Category Archives: commentary

New PC(USA) Advisory Opinion on Honorably Retired Ministers and Validated Ministry

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The Office of the General Assembly has issued a new Advisory Opinion:  Advisory Opinion #20 – Honorably Retired Ministers.

The opinion has three parts: 
The first part is titled “Retired ministers are a valuable resource to the presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),” a sentiment I could not agree with more.  The paper mentions having them serve as parish associate, pulpit supply, or temporary pastor.  In my presbytery they also regularly serve as part-time interim pastors and as consultants or advisers for particular congregations, under the guidance of presbytery committees, particularly COM. (COM: Committee on Ministry)

The second part is about “Retired ministers may not continue or return to serve in the same congregation from which they retired.”  No surprises here.  This section draws from the PC(USA) Standards of Ethical Conduct.

Finally, the last section is titled “Retired ministers are not required to undertake ministry, but if they choose to do so, that ministry must be validated by the presbytery of membership.”  This took me back a bit on first reading since in our presbytery we are fond of saying “Honorably Retired is a validated ministry,” a phrase taken from our stated clerk.  But on second reading, and a little bit of refresher in the Book of Order, this third section does align with my understanding and the practice of our COM, at least while I have been on it.  The first problem was our usage of the term “validated ministry.”  In my presbytery that has come to mean any ministry outside the jurisdiction of the PC(USA) that we have to work through the five criteria of G-11.0403 to approve.  However, it is clear from the usage in G-11.0406a that even parish and governing body service is referred to as validated ministry.  So it is just that in those cases the criteria are clear.  After thinking about this section a bit, I am comfortable with the Advisory Opinion and that my presbytery’s practice is pretty much in line with it.  Honorably retired ministers that work in a church are approved (validated) by the COM. (Frequently they are invited by the COM.)  I don’t remember validating a ministry outside the jurisdiction of the church for an HR, but I can’t think of anyone who is engaged in that.  And HR’s need to submit an annual report just as all other ministers do, so there is presbytery supervision, or at least accountability, of even occasional work.  And maybe the having a paragraph in our validation of ministry policy about where the occasional ends and the need for validation begins is not a bad idea.

New Wineskins Strategy Report

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Well, no sooner do I post my comments on waiting than a couple of hours later the New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) issues their Strategy Report for their Winter Convocation next month.  The Strategy Report is available as a 155 page PDF document from the New Wineskins site. After taking a day to look it over here are my observations and comments.

Of those 155 pages, only the first 33 are report content and the remainder are “Exhibits” which I will discuss in a minute.  The report has five recommendations for the NWAC convocation to consider.

In the transmittal letter, the “Strategy Team” says they began with the question “What is the heart of the issue with the PC(USA)?”  Their conclusion is that the PC(USA) has drifted away from orthodox Reformed Christianity which culminated with the 2006 GA not repudiating the Trinity Report and adopting the report of the Theological Task Force.  As the report says: “These actions were the culmination of nearly eighty-five years of debate concerning Biblically faithful doctrine (orthodoxy) and practice (orthopraxy).”  The report goes on to comment on the current state of the PC(USA):

The PC(USA) has now embraced a de facto confessional position which encourages the worship of a god unknown in the Scriptures, a god of man’s own making whose names appeal to the sensibilities of contemporary philosophy, politics and a culture that asks the Church to validate rather than redeem that culture. It also adopted an authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order that, while affirming the existence of standards for ordination, takes the step of making the enforcement of those standards optional on the local level. This new reality allows local judicatories to determine that such departure from revealed truth is a “non-essential” for ordination.

The PC(USA) now allows ministers of the Word and Sacrament, ruling elders, deacons, and by logical extension church members, to embrace beliefs that are inconsistent with the clear teaching of the Scriptures and the doctrines from our own Book of Confessions. We now believe that the PC(USA) has eroded Reformed orthodoxy and Presbyterian practice to a point where the collective conscience of many no longer allows us to remain aligned with this thinking. This report proposes new ways to minister with faithfulness to the Gospel both inside and outside the PC(USA).

The main body of the report discusses how the churches are called to “A New Thing” (yes, you can easily guess that the report draws thematically from Isaiah 43 as many redesign processes seem to these days) with that new thing being a call to become a clearly “Missional Church.”  The “New Thing” is necessary because in the PC(USA) the churches and the denomination have lost their theological identity.  To accomplish this the report, in Chapter III, lays out “The Plan.”  In summary it is:

The Plan we are prayerfully called to endorse is a realignment by NWAC churches with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) to fulfill our vision of becoming a missional force for Jesus. Initially, NWAC churches will be received into a non-geographic transitional presbytery (NWEPC) of the EPC. We will immediately begin working as partners with the EPC leadership to develop a more missionally faithful new thing.

