Monthly Archives: February 2009

PC(USA) Amendment 08-B Voting At The Half-Way Mark

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Well today the voting on Amendment 08-B to the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) reached the half-way mark with 86 of the 173 presbyteries now having their votes reported.

1)  The unofficial vote tally is 36 yes, 50 no.  The official tally as reported by the stated clerks is 29 to 40.

1a)  The official vote tally lists the voting on Amendment 08-A, about membership vows, as 43 to 29.  The almost mirror image of the 08-B results makes this hard to ignore, but I’ll dig into that another time.

2)  At this time 15 presbyteries have switched their votes from “no” on 01-A to “yes” on 08-B.  If this proportion holds up the final vote will be 75 to 98.  BUT, if you remember my last update the proportions at that time would have given a vote of 63 to 110.  In the last ten days there have been a higher proportion of presbyteries switching to a yes vote after voting no last time.  I still have 13 presbyteries on my “likely” list, but after seeing some previously “solid” conservative presbyteries, like Charlotte and Sheppards and Lapsley, switch votes I now view my list as a minimum.  The Layman has crunched some numbers and they see the possibility of a 50 presbytery swing while I only have a swing of 29 based upon current proportions.

3)  What has been most interesting for me has been to try to peel back some of the layers here and see what the voting patterns can tell us about what is happening in the PC(USA).  As I have mentioned before, looking at the changes in vote numbers in comparison to the changes in presbytery membership has not yielded much information for me.  At another time, when I have more data, I’ll put together my charts and statistics on that and show you what I have not found.

But I have found it interesting to look at how the votes have changed.  There are other observers that are netting it out and looking at percentage yes and no and see how that changes from one time to the next.  But I think that only tells part of the story and in some cases ignores what really seemed to happen.  While each presbytery is different, and there are numerous circumstances that can cause some of these patterns, I see four major categories of voting patterns:

1) No change: While I see this in the smallest number of presbyteries that fall into these four categories, there are several that exhibit no change from last time.  Yesterday’s vote by Missouri Union Presbytery is a great example.  On 08-B they were 31-48, on 01-A they were 34-46.  There were 79 votes cast this time and 80 cast last time and the yes and no numbers are close enough that  statistically I would not say the votes really differ.

2) True swing:  There are some presbyteries where it seems clear the commissioners saw things differently this year and votes changed from no to yes.  Again from yesterday, Peace River is a great example:  On 08-B it was 63 to 82, on 01-A it was 37-105.  Total votes were 145 this time and 142 last time — again close enough to be considered statistically the same.  But clearly there was a shift to yes changing from 26% to 43% approval.  Not enough to approve of the amendment, but a clear trend in that direction.  An example where this happened and it did change the outcome was New Hope Presbytery with 316 voting this year and 312 voting last time but the yes vote went from 49% to 56%.

3) Uniform decline:  This is the case where yes and no votes decline proportionally.  An extreme example of this behavior is Plains and Peaks.  For 01-A the vote was 60-91, for 08-B it was 41-60.  In the first the yes vote was 41%, in the second 40%.  The total number of votes was only 67% of last time.  Looking at the past voting patterns for this presbytery the numbers and percentages have varied a bit over the four votes so while this shows the uniform decline behavior from the last vote, it would be wrong to conclude anything about PC(USA) membership from it.  Another more consistent example is Cayuga-Syracuse:  Going back to the original 96-B vote, and including the following 97-A vote, the pattern was: 26-78, 70-26, 54-21, and 33-12.  Again, fairly constant decreases in both the progressive and conservative numbers (remember the first is the vote to adopt fidelity and chastity so the progressive is the 78 no vote) allowing for some small fluxuations.  And over those four votes the progressive vote was in a narrow range between 72 and 76%.

4) Conservative drop:  Finally, there are several presbyteries that show a decline in the number of “no” votes only.  An example of this vote change is Greater Atlanta.  On 01-A the vote was 235-283 while on 08-B it was 243-233.  Yes, there was a slight up-tick in the number of “yes” votes, but what apparently lead to the approval of the amendment by this presbytery was a decrease of 50 no votes, and there was not a corresponding increase in yes votes.  At least in this case you can’t completely attribute it to declining membership since the number of churches declined by one and the number of members declined by a bit less than 7%.  This was not so much a 6% shift in votes as an 8% loss of “no” voters.

Now, what I have laid out here are four general categories of voting patterns that I observe.  While many presbyteries can be grouped into these categories it is more difficult for others.  In particular, many presbyteries show a combination of the uniform decline and the conservative drop.  And in those declining numbers it is very difficult to say what may be true swing.  And yes, there are a few cases of “liberal drop” and “conservative swing,” but not in nearly the numbers seen in these four groups.

Is this useful?  I think that it is because it provides indicators of what is happening in the denomination.  Admittedly I’m still puzzling over exactly what it means.  And the PC(USA) has its own department of Research Services to slice and dice the denomination statistically, so I’m not alone in looking for ways to take the pulse of the church.

Anyway, that is the complexity I am seeing in the voting trends.  But why should there be easy explanations?  The PC(USA) is a complex collection of unique congregations gathered into culturally different presbyteries.  Clearly no one answer will completely describe what is going on in the denomination.

Additional Overture On Women In The Church For PCA GA Posted

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I see today that Overture 10 for the 37th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America has been posted to the Overtures web page.  This overture is essentially identical to Overture 5 but I want to take a moment to not just review the overture, but consider a couple of the alternatives for what is intended here.

