Category Archives: GA business

Church Of Scotland National Youth Assembly 2009

As the first weekend of September approaches it is once again time for the National Youth Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The event will be held 4-7 September at Stirling University.

To keep track of the Assembly the best method will probably be Twitter with the hashtag #nya2009. If you remember from last year, the hashtag for that Assembly made the Twitter trending list at one time and the organizers asked people to temporarily stop tweeting and return to the real world from the virtual.

There is also an official blog for the Assembly at cosyblog.wordpress.com. On there you can read that the theme of the Assembly this year is “Field of Dreams.” To give you a flavour of the Assembly this year here is a shortened up version of the welcome on the official blog:

It’s not long now til we meet at Stirling University – hope you are beginning to get excited!

We have a great programme lined up: Digging deeper and unearthing the ground in our debate chats on Identity, Multi faith, Spirituality and Wealth.

Lots of different types of worship to stir you out of your beds in the morning and to get you jumping at night.

Long lunches where you can doing something Physical and Sporty and the Scottish National Sports Centre (very conveniently also on the same campus) Hmm not likely to find me there much I’m afraid! You can catch a movie, have some quiet worship time or go to any of the workshops – of which there are masses to choose from!

The hootenanny is there for all you folks who have a talent to share – get in touch with Kim Wood if you haven’t already done so!

We have 35 folk coming from Sweden who perform in a fab choir – they will be doing a set for us one evening as well helping us to hum the odd tune here and there.

Don’t forget, that Saturday night is the Gala Dinner – Big surprise as to the theme (even for me!) so don’t forget your glad rags and some dosh for the charity we are supporting!

The moderator has gone on holiday!!! Hopefully he will be back in time!!

It’s going to be great!! Looking forward to seeing you there. We will be thinking about Field of Dreams – what are your dreams, visions, hopes for the church, the world, yourselves, your faith……..

In case you did not catch it, the official topics for discussion will be “Identity, Multi faith, Spirituality and Wealth.” Should be interesting, especially since the decisions of this Assembly will provide recommendations and business items for the General Assembly next May. I consider the NYA a great event because if you want insight into the thinking of the younger generation in the church this is the event to watch and because of how it interacts with the GA.

In addition to the official blog I was tempted to “round up the usual suspects” and make recommendations as to who to follow, but decided instead I would add updates to this post as they started to post. The one “announced” blogger I can recommend is Chris Hoskins over at What is Freedom? who has put up his intro message for NYA2009.

So stay tuned and I look forward to the discussion next weekend.

Developments In Scotland

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Over the last two months there has been a slow but nearly constant stream of news coming out of the Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland. Having not posted on any of the individual bits and pieces I thought I would now try to go back and summarize the general flow of the news.

While one particular item is simmering, there have been a couple of other interesting, and not completely unrelated, news items. One of these is the initiation of Sunday ferry service to the Islands. Earlier this month the ferry service between the Mainland of Scotland the Isle of Lewis began, leading to silent protests and discussion over the end of a way of life. As an article in the Telegraph put it:

The staunchly Presbyterian island is one of the last areas of the country where the Sabbath is widely regarded as a day of rest.

and later

The Free Church of Scotland – the Wee Frees – claim the move will destroy a way of life, while supporters say it will drag Lewis and neighbouring Harris – which have had Sunday flights for seven years – into the 21st century.

Although the church has showed some skepticism with the explanation, in the article the ferry company says that by not running on Sunday they are in violation of a European law “if it followed the wishes of one part of the community on Lewis, while sailing to almost every other large island on a Sunday.”

This is just one in a series of protests by Presbyterians in the UK protesting activities moving onto the Lord’s Day, including a protest just under a year ago by members of the Free Presbyterian Church in Ireland when the first Sunday football (soccer) match was held.

Now, at about the same time last month the Isle of Lewis made the news again for the first same-sex partnership ceremony or wedding in the Western Islands. Again, in that conservative corner of Scotland the locals were not enthusiastic about the news, reported in the Sunday Mail, especially the leadership of the Free Church.

And in an interesting twist a court ruling was returned this week over church property, but in contrast to the cases stateside, this was the conservative Free Church (FC) prevailing in the case against one of its congregations that had broken away in 2000 as part of the formation of the more conservative Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) (FCC). This is reported as one of about 12 congregations where there is a property dispute. In his decision the judge said:

The defenders admitted that they had left the structure of the FC and had set up their own structure. There was and is an FC and the body to which the defenders belonged took themselves away from that and set up their own structure. As the defenders did not aver that the FC no longer adhered to its fundamental principles they had lost their property rights. There was a sharp issue between the parties as to how the series of authorities had to be understood. The defenders’ analysis of the authorities was fundamentally misconceived: if they were correct chaos would result since the FCC had set up competing trustees. What the authorities clearly showed was that those who left a voluntary church and separated themselves from its structure lost their property rights in it unless they showed that they adhered to the fundamental principles of the Church and that those who remained within the structure did not. Neither group in the present case averred that the other did not adhere to fundamental principles.