This proposed alignment includes:  A NWAC presbytery in the EPC that will have the full normal authority of a presbytery, including the ability to ordain, receive, install and dismiss pastors and plant churches.  The ministers however, must “affirm without reservation” the EPC confessional and doctrinal standards.  This presbytery and the rest of the current EPC will establish a commission, if the EPC GA approves, that will look at how to structure the EPC as a missional church.  Also, the EPC is absolved of responsibility for legal disputes that arise from a NWAC church leaving the PC(USA) and a NWAC church need not go through the NWEPC presbytery but may join the EPC directly if they so chose.  The NWEPC will be a transitional structure to be removed by 2012 at the latest.

To their credit, the Strategy Team acknowledges staying with the PC(USA) is a faithful option as well although they argue against it saying that the denomination will only get worse.  The report says that what is already a dying branch of the Reformed Church will become even more theologically unorthodox by the departure of its evangelical congregations.  But each congregation must make its own decision.

So, the five recommendations are: 1) Implement the plan.  2) Enter into relationship/discussion with the EPC as a body.  3) Those churches called to leave, do so.  4) Those churches that are still discerning God’s will continue to study faithfully.  5)  Those churches called to stay in the PC(USA) continue to be a faithful witness there.

Now, the rest of the story…
The exhibits section of the report takes up, as I have already noted, almost 3/4 of the report.  The first group of exhibits are educational resource materials gathered from a variety of sources including published articles and information sheets for congregations.  The second group are entitled “Legal Action Plan Documents” and are a set of documents providing assistance, maybe a complete road map, to handle the legal issues of leaving the PC(USA), mostly related to property.  The third group are denomination relations resources, mostly documents from the PC(USA) headquarters including the “Louisville Papers.”  And finally, there are sample overtures and letters.

So, some comments…
Well, the NWAC has now presented their side of the news that they have been talking with the EPC and from both sides it is apparent that the talks were fairly extensive.  There is also in the report, on page 9 following the Executive Summary, a great chart  showing a comparison of churches in the PC(USA), NWAC, EPC and PCA including theological and social stands.  The point of the chart, while being extremely informative, appears to be to show that the EPC is the logical body to affiliate with.  No argument from me there.  But with 148 NWAC churches and 180 EPC churches, if all transfer over to the EPC it will nearly double the size of the denomination.  However, it will still be far behind the PCA with 1300 congregations.

And finally, in discussing this transfer with a good friend of mine who is an evangelical PC(USA) minister, he mentioned that he might have problems affirming the Westminster Standards without reservation, primarily for Chapter 21, Section 8 that reads:

8. This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due
preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs
beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from their
own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and
recreations, but also are taken up, the whole time, in the public and
private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and
mercy. (emphasis mine)

Does this preclude watching the Super Bowl or World Cup games on Sunday?

Watching and waiting – Coming attractions

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Greetings,

No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth.  But over the holidays it has been fairly slow with the hard news in the little niche I’m interested in so I have just taken the advice of Mark 13:37 – “What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’ “

What are we waiting and watching for?  There are at least four big events on the horizon.

There has been a bit of recent news:  The PC(USA) Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association met this past weekend in New Orleans for the 2007 “Social Justice Biennial Conference.”  I found it interesting how much discussion there seemed to be at a social sustice meeting about the future of the denomination.  The PC(USA) news service has an article written at the beginning of the conference about the conference and comments by Bill Quigley, director of the law clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University of New Orleans.  The Layman Online covered the meeting and they have posted several articles about the conference on their news page.  The coverage of conference speakers includes the comments by PC(USA) Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, comments about the PC(USA) having to face reality by the Rev. Curtis A. Kearns, Jr., General Assembly Council Executive Administrator, and two articles about comments by the Rev. Robert Linthicum, a para-church consultant, one on transformation and the other on church mission structure.

Louisiana Presbytery of the PCA Re-examines Rev. Steve Wilkins regarding his Federal Vision Theology

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Last Saturday, December 9, the Louisiana Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America had a called meeting for the purpose of examining the Rev. Steve Wilkins, Senior Pastor of Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church in Monroe, LA.  This examination was required by the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) when they found the previous examination did not fulfill requirements.  This is part of the developing controversy over Federal Vision Theology which I summarized in an earlier post.

The examination was in two parts:  there were both written and oral responses.  The written responses to questions are available from both the church and the presbytery web sites.  At the time of this writing, Auburn Avenue PC has made MP3’s of the oral exam available on their church web site, look for the links at the bottom of the main page.  The required examination is now completed.  The committee is expected to issue its report in January.