News
At their Presbytery meeting on February 21 the Susquehanna Valley Presbytery approved and forwarded on an overture to General Assembly to “Appoint Study Committee on Role of Women in the Church.”  This is now posted on the web site as Overture 10.  If the title sounds familiar, it is.  This is effectively a concurring overture to Overture 5 from James River Presbytery.  In fact it is identical in content to Overture 5, with one minor exception.

To set the stage for my analysis comments below, let me review the overtures in detail.  As I said, unless noted otherwise the wording is identical in both overtures.

The Whereas section sets forth the current situation in the PCA:

Whereas, The Book of Church Order follows Scripture in forbidding the ordination of women to positions of authority over men; and

That would be Book of Church Order (BCO) section 7-2

Whereas, the PCA has faithfully held to this standard; and
Whereas, the PCA has struggled with the question of how women in the local church are to exercise their God-given gifts within the framework of the BCO, and

This discussion has been going on for a while including four overtures to the last GA about women serving as deaconesses, including the 2008 Overture 9, Overture 15, and Overture 17, all three about creating a study committee on the subject.  The 36th General Assembly chose to keep the standards as they were and not create the study committee.  However, the discussion continues including articles in byFaith magazine with an  article making the case for commissioning deaconesses by Tim Keller and an article arguing against by Ligon Duncan.

Whereas, many PCA churches are uncertain about how to use appropriately God’s gifts among the many capable women within the membership of those churches; and
Whereas, in many PCA churches those gifts are under-utilized;

So, the problem seems to be that in light of the prohibition on deaconesses, or some form of service for women that resembles an ordained office for men (such as commissioning), these Presbyteries are asking for clarification about what ministries women can be involved in and in what ways.  Also, given that information how can they be encouraged in their ministries.

The overtures then go on to ask for a Study Committee to do four things:

(1) What sorts of roles may women fill in the life of the church?
(2) What are some models of local church practices that have developed as ways of employing the gifts of women in the lives of their congregations that might be exemplary and encouraging to other local churches?
(3) What elements of organization and accountability to ordained leadership can be commended to PCA churches that are consistent with the BCO?

And item number 4 is the only point that I can find a difference between the two overtures.  Overture 5 is sort of the standard wording of the request and almost expects changes to the BCO:

(4) What modifications, if any to the BCO might be desirable for achieving the best utilization of the gifts of PCA women in light of the teaching of Scripture?

Overture 10 does not explicitly ask for recommended changes but asks if there is a problem:

(4) Does our BCO unnecessarily hinder achieving the best utilization of the gifts of PCA women in light of the teaching of Scripture?

Other than the names of the presbyteries and the formalities of transmittal this is the only difference in content of these two overtures that I can find in a side-by-side reading.

Finally, there is the section to limit costs to $10,000 and pay for it with private contributions.

Analysis
Central Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic region are not typically regarded as the hot beds of agitation for deaconesses; that distinction usually goes to Philadelphia Presbytery of other metropolitan areas, like New York.  However, last year’s GA did deal with a related issue from Northern California as part of the records review.  (Interesting to note that they are also the most uniformly progressive areas in the PC(USA) ordination standards debates.)

But in researching this issue I came across an interesting historical note on the web site of The City’s Gate Presbyterian Church of Harrisburg, PA.  They have an article on Deaconesses at The City’s Gate Presbyterian Church which says:

As a denomination, The Presbyterian Church in America does not
recognize the ordination of women to either of the two offices of the
Church: elder and deacon. Yet, within the separate branches of reformed
practices that have converged to form the PCA, there is a tradition of
recognizing women who serve the church in specific, public ways as deaconesses. This
tradition was—and still is—most notable among the churches in the PCA
which were formerly part of the Reformed Presbyterian Church,
Evangelical Synod (RPCES), several of whom are part of the Susquehanna
Valley Presbytery, where The City’s Gate enjoys its membership and
employs it for the extension of God’s Kingdom.

The wisdom of this historical recognition of women in ministry is
evident to growing numbers of churches within the PCA apart from the
RPCES tradition.  Increasingly, PCA churches are officially and
formally affirming the importance, the contributions, and the value of
their women in significant, spiritual leadership roles within their
congregations.  This recognition and honoring of the call of God on the
lives of godly women by the church is most frequently done through the
creation, organization, and implementation of the commissioned position
of Deaconess.

and concludes with

It is the desire of The City’s Gate Presbyterian Church to afford to
all its members the fullest expression of their gifts and calling to
private and public ministries within the church.  It is the vision of
this church to carve out for its individuals in public ministry the
widest swathe allowable for them for the use and exercise of their
gifts and calling within the confines of the denomination’s
Constitution.  As part of its pledge of loyalty and loving service to
the Lord Jesus in the greater PCA body, The City’s Gate will actively
seek to reform the church where those present confines are in conflict
with the clearest teaching of Scripture, through heart-felt adoption of
the Motto of the PCA as its own: “Reformed, and Always Reforming.”

I have not yet determined if this overture may have originated from the session of this church, but some tension between the two merged branches regarding this would be understandable.  In fact, as PC(USA) churches realign with the EPC this is a current point of discussion within the EPC.

Having said that, how should we view these overtures?

The most straight-forward is to consider them at face value — They seem to be saying “As a GA you are not authorizing ordained or commissioned deaconesses, as is the historical tradition for some of us, so what are the acceptable roles for women in ministry?”  That seems to be a simple and generally reasonable request.  The GA can of course answer like they did last year that “The BCO is clear as it stands now; work within that framework.”

