Category Archives: GA business

Presbyterian News Headlines For The Second Half Of August 2014

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Here are some of the items that caught my attention in the latter half of August…

This was a time of General Assemblies in African Presbyterian branches. Let me begin with a few headlines out of the 14th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ghana:

Handover establishment of 200 SHS to churches – Presby Moderator – from GhanaWeb; (SHS = Senior High Schools)

On Christian Education, “Yes” And “No,” Rt.-Rev. Martey – from GhanaWeb; (a comment on the above story by a Ghanian minister in the US)

In addition, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ghana held their General Assembly. Some interesting headlines from that:

New Moderator For E.P Church – from spyGhana; Reverend Dr Seth Senyo Agidi elected for a six year term

Elect Leaders Who Uphold Moral Values – Rt Rev Francis Amenu – from Ghana Broadcasting Corporation; comments by the outgoing Moderator

E.P Church to double membership in six years – from GhanaWeb; the growth goal for the church

EP Church to Adopt Witches’ Camps – from Ghana Broadcasting Corporation; this is an article with an overview of the GA and a later article from GhanaWeb focuses just on this issue and begins:  “The Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ghana (EPCG) has adopted the Ngani Witches Camp, one of the witches’ camps in the Northern Region to support the inmates to liberate them from poverty. The people in the camps are mostly aged women who have been accused of witchcraft, and therefore, have been abandoned by their families and the society. Due to the neglect, they live in deplorable conditions as they lack basic amenities such as shelter and clothing, as well as food and water.”

Articles on the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria:

Presbyterian Church marks 168 years, urges unity – from Infos

Nigeria: Presbyterian Church Institutes Fund On Chibok Girls – from allAfrica; “The Presbyterian Church of Nigeria has announced that in keeping with the Church’s spirit of Christian charity and in support of President Goodluck Jonathan’s initiative in setting up a special Fund in aid of victims of Boko Haram insurgency and other social upheavals, the Church has set up a Fund toward the rehabilitation of the Chibok girls when they are eventually rescued.”

In other headlines:

Malawi: APM Hails Livingstonia Synod of the CCAP Church – from allAfrica; a positive meeting between church leaders and the country’s president looking for avenues of cooperation

Investors urged to be ethical – from GhanaWeb; Comments by the Moderator of the GA at the launch of a financial company

The Texas Historical Commission recognizes the First Presbyterian Church of Brazoria – from The Facts (subscription); the church gets a state historical marker

And finally, a high-profile change in Presbyterian media circles as Jack Haberer leaves his post as editor of the Presbyterian Outlook to return to parish ministry in Florida:

Breaking News Letters from The Presbyterian Outlook’s Editor Jack Haberer and Board of Directors President Christopher Edmonston – from The Presbyterian Outlook

Best wishes to Jack as he takes on this call.

221st General Assembly Of The PC(USA) — A Summary Of Summaries

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The 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) concluded this morning. While plenty has already been written on individual issues, over the next few days several summaries of the actions of the GA will be appearing on the interwebs. I will create a running list here of those summaries.As a matter of personal privilege I will begin with mine, A Brief Summary of the 221st General Assembly. This is a resource that I have shared with my congregation for a number of GA’s now and you are welcome to use it as well.

A general letter about the Assembly from the PC(USA) leadership
The OGA Assembly in Brief summary

The Presbyterian Outlook does not have a single summary posted online but you can check their General Assembly 2014 category for summary articles on different topics

As additional summaries are posted I will compile them here.

I am collecting articles by the mainstream media that are, well to put it kindly, getting it wrong. But this article from Haaretz gets it so right that I will include it here:

U.S. Presbyterians vote to divest from companies used by Israel in occupied territories

Finally, a few good personal reflections from individuals about the assembly

PC(USA) 221st General Assembly — Actions Related To Marriage

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Yesterday afternoon the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) considered the report of Committee 10 – Civil Union and Marriage Issues. Here is a brief summary of the four basic actions that the General Assembly took.

[10-07] On Creating a Task Force to Identify Common Ground and Reconcilable Differences with Respect to Same-Gender Marriage
The first item to be considered came as a overture from Eastern Korean Presbytery requesting a Task Force whose charge it would be to

a. identify common ground and reconcilable differences in biblical understanding and confessional interpretation with respect to same-gender marriage;

b. study the nature, scope, and controversies of the same-gender marriage laws legalized in certain states;

c. assess the impact of such laws and related sociopolitical changes on the ministry and mission of the church;

d. provide the local presbyteries and congregations with theological guidelines for
their ministry, as to understand and apply the concepts and functions
of family and parenting based on biblical norms and ethics; and

e. bring forth practical and futuristic recommendations that would not
only strengthen and promote unity within the church, but also solidify
ministries and missions with ecumenical partners locally and globally.