In other words, at least as I understand it, since this was a disagreement over details of the faith and not the major substance of their doctrine the FCC has no legal basis for claiming the property as the “true church.” (I welcome clarification and/or correction as I am not as familiar with Scottish legal decisions.) My summary is echoed in articles from The Herald and the Stornoway Gazette. And in the article in The Herald it says:

But Reverend John Macleod, principal clerk of the Free Church (Continuing), said: “Our legal committee will be studying Lord Uist’s findings and consulting our lawyers in early course.”

The FC spokesman says they hope this will set a precedent so that legal action against the other congregations will not be necessary to recover the property. Variations on a theme, no?

Finally, the continuing “hot topic”:

When we last discussed the situation in the Church of Scotland the General Assembly had just concluded, the Rev. Scott Rennie had been approved for his call to a church in Aberdeen, a moratorium was in place on any new calls to same-sex partnered ministers, and a gag order had been placed on all officers of the church. So where do we go from here?

On July 3 the Rev. Scott Rennie was inducted (installed) as the pastor of Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen Presbytery. (BBC)

On July 25 a Church of Scotland minister announced he would step down from his call in disagreement with the General Assembly decision (BBC) but did not announce plans to leave the Church of Scotland. A few days later a member of one of the church councils announced that he was leaving the CofS over this. (The Press and Journal)

At about the same time the editor of the Free Church magazine The Monthly Record, the Rev. David Robertson, wrote an editorial in the latest edition that suggested that those leaving the Church of Scotland could find a home in the Free Church. Titled “Ichabod — The Glory Has Departed” he criticized the action of the CofS General Assembly and says:

Whatever happens, barring an extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Church of Scotland is crippled and dying and will find itself increasingly unable to bring the Living Water of Jesus Christ to a thirsty nation.

The editorial then goes on to suggest responses from the Free Church (highly edited for length):

We have to respond. This is the most significant event in the history of the Church in Scotland since the union of 1929. It affects us all. Again, we simply list some suggestions.

1) We need to repent as well. There must not be even a hint of schadenfreude, delighting in another’s misery in order to indulge in an ‘I told you so’ kind of self-justification. How eff
ective are we in reaching Scotland’s millions? Any form of pride or thankfulness that we are ‘not as others’ is utterly reprehensible and totally unjustified.

2) We must offer as much support we can to our brothers and sisters who are really hurt and suffering within the Church of Scotland. Not because we want to entice them to join us, but simply because they are our brothers and sisters. Many of them are faithful, hardworking and fine Christians who have served Christ for many years within and through the Church of Scotland. They are pained beyond belief. Now is not the time to stick the boot in. Now is the time to offer a helping hand, including to those who will stay.

3) We need to provide a home for those who cannot stay. If this means for the sake of Christian unity that we have to allow them to worship God in the way they are used to – then so be it. It is surely not a coincidence that the year before the Special Commission is due to report, the Free Church will be debating and deciding on whether to amend what forms of worship will be allowed within our bounds. We should not do what is unbiblical or sinful in order to facilitate Christian unity, but neither should we allow disagreement on secondary issues (disagreements which we have amongst ourselves already) to prevent us from uniting with likeminded brothers and sisters. [text deleted] It is time for us all to recognize that we are no longer in the 19th century, or even in the 20th. We are no longer a Christian society with a national church which just needs to be reformed. We are in a postmodern secular society where the vast majority of people are ignorant of the Gospel, ignorant of the Bible, and have little or no meaningful concept of the Church. For us this is a new beginning. We need new wine, and for that we need new wineskins.

4) We need to inform the Church of Scotland that the stumbling block in our negotiations with them has just become a mountain. We always knew that the issue of scripture was the major one, but now that the Assembly has decided that Scripture is not synonymous with the Word of God, it is difficult to see on what basis we can have any meaningful official discussions. [text deleted]

5) We need to seek realistic co-operation and build bridges to overcome years of prejudice and misinformation on all sides. At an official level, Free Church presbyteries could offer associate status to Church of Scotland ministers, elders and congregations. We should seek to form Gospel partnerships in areas where we share the same theology and understanding of the Gospel. We would support rather than compete with one another and perhaps plant churches and worship together…

While these are personal comments of the editor of the official magazine, point 4 reflects the concern expressed at the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland for the direction of the mainline Church of Scotland and the implications that had for the continuing talks regarding their ecumenical relations.

