TULSA -- Some say that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has historically permitted freedom of conscience within certain bounds.
But the presbyteries never intended the denomination's ordination standards regarding sexual behavior to be anything but required and compulsory, contends Robert Gagnon, a New Testament professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Those standards -- which limit ordination to those who practice fidelity if they're married or chastity if they are single -- should mean the PC(USA) won't ordain sexually active gays and lesbians, and will not countenance what Gagnon calls "serial unrepentant sexual immorality."
Robert Gagnon
(PNS) With health care costs continuing to rise annually by nearly 10 percent, the Board of Pensions (BOP) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has voted to raise its Medical Plan dues by one-half percent, to 19.5 percent of "effective salary."
The increase, which brings total dues for medical plus pension benefits to 31.5 percent, is effective Jan. 1, 2007. The board approved the increase at its July 13-15, along with subscription increases in related health care programs, such as the Affiliated Benefits Plan (an 8.8 percent increase) and medical coverage for seminary students (an increase commensurate with the Medical Plan dues increase).
Editor's Note: This is the first of a three-part series. An enlarged version of this and the two articles to follow may be found in the booklet, Bearing the Marks of the Church, published by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Theology and Worship. Also available online at the Re-forming Ministry website: https://www.pcusa.org/re-formingministry/papers/nicene_marks.pdf
The issue that is either openly addressed or subtly at work in all our discussions about a denomination like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is the fact that Christendom is over. "Christendom" is the partnership of church, state, and society initiated in the fourth century under the Emperor Constantine. Wherever one is located on the theological or ecclesial spectrum, the end of Christendom is the common ground that links us together.
How will we, within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), work with this contextual change in which we find ourselves today? Can we understand that the end of Christendom is a way for us to begin to reassess the western theological tradition from the liberating perspective of the actual and unquestioned end of Christendom?
(PNS/ENS) -- Church relief agencies were pleading July 25 for an urgent cease-fire so emergency assistance can be provided to hundreds of thousands of civilians uprooted and threatened by Israeli bombarding of Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
W. Andrew Adair, who has been working as a mission co-worker for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Asia, has been named associate director for mission sending of the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship and The Outreach Foundation. He will lead their new effort to fund and send their own missionaries.
Since 1997, Adair and his wife, Teri, have worked in Asia, where he has helped direct a partnership involving workers from close to a dozen countries and a variety of agencies. Before that, he worked as mission pastor for Highland Church in Dallas.
Adair, a former investment banker, earned a master's in divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary. He will be based in Houston.
David Dobler addresses crowd at Montreat conference.
A once-in-a-lifetime gathering of seminary presidents and former moderators brought their impressive brain power and experience together to discern where to go from here now that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly has approved the recommendations of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church.
About 270 participants came to meet with 10 seminary presidents (or their representatives) and 16 former moderators at Montreat, NC, to plan for the future. The majority of leaders represented a moderate or left-of-moderate viewpoint. The participants ranged from conservative to moderate to liberal. Missing were the very conservative and the very liberal voices. Also missing, at least from the podium, was the denomination's stated clerk or a representative from his office.
LOUISVILLE -- The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has fired its associate director for finance and accounting, Judy Golliher, after discovering that she has embezzled at least $102,000 from the church.
The theft has been reported to the Jefferson County Commonwealth Attorney's office and criminal prosecution is being considered.
LOUISVILLE -- Musimbi Kanyora, a native of Kenya, lives in Geneva, Switzerland now -- she's general secretary of the World YWCA. So she thinks of the challenges of diversity with a global view, not an American one
Kanyora has seen what she calls "the growing fear of the different other," and says that racism has sometimes made her fear she could be attacked as she walks along a street in Europe. She sees how vulnerable many Muslims in Western countries feel.
And Kanyora, speaking July 8 at the 2006 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women, held up her arm to display three wristbands: three brightly-colored reminders of how the economic diversity of have and have-not plays out in the world.
LOUISVILLE -- Trying to get one's arms around the 2006 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women is like trying to grab hold of a river dashing down a hillside -- there's too much at once, and always more coming.
The Gathering -- held July 7 to 11 in Louisville -- brings together about 3,000 Presbyterian women from around the United States and also more than 80 global partners, who come to share stories of the faith and work of women from their countries.
It is partly a celebration of Presbyterian Women's long history of hard work on behalf of mission -- a recognition of the strength and service women have brought to Presbyterian congregations through the generations.
LOUISVILLE--Mission networks have proved to be a valuable component of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s international mission work and their importance will grow, declared a PC(USA) mission leader after a gathering of mission network leaders here July 13-14.
"The network experiment has been successful beyond expectations," said Will Browne, associate director for Ecumenical Partnerships, in an interview. "Networks are here to stay to help the whole of the PC(USA) engage in international mission. They are generating a growing energy across our church."