The Task Force would report back two GA’s from now in 2018.

The Committee recommended disapproval and there was a minority report advocating approval of this request. After some discussion, a lot focusing on whether the PC(USA) needed four more years to study this, the substitute motion was not made the main motion by a vote of 237 to 372 and the Committee recommendation was approved 401 to 185.

[10-03] On Issuing an Authoritative Interpretation of W-4.9000 to Affirm Pastoral Discretion in Performing Marriage Ceremonies

The next item was this Authoritative Interpretation that would permit pastors in jurisdictions that recognized same-sex marriages to perform those ceremonies. The core line in the AI reads, with the amendment:

[W]hen a couple requests the involvement of the church in solemnizing their marriage as permitted by the laws [of the civil jurisdiction in which the marriage is to take place] [of the place where the couple seek to be married], teaching elders have the pastoral responsibility to assess the capabilities, intentions, and readiness of the couple to be married (W-4.9002), and the freedom of conscience in the interpretation of Scripture (G-2.0105) to participate in any such marriage they believe the Holy Spirit calls them to perform.

The AI would also permit the use of church facilities with the consent of the session.

This debate began with a point of order as to whether this item was out of order under Roberts Rules of Order because it was in conflict with the definition of marriage as found in the Book of Confessions.

Just as when this point arose at the 220th General Assembly, the Moderator turned to the Clerk who suggested that the Assembly receive advice from the Assembly Committee on the Constitution. In 2012, the ACC’s response was along the lines of the narrative found in the front material to the Book of Confessions in the Confessional Nature of the Church Report. At one point the Report says “Nevertheless, for Reformed Christians all confessional statements have only a provisional, temporary, relative authority.” In other words, while important the multiple confessions need to be considered as a body of work and individual points not singled out from the who body.

At this General Assembly the ACC advice took a different direction. The advice was essentially that this action and the confessions are in tension and that it is the responsibility and within the authority of the GA to resolve that tension. Within the ensuing discussion is was observed that in their original advice on the overture the ACC said:

The Advisory Committee on the Constitution advises that the 221st General Assembly (2014) disapprove Item 10-03

[snip]

Section W-4.9001 and related citations (W-4.9002a, W-4.9004,
W-4.9006) limit marriage to couples who are “a woman and a man.” Because
these statements are clear and unambiguous, they can not be interpreted
in a manner that is inconsistent with their plain and ordinary meaning.

When asked about this the ACC response was essentially the same as was previously given – that the Assembly could deal with this tension.

The Moderator ruled the item was in order, the commissioner challenged the ruling of the Moderator and after some significant discussion over the nature of the point of order the Moderator’s ruling was sustained.

With that out of the way the item was debated and the debate was generally civil and respectful. One of the things about this Assembly seems to be the number of times that points of debate are incorporated into questions from the floor. When debate was closed and the vote taken the commissioners voted 371 to 238 to approve the AI.

[10-02] On Amending W-4.9000, Marriage

This item is based on an overture from the Presbytery of Cascades with 16 concurrences. The proposed new wording of W-4.9000, as amended mostly by the committee but slightly on the floor, would be:

“Marriage is a gift God has given to all humankind for the well-being of the entire human family. Marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a women, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives. The sacrificial love that unites the couple sustains them as faithful and
responsible members of the church and the wider community.

“In civil law, marriage is a contract that recognizes the
rights and obligations of the married couple in society. In the
Reformed tradition, marriage is also a covenant in which God has an
active part, and which the community of faith publicly witnesses and
acknowledges.

“If they meet the requirements of the civil jurisdiction
in which they intend to marry, a couple may request that a service of
Christian marriage be conducted by a teaching elder in the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.), who is authorized, though not required, to act as an
agent of the civil jurisdiction in recording the marriage contract. A
couple requesting a service of Christian marriage shall receive
instruction from the teaching elder, who shall agree to the couple’s
request only if, in the judgment of the teaching elder, the couple
demonstrate sufficient understanding of the nature of the marriage
covenant and commitment to living their lives together according to its
values. In making this decision, the teaching elder may seek the counsel
of the session, which has authority to permit or deny the use of church
property for a marriage service.

“The marriage service shall be conducted in a manner
appropriate to this covenant and to the forms of Reformed worship, under
the direction of the teaching elder and the supervision of the session
(W-1.4004–.4006). In a service of marriage, the couple marry each other
by exchanging mutual promises. The teaching elder witnesses the couple’s
promises and pronounces God’s blessing upon their union. The community
of faith pledges to support the couple in upholding their promises;
prayers may be offered for the couple, for the communities that support
them, and for all who seek to live in faithfulness.