If you want to read more into it, especially if you like conspiracy theories, these overtures could be seen as a way to get the committee created with a more innocent request and then once the foot is in the door, or the camel’s nose under the tent, standards might get changed.  It may be a little progress, nibbling at the edges of the current standards, or it could be a significant change in ordination standards.  That is parallel to the current PC(USA) vote on Book of Order Amendment 08-B:  The previous vote was to remove the “fidelity and chastity” section, this year it is just to modify it.  But many conservatives see the proposed change as having about the same effect of eliminating the standards.

There is an interesting discussion of the issue and overtures at PuritanBoard with both views, “we need clarity” versus “this is an end-run on deaconesses,” being expressed and debated.  No resolution there but we will have to watch and see what the Assembly ends up thinking.
 

Filling In The Blanks On EPC And PCA GA Overtures

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In my previous posts about upcoming General Assembly business, specifically overtures to the Assembly, I mentioned hints of information but no specifics on two items.  Well, there is now specific information, or at least more information, on these two items.

For the 29th General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church there has been some advance discussion of Affinity Presbyteries to provide a framework for churches that ordain women to be able to join.  As I mentioned in the last post on the subject, the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery was discussing the idea but it has chosen not to request such an affinity presbytery.  There were also indications that the Presbytery of Mid-America was going to overture for a parallel affinity presbytery structure.  That overture has finally been confirmed in the EP News of Feb. 19:

The Presbytery of Mid-America met at Central Presbyterian Church
in St. Louis, Missouri on January 30-31. By an approximate vote of two
to one, the presbytery approved a proposal to draft an overture for
General Assembly consideration calling for the creation of two affinity
presbyteries within the geographic bounds of Mid-America. One affinity
presbytery “would ordain only men to the office of teaching elder and
one would be free to ordain men and women to the office of teaching
elder.” These presbyteries would exist for five years, after which an
evaluation would take place.

The full document is available and contains some more interesting detail.  There is one note that says that the two presbyteries would commit to maintaining the viability of each other.  The second note talks about another meeting before the presbytery meeting where 20 complimentarian pastors indicated they all favored the concept and agreed to work with their sessions to ensure viability and to “maintain relationships.”  There is also a section that talks about the ordination of women being a non-essential and that the presbytery had a process to study and discuss the issue.  Being unable to agree they are now requesting this “friendly division.”

The same news article also mentioned the action of the Presbytery of the East that I talked about last time.  The presbytery agreed to begin permitting the ordination and service of women as pastors.  The article also mentions that the Presbytery of Florida voted to have the Moderator appoint a special committee “to study the ordination and reception of women as Teaching Elders” in that presbytery.

The other piece to be filled in was the missing text of an overture to the 37th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America.  While not available a the time of my previous post on this, the text of Overture 1 has now been posted and it is a fairly simple piece of clarification.  It deals with Book of Church Order section 37-7 which addresses the removal of censure on an individual after they have relocated to another area.  Specifically the overture requests the change from a person removing to a “part of the country” to “location.”  The rational is that “part of the country” is ambiguous while “location” removes the ambiguity.

Loss Of Identity In The PC(USA)?

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Yesterday Pittsburgh Presbytery hosted a Presbyterian Convocation on Our Freedom of Religion At Risk: A Presbyterian Crisis. I tried to structure my day so that I could hear as much of the webcast as possible.  It was interesting at times but I’m not sure if it lived up to the title and a lot of the material I had heard before.  I might make some more comments specifically on the Convocation in a future post.

But two of the speakers made comments that, combined with some other things I have read or heard recently, got me thinking about the loss of identity for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  Has the PC(USA) drifted so that it is no longer, well… Presbyterian?

The first speaker at the Convocation, after the welcome and introduction, was Dr. Joseph Small, Director of the PC(USA) Office of Theology, Worship and Education Ministries.  The announced title of his remarks was The Westminster Assembly, but he spent a significant part of his remarks talking about the basis of Presbyterian connectionalism being rooted in the biblical concept of koinonia, translated as communion or fellowship. He made the point that this koinonia between entities in the PC(USA) has severely deteriorated and said something like “it is almost entirely gone between presbyteries.”  This struck a chord with me since back in October I had asked “Is The PCUSA Too Big?” with this issue in mind.  It seemed to me that one of Dr. Small’s points was that our Presbyterian connectionalism has broken down to the point where we are almost congregational because of the loss of scripturally and Spirit-filled communion between groups in the denomination.  He reminded us that the church is not a human endeavor but a community called together by God.

Two speakers later was Dr. Beau Weston on The Adopting Act of 1729, which he talked about in detail.  The Adopting Act was necessary as a tool to settle differences between those presbyteries advocating subscription to the Westminster Standards and those desiring a less-enforced orthodoxy.  He then jumped to the last 50 years and pointed out that with the Confession of 1967 the Presbyterian Church moved from adopting the Westminster Standards to agreeing to be guided by the new Book of Confessions.  As he said yesterday, and has said elsewhere, including his book Leading from the Center, this was a turning point in the mainline Presbyterian church and the beginning of the loss of institutional identity.  He makes the point as well in his recent document “Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment.”

Central to the assault on authority in the Sixties was the overthrow of the confession of the church.  When two northern Presbyterian bodies merged to produce the UPCUSA, a new confession was called for.  The new confession, The Confession of 1967, was indeed produced.  Instead of adopting the new confession as the constitutional standard of the church, though, the denomination took the revolutionary step of adopting a whole library of confessional documents.  The Book of Confessions included the Westminster Standards, the Confession of ’67, and a slew of others.  It was as if the country amended the U.S. Constitution, but, instead of incorporating new text into the venerable old document, adopted the entire constitutions of a dozen other countries, too.

