Category Archives: governing bodies

PC(USA) Synod PJC Decision — St. Andrews Session v. Santa Barbara Presbytery Regarding Union Presbyteries

On Friday, 9 November , the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii heard a remedial case against the Presbytery of Santa Barbara that challenged their action to reorganize themselves as a union presbytery between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO). The decision in Session of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara, CA, et al., Complainants vs The Presbytery of Santa Barbara, Respondents, was announced the next morning but the written decision was not released until the following Wednesday morning.

For a whole variety of reasons I have been working through various ways to present my analysis of this case. I have decided to present an executive summary, then discuss the bulk of the case in my typical fashion. The issue that has engendered the greatest amount of discussion since the decision was announced are the parts dealing with ECO so I want to address those in their own section. And then I will finish up with a look at the dissenting opinion and some general conclusions and comments.

Executive Summary
Nineteen charges were brought against the Presbytery for their action to try and restructure themselves as a union presbytery. All but one of the charges were sustained. The sustained charges included two that argued that ECO, with its Presbytery of the West, is not a Reformed body and not qualified for participation in a union presbytery.

What this means: Santa Barbara’s efforts to create a union presbytery are effectively halted unless this case is overturned on appeal to the General Assembly PJC (GAPJC), a prospect I consider unlikely based on this decision and other recent decisions.

What this does not mean: Since a Synod PJC decision is only binding on the parties involved in the case (207th GA AI on D-7.0402b) this does not automatically disqualify ECO as a Reformed body that churches may be dismissed to.

What this might mean: This decision is precedent setting for the presbyteries in the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii (same AI as above). However, the decision was regarding a union presbytery and not dismissal and in my mind there are a bunch of other issues that call into question the applicability of this precedent and make me think it could be successfully challenged. (That is why the ECO issue gets its own section further on). But I could be wrong.

The SPJC Decision
On 2 June 2012 the Presbytery of Santa Barbara held a called meeting and approved with a 73% majority a Plan of Union for Santa Barbara Union Presbytery (the Plan). Shortly after a remedial case was filed with the Synod PJC listing 19 irregularities. At trial on 9 November both Complainants and Respondents were represented but the Respondents only presented opening and closing arguments and did not have pre-trial briefs or present any additional documentation or witnesses at trial. The Complainants did.

The SPJC ruled unanimously in favor of the Complainants on all but five counts. There is a dissenting opinion that disagreed with the majority on four of the charges. One charge was not sustained.

Two details before I begin breaking this down. First I would like to note a stylistic choice made by the SPJC in
writing their decision. Formal citations are few in this decision and nowhere in the
statement of the charges and the rational for the decision on each one
is there a citation to relevant portions of the Book of Order. Furthermore, for only one charge is there a reference to applicable GAPJC decisions.

Second, as I break down this decision I will be drawing from a wide variety of sources. This was the trial court and their formal decision can only be based on the evidence presented at trial and the ecclesiastical law. While I may have disagreements or concerns at points I also have a larger set of sources to draw from. Documentation related to this case includes, besides the decision itself, the original complaint and the packet Santa Barbara Presbytery put together in advance of the called meeting where the Plan of Union was approved. Almost all documents in this case are posted on a web page St. Andrews Church of Santa Barbara maintains.

Counts 1, 3 and 4 deal specifically with the nature of ECO and I will return to those in a moment. (This decision uses the acronym ECOP. Those are the initials of the original name of ECO and ECO is now an official logo. I will try to use the preferred title ECO but ECOP will appear inside quotations. For the record, the new initials would be COEP.)

It is worth noting that the decision is, shall we say, streamlined and with the large number of counts the commissioners did not expound beyond the minimum on many of them.

Count 2 accused the Presbytery of promoting “division and schism in the church.” The SPJC found that a fuller discernment process would have been better since the Plan, while not intended to be so, it was judged that the “action did indeed bring about schism in the presbytery.”

Count 5 alleged “Mis-use of our constitutional provisions for union presbyteries” and Count 6 alleged the “disregard of important constitutional requirements.” The decision notes that union presbyteries are intended to promote ecumenism and reconciliation and “reduce unnecessary expense.” Instead they found that this plan “has been formed to serve as a ‘shield’ to the denomination’s action and judicial decision.”

Let me take a moment and drill down into this a bit. In the complaint the “Union Presbytery Movement” is discussed in paragraphs 19-21 pointing out that it was developed as a method for churches in the northern and southern branches to cooperate in advance of reunion in 1983. Fair enough – this union presbytery does not fit that model but rather fits the opposite of churches that are dividing but still desire to work together on mission.

But let me take this a step further. While we know historically what union presbyteries have been about is there a fundamental problem with using our polity in new creative ways? After all, one of the objectives of the New Form of Government was “With greater freedom and flexibility, the New Form of Government encourages congregations and councils to focus on God’s mission and how they can faithfully participate in this mission.” (emphasis in the original)

And when I looked at this in the Annotated Book of Order I noticed something interesting — There are no additional instructions in this section. The section of the Form of Government dealing with Union Presbyteries (G-5.04) has no interpretations from GA or the GAPJC.

The bottom line is that while we have a history behind union presbyteries the language of the Book of Order includes nothing of that history and from what I see puts no fundamental prohibition on a union presbytery between the PC(USA) and any other Reformed body.

Now, this does not mean that this specific union presbytery is constitutional and it does suffer from a couple of problems the Complainants point out and the SPJC agreed. First, we have the problem that the SPJC found that ECO is not a reformed body. Second, the ECO Presbytery of the West is not a “comparable council” because it did not yet have the size required of a PC(USA) presbytery. And third, an argument that is in the complaint but is not in the decision at this point — Santa Barbara Presbytery and Presbytery of the West are vastly different geographic sizes and so it would make Santa Barbara Presbytery a de facto non-geographic presbytery. (Presbytery of the West covers all churches west of the Mississippi River.)

A fourth issue is that the Plan of Union did not properly reconcile the requirements of the PC(USA) Book of Order and the ECO Polity. This was not however for lack of trying as Santa Barbara Presbytery had overtured the 220th GA with a proposed method to reconcile the two polities as G-5.0401 requires. The overture and another like it were rejected and the annotation noting this is the only annotation for section G-5.04.

Counts 7, 8, 9 and 10 were grouped together. Count 7 is “Violation of our constitutional guarantee of respect for biblically-formed conscience.” Count 8 is “Conditioning congregational membership on more than a profession of faith.” Count 9 is “Infringing congregations’ right to elect, and sessions’ responsibility to assess the fitness of, congregational leaders.” And Count 10 is “Violation of presbytery’s obligations in assessing its congregations’ choices of pastoral leadership.”

The SPJC responded to all four charges by saying:

Councils do not have the right to bind the conscience of either pastors or members to a pro-forma set of essentials. While teaching elders’ consciences are free within the confines of the church’s polity interpretation of Scripture as put forth in the Constitution, members have the right of conscience to a greater degree as well as freedom of conscience to determine the fitness of their own leaders, both at the congregational level as well as the level of the presbytery. The “litmus test” for ordination is given in the Book of Order and provides presbyteries with the freedom to examine candidates on a case by case basis and determine whether or not they meet those standards and are judged by a particular presbytery to be fit for pastoral leadership.

I have printed it all because this reflects the core of their argument why ECO is not a reformed body as I will get to in a minute.

The implication of Charge 8 is that to even be a member of an ECO church you must agree to something more than accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Here the SPJC brevity does them a disservice. Paragraph 1.0402 of the ECO polity talks about congregational membership (covenant partner) saying:

A covenant partner is a person who has made a profession of faith in Christ, has been baptized, has been received into the membership of the church, has voluntary submitted to the government of this church, and participates in the church’s worship and work. Covenant partners are eligible to vote in congregational meetings.

For comparison the PC(USA) says in G-1.0303a

Public profession of faith, made after careful examination by the session in
the meaning and responsibilities of membership; if not already baptized, the person making profession of faith shall be baptized;

The next section lays out the responsibilities of membership which include “taking part in the common life and worship of a congregation” and “participating in the governing responsibilities of the church.”

While ECO has consolidated the participation into the paragraph and the PC(USA) sets it up as a response to membership, in a bottom-line sense I don’t see enough of a difference to sustain Charge 8.

But the SPJC apparently saw something and I have to wonder if the SPJC was interpreting the phrase “has voluntary submitted to the government of this church” as meaning they accepted the Essential Tenets document. Taking it on face value I have trouble seeing this as adhering to anything other than faith in Jesus Christ because when talking about qualifications for officers in 2.0101 the Essential Tenets are explicitly mentioned.

As for the other three charges, the discussion of ECO below pertains to those.

The next six charges are related to details in the Plan of Union and how they conflict with PC(USA) polity and many are related to the failure of the overture to GA.

Charge 11 is “Defiance of the church’s discernment that categorical exclusion of gay and
lesbian Presbyterians is improper.” The decision points out that the ECO Essential Tenets do not conform to the GAPJC decisions in the Parnell and Larson cases. (As I noted above this is the one place in the whole Findings and Rational section where there is a formal citation to the Book of Order or an Interpretation of it.)

Charge 12 is related as it says “Denial of our commitment to remain open to God’s continuing reformation of the church.” The charge is sustained with the logic that by adopting Essential Tenets “…the processes of dialogue and discernment whereby divergent views may be examined with the goal of discovering common ground for agreement have been inhibited significantly…”

Charge 13 is “Violation of presbytery’s duty to exercise genuine, good-faith discernment in
providing for dissident congregations.” Dismissal of congregations is now like examinations for ordination and membership and they must be conducted on a case-by-case basis. To make summary pronouncements like the Plan of Union does is a violation of the constitution.

The rational is similar for sustaining Charge 14 concerning the Plan of Union not enforcing the Trust Clause.

Charges 15 and 16 are parallel. The first is that proper provision is not made in the Plan of Union for churches that are “exclusively loyal to the PC(USA).” The second is that the Plan of Union does not properly provide for ministers in validated ministries and not serving in a congregation. The SPJC agreed with both charges noting that the Plan of Union polity mentions, but does not adequately cover these cases “contrary to assertions otherwise.”

Well we are in the home stretch on this section. Charge 17 is about the differences in the physical size of the two Presbyteries and the SPJC writes that in considering the union the Presbytery “has put theological affinity ahead of doing ministry in a geographical location and to work to develop and strengthen ecumenical relationships with believers of other denominations as a sign of the unity of Christ’s church.” This is also where the concept that this physical mis-match would effectively make Santa Barbara a non-geographic is mentioned in the decision.

Charge 18 was “Failure to conduct business decently and in order.” The SPJC agreed saying:

While those supporters placing the Plan for Union before the presbytery membership observed the letter of the law, the spirit of open dialogue, using every avenue available to share information, using gatherings to answer questions, responding appropriately to written requests for information, allowing open discussion without time constraints – all were clearly missing. Both written documentation and trial testimony confirm this. While the plan was clearly laid out and a timeline presented, members felt excluded and their concerns given little importance. While the process may have been orderly, a significant portion of members did not feel that they were treated decently.

Finally, Charge 19 was that the Presbytery had gone ahead with the Plan of Union before receiving Synod approval and the SPJC found that this was not the case and did not sustain the charge.

I hope you are still with me because that section alone is longer than I usually write for a PJC decision. But wait – there’s more! We have one more important issue to address…

Is ECO a Reformed Body?
The focal point of this question is Charge 3 which says the ECO has been mischaracterized as a Reformed body. The SPJC agreed citing the fact that ECO has Essential Tenets and that by requiring agreement to these the group is placing on members a requirement for membership beyond the “only membership requirement one’s personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.” The discussion concludes with this:

The preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that the requirements of ECO are otherwise, and by requiring a signed agreement of like belief, exist beyond the boundaries of what it is understood to be Reformed.

I discussed the membership issue above and my reading that the ECO membership requirements do not differ significantly from those of the PC(USA). In a moment here I want to explore the larger context of ECO’s doctrinal requirements for ordained officers embodied in the Essential Tenets.

Charge 1 follows from Charge 3 — if ECO is not a Reformed body the Presbytery must be “Conferring on a “special interest” group a veto over the constitutional governance of the church.”

Charge 4 is that the Presbytery of the West is not a comparable body with which to unite. This was sustained on a couple of points, one being the problems with ECO. In addition, at the time of the trial it did not have the necessary number of churches and teaching elders for what the PC(USA) would recognize as a presbytery.

In reading through this decision the perspective on ECO is the point that really jumped out at me and that particularly bothered me. But what bothered me was not that they declared ECO to be a “special interest group” and not a Reformed body, but how they did it.

Now, ECO may or may not be a Reformed body in your book and I am personally still in waiting mode before I draw any final conclusions. But for a number of reasons I thought the path to this conclusion in the decision had some issues that I would like to explore.

I find three areas to highlight. (And I would include at this point a reminder that the decision was based on the submitted evidence and I am probably going beyond that.)

1. The decision’s reasoning

For starters there is an AI from the 218th GA on G-3.0301a that says in part:

The 218th General Assembly (2008)… advises the presbyteries that they must satisfy themselves concerning the conformity with this denomination… in matters of doctrines and order.

doctrinally consistent with the essentials of Reformed theology as understood by the presbytery;

governed by a polity that is consistent in form and structure with that of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A);

of sufficient permanence to offer reasonable assurance that the congregation is not being dismissed to de facto independence.

Failure on the part of the presbytery thoroughly to explore and adequately to document its satisfaction in these matters may thus violate, however unintentionally, the spirit of the polity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)”

First, this AI is not specifically referenced in the decision. In regards to that it should be noted that it is an Interpretation on the section on dismissals and not partners in a union presbytery and that it was issued for a particular situation involving transitional presbyteries in a denomination other than ECO. It does however, in the portion quoted above, contain important useful guidelines for assessing another denomination. Furthermore, as I look ahead I suspect future cases involving the nature of ECO are more likely to be about dismissals and not other topics like union presbyteries.