“If they meet
the requirements of the civil jurisdiction in which they intend to
marry, a couple may request that a service of Christian marriage be
conducted by a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), who
is authorized, though not required, to act as an agent of the civil
jurisdiction in recording the marriage contract. A couple requesting a
service of Christian marriage shall receive instruction from the
teaching elder, who may agree to the couple’s
request only if, in the judgment of the teaching elder, the couple
demonstrate sufficient understanding of the nature of the marriage
covenant and commitment to living their lives together according to its
values. In making this decision, the teaching elder may seek the counsel
of the session, which has authority to permit or deny the use of church
property for a marriage service.

“Nothing herein shall compel a teaching elder to
perform nor compel a session to authorize the use of church property
for a marriage service that the teaching elder or the session believes
is contrary to the teaching elder’s or the session’s discernment of the
Holy Spirit and their understanding of the Word of God.”

I wish I could have heard more of the questions and debate concerning this item but my schedule did not permit hanging around for most of the livestream. In the part of the discussion I did hear there were numerous questions about global partners and their reactions. I can also say that in what I heard there were no slippery-slope arguments made. And in a nod of cooperation and forbearance the wording in the first paragraph that said “two persons” was changed to “two persons, traditionally a man and a woman.”

In the final vote the new language was approved and will be sent to the presbyteries on a vote of 429 to 175. For comparison, the 220th General Assembly defeated an amendment of similar intent but significantly different wording on a vote of 308 to 338. Note that after that vote the business was bundled into an umbrella item to answer all business in one fell swoop.

This will now be sent down to the presbyteries and will require a concurrence of a majority of them.

[10-NB] New Business
The final item of business was a resolution crafted by the Committee following their completion of the other business. Compared to the extensive text of the rest of these items it is pretty simple:

Recommend the 221st General Assembly (2014) direct the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board and
the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly to engage in the process of working together with churches in the task of reconciliation, starting with visiting
each presbytery and serving as a resource for each presbytery’s
discussion of these actions in congregations and the presbytery at-large
and present voices of reconciliation for the unity of the church.

This is a response to the recognition that for this decision there will be some who will be hurt by the outcome in the same way that some were hurt by the outcome of other decisions in this matter in previous years. The committee itself was careful in its work about being respectful and developing a sense of fellowship in the group. One of the things it did to insert some levity during its work was to have committee members share embarrassing moments during worship. (Example 1, example 2).

It should be pointed out that there was a vote to reconsider this item this morning as the first item of business and a substantive and pastoral amendment was passed without changing the basics of the item.

What’s next
Here are three items the come to mind regarding this action going forward.

First, the amendment to the Directory for Worship does need the concurrence of the presbyteries. if approved by a majority of the 171 presbyteries it will become part of the 2015-2017 Book of Order which takes affect a year from now.

Second, as we know from ordination standards an AI from the Assembly is not the last word. Even if the Book of Order change is approved there is an outside chance that a challenge to a same-sex marriage ceremony could go through the judicial process fast enough that the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission would have the opportunity to supersede the GA’s AI with a ruling that W-4.9001 does prohibit such ceremonies in spite of the AI.

Finally, expect the departures to continue. I am not sure that this action will suddenly and dramatically increase the exodus of churches leaving the PC(USA) as many that I have talked to have anticipated this and taken action on departure in a proactive manner. For most, this is not unexpected but a validation of what they have been saying for years. And while there are numerous factors at play between the action at the last GA and this proposed change to the Book of Order, we have to accept that the exodus has been at least partly responsible for the dramatic swing from a 308 to 338 vote to a 429 to 175 vote. (And at some point I hope to do some number crunching to explore what constraints could be put on the numbers.)

Following these actions a number of pastoral letters and statements have been released. In addition to one from the General Assembly leadership, there is one from Presbyterians for Renewal and another from the Covenant Network. I would also highlight one from Philadelphia Presbytery by their Executive Presbyter Ruth Santana-Grace.

As a bit of an aside, at the same time yesterday afternoon the 42nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America was considering their ascending overtures, including two (Overtures 2 and 5) that reiterated that denomination’s stated views against homosexual practice and same-sex marriage. Both of those overtures were dispensed with fairly quickly, although with a little discussion, as they were ruled out of order since they were both affirmations of what is already established doctrine. However, in an independent occurrence that got a bit of a chuckle from some of us in both denominations, at least one news source got the two largest American Presbyterian branches a bit confused.

So, returning to the PC(USA), it is now time to see what happens as this descends to the presbyteries – both to approve the Book of Order amendment and in general to see what the reaction is. And we pray for the initiative to encourage reconciliation as this effort goes forward. Stay tuned…

34th General Assembly Of The Evangelical Presbyterian Church

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Rounding out our very full slate of American Presbyterian General Assemblies this week, we have the 34th General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. The host church is Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church. The Assembly Schedule informs us that preliminaries began on Tuesday with conferences and meetings, and continues today with the Assembly Workshop and worship. Business sessions begin tomorrow morning, 19 June, and continue into Saturday, 21 June. And while these meetings are taking place, it is great to see the youth out in the community doing service projects.

