact, there is a likelihood that 600 commissioners being forced back into session by 50 of their colleagues to repeat a decision they had already made would not be welcomed . . . I’d be looking for something like a loud chant before I’d think it a good idea to call an Assembly back into session that had already voted 70% against what I was hoping for as an outcome.”
What will happen next is up for grabs. Alex Metherell, the commissioner from Laguna Beach, Calif/. who’s leading the campaign to recall the Assembly, is said to need just a handful of signatures — apparently from minister commissioners — to formally make that request.
If he gets enough signatures, some questions still remain. Among them: How quickly could the Assembly be called back? What exactly would it be asked to do? And what would happen if the Assembly did come back — but did not vote the way that Metherell thinks it should? Here’s more on those points.
Timing
Is it 60 days or 120? Metherell, who could not be reached for an interview, has said in an open letter to the denomination, dated Nov. 12, that the Assembly could be called back within 60 days notice (at this stage, by mid-to-late January at the earliest). But Fahed Abu-Akel, moderator of the 214th General Assembly, has sent a letter to commissioners saying that he opposes calling the Assembly back and that he would need to give commissioners 120 days notice, that “I would not be able to call a special Assembly until late March at the earliest.” That’s because Kirkpatrick’s office has determined that a constitutional interpretation would be involved — a conclusion that, not surprisingly, Metherell disputes.
What’s the Business?
Part of that disagreement arises from a lack of clarity about what exactly the recalled Assembly would be asked to do. The petition that Metherell has circulated among General Assembly commissioners, asking them to support calling the Assembly back into session, lists three purposes for the meeting:
• To continue oversight in the judicial case involving Christ church. Metherell’s petition states the Assembly would be asked to “continue oversight” of that PJC ruling “in order to effect compliance with the Constitution” of the PC(USA).
• To “respond to the growing defiance of, delinquency and enforcement of the Constitution” regarding the fidelity and chastity language and regarding same-sex unions.
• To “exercise all necessary powers authorized to the General Assembly under the Constitution to propose and adopt directives to officers, agencies and governing bodies in order to deal with all matters relating to the issues” raised above.
What exactly he means by that — in other words, what specific actions the Assembly would be asked to take — is not spelled out further. Metherell, in his letter to the denomination, contends that neither Abu-Akel nor Kirkpatrick have called him to ask if the stated purpose for calling the Assembly back would require constitutional interpretation, and “it has never been my intention that the business of the called meeting include either an amendment to or an interpretation of the Constitution.” Metherell states that “I would hope our first order of business would be to get on our knees and seek the Lord’s leading for his church. If in the course of our subsequent discussion, someone should make a motion that would require an interpretation of the Constitution, members of the Advisory Committee on the Constitution will be present to provide that interpretation to us.”
But Gradye Parsons, of the Office of the Stated Clerk, said that anything the General Assembly does that deals with rules of discipline “is a matter of interpretation” and would require 120 days notice. “Alex has yet to say what is the motion he’s going to put on the floor,” Parsons said. “So we have to go with what we know,” with what’s listed in the petition.
What Might the Assembly Do?
Longtime Assembly watchers always say they’ve learned one thing: never try to predict what an Assembly will do. But Jensen, speaking only for himself, said “I’m confident those commissioners in their collective wisdom, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, will reach a solution. I have no doubt.”
Jensen has said that if Metherell gets enough signatures and Abu-Akel refuses to call the Assembly back, the commissioners should meet anyway — and that if the moderator wouldn’t recall the Assembly “there’s going to be such a hue and cry in this denomination that has never been heard before. It will end up in the secular courts . . . There would be a long line of people waiting to file that one.”
Parsons said that if Metherell collects enough valid signatures on the petition, “we’ll do it” — Abu-Akel will call the Assembly back. “Fahed doesn’t want to do it, but he’ll do it,” Parsons said. “We’re not going to kick it out on procedural grounds.”
That does, however, raise the question of what would happen if the Assembly came back and did not vote in a way that properly redressed, in the views of people like Metherell and Jensen, what they see as the constitutional crisis. Would they then turn to the secular courts to declare the PC(USA) in schism?
Jensen said: “We will, I believe, see the Holy Spirit working in that Assembly . . . so the apostasy is addressed and the defiance ceases. The alternative is schism.”
Aside from that, the other cases Jensen has filed — he’s initiated disciplinary actions against more than 20 Presbyterians in 10 presbyteries — are working their way through the system, way too slowly, he contends. After the investigating committee in Baltimore decided last summer not to file charges against Stroud, publicly Stroud said again that he would not comply with the “fidelity and chastity” language — and Jensen said he is still considering whether to file new charges against Stroud on the basis of those statements. Stroud, in an e-mail, said he had not yet read the PJC decision and would have no immediate comment.