I would further note one important point in this AI which is not referenced in this case — It is the responsibility of the presbytery to determine the status of the body that a church is being dismissed to.

OK, back to the decision. Now, since the Complaint and the Decision do not reference this three-part test we don’t know if the SPJC applied the first (doctrine) or the second (polity) in considering the issue of freedom of conscience. In the end it really does not matter.

But regarding ECO, let’s go ahead and break this down. The question of doctrine is initially fairly straight forward as ECO has adopted the current PC(USA) Book of Confessions. The conditional, of course, would be whether ECO’s inclusion of the Essential Tenets changes the doctrine enough so it is no longer “consistent with the essentials of Reformed theology.” As for the polity, while not adopted verbatim from the PC(USA) there is a strong similarity in structure and practice, as can be seen in the membership requirements I compared above. Probably ECO’s weakest point in the test is the last “sufficient permanence” test since ECO has only been in existence as a body for less than a year.

I’ll return to ECO itself in a few minutes but my point here is that a broad test exists in the Interpretation of the Constitution. The Decision emphasizes one point as the linchpin of Reformed doctrine and the deciding factor regarding Charge 3.

This argument for the Complainants is emphasized by a Director of the Covenant Network, Doug Nave, who represented the Complainants in this case. When the decision was issued the Covenant Network posted notice of it on their web site and a lively discussion ensued in the comments. At one point in the comments Mr. Nave says this:

The SPJC discerned that the PC(USA) Constitution, interpreted as a whole, gives particular meaning to the term “Reformed.” This includes a rejection of both subscriptionism and “works righteousness” — both of which are found in ECO’s theology and polity documents. While other communions might self-identify in a manner that leaves room for the imposition of abstract “essential tenets,” or for requirements that condition church membership on more than a person’s profession of faith, the PC(USA) does not.

It is lost on almost no one that one of the tensions in the PC(USA) is that officers vow “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?” The denomination has steadfastly refused to say what the Essential Tenets are. In the PC(USA) the Essential Tenets only become specific when examining a candidate for membership. It reminds me of the card game Mao where “the only rule we can tell you is we can’t tell you the rules.”

However, the PC(USA) does have a guide to our Reformed theology and polity and that is the new Foundations section of the Book of Order. Before the reorganization of the materials San Francisco Theological Seminary created a document based on the old chapter G-2 that listed ten Essential Tenets of the Presbyterian Reformed Faith. Interestingly, freedom of conscience did not make their list. (To be fair, they based it on the old Chapter 2 and the “Right of Judgement” was in the old Chapter 1.)

There is an interesting parallel piece by Dr. Jack Rogers where he breaks down the various doctrine in a like manner. In the introduction of that article he begins by noting that presbyteries and sessions can not construct fixed sets of tenets. He then goes on to point out how the GAPJC in giving this interpretation then broke that rule by affirming the status of the then in force “fidelity and chastity” section. It is interesting to consider if this SPJC has similarly broken this rule when they suggest an essential when write “Councils do not have the right to bind the conscience of either pastors or members to a pro-forma set of essentials” or in the decision on Charge 8 when they declare that there is a “litmus test” regarding how examinations for ordinations are to be carried out.

The point here is that to many reading this decision the “look and feel” is that the value of freedom of conscience has been raised to a position above, or maybe even in place of, the other Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith. As the SFTS document demonstrates there are multiple Tenets yet this decision deals with only one without creating a context in regards to the others. This has the feel that in saying there are no stated Essentials one has been declared.

To put it another way, Mr. Nave in his discussion interprets the decision like this – “In all of this, the SPJC applied the principle… that each part of our Constitution – including its use of the term “Reformed” – must be interpreted in light of the whole Constitution.” While the SPJC may have applied this principle their reasoning is not as transparent in their writing as it could be.

What adds to this problem of the “look and feel” is that as officers we agree to “exercise freedom of conscience within certain bounds.” The reference to G-2.0105 was abbreviated and without citation in the decision on the combined Charges 7, 8, 9 and 10. This is the section in the PC(USA) Constitution that sets the openness and also the limits of an officer’s freedom of conscience:

G-2.0105 Freedom of Conscience
It is necessary to the integrity and health of the church that the persons who serve it in ordered ministries shall adhere to the essentials of the Reformed faith and polity as expressed in this Constitution. So far as may be possible without serious departure from these standards, without infringing on the rights and views of others, and without obstructing the constitutional governance of the church, freedom of conscience with respect to the interpretation of Scripture is to be maintained. It is to be recognized, however, that in entering the ordered ministries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), one chooses to exercise freedom of conscience within certain bounds. His or her conscience is captive to the Word of God as interpreted in the standards of the church so long as he or she continues to seek, or serve in, ordered ministry. The decision as to whether a person has departed from essentials of Reformed faith and polity is made initially by the individual concerned but ultimately becomes the responsibility of the council in which he or she is a member.

2. Historical background in American Presbyterianism

In an interesting line in the decision the SPJC writes

In spite of evidence that the history of the Reformed Tradition did involve
adherence to “essential tenets” and required signed affirmation of same for short periods of time, it is the current understanding that the Reformed Tradition rests on a clear understanding that Jesus Christ alone is Lord of the conscience…

I think this minimizes this very conflict in our ecclesiastical heritage and it would be better phrased that “American Presbyterianism has throughout much of its history held a tension between, and struggled with the balance in, freedom of conscience and subscriptionism.” Let me quote from an interesting article titled Jonathan Dickinson and the Subscription Controversy:

In the early eighteenth century the Synod of Philadelphia was a unique blend of two ecclesiastical traditions and theological mind-sets. Within its small compass the synod was home to both a Scotch-Irish contingent, whose training and heritage rendered its members more likely to be the traditionalists or conservatives on each newly rising issue, and a New England party, whose emphasis was on personalized religion bound only by the Word of God and individual conscience. The confluence of these two traditions within the infant synod meant that controversy was inevitable. As new problems arose, the Scotch-Irish naturally tended to impose the structure and rigidity of Old-World Presbyterianism while the New Englanders opted for a freer, less hierarchical approach. The Scotch-Irish tended to translate the Old-World model of a strong, centralized ecclesiastical government and rigid creedal conformity into a world as yet ecclesiastically unshaped. The New Englanders, by contrast, fearing a return to what they considered the too-rigid control over religion from which their forefathers had narrowly escaped, naturally sought theological and moral protection in places other than tight ecclesiastical control. [Bauman, M., 1998, JETS, v 41, n 3, p 455-467, quoted from p. 456]

Does this sound at all familiar? This has been the struggle throughout the history of the American Mainline Presbyterian Church. Among other things, the Adopting Act of 1729 and the Special Commission of 1925 dealt with this issue. For this decision to cite only written subscription “for a short time” misses one of the major arcs of American Presbyterianism.

This has been a continuing discussion in mainline American Presbyterianism and the general, although not exclusive, trend has been for those favoring confessional adherence to depart the mainline. The present situation is no exception. What this decision seems to imply is that enough confessionalists have departed that the preferences of those on the “personal religion” side now dominate.

3. Bigger picture of Reformed Churches

What probably frustrated me the most with this decision is the implication that the PC(USA) gets to define what it does and does not mean to be Reformed.

Presumably the SPJC had as evidence the Packet with the call to the Special Meeting. In this packet the Presbytery Council had their own analysis of ECO as well as documents from three of their experts – Rev. Eunice McGarrahan, Dr. Richard Mouw and Dr. Wayne Darbonne – all speaking favorably of ECO as a Reformed body. Whether through the choice of the SPJC or the minimal response by the Presbytery the arguments in this packet are not reflected, or rebutted, in the decision.

One of the arguments that the Complaint makes against ECO not being a Reformed body is that it is not yet a member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) (Complaint paragraph 17(b)). Fair enough. So if WCRC membership is the imprimatur of being Reformed, or at least goes a long way towards that designation, I would point out that there are denominations in WCRC that require forms of subscription (e.g. Christian Reformed Church, see Article 5 Supplement in Church Order. And the CRC has a page on “What is Reformed?” and I could not find freedom of conscience in there.) And to take it a step further from what PC(USA) polity understands, it is in full communion with the Moravian Church, a Reformed body that has bishops. (They use the term for an ordained office with teaching responsibilities and not in the sense of an episcopal hierarchy.)

But let’s look at a “close relative.” Historically and polity wise the two closest Reformed bodies to the PC(USA) are the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The PC(USA) is in correspondence with both through WCRC.

If you consider the EPC Book of Church Order, section 13-6 says:

The candidate or transferring Teaching Elder shall provide a written statement of any exceptions to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of this Church, and the Presbytery must act to allow or disallow the exceptions. The Presbytery shall not allow any exception to “Essentials of Our Faith.” If the Teaching Elder develops exceptions to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms after ordination, he or she must report those exceptions to the Presbytery and the Presbytery must act to allow or disallow these exceptions.

And this is fundamentally different from the ECO requirement how? The EPC is a recognized similar Reformed body the PC(USA) is in correspondence with and that churches from the PC(USA) have been dismissed to and it has a subscription requirement in its Constitution that if anything is stronger than ECO’s. Can I get a QED?

It is interesting as you look around that what is meant by “Reformed” varies a bit and is something of a Rorschach test or the five blind men and the elephant. There is not a single definition and as you would expect different emphases reflect different theological perspectives. WCRC probably represents the broadest view of what it means to be in the Reformed tradition while other councils, like the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council have more specific scriptural and confessional standards.

Minority Report

There is a dissenting opinion authored by the Rev. Michael D. Haggin which is joined in part by two other commissioners. No objection is made to the overall decision but as the intro says

I completely concur in the unanimous decision of the Commission that the action of the Presbytery of Santa Barbara to create a union presbytery together with the Presbytery of the West of the ECO is irregular and unconstitutional. This could have been a single point of complaint and would, by itself, justify the remedial action ordered in this case. Complainants, however, allege a large number of additional points of complaints which appear to impute unnecessarily negative motives to the Respondent. Accordingly I cannot concur with my colleagues in their decision on several of the counts of the Complaint.

Pursuant to the discussion of whether ECO is a Reformed body the opinion says

The Form of Government (G-5.04) authorizes a presbytery to unite “with one or more comparable councils or governing bodies, each of which is a member of another Reformed body.” Accordingly, on June 2, 2012, Respondent presbytery voted “to recognize ECO: a Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians as a Reformed body.” This Commission has effectively found that ECOP is not “another” body and that Presbytery of the West is not a “comparable council.” In this count, Complainant asks us to deny that ECOP is “Reformed.” Witness testimony was presented to indicate that ECOP fails a particular theological ‘litmus’ test. I believe that it is at least equally legitimate to classify as “Reformed” bodies whose theological witness descends historically from the central preachers and teachers of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, including Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, Heinrich Bullinger, Zacharius Ursinus, Thomas Cranmer, John Knox, and others of that ‘school.’ When any individual seeking ordination is examined, the ordaining council has the responsibility of determining whether or not the candidate has departed from essentials of Reformed faith and polity (G-2.0105). In this case, Respondent presbytery exercised its analogous responsibility responsibly and defensibly.

The dissenting opinion speaks similarly about Charge 2 – promoting schism: “By prompting
this Complaint, their action gave rise to divisions in the Presbytery community, but it would be a sheer speculation to say that the divisions and schisms resulting from one course of action were greater or less than those resulting from another course of action… I do not endorse Complainant’s desire to mark it as malevolent..”

Regarding Charge 12 about not being open to continuing reformation he says “Since this count appears to charge Respondent with doing something improper in the future, I cannot concur with the Commission decision here.”

Finally, all three commissioners object to the findings on Charge 18, not conducting the business decently and in order. They say “The presbytery was ready to proceed to a decision on June 2, 2012, even if the Complainants felt themselves to be ‘behind the pace’ in the competition of ideas. Respondent presbytery’s actions were (as we have found) mistaken and irregular, but they were not indecent or disorderly.”

General Discussion
Let me begin by echoing Mr. Haggin’s comments. There are clear grounds in my mind for ruling the Santa Barbara Plan of Union as unconstitutional — if nothing else the failure of their overture to General Assembly probably guaranteed as much. But what really struck me was the tone of the decision as I read it. I recognize that this could be completely unintentional on the part of the SPJC, but the terse, streamlined and citation-free nature of the decision left this polity wonk with some concerns about the impression it was trying to leave.

The other thing that contributed to my disappointment with the nature of the decision was my knowledge of people in Santa Barbara Presbytery that I have worked with at the synod level. I am more than willing to accept that for some this proposal was an escape or shield from the new reality of the PC(USA) following the passage of Amendment 10-A. But 73% of the commissioners approved the Plan of Union and I have talked with friends in the Presbytery for whom this is not an ideal choice but agreed with it as a possible path forward. They do not want to see division but recognize that one way or another it will probably come. These are good Presbyterians of integrity who came to the conclusion that the Presbytery, as well as the PC(USA) as a whole, is better off working together in a union presbytery setting than as two separate entities. I was disappointed that there was no acknowledgement of this reality in the main decision and only in the dissenting opinion where it says “The evidence shows that the moving actors in Respondent presbytery sought to form a union presbytery in the belief, hope, or expectation that it would hold the Presbytery of Santa Barbara together and prevent a number of the member congregations from seeking dismissal.”

So what does all of this mean? Let me turn to the AI for D-7.0402b for guidance:

Decisions of the permanent judicial commissions of synods and
presbyteries are binding on the parties to the particular cases in which
the decisions are rendered unless overturned on appeal. No synod or
presbytery permanent judicial commission is able to make its decisions
binding beyond the parties to the particular case by simply declaring it
to be so.

