By Leslie Scanlon and John Sniffen A California elder’s call for a special session of the 214th General Assembly reportedly has almost enough numerical support, but other voices in the church say it’s either not necessary or the wrong time. Alex Metherell, a commissioner from Los Ranchos Presbytery, started his appeal last month in an "urgent and confidential" e-mail to a select group of commissioners, saying that the PC(USA) "faces a full-blown constitutional crisis." "Storm clouds that were developing in the months before we gathered in Columbus have now developed to such a degree that the constitutional integrity of our denomination is being threatened," he wrote. "If the defiance that we are witnessing continues to go unchecked, we will no longer be a constitutional church. "At our meeting in Columbus in June, we chose to remain silent in dealing … [Read more...]

But the Sebastian case, as it's being called, has quickly turned into a firestorm — inciting passion and rhetoric, causing people to read all kinds of implications into what's happened there. Some in the Confessing Church Movement are appalled, saying that congregations should have the right to insist that the people they ordain will affirm bedrock statements of faith lifted from the Book of Confessions. But others contend that the Sebastian case raises questions of freedom of conscience and of whether some Confessing Churches may have gone too far, imposing standards for ordination or even for membership that go beyond what the PC(USA) Constitution requires. The short version of what happened in Florida is this: in February, the Permanent Judicial Commission of Central Florida Presbytery ordered the Sebastian session to rescind a resolution that the session of … [Read more...]

In January, after five years of service, McAtee will step aside from his position as a volunteer in international mission for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which means he no longer will regularly lead groups of Presbyterians to the island to learn about Cuba, although he does have one last trip scheduled for March. The work that McAtee had been doing will be taken over by Tricia Lloyd-Sidle, who is leaving the PC(USA)'s national staff to become a mission co-worker with responsibility for Cuba -- a new position created in part, she said, because Cuban Presbyterians have stressed that, with McAtee stepping down, they are eager for someone who can spend even more time building relationships between Presbyterians there and in the United States. Already, there is a whole constellation of partnerships between the Cuban Presbyterians and U.S. presbyteries and even individual congregations. Many Presbyterians in this country have a deep interest in Cuba, and "the Presbyterian church in … [Read more...]