Leaders of 20 of the denomination's 26 mission networks came together for the consultation. Mission networks are groups of Presbyterians who share a common interest in a country, people group, or programmatic emphasis. An outgrowth of mission partnerships developed by synods, presbyteries and congregations, networks provide a venue for partnership participants to relate to international partners, connect with PC(USA) international mission staff and mission personnel, think about common strategies, coordinate efforts and share best practices.
TULSA -- What exactly the New Wineskins Association of Churches is -- and what it wants to become -- is still shaking out.
The group will hold its third convocation Feb. 8 and 9 in Orlando, after a flurry of other gatherings that may shine some light on the mood of the evangelical wing of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) A steering committee will have more recommendations then.
In the meantime, some pieces have fallen into place. And on some other things, the New Wineskins convocation, meeting July 19 to 22 in Oklahoma, decided, "Not yet."
TULSA -- What does it mean to have unity in Christ?
For some supporters of the New Wineskins movement, unity is getting new interpretations -- focusing in part on finding unity with Christians in the Southern hemisphere, or among evangelicals in other settings, but not necessarily within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
"If we're going to talk about unity in the church, we have to talk about the church -- not the American church, but the body of Christ," crossing every race and place, Dean Weaver, a Pennsylvania pastor and the co-moderator of New Wineskins, told that network's national convocation July 20.
"What we are about here today is not about how we realign a small group of American Western Presbyterians," but how Presbyterians fall into line with what God is doing around the globe, Weaver said.
The 217th General Assembly was a "down the middle" Assembly. It elected a moderator who seemed moderate and open-minded. It approved the report of the Theological Task Force (TTF) on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church (for short, "PUP Report"), which most regard as offering more leeway for the ordination of gay and lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) church members. But it resolutely refused to consider amending the Book of Order to delete the prohibition in G-6.01206b; it refused even to keep these overtures alive by referring them to the next General Assembly.
The key recommendation of the PUP Report was Number 5, in which the Task Force called on the 2006 General Assembly to adopt an authoritative interpretation ("AI" for short) of G-6.0108b. This AI acknowledges formally that 8b has already established the legitimacy of "departures" ("scruples" in the language of the Adopting Act) from adherence to the letter of the Constitution, as long as they are not violations of the "essential and necessary" features of Reformed faith, practice, and polity.
Recent discussions in many quarters are focused on congregations and presbyteries considering removing themselves from the denomination. Questions about dissolution and secession or expressions of grave concern about future relationships with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have arisen largely in response to the Report of the Task Force For the Peace, Unity, and Purity (PUP) and possible responses to it by the General Assembly meeting in Birmingham.
The clearest expressions of concern came from presbyteries and congregations, and also from coalitions of Presbyterians not officially connected with the PC(USA), governing bodies and groups that opposed the recommendations, usually from a conservative evangelical perspective. The Presbyterian Coalition, for example, indicated in a statement released on October 10, 2005, that the PUP report, "... if adopted, will undermine the church's purity and exacerbate the denomination's disunity. Indeed, it will promote schism by permitting the disregard of clear standards of Scripture and the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)." The Coalition will meet in Atlanta with the recently formed Presbyterian Global Fellowship after the General Assembly, presumably to make common plans about direction in a post-Task-Force-Report church. In its mission statement the latter says that it considers the PC(USA) to be in a deep crisis, an inward looking organization that is "an aging, dying, visionless denomination."
TULSA -- They've come from all over the country, fired up, Presbyterians wanting answers for a church many of them think has jumped off the cliff.
"Why are we here?" asked New Wineskins co-moderator Dean Weaver July 19 during the opening session of the Wineskins' second national convocation.
They are here, he replied, because "everything has changed" in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). "We are here because everything has changed, but God has not."
And the church, he said, "is not a denomination."
Around the globe, Christianity is exploding in faithfulness, fervor, and numbers, Weaver said -- and Presbyterians want to be part of that. But the PC(USA)'s General Assembly did things in June that have caused the Presbyterian Lay Committee's board of directors to say the assembly has "broken covenant and invited schism" and taken a "plunge into apostasy" -- things the Lay Committee contends cannot be fixed from within.
Weaver said one online blogger announced recently: "Enough is enough, and we are going to take action."
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission workers and ecumenical partners in the Middle East have not suffered physical harm from the violence that is gripping Lebanon and Israel.
"All our mission workers, partners and other colleagues are reported safe," said Victor Makari, the PC(USA)'s area coordinator for the Middle East, on Tuesday. "This includes pastors in southern Lebanon very close to the border with Israel. All our colleagues (in Lebanon) are stuck in their homes, some sleeping in hallways away from windows and outside walls."
The violence between Israel and Hezbollah, which began July 12, has claimed the lives of 210 Lebanese and 24 Israelis as of Tuesday, according to media reports.
BIRMINGHAM -- Now that the General Assembly has blown through town, what does the map of the Presbyterian world look like?