The Assembly meeting will be webcast and the webcast schedule is on that page. (There is also a webcast link from the host church.) You can download the full Commissioners Handbook or access portions of it individually on the webcast and documents page. At the bottom of the webcast page there are also the as yet unlinked points for the daily summaries for when they are posted. You can also download the current Book of Order from the web site if you need to consult it. More on that in a moment.

As for social media, there is a bit of that out there. There is a Facebook page for the EPC but it does not appear to be tracking GA items. The official EPC Twitter feed (@EPChurch) also does not seem to have too much lead in to GA but the hashtag (#epc34) has sprung to life. There is also a feed for EPC Student Ministries (@EPCStudentMin) and the Stated Clerk Jeff Jeremiah (@Jeff_Jeremiah). I would add to this the host church, Cedar Springs Church (@cedarspringspc).

Turning to the business of the Assembly it is interesting to note that overtures proposing changes to the Book of Order tend to be making adjustments to the process of accepting churches and teaching elders transferring into the church. One of them (14-C ) would change the examination of new teaching elders to include not just their theological views but also their knowledge of Reformed theology. Another (14-D ) would make transitional membership in the EPC an established method of joining and not invoked on a case-by-case basis. There is also an amendment (14-B ) to make explicit that there is no implied or expressed Trust Clause.

Another item of business would ratify the vote of the presbyteries and approve a Revised Book of Government.

There are a lot more business items that appear to be interesting to see the deliberations, but let me highlight one final request. As you will see, this is not being brought for debate but for referral for study with a fuller discussion at a future Assembly when the study is returned. So here is the Constitutional Revision Ad Interim Committee’s recommendation 5:
Recommendation #16 [CR-5]

That the Sabbath provisions of the Westminster Confession of Faith (21.7, 8), Larger Catechism questions 117-121; Shorter Catechism questions 58-60), and Book of Worship (§2-2) be referred to the Permanent Theology Committee for study and, if deemed necessary and appropriate, that the Committee bring recommendations to the 35th or 36th General Assembly including, but not limited to, amending some or all of those documents.

Grounds: Presbyteries have frequently and consistently allowed exceptions to Westminster Confession of Faith 21-7 and 21-8 regarding Sabbath observance. Such exceptions may be out of accord with Book of Worship §2-2 and would make it difficult for Teaching Elders to take a vow to submit to the government and discipline of the EPC with integrity at this point.

I look forward to seeing how these matters of Sabbath observance are developed.

With that, I will wish the EPC commissioners well and assure them and the leadership of our prayers as the meet to discern all the matters before them.

PC(USA) 221st General Assembly — Committees Done, Moving On To Plenary

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UPDATE: I did not get the time to finish this out. I will leave it posted in incomplete form.

[Ed. Note: Due to my meeting schedule this morning I will need to do this in pieces and so to get this out as quickly as possible I will be doing it in live blog style. That means that if you get the first part via email you will need to go online to see the complete post later today. If you are following online then check back in a while to see the update.]

It is now Wednesday morning and all the commissioners to the 221st General Assembly are busy reading the reports that they will be discussing and voting on the next 72 hours.

Committee work seemed to go fairly smoothly with one committee, Committee 14 – Congregational Vitality, finishing up in one day. It looked like one or two committees continued after dinner on Tuesday, but I could be wrong and PC-Biz was just catching up.

As we go into Plenary this afternoon here are some things to look forward to…

First, there is a new system with a unified consent agenda that will be approved as the first major item of business. Any action that received at least a 75% super-majority in committee would probably be placed on the consent agenda unless the committee felt it should be presented in a committee report. This means that Committee 14 does not need to report since all six of their business items were approved unanimously. The catch is that item 14-04 has financial implications and I understand that will bring it to the floor.

It will be interesting to see how the consent agenda goes, in particular how many items are pulled off for consideration since any item can be removed by the request of even one commissioner.

There are some interesting items on the consent agenda, including the standing committee nominations. But in a quick look a lot of them are like the items on per capita limits and Young Adult Commissioners that the committee overwhelmingly disapproved with comment. We will see what is the will of the Assembly.

So, looking at the proposed docket, which may or may not be the one brought by Bills and Overtures for approval as one of the very first items of business this afternoon, here is what seems to be coming in the way of committee business.

Wednesday Afternoon
Report of the Assembly Committee on BOP, PILP, PPC, and Foundation (12)
This committee currently has seven items on the consent agenda. These include disapproval of [12-01] required participation in the benefits plan and disapproval of [12-02] that would require near-immediate divestment of departing pastors from the benefits plan.