At the same time, decisions of synod permanent judicial commissions
are precedent setting for that synod, its presbyteries, members of the
presbyteries, sessions, and members of the particular churches in the
synod…
That is to say, governing bodies and members in the same jurisdiction
and a lower jurisdiction below the one rendering a decision should be
aware that the permanent judicial commission will render similar
decisions in cases on the same issues and with like fact situations.

So the first thing we can say that this attempt at a union presbytery has probably ended.

However, as the AI says this decision is binding on no one beyond the parties involved so alternate models for union presbyteries might be acceptable. As I stated above, while this decision appealed to history and original nature of the presbyteries to invalidate the concept, another SPJC or the GAPJC may interpret the constitution only as written and find that they are permitted when all the explicit constitutional requirements are met.

Likewise, the parts declaring ECO is not a Reformed body are not binding elsewhere. At the present time ECO is not seriously threatened by this decision and dismissals to ECO by other presbyteries have gone unchallenged as to the nature of ECO. In fact, in the GAPJC decision in the Tom v San Francisco case the decision’s focus was on process for the Trust Clause and no issue was raised with the body the church was dismissed to regarding it not having a Trust Clause.

Now according to the AI the decision is not binding but precedent setting for the other churches and presbyteries in the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii. So does this determination that ECO is a special interest group carry over to congregations being dismissed to ECO? For me the key phrase is “…the permanent judicial commission will render similar
decisions in cases on the same issues and with like fact situations.” I would expect that future cases tied to this issue would be more comprehensive in submitting evidence regarding the nature of ECO changing the “fact situations.” In addition, ECO is also changing as churches join it. In my opinion the precedent here is not strong, will be short-lived and stands a reasonable chance of being revised in future cases. Finally, the Book of Order and the AI regarding dismissal do make it clear that it is the presbytery’s responsibility and right to determine if the other body is in the Reformed tradition and that usually gives the presbytery an edge when their decisions are appealed.

If this case were to be appealed to the GAPJC I would not expect any of the key charges being overturned. New evidence can only be included on appeal if it is newly discovered so more than likely an appeal would proceed based on the original material. Some findings might be overturned, but even overturning a few of the decisions would still leave enough in place to retain the trial court’s verdict regarding the union presbytery. There is a chance that the GAPJC could be convinced that the available evidence at trial was not properly considered with regards to the nature of ECO and that part of the ruling could be overturned. But one must weigh the risk of a decision that now applies to only one presbytery being upheld and becoming a standard for the whole church.

Let me conclude with these points:

From the evidence presented the flaws in the Plan of Union are significant enough to invalidate it, especially in light of the 220th GA not approving the details reconciling the two different polities.
The evidence presented and argued at trial ended up presenting a narrow view of Reformed doctrine and based on a more comprehensive view of the world Reformed movement I think ECO’s doctrine and polity would be found to lie well within the bounds of what is more widely considered to be Reformed. In addition, what might disqualify a body as a partner in a union presbytery where cooperation is required might not necessarily be a barrier to dismissal.
While the Plan of Union had defects, the dismissal of the fundamental concept of the union presbytery suggests that we are not ready for creative answers to modern issues and are more concerned with preserving the institution as we know it. It has the feel of the Seven Last Words of the Church – “We’ve never done it that way before.”

I think I can say that one way or another at least some of this is not yet a settled question. While I would think the odds are against seeing another union presbytery proposal I would not completely rule it out. On the other hand, the disqualification of ECO sent a collective gasp through much of the denomination from what I read and heard and that is a discussion which could be around for a while before it becomes settled law. While many presbyteries have dismissed churches to ECO without issues this case opens up the suggestion that future dismissals are more likely to be challenged, particularly since this is a question that presbyteries must answer and even the GAPJC can not issue an overriding decision on that question (although they could “counsel” a presbytery when they find the presbytery may have done it incorrectly).

OK, at about 7000 words I have probably written enough – maybe too much.
This ended up being a bit of a core dump so I hope my arguments are
coherent and thought-provoking, and maybe even convincing.

I have a couple of related items in the works but after spending two solid weeks researching and writing this maybe it is time to turn geek share a couple of data sets. Stay tuned…

PC(USA) GAPJC Decisions — Larson and others v. Presbytery of Los Ranchos

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The most recent meeting of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). was a busy and significant one. A couple of weeks ago they heard three important cases and issued their decisions. I am taking these individually because of the importance of each one and taking them in order of their case number. I have already posted 221-02 Newark v. McNeill and 221-03 Tom and others v. San Francisco. Today I will finish this up with 221-04 Larson v. Los Ranchos.

So here we go…

Remedial Case 221-04: Gerald J. Larson, Gary L Collins, Rebecca B. Prichard, R. Winston Presnall, Margery McIntosh, Michal Vaughn, Lucy StaffordLewis, Julie Richwine, Jerry Elliott, Sara McCurdy, Gregory Vacca, Gail Stearns, Steve Wirth, Suzanne Darweesh, Jane Parker, Darlene Elliott, Frances Bucklin, Deborah Mayhew, James McCurdy, Judith Anderson, Susan Currie, Complainants/Appellants, v. Presbytery of Los Ranchos, Respondent/Appellee

This remedial case, which was decided in the Appellants’ favor with no concurring or dissenting opinions, results from a resolution passed by the Presbytery in September 2011:

Moved: That the Presbytery of Los Ranchos adopt the following statement
interpreting this presbytery’s understanding of certain behavioral expectations of
members.

Affirming that ‘The gospel leads members to extend the fellowship of Christ to all
persons.’ (G-1.0302) The Presbytery of Los Ranchos, meeting on September 15,
2011, affirms that the Bible, The Book of Confessions and the Book of Order
(including G-2.0104b and G-2.0105 1 & 2) set forth the scriptural and
constitutional standards for ordination and installation. Los Ranchos Presbytery
believes the manner of life of ordained Ministers should be a demonstration of the
Christian gospel in the church and in the world, including living either in fidelity
within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in
singleness and will so notify candidates for ordination/installation and/or
membership in the presbytery. In obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority
of Scripture and guided by our confessions, this presbytery will prayerfully and
pastorally examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for
the responsibilities of office, including a commitment to fulfill all requirements as
expressed in the constitutional questions of ordination and installation.

A complaint was filed and the Synod PJC decided in favor of the Presbytery with a dissenting opinion written by two commissioners. The Complainants asked for review by the GAPJC.

Let me hold up here for the moment and mention two things about my analysis of the SJC decision – one that I got right and one that I missed.

The former is my looking ahead at the prospects for the case. I wrote:

[T]he Presbytery of Los Ranchos is trying to walk a very fine polity line here and in the opinion of the majority of the SPJC they have successfully done so. However, the decision I expected from this case was much, much closer to the dissenting opinion. I have to think that the verbatim inclusion of now-removed language from the Book of Order is a problem in light of the Bush decision. If appealed to the GAPJC I would think this decision has a high likelihood of being overturned.

The second point is a nuance that I missed in the SPJC trail but was alerted to it after the fact and is important to the Los Ranchos brief to the GAPJC. This nuance is the intent that these standards are not requirements for membership or ordination but what the Presbytery expects of a member of the Presbytery after being admitted. The brief puts it this way:

By its plain language, the Resolution is an aspirational statement, entitled “Resolution of Expectations,” and contains no language that requires the Presbytery to take any particular action or reach any pre-ordained conclusion about any candidate for membership or ordained service.

The appeal to the GAPJC had ten specifications of error, some of which had sub-points, which were consolidated down to six specifications. Of these all but one were sustained.

The first specification was the error that the SPJC failed to address the allegations stated in the complaint. While this specification was sustained the GAPJC went on to say that there could still be full consideration of the complaint and ultimately the error was harmless.

The last specification was that “the SPJC failed to correct Appellee’s defiance of an established position of the church.” This was not sustained and the decision said “While there was overreaching, there was not deliberate defiance by the Presbytery.”

The middle four specifications deal with the nuts and bolts of the polity issues. Specification 2 was that “The SPJC failed to acknowledge the plain meaning and inherent practical effect of the Resolution.” Number 3 dealt with the improper restatement of the Constitution. The fourth was the interpretation and application of G-3.0102 and F-3.0209 and the fifth was that “The SPJC erred by disregarding the constitutional guarantees of freedom of conscience and concomitant duty to show one another mutual forbearance.”

All of these are addressed in the Decision Section which states:

The issue before this Commission is whether the resolution adopted by Presbytery is an appropriate use of a presbytery’s authority in issuing statements that “bear testimony against error in doctrine and immorality in life, resolve questions of doctrine and discipline, give counsel in matters of conscience and decide issues properly brought before them under the provisions of the Book of Order.” (G-3.0102)

In both of the briefs and in the GAPJC decision reference is made to Decision 205-15 Presbytery of West Jersey v. Synod of the Northeast. In that remedial case the Presbytery objected to the Synod passing a resolution that declared itself a More Light Synod and the question was “In adopting these resolutions, did the Synod of the Northeast, in effect, adopt a policy which is contrary to the current constitutional position of the denomination?” In that case the GAPJC decided it had not saying:

The evidence presented at trial reflected that the resolutions constituted an expression of opinion. Expression of an opinion by a synod or other governing body, without action, does not constitute the adoption of a policy contrary to an established and controlling constitutional policy of the denomination.

In this decision the GAPJC wrote about it saying:

The present case is distinguishable from West Jersey, in that in West Jersey the resolutions were addressed, or understood to be addressed to the church as a whole, whereas the resolution in the present case is addressed, to “candidates for ordination/installation and/or membership in the presbytery.” Herein lies the difference.

They continue

This Commission determines, therefore, that by directing the notification specifically to those who would potentially seek admission into Presbytery, the Resolution would have the practical effect of discouraging those seeking ordination or membership prior to the required case by case evaluation or examination. In so doing, Presbytery exceeded its authority and duty to “bear testimony against error in doctrine and immorality in life, resolve questions of doctrine and discipline, give counsel in matters of conscience…” (G-3.0102) and its right and obligation to “nurture the covenant community of disciples of Christ … includ[ing] ordaining, receiving, dismissing, installing, removing, and disciplining its members who are teaching elders…” (G-3.0301c).

So, while intended to be aspirational and argued that the language showed that intent, because it made specific reference to “those that seek admission into Presbytery” the Resolution strays from being simple opinion.

There are the two important precedents which are dealt with in the second to last paragraph. The decision notes Bush v. Pittsburgh (Decision 218-10) and Buescher v. Olympia (Decision 218-09) and says:

[W]hen Presbytery combined current Book of Order language from G–2.0104a with former Book of Order language G-6.0106b, it created at least a perception of an improper restatement of the Constitution. As this Commission stated in both Bush and Buescher, “[r]estatements of the Book of Order, in whatever form they are adopted, are themselves an obstruction to the same standard of constitutional governance no less than attempts to depart from mandatory provisions.”

And so, the GAPJC wraps it all up with this final line:

This Commission declares that the Resolution as written is unconstitutional and,
therefore, void.

As I said, no additional opinions. The SPJC decison is reversed and the Presbytery resolution is voided.

The first comment I have is to raise the question, based upon this and the referenced decisions, could an acceptable statement be constructed? From West Jersey, we know that it must state opinion and not “compel or direct any action.” Further, that decision suggests that it should be addressed to the church as a whole. From Bush and Buescher we know that it must not be a restatement of the Book of Order and from this decision “a perception of an improper restatement of the Constitution.” And again, this decision guides us that it can not be directed “specifically to those who would potentially seek admission into Presbytery.”

The final statement of the decision, in identifying the “Resolution as written,” suggests that such a statement that complies with these criteria could be produced. The exercise is left to the reader but a reasonable presbyter could be forgiven for thinking the task too difficult or for considering the final product so limited as to be without merit or the worth the necessary time to construct it.

It is along these lines that the Stated Clerk of the Presbytery of Los Ranchos, Dr. W. Keith Geckeler, has counseled the Presbytery. In a letter posted on the Presbytery web site he writes:

This Decision does not prohibit the presbytery from doing anything it was not already prohibited from doing nor does it permit it to do anything it was not already permitted to do. And it does not prohibit the presbytery from doing what it has always been permitted to do.

and

However, because nothing is changed by the Decision—and nothing would be changed by adopting a new Resolution—the presbytery would do well to consider whether energy would be better spent crafting a new statement—or directed toward creating healthy congregations within this presbytery.

Let me finish up by taking this in another direction… What if a church or presbytery did not want to restate the Constitution using their own words but wanted to ground their statement by using an historic confession. Maybe they find something new like the French Confession that the Fellowship of Presbyterians is going to focus on this year or the Creed of Chalcedon that is received in the Second Helvetic Confession. What if they wanted to affirm a different version of a confessional document, like affirming the current version of the Heidelberg Catechism rather than the revised version if it is adopted. Or for that matter, what if a governing body felt that an earlier version of the Westminster Confession was their statement of faith? Or what if they wanted to not affirm a particular confessional document like the Confession of 1967 or Belhar if adopted?

A governing body can do this speaking to the whole church and not stating it as a requirement for ordination or membership. And if they adopt an historical document are they really restating Constitutional standards? That argument could be made — While a particular constitutional document is being affirmed it could be argued that by not taking all of them, or the official ones, as a package then it is a restatement of the whole. On the other hand, we tend to do that when using the Book of Confessions in worship or devotions — When was the last time your church affirmed its faith using a piece of the Second Helvetic Confession?

Let me ask one additional “what if?” What if a group within the Presbytery were to adopt a resolution similar to the Los Ranchos statement? The presbytery has not adopted it yet if the group constitutes a majority of commissioners and members would the standards become a de facto membership criteria for the whole presbytery? Not being a governing body this would have to be dealt with as a disciplinary case unless it were a remedial case against the presbytery for not bringing the disciplinary case.