In theory, the one constitutional confession was supplemented by many others.  In practice, officers of the church were no longer expected to be bound by any confessional statement at all.  Dropping the confession out of the binding part of the church’s constitution undermined authority in two ways.  First, leaders no longer had any authoritative faith to develop or lead from; second, the body of the church no longer had a clear public standard to hold its putative leaders to.  Instead of an establishment that kept one another humble by trying to live within the confession, the church was afflicted with a host of self-appointed prophets who expected the church to follow them, pay for their pet projects, and the like.

The consequence, he said yesterday, was that we stopped arguing over the confessions and started arguing over the Book of Order.

While Dr. Weston talked about this published theory of his, he mentioned a related item that I don’t recognize from his circulating work.  He mentioned that he had done a survey of some members of the PC(USA) and asked which, if any, of the documents in the Book of Confessions should be there.  Keeping in mind that the standard for adding a document to the Book is endorsement by 2/3 of the presbyteries, only the ancient creeds, Apostles and Nicene, even broke a simple majority.  The Westminster Standards and Declaration of Barmen were next and the rest were further back.

Two thoughts crossed my mind.  First, that this is a terrible indication of our theological identity and history.  Second, if the confessions mean so little why is the PC(USA) embarking on the expense of time and money to consider the revision of one catechism and the inclusion of another confession.

I would also point out that the idea of the loss of identity with the diminution and abandonment of the Westminster Standards is not unique to Dr. Weston;  this is a primary thesis of D. G. Hart and J. R. Muether in their book Seeking A Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism.

That is all I have to say about yesterday’s Convocation at this time, but two other items also crossed my path recently.

The first comes from Michael McCarty over at his blog Around the Scuttlebutt.  I am sure some of you are following his series serving as a case study in church leadership titled “The Adventures of Graying Presbyterian Church.”  Yesterday’s installment was called “To recall from whence we came.”  He compares the church with the U.S. Marine Corps and how every marine learns the history and traditions of the corps.  He then says of the church:

In the same way, when elders have a basic understanding of the history
of the Church in general and the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition in
particular, they are better able to perform the really important duties
of their office.

The real irony here is that the expansion of the Book of Confessions was to allow for greater understanding and recognition of our tradition.  I guess the problem is that we agree to be guided by it, and then set it on the shelf.

Finally, the other day a friend made the profound comment that churches that have a strong sense of identity with the PC(USA) are ones with older, well established facilities.  Likewise, churches interested in leaving the PC(USA) with their property are more likely churches that have newer facilities.  The idea is that the newer buildings are viewed as “we built this church, we should be able to keep it” as opposed to older facilities where the attitude is “our predecessors built this church and we are the beneficiaries of their faithfulness.”  Again, do we have a long-term denominational identity or a short-term local identity?

This got me thinking and so I did a quick, semi-scientific study over lunch today.  I took the last, that is the most recent, 20 churches on the Layman’s list of departing churches and tried to figure out the age of their facilities.  For the sake of this survey I divided the “new” from the “established” at 50 years old.  Many of the churches had their church histories on their web site making it easy to find out the age of the buildings.  For a few I had to depend on the pictures on their web site.  In a few other cases I could get a good idea from the Google satellite (actually aerial) image or the street view.  And in two cases I could not be certain enough to make a call.

Of those 20 churches, 12 had new sanctuaries or worship spaces built or acquired in the last 50 years.  One more was 52 years old.  There were five that, as far as I could tell, worshiped in buildings substantially unchanged in outline in the last 52 years.  At least in this quick survey the concept holds.

I do need to acknowledge the caveats here.  The first is that I am painting with a very broad brush using easily attained data.  The second, is that I have not even touched the negative evidence, the congregations with new buildings that are not even considering leaving.  Or to put it another way, I don’t have a control group.  And finally, I realize that it is probably easier and safer to say that churches with older buildings have more denominational identity and loyalty than to say that churches with newer buildings have less identity and loyalty.  Anyway, it was a thought provoking comment that appears to have some evidence supporting it.

And in closing…  Speaking of denominational loyalty, you probably saw the news this week that protestants these days have more loyalty to their toothpaste than their denomination.  Yes, from USA Today, it turns out that 16% of protestants have single brand denominational loyalty, but 22% have one brand of toothpaste.  The good news is that 67% of protestants have some denominational preference.  Comment in the blogosphere is rampant but I’ll point to the Rev. Mark D. Roberts who is turning his comments into a series on this.  And for the record — while I may be a dyed-in-the-wool Presbyterian, my family has attended the church God calls us to.  And one time, when God called us to another denomination’s New Church Development, I think some of the denominational hierarchy were glad to see this Presbyterian move on after questioning the episcopacy too many times.  But that is a story for another time…

Recordings For Children With A Twist

I suspect that some of you have used musical settings for scripture memory for either yourself or your children.  Well, thanks to a discussion begun by sjonee at PuritanBoard I have been made aware of songs for learning about the Westminster Confession.

The PuritanBoard discussion begins with a pointer to Songs For Saplings and their Questions With Answers series.  From listening to the samples and reading the lyrics these all appear to be songs in the context of catechism-like questions with Westminster-like answers.  While there are close echos of the Westminster Confession, and Larger and Shorter Catechisms here, it does not appear to be a literal musical setting of them.  But it takes a question, like “Who is God?” (note that Westminster asks “What is God?”) and answers with something like the Westminster Confession, in this case:

God is the only living and true God. He’s
the all-glorious, almighty, all-knowing
Sovereign Creator and Lord of the whole universe.
God
is perfect and holy, infinite, eternal and unchanging.

The Westminster Confession section says:

There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty; most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withalh most just and terrible in his judgments; hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.

Probably a reasonable summation of the section for children ages 3-5.  There are three CD’s on the market so far, each for a slightly older age range.