Remaining business items seem fairly routine and received strong support in the committee. These include [12-07] to reelect the Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as [12-11] to confirm the election of the President of the Board of Pensions.

Report of the Assembly Committee on General Assembly Procedures (03)
This committee has 25 items on the consent agenda including a bunch of sub-recommendations from the Report of the Committee to Review Biennial Assemblies. The committee is recommending approval of all the Review Committee recommendations, some with amendment. As mentioned above, per capita limits and Young Adult Commissioners are recommended for disapproval. Otherwise almost all business, both consent and floor action, are recommended for approval. There are two more exceptions. One is a Commissioner Resolution  to provide childcare at GA and other national events which has financial implications and is being referred and the other is a Commissioner Resolution to give Executive Presbyters corresponding member status which is recommended for disapproval.

[That takes care of this afternoon – Back with more in a little while]

42nd General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In America

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The 42nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America will convene their plenary sessions tomorrow afternoon, 17 June, in Houston. Committees of Commissioners began meeting today. The Assembly will continue through noon on Friday. The theme of the Assembly is “Proclaim Christ, Disciple the Nations.”

The meeting will be live streamed and they have their GA app available for several platforms to follow along. There is also a ShareFile! app there for registered commissioners to download reports and other documents.

While the full volume of reports is available only to commissioners, the docket and overtures are available on line. There is one report available online and that is this year’s part of the Report of the Ad Interim Study Committee On Insider Movements.
This is Part Two of Two, with Part One having been presented to the 40th GA two years ago.

To track the polity of the PCA you can access the Book of Church Order online.

News updates will be posted through the official news website and online publication byFaith.

Turning to social media, while there is a Facebook page for the PCA, it does not seem to have much build-up to GA. The byFaith Magazine Facebook page is more active.

There are numerous opportunities to follow the meeting on Twitter including the official feed from byFaith (@PCAbyFaith). There is also a feed for the Reasoning_Together (@PCA_Elders) program. The hashtag for the Assembly is #pcaga.

Individuals who will be at the meeting and are, or will probably be tweeting include Fred Greco (@fredgreco), Ligon Duncan (@LigonDuncan), Sean Michael Lucas (@SeanMLucas) and Allan Edwards (@edwardsae1). Or, I have been advised by @PCAPresbyter himself that all you really need to do is follow him. He will certainly enlighten your tracking of PCA GA in his own inimitable way.

A number of important topics are before the Assembly this year probably led by Overture 6, “Child Protection in the PCA.” There are an additional 23 overtures with concurrences, commendations and affirmations of it bringing the total number of overtures this year to an unusually high 52. Earlier today this overture in slightly amended form, was recommended to the full Assembly by a unanimous vote of the Overtures Committee with all related overtures to be answered by action on Overture 6. In addition, the Assembly will be hearing a special presentation on child sexual abuse from Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, attorney and founder of Telios Law PLLC.

Other overtures this year include eight overtures related to process of Standing Judicial Commission decisions and one to “Issue a warning regarding erroneous views of Creation.” There are several overtures related to shifting presbytery boundaries that includes one to expand Korean Southeastern, one to divide Korean Southwest in two and one to establish a provisional presbytery for Paraguay.

One of the most interesting overtures proposes a logo for the PCA. As @PCAPresbyter pointed out in a tweet today Moses and the children of Israel wandered in the desert a shorter period of time than the PCA has been in existence without adopting a logo. I don’t know if they need one or not, but Southeast Alabama Presbytery thinks they do and is proposing the one to the left here.

So that is the line up for the next few days. At the point it convenes there will be four American Presbyterian branches with their Assemblies meeting. Add the EPC on Wednesday and we have five branches meeting.

So our best wishes to the commissioners and leaders of the PCA General Assembly and prayers for your discernment around some difficult issues the next few days. I will be interested to see how these business items are decided.

139th GA Of The CPCA And 184th GA Of The CPC

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I have drifted fully back onto the grid after a weekend of only spotty connections in the local mountains and realize that I have a lot to get caught up on regarding the GA already in session.

In addition, as I mentioned previously, this week is full of American Presbyterian General Assemblies and I hope that you will forgive me for doubling up the Assemblies of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Besides efficiency on my part there is good reason to consider both of these branches together: in addition to the fact that they are both meeting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at about the same time, they also have a Unification Task Force working to consider the reunion of these two branches. More on that in a minute, but first, here is the rundown on each Assembly.

The 139th General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America begins today, 15 June, and runs through Wednesday, 18 June. There are briefings and committee meetings on the 15th with opening worship and the start of business, including election of the Moderator, on Monday morning. You can view the schedule for the meeting as a Word document.