OK, enough ~~idol~~ idle speculation on this. As I argue above this decision seems to place a significant fence around the possibility of a presbytery affirming particular standards for members. But as the Los Ranchos letter also says, the landscape has not really changed — standards for ordination and membership decisions can still be handled on a case-by-case basis.

So where now? All this discussion of Creeds and Confessions got me going in that direction and I am looking at some reflection regarding those as a prologue to revisiting some of last Summer’s PC(USA) 220th GA. However, the Synod PJC decision yesterday has raised some significant polity questions for me and so I am setting the former thoughts aside for a few days to deal with that new decision. Stay tuned…

220th General Assembly of the PC(USA) — At The Mid-Point

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This morning marks the mid-point of the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) both chronologically and structurally. It is the point where commissioners must “recalibrate.” They have been working on their committees and their focused issues for the last couple of days and now will take this morning to be briefed on what the other committees have done in preparation for the resumption of plenary this afternoon.

As usual, the committees had a variety of completion times over the last couple of days with a couple finishing on Monday and Committee 13 on Marriage and Civil Unions getting their work finished just before the shuttle buses stopped running last night.

I have decided not to make many detailed comments about the committee work right now. I need time to digest what I saw and heard regarding what the committees did. I spent most of yesterday with Committee 5 on Mid Councils Review as they worked through the Mid Councils Commission recommendations. I think the opening line of the Outlook article captures it best, “One by one, a General Assembly committee shot down key proposals from
the General Assembly Commission on Mid Councils – including one to allow
provisional non-geographic presbyteries during a “designated season of
experimentation” for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”

This was a painful thing for me to watch as the committee approved only two of the eight recommendations the Commission brought, and those for review task forces. All the structural recommendations were defeated. I admit to having my own issues with some of their recommendations, but from my seat there really seemed to be a sense for many that “we have never done it that way before.” Or as Commission member John Vest put it in a tweet “I hope no one is surprised that ACC & COGA have raised concerns
about the MCC report. Our system is set up to protect itself.”

The other reason that it was painful is that I have real empathy for them. I have been in their place with a report from a Special Committee that I was on being debated by GA. When our Special Committee completed the report and got ready to adjourn for the final time we were reminded by the OGA folks “this report now belongs to the General Assembly.” We had done the work but we no longer owned the report and now it was up to someone else to do something with it. I will write a more formal thank you letter latter, but for now, I want to thank the members of the Commission on ~~Middle Governing Bodies~~ Mid Councils for their work.

But it was not just this committee. From Twitter messages and conversations I had throughout the day there were stories about issues with other committees as well, many that reflected John’s comment above that “Our system is set up to protect itself.”

The last committee to finish, just as they were trying to turn out the lights in the convention center, was the Committee on Marriage and Civil Unions. No surprise that this committee was in the biggest room and worked the longest. It was also the closest watched and all day yesterday there were tweets about what the committee was doing, sometimes suggesting that it was a parliamentary quagmire or accomplishing a whole lot of nothing. I don’t know what it was like at that time but I attended the meeting after dinner yesterday and I found that during the time I was there it was being run in a slow but deliberate manner by the moderator. Considering the sensitivity and importance of the topic it appeared that the moderator was being sure everything was respectful and clear and that everyone was heard. Yes, it was slow going but the real indicator was that when the business finished the members of the committee rose and gave the moderator a standing ovation. She must have done something right.

Now what is going to plenary? Here are a few major items that were recommended by the committees. I am waiting to hear if any of these will have minority reports as well.

Marriage – The request for an AI was not recommended but the overture asking that the Directory for Worship be changed to read that marriage is between “two people” is recommended

Mid Councils – Recommendations to form a task force to reduce the number of synods, no provisional experimental/non-geographic presbyteries, a task force to review GAMC and OGA and a Racial Ethnic Ministries Task Force (Outlook article)

Middle East – MRTI’s divestment recommendations recommended (Outlook article)

Special Offerings – Recommendation that most are preserved in their current form with the Communion Offering to be restructured (Outlook article)

Church Orders – Most asked-for changes to the Book of Order were not recommended, but on a split decision (28-20) they are recommending adding to G-2.0104a (previously G-6.0106a) the phrase “This includes repentance of sin and diligent use of the means of grace.” (Outlook article)

Confessions – The revised version of the Heidelberg Catechism was recommended as well as a recommendation for a redo of the process to add the Belhar Confession (Outlook article)

Plenary sessions resume at 2 PM this afternoon. Bills and Overtures has posted a proposed docket for the rest of the Assembly. Live streaming will resume and Bills and Overtures has done a pretty good job of spreading out the reports generally giving us one high-profile issue per session:

Confessions – Wednesday afternoon
Mid Council Issues – about 10 AM Thursday morning
Middle East – about 3 PM Thursday afternoon
Mission Coordination (Special Offerings) – Thursday evening
Election of Standing Committee Members – Friday Morning
Review of Biennial Assemblies – Friday Morning
Immigration Issues – about 10 AM Friday morning (this is the hot-button item of the session)
Civil Union and Marriage – about 1:50 on Friday afternoon
Church Orders – about 3:30 on Friday afternoon
Peacemaking and International Issues – Friday evening

So there is the line-up. I plan to be present and live blogging all these sessions. See you there.

Finally, to all my U.S. readers – a happy Independence Day. I don’t know if I will actually get my traditional July 4th reflection done on time, but I will try.

220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

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Well, many of the other American Presbyterian branches have had their Assemblies but now it is time for the mainline…

The 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) gets underway at 1:30 pm local time on Saturday June 30 in Pittsburgh, PA. The theme for this Assembly is “Walking, running, soaring in hope” from Isaiah 40:31, although it is difficult to find that theme on the web site and materials. (Expect it to be emblazoned around the conference center.)

The schedule has been rearranged a bit this year with the opening worship service truly opening the Assembly on Saturday afternoon with business to follow and then the election of the Moderator Saturday night. Committees meet Sunday evening through Tuesday evening so there will be a break in the live streaming until 2 PM Wednesday afternoon. The Assembly will conclude at noon on Saturday July 7. (I was going to make a snarky comment about fireworks on Wednesday evening but thought better of it. )

There are a lot of resources out there for the commissioners, observers, media and those following along at home:

The brief Docket and the Full Schedule of Events
Business is found, and tracked, on the PC-Biz system
The Plenary sessions will be live streamed (expected source – will update if different)
For more on the polity there is the Book of Order, the Annotated Book of Order, and the Standing Rules of the General Assembly
Official news articles are being posted on the GA 220 page and will also probably show up on the general news feed
There is a media guide for this event as well
If you want an introduction to the Assembly there are also orientation resources

For following along on Twitter the most important thing you need to know is that the hashtag is #ga220. While there are several official Twitter accounts the most useful will be @Presbyterian and @presbyGA. For news coverage keep an eye on @presoutlook and @lscanlon. For all the rest of us ~~crazies~~ GA Junkies there are Twitter lists compiled by Bruce Reyes-Chow and Sonnie Swenston-Forbes. I plan to do some live tweeting at @ga_junkie and will be posting news reweets to @gajunkie. (I will also be blogging obsessively right here.)

As with most PC(USA) GA’s there will be a ton of business – there are several committees that will report, there are over 100 overtures and an as yet undetermined number of commissioner resolutions. Several of the items have the potential for spirited debates in the committees and in plenary and a few could have significant implications for the PC(USA) going forward. I am previewing some of the business in other posts but here is a quick list of all that you can expect.

Election of the Moderator – GA Junkie, Moderator Candidates Book
Mid-Councils Commission – GA Junkie, Commission Report
Marriage – GA Junkie (coming soon), PC News
Confessions: Revised Heidelberg and Belhar redo – PC News
Middle East Peace (and Israel/Palestine divestment) – PC News, Presbyterian Outlook
Same-Gender Partner Benefits – PC News
Immigration – PC News
Ordination Standards – PC News
Special Offerings (this may be the sleeper item) – PC News
The 21st Century Church – PC News
And two for the polity wonks and GA junkies that each get a commissioner committee all to themselves: Committee to Review Biennial Assemblies and the Special Committee on Existing Authoritative Interpretations
Those Other Matters Coming Before The GA from the Presbyterian Outlook

Let me conclude with a personal note: Call me crazy but I’m coming to the Assembly with three additional special projects. First, I am an overture advocate for Item 20-03 to provide partial disability benefits and I plan to write up my experience with this sometime after the Assembly. Second, I will be ~~harassing~~ interviewing people regarding social media and the church. Third, in an effort to identify and tag the true polity wonks, presbygeeks and GA junkies (and in a bit of shameless self-promotion) I will be carrying some GA Junkie bling to hand out.

And yes, I will try my best to have my GA summary sheet out by the end of the day on Saturday July 7.

And with that we turn our faces towards Pittsburgh and pray for the leading of the Holy Spirit and what God will do in our midst next week.

Candidates For Moderator Of The 220th General Assembly (2012) Of The PC(USA)

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With three days to go before the election of the Moderator of this year’s General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I thought I really needed to get back to this subject a bit.

First, I wanted to mention two developments related to the field of candidates standing for Moderator and their selections for those standing with them for Vice-Moderator.

One of these is the departure of Teaching Elder Janet Edwards from the field. As she explains on her web site her husband Alvise has developed some medical challenges and this is no longer the appropriate time in her career to consider serving as Moderator of the General Assembly. our prayers continue to be with Janet and Alvise. Since she is no longer a candidate a revised Moderatorial Candidates Book has been issued. However, for my purposes here I am interested in the broader sweep of the candidates and will include her information from the original version of the book for part of my discussion below.

The second item is a bit of a controversy that has arisen around Teaching Elder Tara Spuhler McCabe, Vice-Moderator selection standing with Neal Presa. An anonymous source provided the Presbyterian Outlook, and apparently the Presbyterian Layman, with documents showing that the Rev. McCabe signed the marriage license for a same-gender marriage in the District of Columbia in April where the marriage is legally recognized. I suggest that you read the complete article from the Outlook with excerpts from their interview with Rev. McCabe because her answers are specific and nuanced. I will leave it to say that she describes her role as “standing with” the couple in their ceremony and guiding them through it, that it was not a ceremony at her church and her church was not aware of it until some time after it happened. Rev. McCabe will remain as the Vice-Moderator selection and Rev. Presa has released a statement on Unity with Difference related to the situation.

Turning to the Moderatorial Candidates Book I am struck by the incremental improvement in the candidate’s submissions with each successive GA, especially in the area of layout, design and typesetting. (The Book from the 219th GA for comparison) The candidates submit their self-formatted copy to the OGA and with the advances in desktop publishing they are looking more professionally done. In addition, throughout the time introducing themselves to the church each has established ways of branding themselves, like TE Randy Branson has done with similar graphical elements between his blog and his pages in the book. It is interesting to see that both TE Sue Krummel and TE Branson have gone to more formal portraits in their material now while TE Robert Austell and TE Neal Presa have stuck with the same head shots since they announced (if my memory is correct), neither of them appearing to be formal portraits. And you have to admire the QR code that TE Presa has put on his bio.

The Moderatorial Candidates Book has biographical and sense of call information supplied by each candidate and a page about their selected Vice-Moderator candidate. The candidates also have to provide brief (less than 500 word) answers to five questions from a list supplied by the OGA. The first three questions are required and they are:

1. What are some of the exciting possibilities facing the 21st Century church? What are the challenges that face the church in this century?

2. In the Mid-Council Commission report a great deal of the narrative spoke to the emerging shapes and forms for mid-councils. In your view, what do you find especially promising in the narrative and why?

3. How might the initiative to create 1001 new worshipping communities help the PC(U.S.A.) reach its goal of increasing its racial ethnic membership and come closer to becoming a multicultural community of faith, hope, love, and witness?

The additional two questions are selected by the candidate from a pool of seven possible questions. Interestingly – and I think this is a sign of the condition and hope for the PC(USA) – all five candidates (including TE Edwards) answered this question:

5. In F-1.03 of The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity in the Book of Order, we are reminded that, “Unity is God’s gift to the Church in Jesus Christ. Just as God is one God and Jesus Christ is our one Savior, so the Church is one because it belongs to its one Lord, Jesus Christ.” How would you work for unity within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and how would this contribute to the visible unity we seek within our church and with other churches and Christian communities?

In addition three candidates, TE Edwards, TE Krummel and TE Presa, all answered the same question as their second optional one:

10. Brian McLaren will be addressing the Office of the General Assembly breakfast on Monday morning. He has written: “Those who dedicate themselves to be agents of change in our churches will require superhuman doses of courage, kindness, creativity, collaboration, and perseverance. Thanks be to God, faithful change agents will find, like the little boy with his fish and bread, that they already have more resources for the journey than they realized.” What are some of the resources God has already provided the Presbyterian Church for the journey ahead?

For his second question TE Austell answered:

7. What suggestions do you have for identifying new directions for the development of faithful leadership for the mission of Christ?

and for his second TE Branson discussed:

8. We are living in a war-torn world. What might the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its congregations do to strengthen the ministry of peacemaking at this time?

Questions about highlighting our confessional theology, ecumenical challenges and resources, and addressing economic injustice were not answered.

Now, I need to condense each candidate’s responses down into something manageable so I decided to feed their narrative portions and the answers to their questions through Wordle. OK, maybe a bit too much condensing, but it is interesting none the less.

It should be no surprise that “God” and “Church” are prominent in almost all five candidates’ statements and “Presbyterian” comes through pretty strong as well. But there are a number of interesting subtleties. (And the images below are displayed at about half size if you want to pop them out and have a closer look.)