But the PuritanBoard discussion brought out a couple of other similar recordings.  One is the Baptist Catechism Set To Music.  There is also a four volume set of the Westminster Shorter Catechism Songs.  And you can find some on YouTube as well:  Here is YouTube – Singing – Shorter Catechism Q1.

And now for something completely different…

A while back I ran across a CD of lulliby music for children drawn from the classical tradition.  Preformed by Eric and Susan Davis it includes some well known and contemporary music and is all instrumental.  But what caught my attention was the title:

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

It seems innocent enough, and there is nothing really wrong with it, but I had to wonder what the target audiance would think if they were aware of the source of the line.  As I am sure many of you are aware it comes from an 18th century children’s prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
Should I die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

As I said, I have no problem with the prayer and I know many new parents who would probably be fine with it.  But I suspect that some a modern parents would not be as comfortable because it is a prayer or because of the content.  It is not like our modern society to worry about dying in our sleep, to say nothing of the fact that many modern parents are not religious enough to even consider praying for the Lord’s protection.

Or maybe this is just my unusual mind overinterpreting modern culture.  Maybe no one would really care.

Amendment 08-B Voting At The One-Third Mark

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After several more presbyteries voted this past Saturday we are now at a total of 57 that are reported to have voted on Amendment 08-B to the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  This is pretty close to one-third of the 173 total.  Since my last update nothing has really changed but a few trends are becoming clearer.  As always, the official word can be gotten from the Office of the General Assembly but the hot-off-the-press unofficial info can be found at PresbyWeb, Yes On 08B, Presbyterian Coalition, and the Layman.

1) Officially 08-B is running 9 yes and 25 no but the current reporting has the voting at 20 yes and 37 no as of Saturday February 14.

2) After this past weekend there are 6 of the 20 presbyteries voting yes that voted against the last proposal to change G-6.0106b.  If this ratio of “flipped” presbyteries continues the final vote would be about 63 yes and 110 no.  Some of the presbyteries that are on my “could switch” list, like Southeastern Illinois that voted this past week, have switched while others, like Pines and Cincinnati, were close but no change.  (Cincinnati was a tie at 83 on each side so is in the “no” column.)  And then there were surprises like Western North Carolina and Lake Huron that I don’t think were on anyone’s watch list.

3) The latest presbytery to switch was Charlotte this past Saturday.  There was a lot of local press coverage of the meeting and vote and you can see some samples of the reports at the Charlotte Observer (complete with a slide show of five commissioners faces, but it has four ministers and only one elder (and by-the-way a great picture of you there Robert)) and WSOC-TV.  It is difficult to gage the degree of shift in the presbytery since the vote last time on 01-A was a voice vote with out a reported count, but it passed this year 133-124 suggesting a notable shift.

Presbytery Moderator Robert Austell has posted a great piece on the process, discussion and the vote on his blog.  There is a lot of good information in the piece and he has a lot of objective observations.  For example, the first two of his overall observations:

1. Tone: on the whole, the pro-B folks
were warm, genuine, full of faith, and focused on Jesus, Scripture,
people, church unity, and justice (in that order); those against
Amendment B, on the whole, were saying what was wrong with the pro-B
folks and their arguments.

2. Content – Scripture: the pro-B
folks lived up to their declared attentiveness to Scripture; the pro-B
5-min. presenter demonstrated how she interpreted each of the nine
passages mentioning homosexuality and why she was voting consistent
with her beliefs; the rebuttal to that was dismissive (“that’s poor
exegesis”) rather than demonstrating equal or better attentiveness to
Scripture.

He reports that the presbytery used a process similar to what others report using by beginning with longer presentations, four in this case with two on each side, before going to open debate.

4)  With each vote, particularly the close ones, reaction to the voting builds.  The More Light Presbyterians web site announces each yes vote and celebrates the victories when one changes from last time.  And you will find reaction among the letters to the Layman (an example) with criticism of the process and theology when a presbytery flips.  By the same token there are progressive reactions when a presbytery shows no shift, as a blogger this weekend lamented the intransigence of her presbytery.

5)  Finally, if you have been following my comments on the voting you know that I am intrigued by patterns that are developing in the vote counts.  What is interesting is the decrease in the number of votes cast.  Early on there was a parallel decrease in both the number of yes votes and the number of no votes.  However, in the last couple of weeks the number of yes votes has rebounded and it is currently at 95% of the number of yes votes cast for 01-A.  The number of no votes is now at 74% of those for 01-A giving 84% of the total number of votes cast last time.

What is interesting is that I can not find a correlation with presbytery membership declines over the last seven years.  I tried correlating membership numbers for presbyteries against anything I can find and there is nothing statistically meaningful.  For example, this past weekend Pines had 92% of the votes cast in 01-A yet has a large, 27% membership drop over that time.  Eastern Virginia had a similar vote drop with 90% of the number of votes cast with only an 8% membership drop.

A trend is developing as more presbyteries vote — most presbyteries fall into two very distinct groups.  In both groups there is a similar decrease in the number of no votes, but in one group the number of yes votes remains about the same while in the other the yes votes decrease by an amount similar to the no votes.  An example of the first is Washington which voted 27-82 on 01-A and 27-70 on 08-B.  An example of the second case is Cayuga-Syracuse which voted 54-21 before and 33-12 this year.  That is 61% of the number of yes votes and 57% the number of no votes.  And this is not just a feature of the yes presbyteries:  Foothills was previously 41-132 and this time 34-99, that is 83% and 75% of the yes and no vote numbers respectively.  In all, I would place about 22 presbyteries in the group with no decrease in yes votes and 16 presbyteries in the both-decrease category.  That leaves 16 more scattered around and three that can’t be counted because there is no recorded numbers on 01-A.  (I’m waiting to do a formal grouping analysis until I have more data.)