The 184th General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church will convene with worship on Monday afternoon, 16 June, and continue through Thursday, 19 June, or until they are done. The one-page guide to the week is available and documents for the meeting – including reports and by-laws – are published as the 2014 Preliminary Minutes. Other documents, including the Catechism, Confession of Faith and Rules of Order, can be accessed from the left navigation bar on the Office of the General Assembly page.

If you have looked at the two schedules you will see that these are mostly joint meetings with a few select times when each branch meets to do its own business. The Unification Task Force was formed two years ago and they have been working towards organic union with out a predetermined time-table.The report of the Unification Task Force can be found starting on page 108 of the Preliminary Minutes.

The Task Force is bringing to the joint Assembly a Proposed Plan for Union with reflection questions embedded throughout it. They are proposing that the new denomination be named the United Cumberland Presbyterian Church and to maintain the four synods, but with adjusted boundaries. All current presbyteries in both branches would continue for six years after union to study possible realignments. There is a one year input period on the Proposed Plan and the Task Force would bring a final proposal to a joint Assembly in 2016. Presbyteries would have the next year to ratify the proposal for union, the 2017 Assemblies would approve final documents of a new denomination and the General Assembly of the United Cumberland Presbyterian Church would meet in 2018 for the first time.

Two other items that caught my attention. The first is that there will be a Joint CPC/CPCA Louisa Woosely Celebration to recognize the 125th Anniversary of the Ordination of Women Clergy to be held Wednesday evening. The second is that the CPC will be holding their 185th General Assembly (2015) in the country of Columbia. (The CPCA holds biennial assemblies and will not meet next year.)

As for following along, no live streaming that I am aware of and little social media visible at the moment but it looks like at least some are using the hashtag #cpga14. I do see that Farmwrkministry (@farmwkrministry) and
Rev. Lisa Cook (@sacredsparks) are tweeting about it. There are also official accounts from Ministry Council (@MinistryCouncil) and CPC Young Adults (@CPYAMC) that we might see tweets from.

And so, we wish the two Assemblies well and pray for wisdom and discernment for the commissioners and the church leadership. Have a good meeting.

[Point of Personal Privilege: This post represents a milestone for me as it is my 1000th published post. If you are curious there are about 50 that have not yet seen the light of day, or at least the glow of your monitors. While I am not the most prolific blogger, it am none the less a bit taken back by the thought that I have kept this quirky little niche blog going for 1000 posts over slightly more than eight years. My thanks to all of you for your interest, interaction and encouragement. Now, back to the action.]

221st General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

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We now approach a very busy week of General Assemblies. Hold on to your proverbial hats…

Leading off in the lineup is the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The gavel will come down to convene the meeting at 11:00 AM local time tomorrow (14 June) in Detroit, Michigan and it will run for one week until Saturday June 21.

The source for information is the on-line PC-Biz system. It can be access on the web at pc-biz.org. There are is also a PC(USA) event guide for the Guidebook App Android and iOS apps.

There is a docket posted and you can also find the schedule, reports overtures/business items on PC-Biz as well as all the Constitutional documents, the Manual of the General Assembly, and other useful items on the PC-Biz Resources tab.

The Assembly will begin with the usual formalities on Saturday afternoon followed by the election of the Moderator Saturday evening. Sunday is worship and receptions in the afternoon and then the Assembly goes into committees that evening. During committee time, which will run through Tuesday evening, PC-Biz is the place to find out what the committees are doing with the pieces of business near and dear to you.

Things open up again on Wednesday afternoon as the Assembly returns to plenary and than it is a mad push to get all the business done by Friday night or in the wee hours of Saturday morning. (What time will the buses stop running?) But one of the realities is that there is no real schedule of when particular committees report until later in the week when committees have finished their business and they are assembled on the docket like a jigsaw puzzle. The final Saturday morning is just closing formalities.

All of the plenary sessions will be live streamed.

The tracking utility on PC-Biz is the best place to follow business. While the PC(USA) does have a general Twitter account (@Presbyterian), the General Assembly feed (@presbyGA) usually provides more play-by-play. This will be the first GA for the Presbyterian News Service on Twitter (@PresbyNews). The hashtag for the meeting is #ga221.

News items will also appear on the GA221 web site as well as the Presbyterian News Service feed. There is also a photo gallery. (And I will probably need to adjust that link.)

In looking at my rapidly growing list of who will be tweeting from GA I am thinking that the best thing to do is to point you at Bruce Reyes-Chow’s Twitter list for GA221. Bruce himself tweets at @breyeschow and @brc_live. The outgoing Moderator, Neal Presa, can be followed at @NealPresa. And one of these three will be the new Moderator – Heath Rada (@heathrada), John Wilkinson (@johnwpcusa) or Kelly Allen (@kellysueallen). In this list of individuals let me throw in the Director of Operations, Thomas Hay (@DirOfOp) and a true GA Junkie in his own right, Andy James (andyjames).