First, for a lot of Presbyterians, things look exactly the same. The world did not end because a General Assembly met for a week in Alabama. Presbyterians still bow their heads to ask God's blessing and work to make the world a better place, as they have done for generations. And perhaps those faithful Presbyterians carrying on without pause may help to balance out those who can't sleep for thinking about what the assembly just did.
For the insomniacs, the reality is settling in something like this.
It will take time -- months, maybe longer -- for the repercussions of the assembly's decisions to echo through the church.
Some say the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has handed presbyteries and sessions a loophole for ordaining sexually-active gays and lesbians, others aren't so sure. It's likely the Presbyterian church courts will play a role in sorting it out.
And in the meantime, Presbyterians will have to figure out what being faithful means for them. Some pastors and congregations are scouring their consciences about whether to leave the PC(USA), although many conservatives are counseling people not to run for the exits.
"The Presbyterian Panel," the denomination's ongoing study of a representative sample of Presbyterians, was surveyed just before the General Assembly about some big issues before the church, especially the report of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church (PUP). The results of that survey were not tabulated nor analyzed until after the Assembly. We can now get a first look at how members, elders, pastors, and specialized clergy (those not serving congregations) think about PUP.
The PUP report began with a traditional theological foundation, and the survey shows that the church agrees. In response to basic claims, taken directly from the PUP report, overwhelming majorities of members, elders, and pastors -- more than 90 percent -- agree, "my faith is in the God of Israel who raised Jesus Christ bodily from the dead." Likewise, more than 80 percent of each group agrees, "Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through him." Most specialized clergy, always the most liberal group of the four, also agreed with both traditional claims, though at a lower level (84 percent and 64 percent, respectively). Above 80 percent of each group believe that the Bible is the true Word of God, reaching more than 90 percent among pastors.
Editor's Note: Little did they know. Having served on the Session of the Southminster Church in South Daytona Beach, Fla., Linda Davis was none too proud when her young adult son, Lloyd, was ordained and installed as elder on the church's Session. The 1990's were approaching. These were booming days in the life of the church in which Lloyd had been confirmed and married--to a bride he had met there in second grade Sunday School. Little did he or Linda know that, on the encouragement of the pastor and a few elders, the Session would soon initiate a process of investigation into the possibility of withdrawing from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Such an action was allowed in the Articles of Agreement (Article 13) that guided the reunion of the northern and southern streams of the church. That process split the church and nearly split their family.
BIRMINGHAM -- Ann Philbrick, moderator of the General Assembly committee on Social Justice Issues, invited the commissioners to take a late-night trip around the world on the assembly's final evening-- paying attention to concerns ranging from immigration to torture to globalization.
It was late, after midnight by the end, and the commissioners were weary -- but the matters before them were of the kind that matter deeply, night or day.
BIRMINGHAM -- Supporters of the Presbyterian Historical Society office at Montreat, N.C, fought until the end -- but did not prevail.
The General Assembly voted 348-147 on June 21 to approve a plan to close the history office at Montreat, a move that some argued was financially necessary, but others said would be stripping the denomination of an important piece of its heritage.
In the fall of 2005, the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly voted to close the office at Montreat. The plan, as it evolved, was to consolidate the holdings at the Presbyterian Historical Society office in Philadelphia and at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia.
BIRMINGHAM -- The General Assembly has voted 282-212 to receive a report on the nature of the Trinity, after an attempt to send the report back for more study and work was defeated by a close vote -- 227 to 240.
Those votes reflect a debate in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) over language in the report -- and particularly over what words are acceptable to use to describe the Trinity.
BIRMINGHAM -- The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted 402-74-5 to approve a statement on the post viability and later-term abortions after amended it by adding portions of a previously adopted position in 2003.
The original overture was proposed by Redstone (Pa.) Presbytery to the GA's Health Issues Committee.
BIRMINGHAM -- (PNS) The 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted overwhelmingly June 20 to leave the "fidelity-chastity" ordination standard for church officers in the denomination's Constitution.
The Assembly's 405-92 vote with four abstentions affirmed a recommendation from the Assembly Committee on Church Orders to keep G-6.0106b in the denomination's Book of Order. The provision requires "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness."
BIRMINGHAM - The Christian faith stands against an implacable empire of complex networks--governments, militaries, multi-national corporations, media--and it must stand firm and strong, Chicago professor and Middle East specialist Donald Wagner told the National Middle East Presbyterian Caucus at its General Assembly dinner Sunday night.
The amalgam of secular political, economic, and social forces joined in mutual self-interest with Christian Zionism contributes especially to the deteriorating situation in Israel and Palestine, he said, citing his impressions from a recent trip to Israel and the West Bank. Christian Zionists portray Jesus as an imperial crusader, "180 degrees opposite the gospel of love for the poor," he pointed out. He called on churches and caucus members not only to be bridges, but also to be prophets in this situation.
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