Once voting gets closer to the end I’ll put together all the numbers with statistical measures and plots so anyone with a similar geekiness can rip it apart and tell me what I did wrong as would happen with any peer-reviewed article.

But as I said above, the numbers don’t seem to support much attribution of vote decreases to PC(USA) membership decline.  It would appear that commissioner fatigue and mental-resignation are a bigger factor in this.  It is interesting that Robert’s article supports this with anecdotal evidence:

[T]he Presbytery of
Charlotte has a large number of rural and smaller town churches. Many
smaller churches are not involved (ever) in the life of presbytery, and
many did not send elders to vote. Additionally, the presbytery has
given almost all of the smaller churches who ever come to presbytery
meetings an additional elder vote in order to correct the imbalance
between ministers and elders. As many as 50-75 votes were not cast
because small or rural churches did not send two or even one elder.
Many of these would be more conservative. Conservatives did write,
call, and otherwise invite these folks… to no avail.

I am curious if others document this trend.  Stay tuned.

Upcoming PCA General Assembly — Mid-February Update

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The 37th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America will be held June 16-19, 2009, in Orlando Florida.  I have made a few comments on the Assembly already, but while I have been reading the tea leaves about the EPC GA, the first overtures have been posted on the PCA GA Overtures page.  So far it seems like the usual collection, some familiar, some new, and some of the “Blood on Every Page” variety.  So, here is what is now reported:

Overture 1 is from Missouri Presbytery and at this time there is no text available yet and just the title “Amend BCO 37-7”  We will await the text to say much more, but for information Chapter 37 in the Book of Church Order (BCO) deals with “The Removal of Censure” and section 7 addresses the removal of censure by the new presbytery or church when an officer under censure has relocated.  Wait and see.

Update 2/19/09:  Overture 1 has now been posted and it seems, to a point, a very reasonable clarification.  The current wording refers to when an officer relocates to another “part of the country” and the overture points out that it implies the same country and second that the person could move geographically outside the PCA jurisdiction.  The request is to replace that phrase with “location.” That helps the first, but I am still trying to figure out if a person moves out of the area of PCA jurisdiction what governing body would be there to receive the documentation, hear the repentance, and provide restoration?

Overture 2 asks for modification of the Rules of Assembly Operations (RAO) regarding the debate on minority reports and is from Potomac Presbytery. (The RAO can be found about 2/3 of the way through the BCO document.)  The RAO was substantially revised a couple of years ago and this overture is part of the tweaking process to help adjust parts which may not have worked quite as well as hoped.  In this case, it is to create a longer time for debate on motions with minority reports.  The RAO sets the time of debate at 10 minutes for a main motion while this overture suggests 60 minutes of debate, extendable in 10 minutes increments by a simple majority, for reports or processed overtures with a substitute motion coming from the committee of commissioners.  It seems that some extension of time is reasonable considering one of the points in the overture is:

Apart from the will of the majority, the current rules allow for only 10 minutes on the main question and three minutes per speaker—thus allowing merely three and a third speakers from among hundreds of commissioners on questions that are typically of great importance.

Overture 3 — In overture 3 we have a “Blood on Every Page” type of overture, one that seeks to change the constitution because of something that did, or in this case more appropriately did not, happen.  This one, while not complex, is so loaded with nuances that maybe I should have split it out into its own analysis.  It comes from Central Carolina Presbytery.

The overture seeks to change the BCO language about when a higher governing body may “Assume Original Jurisdiction” (AOJ) over a particular matter of dispute or complaint.  (Note that this pertains specifically to the matter of dispute.  For the PC(USA) readers to “assume original jurisdiction” usually has the connotation taking over the operation of a lower governing body and replacing the lower body with an administrative commission.)  And specifically, this change refers to cases where the matter is about doctrine or cases of public scandal.

First, this overture wants to remove the condition “if the Presbytery refuses to act.”  The argument is made that this is ambiguous, or at least not precise, language.

As presently worded, AOJ via 34-1 or 33-1 is essentially unachievable since the phrase “refuses to act” is vague – or at least it has been interpreted variously. Does it mean a Presbytery refuses to: (a) discuss the matter, (b) investigate informally, (c) investigate formally, (d) indict, (e) try and convict, (f) censure appropriately, or (g) something else?  Some men plausibly interpret “to act” as “to indict” since the paragraph begins with the noun “Process” and process begins with indictment and appointment of a prosecutor. But that is not how the PCA’s highest court has interpreted the phrase in two cases.

This requirement would be replaced with GA action being postponed until the presbytery has concluded its action or “been afforded reasonable time to do so.”  However, I can envision similar arguments about ambiguity over that phrase as there is over “refuses to act.”

Second, the overture “adjusts the bar” for GA stepping in on a
presbytery matter from two other requesting presbyteries to five.  For
a presbytery to step into a session matter the bar is left at two other
sessions since some presbyteries are fairly small.

For changes to two paragraphs in the BCO, this overture comes with another 5 1/2 pages of rational arguing for the changes.  This argument includes a review of two judicial cases, the recent one in Louisiana Presbytery and an older one in Tennessee Valley Presbytery, where other presbyteries wanted the GA to step in but the Standing Judicial Commission ruled that the presbyteries had in deed acted.

But there is also an interesting part that takes this issue back even further to the PCUS in 1940 when four presbyteries requested an investigation of the teachings of E.T. Thompson at Union Seminary in Richmond and the GA declined stating that jurisdiction over a member rest solely with the presbytery of membership.  Two other legislative cases are cited as well.