More interesting is the response to the examination.  I have seen no mention of the examination yet in “conventional” news coverage but the blogosphere has lit up.  I will mention two blogs that provide more light than heat. (No pun intended on the first one.)

First, the blog Post Tenebras Lux has a helpful post on this examination titled “A quick review of some Presbyterian politics.” The author has included some extra details on this specific situation which I had not paid attention to before, such as the fact that Rev. Wilkins’ first examination was completely voluntary and that the SJC asked the presbytery to redo the examination on the technical grounds that proper records were not kept while the blog author says that the requested records are not required for a committee report.

The second blog is Barlow Farms, a blog I mentioned previously in connection with this topic.  He has posted two entries, the first on Dec. 13 with excerpts from Rev. Wilkins’ written answers, and the second the next day with a discussion of some of the extended discussion that has since arose about this examination.

I should probably mention the blog “Blog and Mablog” written by Douglas Wilson who is another significant proponent of Federal Vision Theology.  In an entry on Dec. 14 he gives his take on the current developments.  There is a lot of good information and good discussion in the comments on that post.  Included in there is a comment by Mr. Milton Dale Peacock who is the clerk for both Auburn Ave. PC and Louiasiana Presbytery.  He says that the committee will report back to the regular presbytery meeting on January 20 and then the report will be sent to the SJC.  The comments then get into a heavy discussion on a couple of the fine points of the theology but not the polity.

So where is the PC(USA) in the ordination standards debate?

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With a growing number of presbyteries discussing the adoption of policies affirming the Book of Order wording, specifically G-6.0106b, as their standards for ordination I have not been keeping this blog up-to-date on these happenings.  I will comment on two specific and noteworthy developments in a moment.  However, if you want to keep up on what is happening the Layman Online has been following this closely and is compiling a table showing the status of these resolutions in the different presbyteries (Current table embedded in today’s article).  According to the Layman’s count as of today the topic has been raised in 36 presbyteries with 16 “affirming constitutional standards,” three disapproving, one disapproving but to vote again, and the rest still in process.

In new developments, I wanted to note that the affirmative decisions by five of these presbyteries have been challenged as remedial cases in Synod PJC’s.  Specifically the actions of Sacramento Presbytery (mentioned in the summary of their December 5th presbytery meeting) and Presbytery of San Joaquin have been appealed to the PJC of the Synod of the Pacific.  The actions of the Presbytery of the Mid-South have been appealed to the Synod of Living Waters.  And a case has been filed with the Synod of the Trinity over Pittsburgh Presbytery’s actions and with the Synod of Alaska-Northwest over Presbytery of Olympia’s action (mentioned in the Full Court Presbyterian blog).  In the case of Pittsburgh Presbytery the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentions in their article on the refiling of charges in the Edwards case that the Synod PJC has issued an injunction stopping enforcement of the policy.

On the opposite end of the activity, we have a refreshing second or third-hand report of planned non-action.  In the article from the PC(USA) news service about the confirmation of the Rev. Tom Taylor as Deputy Executive Director of GAC for Mission there is the following paragraph:

(GAC Executive Committee Members) Asked… about the efforts of some presbyteries to adopt
their own “essential tenets,” including in San Gabriel’s neighboring
San Diego Presbytery, Taylor said such a list has not come to floor of
San Gabriel. “One pastor was trying to push it, but a group of us
evangelicals don’t agree and told him so it’s dead in the water.”

So at least for the moment there appears to be one presbytery, San Gabriel, where essential tenets will not be brought up for debate and a vote.

Ordination Standards: Conservative Jewish Council goes for “local option”

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The announcement yesterday that the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly (the international organization of conservative rabbis) adopted three position papers (technically “answers” or “teshuvot“) on gay ordination and same-sex unions has been widely reported and I do not intend to recycle the news in a general sense.  In presbyterian teams the rabbis adopted what in PC(USA) jargon has become known as a “middle way” or “local option.”  The three statements are at odds with each other and one of the three permits gay ordination while prohibiting the sexual act of sodomy.  Which, if any, position to adopt is left up to the local rabbi or seminary.  If you want to read some of the coverage I have found detailed articles from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and the Jerusalem Post.

Now then, some comments from a presbyterian perspective:

First, if you are not familiar with the branches of Judaism, the “Conservative” branch is actually moderate as opposed to the traditional (and what would normally be thought of as conservative) “Orthodox” branch as opposed to the liberal “Reformed” branch.  Unlike presbyterians where orthodox is conservative and we are all reformed.  (I see a “Who’s On First” routine in here somewhere.)