Out in the press corps, keep an eye on the Presbyterian Outlook on their web site (pres-outlook.org) and Twitter (@presoutlook) as well as their special correspondent Leslie Scanlon (@lscanlon).

Besides the election of the Moderator, two other issues will be among the hottest of hot-button topics discussed, debated and discerned this week..

Internally, the biggest question is probably the PC(USA) definition of marriage. Most everyone acknowledges that the definition given in the Directory for Worship (W-4.9001) is a bit of a problem since the part about marriage being a civil contract between a man and a woman is out of date in many jurisdictions. There are proposals to issue an Authoritative Interpretation to allow pastors to preform marriages in those jurisdictions. There are also overtures to change that section of the Book of Order. This has a long way to travel in the next week and a Book of Order change will require the concurrence of the presbyteries.

Externally, the headline issue is the return of a proposal to divest from three companies whose products are used to help Israel in their occupation of Palestinian Territory. This has been built up by interest groups on both sides and as of yesterday the ga221 hashtag was being flooded with tweets supporting divestment. At the 220th GA this was the closest vote of the Assembly with the divestment proposal failing in plenary by two votes. We will see what happens this year.

So we have a lot to look forward to this coming week. I, unfortunately, could not make a trip to Detroit work for me so I will be live blogging the live stream as I am able – trying to provide some color commentary to the play-by-play on Twitter.  As always, best wishes and prayers for all the commissioners and leadership as they deal with important issues but also so that they may not lose sight of the call to make disciples and build up Christ’s body in the minutia of individual business items.

Finally, in honor of Detroit and maybe as a metaphor for either the PC(USA) Book of Order, or the PC(USA) itself with its many splits and mergers, I leave you with Johnny Cash’s “One Piece At A Time.”

Some Thoughts On Fossil Fuel Divestment Overture At The 221st General Assembly, PC(USA)

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Let me begin this post with full disclosure that this piece probably falls more into the category of commentary than analysis or reporting.

Second, why the heck would I be writing commentary on this? If you are not aware I am a geologist by profession so I do have some background in this even though my primary specialty is earthquakes. But I did work for an oil company one summer during college.

Third, this is business that is before the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) next week so it is of concern to many of us.

The main overture that I want to speak to is item 15-01 from the Presbytery of Boston with concurrences from 11 other presbyteries. It will be reviewed by the Assembly Committee on Immigration and Environmental Issues. This committee only has three other items of business to consider besides this one, one regarding immigration, one about sustainable development and one about coal export projects.

The overture calls for the 221st GA to recognize the “moral mandate for humanity to shift to sustainable energy.” As part of this it asks for no new PC(USA) investments in fossil fuel companies, divestment from current holdings over the next five years, report on the progress and tell the fossil fuel companies why they are doing this.

In considering fossil fuel divestment let me discuss two particular aspects of this topic that I don’t think are getting aired in the materials I have read.

First, go with me on a thought exercise. Don’t worry, this won’t take long…

Name the materials in your home that are extracted from the earth.

I do this exercise with students all the time and it is quicker to name the materials that are not earth-related. The obvious one is wood if you live in a wood frame house, have wood shingles and probably have wooden furniture. The other is fabric that comes from animals (such as wool or leather) or plants (cotton and hemp for example). In my experience that is it.

Someone usually asks about the carpets and if you have common polyester carpets guess what, they come from petrochemicals. In fact, you may be surprised to find the amount of material in your home or car that are petrochemicals.

My point is that saying companies are just about fossil fuels ignores other uses of the materials extracted, whether it be the petroleum that goes into plastics or the coal that goes to make coke for iron/steel production. Yes, according to the ExxonMobil Annual Report only 11.7% of their annual revenues were from the chemical side, but neither the overture nor the Carbon Tracker report they reference make any mention of secondary uses of the material.

The second thing that strikes me is the method being employed. I always wonder when companies or industries are singled out for boycotts or divestment when we are trying to make societal changes. I think it is generally better to change things either through the demand side, not the supply side of the equation or to promote better alternatives on the supply side. Before Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial oil well in the United States lamp oil came from whaling. While whaling is still an active, but controversial industry, the whale oil portion did not drop off because of government regulation or environmental concerns. Rather, the rise of the petroleum industry produced a less-expensive alternative.

Similarly, I would argue that the same thing would be more effective here. Time and resources should be put into alternate and more environmentally friendly sources of energy and helping develop conservation attitudes.

To this end, I appreciate the advice provided by the Assembly Committee on Social Witness Policy which instead suggests a balance approached typified by the amendment they suggest that says “To this end,
the church shall work to shift its energy investments increasingly into
renewable sources as it undertakes parallel actions to reduce its
nonrenewable energy consumption and that of its members.”