And in an interesting argument, the Overture considers the constitutions of other Presbyterian branches, the ARP, EPC, RPCNA, and the PCUSA and notes that in each of these denominations original jurisdiction can be exercised pretty much unilaterally by a higher governing body (such as upon complaint by any party in the PCUSA).  It also notes that the OPC has no provision for AOJ.

It will be interesting to see how this fares in the Assembly and, if approved by GA, then in the presbyteries.  Remember, for the PCA changes to the BCO require a 2/3 approval of presbyteries.

Overture 4 from Heritage Presbytery seeks to formalize the usage of the term “Interim Pastor,” a term that currently does not exist in the BCO.  In the index under Interim Pastors is says “see Stated Supply.”  At the present time the BCO only provides for Stated Supply for a full-fledged temporary pastor, but the overture points out that people refer to them as Interim Pastors anyway.  It is interesting to note that this is just being suggested as an alternate term with no definitional distinction being made between the two terms.  I am curious to see if the Assembly thinks that these two terms refer to different types of temporary pastors.  (Or that may just be a PC(USA) thing.)

Overture 5 from James River Presbytery is another request to “Appoint Study Committee on Role of Women in the Church.”  This is more general than the four overtures related to this last year where two of those were specific to studying the role of deaconesses and the other two had deaconesses in mind as well.  I had one post last spring that referenced all four of those overtures.  I would describe the action taken at last year’s Assembly as saying that there was no need for further GA action at this time, but that the Assembly would be keeping in touch with the presbyteries on this through the review process.  If you want more info from last year you can check out my post after the decision, but be sure to read the comments where my interpretations are corrected by ones closer to the action than I.

We will see if more overtures concerning the role of women are coming, but this one asks for a study committee that would report to the next Assembly and address:

  1. What sorts of roles may women fill in the life of the church?
  2. What are some models of local church practices that have developed as ways of employing the gifts of women in the lives of their congregations that might be exemplary and encouraging to other local churches?
  3. What elements of organization and accountability to ordained leadership can be commended to PCA churches that are consistent with the BCO?
  4. What modifications, if any to the BCO might be desirable for achieving the best utilization of the gifts of PCA women in light of the teaching of Scripture?

This overture does not ask for a study of the ordination of women but notes the sufficiency of the current practice.  Whether intended or unintended this study committee, if approved, could open that door.  I could see the Assembly adding another condition that would explicitly keep that door closed if this overture is approved.

Overture 6, another one from Central Carolina Presbytery, is the overture that has circulated already.  It would decouple the BCO Directory for Worship section on marriage from the civil definition of marriage and begin the process to give the marriage section full constitutional authority instead of the advisory authority it has now.  I have a more detailed discussion in my previous comments.

Overture 7 is another detailed, yet brief, overture that a GA Junkie would appreciate but could have a post of its own.  In summary, Southeast Louisiana Presbytery argues that Section 16 of the Manual of the Standing Judicial Commission (found at the end of the BCO PDF) is unconstitutional.  They consider there to be insufficient safeguards on due process and parts of the section to be in direct contradiction to the BCO.  They keep the Overture brief by using a series of short “whereas’s” referencing other documents and precedents, but it also requires the reader to chase down the references to fully appreciate the nature of the complaint.  The overture requests that the the section be declared constitutionally defective and that the Standing Judicial Commission amend the manual.

Overtures 8 and 9 are both from Ascension Presbytery and concern BCO section 13-6 that deals with the transfer of ministers into the PCA from other denominations.  Specifically, overture 8 would adjust that section to make a distinction between ministers transferring from denominations with fraternal relations and those from other denominations.  Those from branches which the PCA has a relationship with would only be required to stand for the same examination as a PCA minister transferring presbyteries.  Those from other denominations would require a more extensive process and examination, up to the same as is required of PCA candidates for ministry if the presbytery deems it necessary.  Overture 9 adds an aditional requirement to 13-6 that men transferring from other denominations state any specific instances that their doctrine differs from the Westminster Standards.  Again, this is also required of candidates.

So, we await the text of overture 1 and I anticipate that there are a few more overtures coming. We will see how all this business develops.  Stay tuned.

Footnote:  My phrase
“Blood on Every Page” comes from the subtitle of a book on Presbyterian polity by William Chapman and embodies the concept that some of what is in our Book of Church Order results from learning through the conflict in the church.  We are after all “Reformed and always reforming according to the Word of God.”

The EPC General Assembly And Other Developments Related To The Ordination Of Women

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It is widely acknowledged that one of the details that is a point of complexity with churches leaving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and going to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church is the ordination of women.  In the EPC this is a point of local option — Teaching elders (ministers) for the presbytery and ruling elders and deacons for the session with presbytery concurrence.  (For more on this you can check out a previous post from last August and the EPC Position Paper on the Ordination of Women.)  Back in November a special announcement from the EPC outlined the current status, or box score:

In the EPC, we currently have two presbyteries that
prohibit women teaching elders, two that will not use gender as a
consideration in approving ministers and candidates, two others who
have a procedure in place that allows consideration of women ministers
and candidates without violating conscience, and two that are still
working on the issue and will have come to a conclusion by the second
week of February 2009. One of these, Mid-America Presbytery, will
consider an overture asking the 2009 General Assembly to approve an
affinity presbytery within its boundaries as a response to women
teaching elders.

This special announcement was about a proposal that would be coming to the General Assembly from the New Wineskins/EPC Transitional Presbytery Commission.  This proposal would create a permanent non-geographic presbytery that would have accepted the ordination of women, a presbytery that would have helped PC(USA) churches that realigned with the EPC.