Let me begin with Neal Presa. As you can see his cloud is dominated by “God” and “Church” with “one”, “Presbyterian”, “Christ”, “communities” and “mission” (and “Neal”) in a noticeably lower second tier. This is consistent with a recurring theme in his statement about the Church needing to be “catching up” to what God is about.
In many ways Randy Branson’s cloud is a bit different than all the rest. You will note that his is the only one with “God” not dominant in the cloud and that since Wordle is case-sensitive it differentiates between his use of the “Church” universal and the “church” particular. I was surprised that with his emphasis on the PC(USA) needing a Moderator-as-pastor at this time that the word “pastor” was not more prominent, but the associated word “ministry” is there. In a technical note, TE Branson is the only one to use the church abbreviation PCUSA and so that appears prominently in the cloud. The cloud does a good job of capturing his idea that this is a time of healing for the church so it might be looking a bit more inward.
Robert Austell’s Wordle cloud, like TE Branson’s, has several terms primary in the cloud – in this case “world”, “Christ”, “congregation” and “community”. In particular it reflects TE Austell’s emphasis on community and the outward look to the world. With his extensive work related to worship I was surprised that word is not more prominent and similarly for mission.
The first thing that struck me about Sue Krummel’s Wordle cloud was that her’s was the only candidates’ cloud with their name prominent in it. This is easily explained by the story telling about her family she does in her statement as well as the fact that her endorsement letter is peppered with her full name. Since that story telling relates to mission it is not surprising to see that and “world” also prominent in her cloud.
For the sake of completeness here is the cloud for Janet Edwards. In addition to “God” and “church” the term “Christ” is just as prominent. There are then several terms in the second tier like “new”, “unity”, “Presbyterian”, “change” and “moderator”. It is also interesting to note that a locality comes through stronger in her cloud than any other one due to the fact that Pittsburgh is not only the location of GA but also her long-time home and presbytery as well as her teaching at Pittsburgh Seminary and having historical family ties to it.

This obviously is not intended to be anywhere near an exhaustive discussion of the candidates’ thoughts and positions. For those making the decision on Saturday night I don’t want this to substitute for a good read of the Moderatorial Candidates Book. I do hope that it gives everyone a good overview and maybe a slightly different look at the candidate’s statements. In addition, it is my observation that the single most important phase of the election process is the Q and A on the floor of the Assembly before the vote. I intend to be there live blogging that. We can make two assertions at this point – the new Moderator and Vice-Moderator will be teaching elders and the winning ticket will be gender balanced. To the rest we trust the leading of the Holy Spirit. (And on a side note, I am leaving it as an exercise for the reader to consider the references to the three persons of the Trinity in the Wordle clouds above.)

In conclusion I need to give some full disclosure and on a personal note I want to contribute what you might call a reference check. This is the first year in a while that I have had some significant previous interaction with one of the Moderator or Vice-Moderator candidates and it should be no surprise that it would be Robert Austell. He is, after all, a first class GA Junkie as testified by his great GA Help web site and he has done me the honor of linking this blog there. In working with him I have always found him sincere, hard working and well informed as well as having a cheerful and positive attitude. I have seen him working with the diverse theological perspectives in the PC(USA) and I really believe that his gracious dismissal resolution four years ago has done much to set a more peaceful tone for the PC(USA) today. And please don’t hold our shared like of Bluegrass Music against either one of us. I don’t know the other three candidates well enough to single out Robert as the only choice for GA Moderator, but I know him well enough to say that if he is elected he will do a good job and represent the PC(USA) well.

And with that I turn it over to the wisdom, discernment and leading of the Holy Spirit through the voice of the commissioners. We pray that God will lift up a Moderator that God has prepared for these times.

Mid Councils Commission Report To The 220th GA Of The PC(USA)

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Having gotten through a bunch of posts related to a number of other GA’s let me turn to the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I am hoping to discuss a few of the major topics coming to the GA and I hope that my blogging time before the big show starts is sufficient to get through what I want to.

While many in the church are hanging on the results of the overtures concerning marriage, and a number outside the church are actively lobbying on both sides of the Israel/Palestine divestment debate, it is my view that the most important business coming to the Assembly in terms of the future of the PC(USA) is the Mid Councils Commission Report.

This Commission, originally known as the Middle Governing Bodies Commission but renamed when the church got the new name for governing bodies (councils), has been working hard since the last GA to produce a report and make recommendations. The report is a good piece of work and does a great job of dissecting the denomination and its problems. You can read the basic report (111 pages) or a version with all the data they collected ( 326 pages – you have been warned but presbygeeks can go have a field day ). In fact, in one of the presentations on the MCC Report I attended the member of the commission freely admitted that there is way more info in that data than the commission had time to massage out of it.

But the Commission’s output does not stop there. They also have posted a number of Resources, their Minutes and Meeting Documents, an active blog with embedded YouTube videos they have produced, a Twitter account (@mgbcomm), and a Facebook page. There has also been a lot of discussion of the Commission’s work on the individual blogs of Tod Bolsinger, the chair, and commission member John Vest. You can not say that this Commission was trying to be stealth about their work.

Let me make some comments first on the report in general so if you just want to see my comments on the recommendations you can jump down a bit.

The report begins with the usual front pieces including the recommendations and an executive summary. The main body of the report begins right up front with their vision:

We envision a larger geographic canvas, a secure frame of constitutional accountability, and creative, collaborative leaders experimenting in creating missional communities for sending disciples into to the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It then goes on to unpack that vision a bit before going on to assess the state of the PC(USA) specifically and the context of the changing world around us. I know that the Commission is promoting a later piece of their report as the “if you are only going to read one thing read this…” but for me I think the preceding section on Presbyterians in a Post-Christendom World is a great reality check for anyone who tries to simplify the current context the denomination finds itself in.

So based on that what’s the nature of the recommendations the Commission is proposing? They say:

So instead of affirming structures that only protect us from the dysfunction of a few, we offer a proposal for the “maturing, motivated, and the missional”; that is, those who are willing to work together to draw upon the historic values of our past and faithfully reinterpret them to engage a far different world than any of our forbearers imagined.

Another way that they have been describing it is a denomination that is “Flat. Flexible. Faithful.” They then offer these suggestions that come out of their conversations:

Reengage the Pew in Presbyterian Shared Life, Mission, and Governance
Growing in Cultural Proficiency to Engage an Increasingly Multi‐Cultural Context
Develop Capacity to Lead Congregational Transformation
Rebuild Trust

The report then gets into details of their work — if you are interested in it go read it. In summary, they talked with anyone and everyone from the denomination they could get into a room with them. In addition they conducted surveys of the wider church through Research Services. They are a little bit vague on consultations with other denominations and I would be interested in seeing more here since I think there is a lot to learn from some of our Presbyterian brothers and sisters around the country and the globe.

I must admit that in my early thinking about this Commission I was anticipating some more concrete recommendations about what the PC(USA) should look like going forward. We will see if it is for better or for worse, but the Commission report does lays out a lot of models as examples of what is being done now without recommending or favoring any specifically, except to the extent that they got included. They basically invite the church have at it. So in order to create the space for that to happen they have eight recommendations that fall into three categories.

Synods
This may be the recommendation that has gotten the most press and many see as “getting rid of synods.” Yes, the very first recommendation in the report is to strike Book of Order section G-3.04, but read the recommendations carefully and you realize that a lot of what we now know as synods continue in some form under their proposal. The Commission describes it as Repurposing synods.

Synods as a ~~judicatory~~ ~~court~~ ~~governing body~~ council would disappear but similar work would go on in different forms. The Commission proposes that most of the ecclesiastical work would be carried out in five Regional Administrative Commissions at the General Assembly level (Recommendation 3). Similarly, the judicial structure would be revamped to continue to provide for an intermediary judicial level (Recommendation 4). And each of the current synods would bring to the next GA a plan for what is going to happen to its assets, projects and programs (Recommendation 2). We will have to wait and see what diversity of proposals there are to this repurposing.

Since this set of recommendations seems to continue synod activity in a modular form it is interesting to speculate about alternate options for synods. As I will discuss in a moment the report recommends providing a new flexibility at the presbytery level and it might be worth considering the possibility of extending similar flexibility to synods rather than the compartmentalization.

I should also note the significant transitional infrastructure that comes with the transformation of the synods. There will be a committee to set up the Regional Administrative Commissions and to clean up the polity wording for the Constitution (Recommendation 3). Another committee would work on setting up the new PJC structure. Finally, there would be a commission that would be empowered to act on presbytery and synod rearrangements in the interim until the Regional Commissions are empowered to do so. This final Commission is important because it will allow the denomination to act more rapidly on presbytery restructuring rather than waiting for the next regular General Assembly.

Presbyteries
The Commission is recommending something that has been proposed before ( 217th, 218th, 219th ) but overwhelmingly rejected, the idea of flexible presbyteries. The Commission does put two provisions on the recommendations that makes it different from previous proposals. First the flexible presbyteries are only for missional purposes and not for more general purposes of affinity (but I would speculate there is a thin line between the two). Second, there is a sunset clause and these flexible presbyteries are provisional and only for trial purposes and at the end of the trial at midnight on December 31, 2021 these golden carriages turn back into pumpkins and everyone goes back to where they started. And one of the things the Commission emphasizes is that at the presbytery level nothing has to change.

The details are pretty straight forward: It takes ten churches and ten ministers to form a presbytery. (But the report says churches on average only have 56% installed pastors so maybe it would really take 18 churches to come up with 10 pastors.) Under Recommendation 6 if you have the requisite number you can form a non-geographic presbytery for missional purposes. The churches remain connected to their geographic presbyteries of origin, can split their per capita between them, have voice in meetings of the presbytery of origin, and have to have the approval of the presbytery of origin for matters regarding property or for division and dismissal. For churches moving between geographic presbyteries it would work the same way.

Associated with this is Recommendation 5 which forms the previously mentioned commission to act on behalf of the Assembly in matters regarding presbytery and synod reorganizations.

Racial Ethnic Ministries
One of the hot topics this Commission faced was racial ethnic ministries in the PC(USA). This has to be dealt with if synods are to be repurposed because, as the report says (page 73):

It is widely acknowledged, and factually irrefutable, that Synods have been the traditional Safe Haven for matters regarding racial ethnic Ministry. This truth emerges from two (2) primary factors, Critical Mass and Sociological Necessity.

The Commission emphasized this relationship and formed a Racial Ethnic Strategies Task Force as part of their Commission to specifically address this and their report is included in the body of the main report.

In response to this need the Commission recommends (Recommendation 8) that a National Racial Ethnic Ministries Task Force be formed. The recommendation begins:

In light of what we have heard in our conversation with the church identifying a critical condition concerning lack of confidence in the substance and direction of racial ethnic ministry, we recommend

It goes on to specify the groups the members of the task force should be drawn from and to state that its charge is to “review, assess and explore the call to, responsibility in, and vision for racial ethnic ministry within the PC(USA).”

Trust
One final area the Commission noted was the break-down of trust within the denomination. They write (page 41):

Of all the “non‐structural issues” that we have identified, perhaps the single greatest gift that this Commission can raise up for the church is to say as loudly and as clearly as we possibly can that there is a crisis of trust in our denomination and that it, more than anything else, is the single greatest threat to the vitality and future existence of the church.

Congregational leaders don’t trust presbyteries. Presbyteries don’t trust synods. Synod leaders see themselves as the “breakwater” protecting the church from the General Assembly (which might be the least trusted system of all.) As the report from our Commission’s Racial Ethnic Strategy Task force states, “Also prominent in the Commission’s polling of the Church were the expressions of deep and abiding mistrust – fueled by a general absence of meaningful connection to the national, regional and even local judicatories.”

There is no specific recommendation to rebuild trust but they explain it this way (page 43):

Perhaps the greatest effect of our proposals is that it will by necessity bring the church closer. Now, for congregations to have more flexibility they will necessarily practice discernment within both presbytery and General Assembly processes. While the flexibility to experiment comes with built‐in mechanisms to insure relational and constitutional fidelity, the true test of our trust will come as we allow room for others to create presbyteries that are different than our preferences and maybe even contradictory to our convictions.

There is a related recommendation, number 7, which asks for a task force to review the General Assembly Mission Council and the Office of the General Assembly, their “nature and function … specifically with respect to their relationship with and support of mid councils as they serve the vitality and mission of congregations in our changing context. Regarding this they write:

Over and again, stories were told about the pervasive distrust of General Assembly, about the amount of resources that go into our six‐part structure, the lack of an effective and clear national strategy toward immigrant populations, and the ways in which the GAMC “competes” with presbyteries and synods for giving dollars. A flatter hierarchy with a focus on the congregation as the center of the mission of the church will not be complete until the church reconsiders the bureaucratic structures of GAMC and eliminates any competition for power or resources between the GAMC and OGA. These conditions foster a bureaucratic mentality at a time when we need to do get back to mission and ministry, doing “whatever it takes” to revitalize local congregations. [emphasis in original]

But Wait, There’s More
Now the GA junkies reading this are well aware that a commission report like this does not happen in a vacuum and there are other opinions floating around out there.

The first set of opinions are those attached to the report on PC-Biz. The Assembly Committee on the Constitution weighs in first in a lengthy discussion. They note that the first four recommendations concerning synods are a work in progress and while it contains the constitutional language to begin the process they express concern that the details are left for later. They write

The
Advisory Committee on the Constitution (ACC) notes that the
recommendations presume a number of constitutional amendments that are
not yet before this assembly (cf. Recommendations 3 and 4). There is
considerable risk in committing to a course of action on the assumption
that the proposed action can be accomplished constitutionally without
having the opportunity to evaluate the merits of the proposed mechanisms
for implementation.

In addition they advise that the four recommendations be taken as a single multi-part motion. While expressing concern about non-geographic presbyteries and suggesting that the end could be accomplished by affiliations that do not require constitutional changes they more suggest tweaks to the language than out-right disapproval.

That is not the case for the Assembly Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns which asks that none of the Commissions recommendations be approved and instead the present an outline for a new Racial Ethnic Ministry Commission. However, in reading through this comment I see no powers or responsibilities being granted this entity which requires it to be a commission to act on behalf of the General Assembly.