Let me ask if more can be done internally by the PC(USA). Can the national office be heated, cooled and lit with more alternative energy? Can trips to the offices be reduced by telecommuting or car pooling? Can the General Assembly reduce its carbon footprint? Can incentives be given to employees of the PC(USA), its middle governing bodies or its churches to conserve, use alternate energy and reduce their carbon footprint. We ask others to be environmentally responsible, how can we set the example and promote that within our denomination?

There are also a number of pragmatic considerations in all this. Yes, this is a social witness statement and that alone is sometimes good enough. But remember that the General Assembly speaks only for itself and while there are obviously at least 12 presbyteries that agree with this action the only investments it directly controls are its own. Furthermore, that is not always the case as I remember hearing representatives from the Board of Pensions and the Foundation at the last GA talking about the investment process and what influence they did, or did not have, on the outside investment advisers they contracted with. Finally, I do not want to diminish the fact that this is making a social witness statement and any actual effects are just part of the equation, but it is interesting reading about how Stanford made the decision to divest from only coal when a full fossil fuel divestment was asked for by a student group. The change was both for financial reasons as well as moral as this article discusses:

Beyond the hit to Stanford’s pocketbook, the university figured that
divesting from all fossil-fuel stocks would be seen, justifiably, as too
ivory-tower. “It would have been viewed as hypocritical to say, `You
should divest from fossil fuels,’ when everyone on this campus consumes
fossil fuels,” [Stanford President John] Hennessy said. “There’s a hypocritical issue to it.” And
what’s true for Stanford, he noted, is true for the globe. “You try to
replace all fossil fuels? We are so far from that happening.”

But
divesting just from coal-mining stocks should, financially, have “little
or no endowment impact,” Hennessy said. The university, he said, can
put the dollars it was investing into coal-mining companies into other
energy sources—perhaps other fossil fuels—which,
like coal stocks, help guard the endowment against the threat of
inflation. Moreover, Stanford will remain invested in coal consumption.
The divestment doesn’t apply to stocks of power companies that burn
coal. And it doesn’t apply to shares in steel makers, Hennessy noted,
for whom a fuel source other than coal isn’t readily apparent.

Finally, the argument can be made that keeping the stock and using it as the entry into stockholder meetings and resolutions is a more effective method to promote a social witness policy.

So there are some of my thoughts on the matter. Your mileage may vary. But this overture has plenty of advice attached to it and based on how Assemblies operate I am pretty confident it will be in a much different form when it reaches the plenary and then my undergo another revision, possibly major. Or maybe it will fly through and get put on the shelf with all those other social witness statements. Stay tuned…

[Addendum: Full Disclosure: First, I own stock in energy companies
because when I started investing the advice I received from my
Presbyterian minister – a former stock broker – was “invest in what you
know” and I knew geology. Second, a notable portion of my undergraduate education was provided by scholarships from energy companies and even some money that come from Edwin L. Drake a long time ago.]

81st General Assembly Of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church

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I apologize for falling behind here, but I got so focused on following the PCI General Assembly that I did not keep up with the others. There are some very interesting dots to connect from that one, but that is for another time. But the GA season is about to get very busy — and you thought it was busy before. So here we go…

The 81st General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church began on 4 June in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at Kuyper College and will conclude this Tuesday, 10 June.

This GA does not have live streaming but we have the next best thing:
There is a tradition of very well done running daily reports for the OPC
GA and this year is no exception. So our thanks to the team of Daniel F. Patterson, Linda Foh and Stephen Pribble that are making it happen again this year.

The agenda and reports are not posted on line but you can access the Book of Church Order and the Standing Rules and Instructions of GA if you need background material.

Earlier this week one of the individuals following the GA, Chortles Weakly, tweeted “#OPCGA may be the twitterverse’s loneliest hashtag.” Well, it may be lonely but it is still worth following for this Assembly. Besides Chortles Weakly (@ChortlesWeakly) – who I should warn you has his own unique perspective (UPDATE: he has suggested that a better description is uniquitude) – I would also suggest tracking Camden Bucey (@CamdenBucey) and Muddy Gravel (@MuddyGravel).

Business so far includes the election of TE Craig Troxel (I believe of Bethel OPC of Wheaton, IL) as the Moderator and the statistical report which noted the slow but steady gains in membership (30,758 in 2013 from 30,555 in 2012).

Maybe the headline making the biggest news is an arrangement with the United Reformed Churches in North America for the OPC GA to meet jointly, or at least in close proximity, with the URCNA 2016 Synod to afford the opportunity to celebrate the publication of their joint Psalter and Hymnbook.

So we will keep watching and enjoying the tweets and the running updates from the OPC. But use this week to get your rest and take advantage of only one GA or Synod at a time. A week from today begins the peak week for American Presbyterians with five GA’s simultaneously in session on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Stay tuned…