Well it has now been announced in the last couple of weeks that the NW/EPC Transitional Presbytery Commission has withdrawn this proposal.  The announcement lacks specific details, only that it has been discussed at regular meetings over the last couple of months and “At the conclusion of those discussions the Commission decided to withdraw the proposal.”

The announcement from November says that Mid-America Presbytery is considering an overture for an affinity presbytery within it’s bounds, and there is word that this passed at the presbytery meeting last week.  However, there is as yet no overture information on the EPC GA web site, we are waiting for the next edition of the EP News, and I have not yet gotten responses to a couple of inquiries I have made.  So, we will have to wait a bit longer for official confirmation and the details.

Also in the last couple of weeks we have the news reported by Backwoods Presbyterian (Benjamin Glaser) on PuritanBoard and the Rev. David Fischler at The Reformed Pastor that the Presbytery of the East has approved a policy and guidelines for the ordination of women.  The text of the policy:

1. The Presbytery of the East of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church
(EPC) will honor the Christian liberty of individual congregations to
call their ministers and, therefore, will not prohibit candidates for
ordination as Teaching Elders from being processed and presented to
Presbytery due to their gender.

2. All candidates will be
processed as set forth in the Book of Order of the EPC, the EPC
Procedural Manual for Ministerial and Candidates Committees, and the
Presbytery of the East By-Laws.

3. All candidates will be examined in accordance with the EPC’s
specific criteria for ordination and ministerial preparation and must
agree with the Essentials of Our Faith and subscribe to the Westminster
Confession of Faith;

4. Once presented on the floor of Presbytery, candidates will be questioned as set forth in the Book of Order of the EPC.

5. Members of Presbytery will be allowed to vote their consciences in
regards to their Biblical convictions concerning an individual’s
ordination.

6. All members will be treated during the entire process with charity,
grace and the respect due to one who seeks to submit themselves to
Scripture and the calling of the Holy Spirit.

There was some discussion about this on the PuritanBoard and how the influx of PC(USA) churches will put pressure on the EPC regarding complimentarian versus egalitarian views of ordination.

So, I  will keep watching the news and welcome further details or insights on any of these presbytery developments.  And I anticipate an interesting discussion at GA.

Indulgences — You Mean They Are Still Around?

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I am clearly way too immersed in Reformed Theology because when I caught this article in the NY Times today, I did a double take.  You mean indulgences didn’t get discontinued with the Reformation?  That in spite of the logic and arguments of Martin Luther they continued?  I am astounded, and obviously uninformed.

According to the article indulgences were around right up to the Second Vatican Council and now are being reinstated.  The article says:

Like the Latin Mass and meatless Fridays, the indulgence was one of the
traditions decoupled from mainstream Catholic practice in the 1960s by
the Second Vatican Council, the gathering of bishops that set a new tone of simplicity and informality for the church.
Its revival has been viewed as part of a conservative resurgence that
has brought some quiet changes and some highly controversial ones, like Pope Benedict’s recent decision to lift the excommunications of four schismatic bishops who reject the council’s reforms.

And for those of us uneducated on the topic, the article contains some great background.  For instance, what was affected by the Reformation was the purchase of an indulgence — that was outlawed in 1567.  Now you have to earn it, but you can earn one by giving to charity combined with other good works.  And these are the comprehensive plenary indulgences which eliminate all your purgatory time, at least until your next sin.  And you can only earn one per day.  The Diocese of Brooklyn has it posted on the front page of their web site, but not all dioceses are offering them.  And this is a limited time offer associated with the church’s Pauline Year, but they will probably be offered again at another special anniversary.

The article explains that the indulgence can be an important motivational tool:  An individual who may have drifted from the church and not come to confession for a while can get “caught up” in one fell swoop (although confession is required to get the indulgence) and with a restored status may be more motivated to resume the traditions of the church.  It is a way around the “I’m not good enough to go to church” argument.  And it is a tool to highlight the significance and effects of sin and the value of penance.  The article says:

The latest offers de-emphasize the years-in-Purgatory formulations of
old in favor of a less specific accounting, with more focus on ways in
which people can help themselves — and one another — come to terms with
sin.

As a good introduction to this obscure topic it is a great article and I learned something today.

Clarification:  I did not make it clear that indulgences are for relief from temporal punishment in purgatory, not for forgiveness of sin.  That is why confession is still necessary with the indulgence.  For more technical detail you can find them in Between Two Worlds comments on this story.

Presbyterian Mutual Society To Wind Down

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Well the shareholder vote is in and by a large majority they have accepted the administrator’s plan for an orderly wind-down of the Presbyterian Mutual Society that is related to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.  The shareholders voted on five proposals related to the disposition of the Society and each passed with over 90% approval by the shareholders and with over 88% approval of the creditors.  The PDF copy of the document announcing the results and reporting the vote tallies is available from the Mutual Society.  Additional details are in a Reuters piece.

As I mentioned last time, there are moves to have the British Government back the Society and while no decisions have been made there, it is reported that an agreement in principle has been reached for a meeting with the top political leaders of Norther Ireland.  This is noted in an op-ed piece that the Moderator of the PCI, the Rt. Rev. Donald Patton, wrote for the New Statesman.  The Moderator talks about the situation, the role of the church at this time, and concludes with this paragraph:

Christian faith is being tested, and, just as the principle of
mutuality in financial terms has been under severe pressure, so the
bond of caring fellowship is under strain. At such a crucial time, it
is vital for all in the Church ‘…to carry each other’s burdens and in
this way…fulfil the law of Christ.’ (St Paul’s letter to the Galatians
chapter 6, verse 2)