The next group to comment is the Assembly Committee on Social Witness Policy. Their comment is brief – they recommend the Commission’s recommendations be disapproved. The opening line of their rational pretty much sums up their view: “Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.” The rational is long and I will summarize it by saying that they see continued value in the PC(USA) structure and tradition and that the main cause of the decline of the mainline is the intolerance young people see in the church.

The Committee on the Office of the General Assembly is much more surgical in it’s recommendation. It too sees the Commission’s recommendations as a work in progress and recommends referring portions that are focused on constitutional language. It wants a task force to refine these recommendations to address the critical and important issues.

The General Assembly Committee on Representation advises the Assembly to approve Recommendation 8 creating the National Racial Ethnic Ministries Task Force. They too note the non-traditional nature of non-geographic presbyteries and express concern for groupings by choice rather than by geography and implications for diversity.

Finally, there is a joint comment by the General Assembly Mission Council and the Office of the General Assembly that expresses much of the same interest and concern as the GACOR recommendation does. It particularly highlights the historic linkage between the synods and racial ethnic ministry in the denomination and expresses their willingness to resource the proposed task force.

The Mid Councils Review Commissioners Committee at GA has more than the Mid Councils Commission report to deal with. There are 19 business items plus the review of the minutes from the 16 synods. Within the business items another six are transfers of churches between presbyteries and sometimes synods. While most of the remaining items would have some interaction with the Commission report – such as 05-01 that would permit synods to reorganize presbyteries without the need for GA approval or 05-14 from the ACC that asks for an Authoritative Interpretation that non-geographic presbyteries are “only for the purposes of meeting the mission needs of racial ethnic or immigrant congregations” – three items directly address the report. Item 05-02 from the Presbytery of St. Andrew proposes the alternative of reorganizing the synods down into six to eight rather than the Commission’s repurposing scheme. Item 05-09 from the Presbytery of San Diego asks both to extend the Commission’s service to handle the presbytery reorganizations or make the new commission proposed in Recommendation 5 a successor commission, as well as proposing a slightly different plan for flexible presbyteries. Finally, in item 05-10 the Presbytery of Baltimore says that all of these changes are too much at one time and they ask the Assembly to delay the non-geographic presbytery recommendations to the 222nd GA (2016).

And in another venue one of the required questions for the candidates for Moderator of the GA to answer in the Moderatorial Candidates Book is about what they find “especially promising” about the Commission report. All four of the candidates speak highly of the Commission report and mention the flexibility and space for creativity and creating new relationships especially the partnering between churches for mission.

Concluding Remarks
I have been watching the process of the Commission, I have read their report and considered the reaction to it both in the formal comments and around the web ( exempli gratia ). Blogger John Shuck will be serving as a commissioner on the Mid Council Review Committee and he has already noted that support or opposition to the Commission recommendations fall along familiar lines. It is a complex report and most would agree it is a work in progress. Maybe the biggest question is not the church’s openness to doing things in a new way but whether it is willing to take a step in a particular direction without all the “i’s” dotted and the “t’s” crossed. And support and opposition is complex as well with multiple parts and the option of supporting it in part and disagreeing in part.

What will happen at GA? It might be approved with few or just minor revisions. Maybe it will be deemed “not ready for prime time” and referred back to the Commission with instructions (and the Commission’s life extended) much as the nFOG was. More likely the different parts will see different fates. I don’t know and I am hesitant to speculate, but where angels fear to tread… If I had to predict based purely on my gut feeling I would expect that the GAMC/OGA Review Task Force and the National Racial Ethnic Task Force (Recommendations 7 and 8) will be adopted overwhelmingly. The provisional non-geographic presbyteries pieces (Recommendations 5 and 6) will be more controversial but will be adopted with some revisions and with some opposition. The synod recommendations (1-4) will be deemed still too much of a work in progress and referred to someone to work out the details and bring it back to the 221st GA.

But as with many things Presbyterian the process will probably be as important, and telling, as the outcome. I see this issue as the primary bellwether at this GA for the future of the denomination and its openness to change. It will be here that the tension between different visions of the future from different parts of the denomination can best be discerned. And that indicator will continue down to the presbyteries if any of the constitutional amendments are sent down to them. How much can we fight the seven last words of the church – “We’ve never done it that way before.” [ Hint: we have done it that way before but that is a topic for another time.] Is Flat, Flexible and Faithful what we need to be about now? As the PC(USA) looks to its future may we be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

And now for something completely different… to conclude, a bit of silliness. While reading through the Recommendations of this report with a task force here and a commission there it started to remind me of something and so I fleshed it out so we could all sing along. I think you’ll catch on to the tune…

On the fifth day of G.A. the MC Comm gave to us
5 Regional Commissions
4 Hundred pages
3 Book of Order amendments
2 Review task forces
And a request for synod plans to repurpose

“A Vast Diversity Of Interpretation” — Redwoods Presbytery Expresses Their Disagreement With The Spahr II Decision

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The biggest news in the Presbyverse right now is the motion passed by the Presbytery of the Redwoods objecting to the decision and punishment and failure to overturn those on appeal in the most recent disciplinary case against the Rev. Jane Spahr (the Spahr II decision).

In case you have missed it, this past Tuesday was the first stated presbytery meeting of Redwoods Presbytery since the PC(USA) General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission heard the appeal in this case and upheld the decision from the Presbytery Permanent Judicial Commission trial. Teaching Elder Spahr was found to have committed “the offense of representing that a same-sex ceremony was a marriage by performing a ceremony in which two women were married under the laws of the State of California and thereafter signing their Certificate of Marriage as the person solemnizing the marriage.” In addition, she was accused of persisting in this since the first disciplinary action (Spahr I decision) and of violating her ordination vows by failing to be subject to the authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order.

At the Presbytery meeting, in the Stated Clerk’s report of the GAPJC decision, a motion was introduced that laid out a series of reasons the judicial decisions were wrong and concluded with this resolution:

Be it RESOLVED that the Presbytery of the Redwoods opposes imposition of
the rebuke set forth in the decision dated August 27, 2010, as
inconsistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Constitution of the
Presbyterian Church (USA), and the faithful life of ministry lived out
in this Presbytery.

The full text of the resolution is available from the Presbytery (with a follow-up letter from the Stated Clerk), MLP web site or Mary Holder Naegeli’s blog.

Let me begin with some polity observations. We need to be clear at the onset that the Presbytery resolution is an objection or protest. The rebuke has been made and registered. The Presbyterian News Service article about the resolution says this from the Presbytery Stated Clerk:

“Perhaps the majority, perhaps all of them, thought they had removed the
rebuke but I don’t see how it is in the power of the presbytery to do
that,” Conover said, adding that he had about 30 minutes notice on the
Clark motion before the beginning of the meeting.

The article goes on to say that Laurie Griffith, manager of judicial process in the Office of the General Assembly affirms this as well with the article saying that “The rebuke stands, whether Redwoods Presbytery reads it publicly or not.”

Let’s drill down on this for a moment. In Book of Order section D-11.0403e about the degree of censure it ends with this line: “Following such determination and in an open meeting, the moderator of
the session or permanent judicial commission shall then pronounce the
censure.” In the decision Charlotte v. Jacobs (GAPJC decision 215-09) the Commission clarifies that “Unless there is a stay of enforcement in place, censure takes effect immediately upon the pronouncement of the decision at trial…” The Presbytery PJC decision did specify a stay in the event of appeals so with the exhaustion of the appeals the rebuke pronounced at the conclusion of trial on August 27, 2010 would go into effect with the decision by the GAPJC on February 20th, 2012.

Bottom line – they can express opposition to the rebuke, but under our polity the rebuke decided upon and initially imposed 21 months ago by the Presbytery through their own judicial commission became effective earlier this year.

What have they done? First and foremost, the Presbytery by a 74-18 vote has effectively registered a protest to the current authoritative interpretation of the PC(USA) Constitution. And, if I understand the news reports correctly (and I would welcome someone who was there to provide more accurate information in the comments) the resolution did not stop the Stated Clerk from reporting and distributing the decision, but it stopped the decision, including the rebuke from being read. Based on usual practice the rebuke has been read at lease once and probably twice before after the PPJC trial and the SPJC appeal.

I have spent a good deal of time in the last 36 hours working through GAPJC decisions and the Annotated Book of Order to see if I can find a precedent. I am not aware of one but I invite anyone to comment if they are aware of a previous similar presbytery action. From reports on-line it appears that others are not aware of a precedent either. The Louisville Courier-Journal has this in Peter Smith’s column: “Jerry Van Marter, director of Presbyterian News Service, said he knows
of no other case where a presbytery has refused to carry out a court
directive.” And in her blog Mary Holder Naegeli, an experienced watcher of these things, says “I cannot recall in almost 25 years as an ordained minister ever witnessing open defiance of a direct PJC order.”

What next? The PNS article says:

Laurie Griffith, manager of judicial process in the
Office of the General Assembly said there “are two possible options for
redress if anyone wanted to raise the issue” of the presbytery’s
refusal.

“Each presbytery submits a ‘compliance report’ to
the GAPJC, which is reported for information to each General Assembly,”
she told the Presbyterian News Service, but it’s always been just pro
forma.”

The other option, Griffith said, “could be a
remedial complaint against the presbytery, but remedial complaints are
not usually used to challenge disciplinary processes.”

My only comments on the remedial complaint is that 1) while they are not usually used to challenge disciplinary processes this resolution appears to be without precedent so “usually” is the operative word and 2) it strikes me that this is not so much an issue with the disciplinary process itself as with the Presbytery’s response to it and enforcement of it.

[Please see update at the end of this] Now, I want to mention one non-polity issue that – if correct – I do find disturbing. Reports have mentioned a significant media presence at the presbytery meeting for this item. If the media were there just expecting the reading of the decision, that is one thing. There seems to be a feeling, and I have no independent confirmation of this, that the media was made aware of the counter-motion in advance and were there for a sensational story. In itself that is still OK, we have open meetings… except note what the Stated Clerk said above – that he “only had about 30 minutes notice [of the motion] before the beginning of the meeting.” Presumably the same goes for the Presbytery Moderator who had to handle this business. (If the Moderator had notice but the Clerk did not then the Moderator and the Clerk need to talk more.) It strikes me as a break with our much-valued “mutual forbearance” and “peace, unity and purity” if the mainstream media was given notice to be there but those charged with the decently and orderly conduct of the meeting were not.
[Important update: Did get information from someone who was there and it was their impression that the media was there for the reading of the censure. In fact, they observed one reporter grumbling because they had already written the story and now had to rewrite it. I stand down from my concerns expressed above.]

I might have a lot more to say about this later, but there are more pressing events for a GA junkie upon us now and I will postpone any further thoughts on this, possibly indefinitely. If you want more coverage you can get it from all the usual suspects including…

Presbyterian coverage from the PNS and Outlook
Concurring opinions from MLP, John Shuck, Ray Bagnuolo and TAMFS
Opposing opinions from Mary Holder Naegeli, Viola Larson, The Layman and Stand Firm
Religious media coverage from The Christian Post
Mainstream media reports from several sources including the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Los Angeles Times

Enough for now — This will have reverberations for a while to come in many forms and on many levels. We will see where this leads. Stay tuned…

PC(USA) GAPJC Decision — Hwang v. Synod Of Southern California And Hawaii

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Last fall there was an interesting case decided by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission that seems to have gotten relatively little notice. One of the interesting features is listed right up front in the decision in the first few words of the Arrival Statement –

This is a remedial case of original jurisdiction…

For those not up to speed on their PJC lingo this is one of those rare instances when the GAPJC is the trial court for a remedial complaint. (And thanks to our Synod EP/Stated Clerk Doska Ross for some history on these cases and they are a roughly once per decade occurrence. It is also useful to note that two similar cases were recently denied by the GAPJC because the claimant did not have standing – 220-06 and 220-07 )

Before we dive into the background of the complaint and the details of the decision I need to give full disclosure and clarification — As many of you know I have been active in the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii (the Synod) for a number of years and as a recent officer of the Synod I have a strong connection to the Respondent in this case and know many of the individuals involved. However, in my time working with the Synod, while I am familiar with the events that led up to the complaint, I have not been a member of the Administrative Commission that is at the heart of this case and I have not been involved with the day-to-day events the Commission has dealt with. Now, having said that let’s move onward…

At the center of this case is the Hanmi Korean language non-geographic Presbytery. The presbytery was first authorized for ten years by the 195th General Assembly (1983) and organized on January 28, 1984. The 204th General Assembly (1992) granted the request for a fifteen year extension with the instructions for the presbytery and the synod to
“prepare an intentional plan for the transfer of congregations, as they
are ready, to the proper geographic presbytery … .” As the fifteen years were winding down another request for reauthorization was made and the 218th General Assembly (2008) granted the request that Hanmi Presbytery be “continued without term limit.” This was in contrast to the 219th General Assembly (2010) that declined to create a new non-geographic Korean language presbytery elsewhere in the country.

Back in February 1999 the Synod created an Administrative Commission (AC) to take jurisdiction of Hanmi Presbytery and help it work through various problems. The AC is still in place today – that would be 12 of the 28 years the presbytery has been active – and through its history the Synod has modified the AC’s powers and in general has over time reduced its authority with responsibility being transferred back to the Presbytery. In addition, at this time Hanmi has four administrative commissions of its own working with different churches. At a called Synod Assembly meeting on 18 December 2010 the Synod granted the AC some additional authority which became the basis on which this remedial complaint was filed.

The case is Remedial Case 220-05: Steve S. Hwang, Complainant v. Synod of Southern California and Hawaii, Respondent. The GAPJC heard the case almost one year later in October 2011. (The case was tried under the Book of Order in effect at the time of the alleged irregularities but some portions of the decision drift into using current Book of Order citations.)