Second, the Conservative branch has been losing members and whether they admit it or not there is a lot of buzz in the news stories and the blogs that this decision was influenced by that.

Third, the old “two jews three opinions” situation.  On this committee of 25 it only takes 6 affirmative votes to adopt an answer which is advisory to seminaries and congregations.  Two of the interpretations were adopted by 13 votes and the third by the six vote minimum.  You want something binding?  That would be a takanah, or an amendment to Jewish Law, as opposed to the teshuva, or interpretation.  If it takes six members to adopt an interpretation it takes the rest of the committee plus one, that is twenty, to adopt takanah.

Finally, after the meeting four rabbis opposed to gay ordination resigned from the committee and there is talk about this splitting that branch of Judaism.  There have also been interviews with prospective seminary students who are waiting for the new standards to pass and the seminaries to then adopt them so they can apply.

Reading through some of this the similarities to the situation in the PC(USA) is striking.  Did he have the PC(USA) and the Episcopals in mind when one of the pro-gay ordination members, Rabbi Elliot Dorff, president of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, said:
“We would hope that this would be a model for other
religions to learn how to deal with this topic seriously and be able to
agree to be one and yet have disagreements”
(Quoted in the Jerusalem Post article)

Updates on December 8
The Rabbinical Assembly has issued a press release on the meeting.  (Be warned, it is an MS Word file.)

The Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh has posted a news article which includes comments by Rabbi Alvin Berkun, president of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement, who was present for the discussion but not a voting member of the committee. 

Another blogger’s comments on PCA leadership

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In researching an upcoming posting on this blog I have followed some interesting trails.  One of those led me to the blog “Barlow Farms,” a blog written by a member of the Presbyterian Church in America. Lots of interesting and intelligent perspective on there but one in particular, about Presbyterian polity, caught my attention.  Entitled “The Presbyterian Bishopric” and posted on November 30, it looks at a concentration of power at the national level of the PCA.  In particular, the author writes at one point:

We find ourselves in the PCA right now in a peculiar position. The same
man is moderator of the GA, chairman of the Standing Judicial
Commission, and editor of the online denominational press. In the
current Federal Vision brouhaha (a controversy about theological
positions taken by some ministers), this one person has:

1. Nominated the men who make up the investigative committee
2. Chaired the standing judicial committee that has recently forced a
presbytery to investigate one of its ministers because some other
presbytery complained about the way that a voluntary investigation of a
minister was conducted a few years ago.
3. Decided when to advertise and when not to advertise in the weekly
news email the existence of books written by pastors in the
denomination based upon the theological content of the books

By controlling the courts, the legislative branch, and the press, this one person has quite a bit of power, to say the least.

Not only does this one example suffice to demonstrate how
presbyterianism can very easily become a luscious democratic candy
shell on an episcopal chocolate filling, but there are other things we
all know to be true that illustrate our de facto episcopal system.

Got to love that visual about the candy shell and chocolate filling.

Updated Resource from the Covenant Network on “Guidelines for Examination”

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The Covenant Network of Presbyterians has recently released an updated version of their resource “Guidelines for Examination.” (alert: it is 2.6 MB in size so be careful clicking this link to down load it)  I am not familiar with any previous version(s) of this document so I can’t speak to the revisions other than to say that it does include the results of the 217th GA in 2006.  But I found this to be an interesting read (at least for a GA Junkie).  It is 64 pages long, well written and footnoted (six pages of them) and presents their side of the debate well.  I probably could have done without the abundance of stock photos illustrating it, but it would make it more appealing to more casual readers.

On the one hand this document contains nothing new.  If you have followed the debate in the PC(USA) for any length of time now you will find all the usual material on the pro-ordination side:  Sessions and presbyteries can neither add nor ignore standards; the question of essentials, subscription, and scruples; the “chastity” versus “celibacy” question; what practices the confessions call sin; whether homosexual orientation is “natural”; what was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah; is the PC(USA) version of the Heidelberg Catechism accurately translated.  Their viewpoint is clearly discussed and documented.  (If you are a casual reader remember there are opposing arguments on all of these, which is why the PC(USA) and its predecessor denominations have been discussing this for 30 years without a mutually satisfactory resolution.)

I would commend to anyone active in this debate chapter 6 which has a series of case studies covering a variety of interesting examples and asks whether the individual described is involved in a “self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin”  and whether or not they should be  ordained as an officer in the church.  These cases are well developed and cover a variety of modern situations which do raise questions about our behavior and how it is, or is not, informed by scripture and confessions.  Only two of the cases specifically relate to ordination of GLBT persons but also include environmental responsibility, recreational gambling, active military service, literal interpretation of scripture, and divorce to name a few.