At the December 2010 meeting the Synod added to the jurisdiction of the AC by:

(i) adding the responsibilities of the Presbytery’s Committee on Ministry (COM) outlined in G-11.0502 a, b, c, and j of the Book of Order, (ii) adding jurisdiction over the administrative commissions previously created by Presbytery, specifically including the Administrative Commission for Torrance First Presbyterian Church (TAC), and (iii) prohibiting the Presbytery and its COM from taking any actions from those designated responsibilities without the prior consent of the SAC.

Through the pre-trial conferences the trial was limited to two specific issues:

(i) Whether on December 18, 2010, the Synod committed an irregularity under G-11.0502 when it added to the jurisdiction of the pre-existing Synod Hanmi Presbytery Administrative Commission by giving the Commission full jurisdiction over the responsibilities of the Presbytery’s Committee on Ministry as outlined in G-11.0502 a, b, c, and j, without giving the Commission complete jurisdiction over the Presbytery itself; and

(ii) Whether on December 18, 2010, the Synod committed an irregularity under G-9.0502 when it gave the pre-existing Synod Hanmi Presbytery Administrative Commission complete jurisdiction over administrative commissions previously constituted by Hanmi Presbytery, including specifically the Administrative Commission for Torrance First Presbyterian Church.

In their decision a majority of the GAPJC did not sustain these complaints and the reasoning was fairly brief and direct. Regarding the first alleged irregularity they write “while it may be questioned whether the Synod wisely allocated G-11.0502 responsibilities between the SAC and the Presbytery, this Commission declines to substitute its judgment for that of the Synod.” They then go on to cite the sections of the Book of Order that as “currently interpreted” permit a synod to take original jurisdiction.

Concerning the second irregularity they say:

As to the second alleged irregularity, it may be questioned whether the Synod should have included the TAC as one of the administrative commissions over which it was taking jurisdiction, since the record is unclear as to whether the TAC existed on December 18, 2010. However, the Synod’s action did not rise to the level of an irregularity since, if the TAC did then exist, the Synod would have had authority to assume jurisdiction over it under G-9.0503…; if it did not then exist, the assertion of authority would have been of no effect.

So there is the core of the decision, but there is a lot more here for us polity wonks to chew on. Let me begin with a bit more of the decision. The GAPJC does note that “the authority to assume original jurisdiction over a lower governing body is not a specifically delegated authority in the Book of Order, except in the case of a presbytery assuming original jurisdiction of a session.” But in rendering their decision they defer to a General Assembly Authoritative Interpretation from 2003 “which listed the assumption of original jurisdiction over a presbytery by a synod as one of the remedies available to the synod if a presbytery within its jurisdiction is not obeying decisions of the General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission.”

But they go on to point out the tension in the Presbyterian system with the presbytery as the basic unit of the system and say

This
Commission lifts up to the church for its consideration the question of whether the 2003
Authoritative Interpretation adequately embodies the principle of F-3.0209 (formerly G-9.0103)
that “the jurisdiction of each council is limited by the express provisions of the Constitution, with
powers not mentioned being reserved to the presbyteries.” While the provision of former G-9.0503a(4) (now G-3.0109b(5)) makes it clear that councils may appoint administrative
commissions to “inquire into and settle the difficulties” in bodies within their jurisdiction, this
Commission suggests that assuming original jurisdiction of a lower body is a matter of such a
serious nature that the authority to do so should be explicitly prescribed in the Book of Order.

But wait, there’s more… This decision also has a concurring opinion, a dissenting opinion and two opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part. Lot’s of stuff here for polity wonks to chew on.

Two commissioners signed the concurring opinion noting that they concur reluctantly because the issues on trial were so narrowly defined. They go on to say “this case demonstrates the difficulties that can arise when a synod administrative commission assumes original jurisdiction over a troubled presbytery.” For synods working with presbyteries, particularly language-specific ones, they argue that original jurisdiction is an “inadequate and confusing response” and note that with the AC in place the inalienable right of members to chose their leaders has been restricted for a dozen years. They conclude

If a presbytery is so fragile or so conflicted that it cannot govern itself then it should be asked if
the presbytery is viable. If not, the presbytery should be dissolved and its congregations
transferred to other presbyteries. However, a presbytery, having been established, should first be
given a fair opportunity to succeed or fail by its own efforts. The current situation, where a
presbytery is deemed viable but denied self-government, is unworkable. The congregations and
ministers of Hanmi Presbytery deserve better.

The next opinion is concurring in part and dissenting in part and signed by two commissioners with a third agreeing with most of it. Their point is that the Torrance Administrative Commission was properly concluded before the Synod took the action and they conclude “Neither a declaration by the Synod nor a Decision of this Commission can call back into existence an AC which no longer exists.” But along with this they are critical of the AC and the Synod for not being transparent about the facts and possibly even being obstructive. As they write, “it was inappropriate and even misleading for the SAC’s recommendation to have given specific emphasis to the Torrance AC.”

The dissenting opinion was signed by two commissioners and three more signed on to all but the concluding paragraph. This is a good read for polity wonks as the dissent talks about the nature of Presbyterian government and the relationship of governing bodies. They note that while there is the right of review and control of a higher governing body over a lower one, they argue that “such a reviewing authority does not provide authority for a pro-active taking over of the jurisdiction of a lower governing body.” Combined with the provision that “with powers not mentioned being reserved to the presbyteries” (G-9.0103, now F-3.0208-.0209)” they write in conclusion:

Our constitution has no explicit provision whether a synod can appoint an Administrative Commission to assume the original jurisdiction over a Presbytery. Applying a provision for
Presbytery to Synod is over-reaching interpretation of the Constitution and may not be well
reflected the principle of Presbyterian governing (F-3.0208, F-3.0209). We believe the
empowering of the SAC by the Synod to intervene in the existing Presbytery’s power to govern
its congregations through its committee on ministry and administrative commissions is un-Presbyterian and an erroneous decision and, therefore, the complaints must be sustained.

The final concurring in part and dissenting in part opinion takes issue with the Synod granting to the AC only four of the ten responsibilities of the Committee on Ministry. They argue that to fragment a committee’s responsibilities is disruptive and even if legal with “its threat of disorder it rises to the level of irregularity.” The commissioners argue that the granting the AC the powers of the COM should be all or nothing:

The functions of a Committee on Ministry as outlined in G-11.0502, a-j, are not to be pastorally
or operationally fragmented because its processes and procedures are holistic by nature. The
segregation of selected functions or divided authorization between a committee and a
commission is unwieldy and unnecessary. It fractures the operations of work that is often
pastorally delicate and operationally intricate.

So there you have a run-down of the decision. Several great polity questions in there which the GAPJC had to deal with. Probably the one with the widest future applicability is whether a synod can take original jurisdiction of a troubled presbytery. While the dissenting opinion argued “no” the majority gave a “yes, but…” It is interesting though that while they said it would be helpful to have it explicitly stated in the constitution and they stated that they would not overturn the previous interpretation, to some degree they seem to have expanded that previous interpretation. The AI on 03-04 by the 215th General Assembly dealt specifically with the powers of enforcement when a GAPJC decision was not being complied with. In this case the rational is extended to a synod stepping in to work with a troubled presbytery. (And there have been enough judicial cases in all this to argue that it is in response to one although the decision does not specifically cite any.) (You can see if this link to the AI works. And the report of the Special Committee on Existing Authoritative Interpretation recommends retaining this AI.)

This decision, while reinforcing the status quo, should also cause us to think about the nature of a presbytery and the current expectations for it. Our presbyteries are much more institutional than they were about a century ago and when they don’t function as the institution they are expected to be the question is not what are the legal ways to help them out but what are the best ways to support them. The other side of the coin to this, of course, is asking the question the decision does as to whether presbyteries are being created that are not viable in our current institutional structure.

So the GAPJC decision enhances the strength of connectionalism and higher governing bodies’ powers of review and control. While it would be interesting to see if future cases are helpful in further defining these powers between the rarity of these cases to begin with and the prospect of the re-purposing of synods would seem to make this unlikely. However, this decision could be relevant to some of the “reflective experimentation” that could come out of the Mid-Councils Commission recommendations if a higher council felt that a presbytery experiment was getting out of hand. It will be interesting to see if this decision has future implications. Stay tuned…

PC(USA) Synod PJC Decisions — Per Capita And Property

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For us Presbyterian Polity Wonks this past weekend was a good weekend for interesting PJC decisions. I will say at the onset that both were decided as I expected, but that does not make them any less interesting. And of course the interest and importance is enhanced by the fact that they deal with two of the hot-topics in the PC(USA) today — per capita and property. And the obvious reminder, these are synod PJC decisions so there is no broad application at this stage and as I will discuss I think they both rely on and reinforce current precedent.

If you want an executive summary of these two remedial cases here you go: The SPJC of the Synod of the Trinity found that changes to the new Form of Government were not substantial in the area of per capita and that Pittsburgh Presbytery could not make a new policy to avoid paying per capita it did not collect. In the second case, the SPJC of the Synod of the Pacific found that San Francisco Presbytery did have the authority under the Book of Order and acted in good faith when it dismissed a church with its property.

Now the details…

Last December Pittsburgh Presbytery
adopted as part of its Manual of Presbytery the line “Presbytery shall only remit to the General Assembly the per capita assessment it receives from the particular churches that is designated by those councils.” In their decision in the trial of this remedial case – David C. Green, Complainant, vs. The Presbytery of Pittsburgh, Respondent – the SPJC of the Synod of the Trinity boils down the argument of the Presbytery and the SPJC’s disagreement with that argument nicely into two paragraphs:

Pittsburgh Presbytery argues that the adoption of the New Form of Government by the 219th (2010) General Assembly set aside the applicable previous decisions of General Assembly, Permanent Judicial Commission and Authoritative Interpretations since the General Assembly “chose not to include the strict construction language from the 1999 Authoritative Interpretation (Request 99-1)”.

We disagree with this argument. The substance of the previous relevant language, now found in G-3.0106, was adopted except for the addition of the clause, “but in no case shall the authority of the Session to direct its benevolences be compromised.” We do not believe the addition of this clause has changed the obligation of presbyteries to remit per capita to synods and General Assembly.

So, at this point the opinion is that the language in the Book of Order has not changed to a substantial degree and previous General Assembly Interpretations still stand. This decision is in agreement with the Report of the Special Committee on Existing Authoritative Interpretations of the Book of Order, released a few days after the SPJC decision, which recommends that Authoritative Interpretation 99-1 be retained. The SPJC decision also discusses GAPJC cases where the same conclusion was reached. They wrap this up by saying “We fully agree with the previous authoritative interpretations.” They then conclude the formal decision itself by noting that not passing on per capita is a “serious breach of trust and love” (Minihan v. Presbytery of Scioto Valley, 216-01) and then applying it to themselves:

If this form of congregational protest were to be passed on to synod and General Assembly by our judicial action, then we would be unconstitutionally encouraging a form of protest that is outside of our understanding of how change can and should be effected within our denomination.

The decision concludes with a Comment that first points out that the constitutional obligation to pay per capita can only be changed by the General Assembly and that for the realities of the current circumstances “The time has come for the General Assembly to provide more guidance on this point.” They then take this a step further and conclude the narrative with this observation:

The loss of per capita funds from financially strapped congregations is another issue altogether, and is addressed, in our opinion inadequately, by the vague standards relating to whether funds are available within presbyteries. Further, we would be remiss in not noting that reality of declining funding is a symptom, not the disease. The underlying causes must be prayerfully addressed at local, presbytery, synod and General Assembly levels, not in the denominational courts or in unconstitutional actions.

The second decision comes in a remedial case filed against San Francisco Presbytery related to its process in dismissing Community Presbyterian Church of Danville, California. In September of 2009 the Presbytery adopted a Gracious Dismissal Policy (version from Summer 2010 with corrections). In November 2010, after a ten month process that included a special informational presbytery meeting, the Presbytery dismissed the church with an agreement for payments to help offset the loss of per capita and mission funding, but no payments required for the congregation to keep the property. Three presbyters filed the remedial complaint charging that the Presbytery had not properly handled the case considering that property was involved. In their unanimous decision – Rev. Wilbert Tom, HR, Rev. David Hawbecker, HR, and Thomas Conrad, Complainants, v. The Presbytery of San Francisco, Respondent – the SPJC of the Synod of the Pacific did not sustain any of the charges, but for a variety of reasons.

As we delve into this we first need to pull that previous version of the Book of Order off the shelf since that was the constitution in effect at the time of the contested process and all citations are to that version. Two sections were front and center in this case and I am sure that you know what they are.

G-8.0201 Al l property held by or for a particular church, a presbytery, a synod, the General Assembly, or the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.), whether legal title is lodged in a corporation, a trustee or
trustees, or an unincorporated association, and whether the
property is used in programs of a particular church or of a more
inclusive governing body or retained for the production of income,
is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

and one of the responsibilities and powers of a presbytery

G-11.0103i . to divide, dismiss, or dissolve churches in consultation with their members;

I want to add two more notes at this point which were not in the forefront of this case but which were kept in mind. The first is the continuation of the section on property:

G-8.0301 Whenever property of, or held for, a particular church of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ceases to be used by that church as a particular church of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in accordance with this Constitution, such property shall be held, used, applied, transferred, or sold as provided by the presbytery.

The second is a paragraph from the 1993 Nature of the Church Report to General Assembly (pg. 16)

The American tradition was being formed. In the Scottish church, all ultimate authority rested in and came from the assembly. But in the American church, the presbytery was the originating authority, relating particular churches into a larger whole. The 1788 Form of Government declared that “. ..no act of a General Assembly could become a standing rule without first being referred to the presbyteries, and securing the consent of at least a majority of them.” The presbytery is the very heart of the Presbyterian system.

The core thesis of the charges in the remedial case were that at worst the presbytery did not have the authority to dismiss a church with property because property “is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)” [i.e. the whole church must be involved]. At best, the case charged that the presbytery did not fulfill its duties as the trustee for the wider church by letting the property go without payment.

In the amended charges there were 13 specifications of error two of which were withdrawn by the Complainants during trial. I won’t go through all of them since most were not sustained either because no relief could be granted or Complainants failed to meet the burden of proof. Three charges form the core of the complaint and the rational of the decision:

Specification of Error No. 1. Complainants contend that the Presbytery’s vote of November 9, 2010, to approve dismissal of the CPCD under terms which included Presbytery’s relinquishment of any and all interests of the PCUSA in the Property without compensation in favor of the EPC is an action which is based on an error in Constitutional interpretation, in that the Presbytery does not own the Property but holds the Property in trust for the use and benefit of the PCUSA (G-8.0201).

Specification of Error No. 2. The Presbytery failed to meet its Constitutional responsibility as trustee in accordance with the Form of Government Part G, Chapter VIII of the Book of Order. As trustee, the Presbytery is obligated to act on behalf of the greater church, to ensure that all property held or used by its particular churches and their respective congregations is held, used and applied in a manner that faithfully advances and serves the ministry and witness of the PCUSA.

Specification of Error No. 4. The Presbytery acted against the Constitution of the PCUSA in that it failed to hold, use, apply, transfer or sell the Property for the benefit of the PCUSA. G-8.0301 provides:
[quoted above]

…Taken together, the provisions of Part G Chapter VIII require the Presbytery to act as a faithful trustee on behalf of the PCUSA in exercising its responsibility and power under the above-referenced Chapter and at Part G Chapter XI, to “divide, dismiss, or dissolve churches in consultation with their members” (G-11.0103i). By its vote on November 9, 2010, the Presbytery failed to act as a faithful trustee under the Constitution.

The rational from the SPJC is remarkably brief in not sustaining these charges. They note that all parties agree the Trust Clause means the property is held for the benefit of the wider church. They then reiterate “Under G-11.0103i, Presbytery has the authority to dismiss a church in consultation with its members to another reformed body” and note that the Presbytery had a process in place and that process was faithfully followed. Having followed the process and in consistency with its policy, they note that the Presbytery exercised its discretion granted under G-8.0301. They then conclude:

In good faith, Presbytery determined that acceptance of the PET [Presbytery Engagement Team] recommendations for dismissal would best serve the overall witness and ministry of the Church of Jesus Christ, thus benefitting [sic] the PC(USA).

Other charges not sustained because no admissible evidence was supplied or the burden of proof was not met include a couple financial ones – the small ratio of payments to Presbytery versus the value of the property and the cost of starting new ministries in the Presbytery. There were charges concerning the flawed nature of the Gracious Dismissal Policy and consideration of state law in the process which were not sustained because no relief could be granted. And two charges, one withdrawn and one not meeting the burden of proof/could not grant relief, questioned the qualifications of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church as a Reformed body a church could be dismissed to.

In summary, the Presbytery did have the authority and did act faithfully and in good faith in dismissing the congregation with their property.

And now, the rest of the story…

This decision also contains a comment which notes the limited applicability of this decision not just because it was decided at the Synod level but because the Gracious Dismissal Policy has been suspended. In light of this first application of the policy the Presbytery decided to suspend the policy and review it and you can read the review team’s September 2011 report. Regarding revisions specific to property and the Trust Clause, here is the relevant portion of the report’s rational (edited slightly for length):

Moreover, San Francisco Presbytery’s original dismissal policy has been challenged in our church courts because of Presbytery’s responsibility for enforcing the property trust clause. It is simply not an option for a presbytery to opt out of a required constitutional responsibility for its enforcement.

We believe that the revised dismissal policy needs to address not only the requirements of the property trust clause, but also the importance of every church in fulfilling Presbytery’s mission (as it becomes clearly defined) within our geographic area. When a congregation seeks to withdraw, Presbytery should consider whether it needs to establish a replacement church in that community and the cost of such action. If a congregation walks away from our denomination without consideration for the injury suffered by the whole, by that departure, it will remind us of every congregation’s sinful tendency to be separate and self-sufficient. We all belong to one another and together constitute the risen Body of Christ.

We have therefore proposed that, ordinarily, a departing church will pay to Presbytery a minimum 10% of the value of the church property. This guidance is based, in part, on the Biblical concept of tithing. However, our policy provides flexibility for the teams negotiating on behalf of Presbytery and the congregation to adjust the recommended amount of compensation depending upon the particular circumstances of the congregation in question… In addition to the property issues, Presbytery will also have to discern in each situation its past, present and future mission with respect to the number of members withdrawing and those wishing to remain with PCUSA, the presence of other Presbyterian congregations in that vicinity, and ongoing mission and outreach efforts in the area.

This revised policy, and proposed amendments to it, are still under discussion by the Presbytery and will probably be influenced by this SPJC decision.

So we have one decision that affirms presbytery obligations under our connectionalism, admittedly as interpreted as by the GA and its PJC. And we have another decision that affirms the presbytery as the basic unit to deal with congregational and presbytery property under the Trust Clause.

What next? Good question. Both decisions strike me as sound and consistent with current constitutional interpretations so I would be skeptical of the success of an appeal to the GAPJC. That does not mean that there won’t be one. For the San Francisco case in particular, with the revision of the policy underway and the limited number of specifications of error that were considered to be in order and could be dealt with, I could see an appeal not being accepted because the case would be considered moot. We will see if any of the parties in these cases consider it beneficial to appeal.

Stay tuned…

The Airline Industry As A Model For The American Mainline Churches

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Last Friday on NPR‘s All Things Considered news show there was an interesting piece in their Planet Money segment on “Why Airlines Keep Going Bankrupt.” In that report the following lines got me thinking:

(Reporter) CAITLIN KENNEY: …[A]ll airlines face these challenges and only some file for bankruptcy. He says it’s usually a certain type.

(Interviewed expert) PROFESSOR SEVERIN BORENSTEIN: The legacy airlines.

So my thinking made the jump –

“All churches face challenges and only some are in steep decline: The mainline churches.”

Is there a parallel or model in here? I am still not sure, but permit me to riff on this a bit.

The story discussed how the legacy airlines had price structures and business models that date from before 1978 when the airline industry was deregulated. After deregulation they could not change rapidly enough to compete with the new low-cost carriers that sprung up and the legacy airlines were driven into bankruptcy, sometimes twice. What did bankruptcy get them?

KENNEY: And that’s where bankruptcy comes in. When you see a
bankruptcy, think of it as an airline saying we want to renegotiate our
contracts so we can be more like newer airlines. James Sprayregen is a
partner at the law firm Kirkland and Ellis. He’s worked on the
bankruptcies of United Airlines and TWA.

JAMES
SPRAYREGEN: Those contracts, albeit amended, you know, dozens and
probably hundreds of times, they sort of grew on themselves almost like a
coral reef. And a lot of inefficiencies got built into those.

KENNEY: In bankruptcy, work rules change, vacation days go away, pensions and benefits get reduced.

SPRAYREGEN: Unfortunately, bankruptcy is all about breaking promises.

KENNEY: Breaking those promises means the legacy airlines are going to start to look a lot like the newer airlines.

So, let’s break this down a little bit…

The concept of deregulation is an interesting one to consider for denominational dynamics. When the mainline membership peaked in the 1960’s the mainline was pretty close to a de facto established church. Then society changed and the mainline church, and churches in general, lost their cultural and social status and the decline began. Norms were not the same regarding the mainline churches and more flexibility and variability were introduced into society’s church-going habits. As I pondered this change that might reflect a sort of “deregulation” in the American religious landscape two things came to mind that might be indicators and results of this change.

The first is the, shall we say, change in stability of the American Presbyterian mainline. Following the division in the 1930’s related to the Fundamentalist/Modernist debate, the branches of the Presbyterian mainline enjoyed a period of relative tranquility that was marked by unions and not by divisions. Following the 1960’s the controversies heated up again with the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America from the southern branch in 1973 and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church from the northern branch in 1981, and other rearrangements continuing to the present. (Check out the chart of the American Presbyterian branches.)

The second development I thought might be indicative of a denominational deregulation is the external influence of non-denominational churches and particularly megachurches. With the loss of influence, authority and loyalty to denominations in general, and the mainline in particular, independent or loosely affiliated churches grew. Note the similarities in timing discussed in this article by Scott Thumma (written around 1996):

Nearly all current megachurches were founded after 1955. The explosive
growth experienced by these congregations, however, did not begin in
earnest until the decade of the eighties (Vaughan 1993:50-51). The 1990’s have not slowed this growth. Data collected in 1992 revealed over 350 such congregations (Thumma 1993b).
Vaughan estimates that the number of megachurches grows by 5 percent
each year (1993:40-41). Given this rate over two million persons will
be weekly attendees of megachurches in the United States by the start
of the new millennium. Anyone familiar with the American religious
scene cannot help but have noticed the rapid proliferation of these
massive congregations. In fact, it is precisely their size which
attracts so much attention.

OK, so in this model we have a societal change that results in a sort of deregulation of the denominational, and particularly the mainline, landscape. This deregulation resulted in both internal and interdenominational changes. And like the airlines the churches are in a position that they can not change fast enough to stay competitive. (old inefficient airplanes –> old inefficient buildings?)

In the story the thing really inhibiting the legacy airlines are the labor agreements. For the churches, what would be our “labor agreements” that have built up over time and keep us from being able to transform into the new reality?

Our polity? Does nFOG solve this for the PC(USA)?
Our structure? Will the MGB Comm be able to solve this? How about the Special Committee on the Nature of the Church for the 21st Century?
Our leadership? Not enough creative thinkers or not enough with a good perspective on youth?

I could go on naming elephants in the room and sacred cows and I’m sure you can think of things that I would not. The point is that there are lots and lots of things which are being mentioned that are keeping a mainline church pointed in the same direction and there is usually someone that thinks that changing that thing will allow the church to, forgive me for using the business term, be more competitive.

Let me step back for a moment here and affirm that there are certain things that are needed for a business and likewise for a church. These can be modified and adapted but not all together dispensed with. To take the analogy to possibly an absurd level of detail, just as an airline needs planes a denomination needs congregations, and as a plane needs a pilot a church needs a pastor. The question is not do we need a plane, but what plane works best in a particular situation? A pilot needs to be trained, but how much and what kind of training for that plane and that situation? Similarly, the “business model” for a denomination does not require every congregation look the same and every pastor have identical training.

If you would permit me a short detour on this theme: Taking a cue from the airline industry, maybe churches need “type certification.” In the airline industry the basic educational requirement for pilots is very similar. If all you want to do is train to be a air transport pilot you can do it in about 6 months for $60,000. But whenever you switch aircraft types you need to be trained and certified on that specific aircraft. Just because you fly a 737 does not mean you can sit down in a 747 and properly fly it. So, could the church have a basic fast-track training program for pastoral leadership and then a more customized extension for the specific situation the individual is going into? For the PC(USA) there is already an interim pastor training program that does something like this. (Although it is an extension, not a replacement, of the standard course of study.) And yes, this is a very general proposal and actually off-topic for this post, but maybe something for continued contemplation.

Returning to the original riff – Let’s move on to the most loaded and divisive question in this model: What would the equivalent action be for a mainline church to reorganize like a company would reorganize in bankruptcy?

Let me put it a different way: What does the mainline church need to get out of to continue on as a viable entity? Or to use the language quoted above – What promises does the mainline church need to break to become the church for the 21st century?

Note carefully the model — this is not working around the edges or tweaking a few programs. This is noting one or two really big things that you then throw out and begin over again. This is the opportunity to deal with that one thing that is holding you back and replace it with something you can work with. Yes it is radical, but in this model, that is what the legacy airlines have to do to remain viable.

So what is it? Maybe the polity? The structure? The ecclesialogy? The theology? I don’t know and I’m not going to suggest anything specific here. The question for thought and discussion, if you accept this model, is what items are peripheral to our core business of being Presbyterian and Reformed, of “Glorifying God and Enjoying God Forever,” of preaching the Word, administering the Sacraments and upholding Discipline, that we can dispense with at whatever cost? If we said “no more Mr. Nice Guy,” what would you do to change the church?

Now, maybe I am completely off base with this – I am more than ready to accept that conclusion. I am simply extending the historical development of one industry to a completely different realm. I can easily be convinced that the model I have put forward here is way too superficial and general and that comparing the airline industry to the Christian Church is not fair to either. I am cautious that what I have done is forced the analogy, making something fit where no correspondence is deserved.

So there I end the thought experiment, at least for the moment in this form. I will say that enough of the analogies work in my own mind that I don’t plan on stopping to think about it – but I won’t promise any written follow up. However, in this time of rethinking everything about the mainline churches I thought it might be an interesting model to put out there. Thanks for thinking it through with me. Your mileage may vary.

Now, where did I put that court decision…

[After thinking about this over the past weekend I was interested to see that on Monday Pastor Questor reposted a similar sort of model, but comparing the mainline to the American auto industry.]

The GA Junkie

The Politics of Presbyterianism

Category Archives: governing bodies

PC(USA) Synod PJC Decision — St. Andrews Session v. Santa Barbara Presbytery Regarding Union Presbyteries

PC(USA) GAPJC Decisions — Larson and others v. Presbytery of Los Ranchos

220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Candidates For Moderator Of The 220th General Assembly (2012) Of The PC(USA)

Mid Councils Commission Report To The 220th GA Of The PC(USA)

“A Vast Diversity Of Interpretation” — Redwoods Presbytery Expresses Their Disagreement With The Spahr II Decision

PC(USA) GAPJC Decision — Hwang v. Synod Of Southern California And Hawaii

PC(USA) Synod PJC Decisions — Per Capita And Property

The Airline Industry As A Model For The American Mainline Churches