I did find these case studies thought provoking and challenging to think about although I did feel that at times I wanted more information or to engage the fictional individual being examined for ordination in conversation about their position.  These case studies are a good reminder that while we have some generality in our ordination standards we tend to focus on one standard: sexual orientation.

However, as much as I found the case studies interesting and thought provoking, as I read through them I could not help but wonder if these presented a red-herring distracting the reader from the real controversy being addressed.  The book contains a whole chapter on “GLBT Disclosures” and another on “Considering Sexual Practice” as well as the chapter on “Putting it Together.”  There are no chapters on divorce, military service, or recreational gambling.  No one can say that this resource is not about ordination standards relating to sexual practice.  And while several of the study cases do present situations with scriptural basis for discussion (divorce, observing the sabbath), most are more confession oriented and/or deal with scripture in much more general terms (environmental responsibility, scriptural literal interpretation).  This is not to say that they are not important theological and ethical questions that have been dealt with for centuries, like military service.  But I felt that in a direct comparison few if any of the cases really had the gravity and relevance of the present debate.  (Yes, I do realize that there will be arguments with me on this one.)

So, here is a resource that presents one viewpoint well, that contains some challanging information, and that can generate good discussion.  But keep it in perspective.  For an alternative view the Presbyterian Coalition has prepared a response to a 2003 document from the Covenant Network.

New Constitutional Musing on “Responding Pastorally to Troubled Churches”

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The PC(USA) Office of the General Assembly has issued a new “Constitutional Musing” titled “Responding Pastorally to Troubled Churches.”  It deals specifically with churches that are “troubled” by recent General Assembly actions.  Maybe it should be titled “Responding Pastorally to Churches Considering Leaving the Denomination.”

The document is, on balance, a pretty moderate document.  It advises beginning with a response team to engage in conversation with the congregation and session so each side clearly understands the other side.  The next step, if the church still wishes to leave, is to form a team to study the situation and recommend a course of action and try for reconciliation.  The process could then go to an administrative commission.

The musing does say that presbyteries can not have a “quick exit” policy but that the presbytery does have the authority to release a congregation to another reformed body after extensive evaluation.  And that is where the musing ends.  It is either dismiss the congregation “or to decide that another course of action is most appropriate to
advance the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in that
geographic area.”  The other major component to this musing is that it encourages the “troubled” church to cooperate with the presbytery in all the steps.

While I have no problem with what the musing says it is probably more interesting on what the musing does not say.  There is no mention of the word “property” anywhere in this memo.  Is the implication that the congregation can be dismissed/transfered but you can’t take the property with you?  Also, the musing stops there and is silent on what “another course of action” might mean.

The memo commends policies on this matter that have been adopted by the Presbytery of New Covenant and the Presbytery of Wabash Valley.

Also, the Layman Online has their analysis of this musing.

Score one for the trust clause

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A PC(USA) press release is reporting that the judge in the case of Torrance First Presbyterian Church vs Presbytery of Hanmi has granted summary judgment to the presbytery giving it title to the church property.  (I previously wrote on this and other SoCal cases on Aug. 18) Checking the web site for the Los Angeles Superior Court (click “Case Summary on the left and then you can go to the bottom of the page and type in the case number BC332180) it indicates that a “Motion Hearing” was completed on Monday, Nov. 27, but the status of the case is still pending with a final status conference on 4/27/07 and trial set for 4/30/07.  It could be the web site has not been updated or they are waiting for the full decision to be issued in a couple of weeks or the summary judgment is preliminary and it can be challenged.  The related case (YC052718) does not show any activity since September.

OK, those are the facts as the PC(USA) and the court web site are reporting them.  I am looking for an alternate source to see if there is more to it.  However, I still stand by my comments from the previous post:  The Torrance case, and the others in SoCal, are very much the result of divided congregations that have internal disputes and are not really about the present atmosphere of (mostly) unified congregations wanting to leave the denomination over decisions by the GA.  What the present cases do show is the strategy and tactics that the PC(USA) higher governing bodies will probably be taking against churches that try to leave with their property.

But at what cost?  The monetary cost of this and the three other cases has been significant and the Synod of Southern California and Hawai’i, already financially challenged, is needing to find creative ways to pay for this.  (More on that later.  I have a commentary on Synods in process that might see the light of day in the next week.)  And I am personally disturbed by the tone of the PC(USA) press release.  It strikes me as having a very triumphalist attitude making reference to the “break-away faction” and the “loyalist Presbyterian Church (USA) faction.” 

I will keep watching this story.  The press release says the full decision will be issued by the judge in a few weeks.