The editorial concludes with this:

These are dark days and the worst is yet to come. But these are also days of great opportunity for the light of the Gospel to shine all the more brightly… Where is the passion of Knox who declared, ‘give me Scotland or I die’? Where is the vision of Chalmers when he stated, ‘Who cares for the Free Church compared with the Christian good of Scotland’? Those who share that passion and vision must unite – across denominations – and make a stand to uphold and proclaim the wonderful full gospel of Jesus Christ. Who knows – it may be that these past days have been the shake-up that a complacent church in Scotland has needed. May the latter days of the Gospel in Scotland be greater than the former.

I have been looking for reaction to this editorial in either official statements or news coverage and have not seen any yet. I’ll update when I do.

There are definitely rumblings of concern out there, and an article in The Herald today puts some of them in writing, but without naming a lot of names. It mentions a church that is looking at withholding its annual contribution to the national church. It says that there are 35 churches that have said “they will not accept gay ordination under any circumstances” with the report of more congregations to follow.

Finally, the restrictions on discussing the ordination standards in the Church of Scotland, particularly in public or to the media, are starting to be questioned. In particular, the Rev. Louis Kinsey presented an argument last week on his blog Coffee With Louis about the problem with the ban on discussion, and the comments got picked up by The Herald. He concludes his argument with this:

It is simply contrary to the spirit of the church, the church that worships the Word made public in Jesus Christ, to prevent its Courts, Councils and congregants from trying to talk this issue and its implications through in every way possible, including publicly, albeit with graciousness and respect. It cannot be argued that further discussion can continue within Presbyteries. It just won’t happen. We all know that. Life and Work? The pages of Life and Work are sealed, as far as letters and articles on this matter are concerned. That magazine just will not publish. They are following the moratorium.

There is, now, no arena in which this debate can continue, and yet it should continue, because God continues to have a strong view on the matter. All parties to this debate can at least agree on that.

My hope is that the moratorium will be challenged. It only serves to drive debate underground and it stifles the exchange of opinion. It is patronizing because it infers that the Assembly simply cannot and will not trust the members and ministers of the Kirk to hold a public discussion in a spirit of respectful disagreement. It was agreed without evidence, on the say-so of the proposer, and because it prevents Kirk members from hearing one another’s perspective, it only adds to the momentum towards disintegration.

This moratorium is hurtful not helpful and should be ended. It is a mistake that needs correcting. It is the absence of freedom of speech.

There is much going on here, most in initial stages, including the work of the Special Commission. We will see how all of these facets of the situation develop.

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland — Reaction To The Judicial Case

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With about two days since the Assembly made its decision in the case of the Dissent and Complaint Against a Decision by the Presbytery of Aberdeen more information and reaction is now available on the web.

First, for the details of the Assembly session I have found no better source than the official audio summary from the Church of Scotland found on the Daily News Updates page. For those interested in the polity details there is no other source that goes into the details of how the case proceeded and what was actually being decided. This case was not about the particular individual or ordination standards in general, but whether the Presbytery of Aberdeen had specifically followed the procedures for reviewing the call to the charge as stated in Acts VIII 2003 (DOC Format). (That is a church law reference, not a scriptural one.)

Specifically, the two points of complaint were:

Aberdeen Presbytery was therefore wrong to take a decision that was contrary to the stated position and practice of the Church in sustaining the call to a minister in a self professed active homosexual relationship.

The Presbytery of Aberdeen, in sustaining the call to a minister in an avowedly active homosexual relationship, has also acted contrary to the commitment to ‘prayerful dialogue’ urged on us all by the General Assembly of 2007.

The problem that the complainers had was that there is no specific section in the Church of Scotland polity that sets standards for these situations in the manner of the PC(USA) G-6.0106b. (Hence today’s overture.) The complaint argues from “the historic and orthodox position of the church,” and a 2007 GA report that says the Kirk does not see orientation as a barrier to service but that there is disagreement over homosexual activity. The complaint also says “The ordination and induction of active homosexuals has never been the accepted practice of the Church of Scotland or the Church catholic, except where there has first been a clear debate and decision to ordain active homosexuals.”

A few other interesting details about the process from the audio update: The commissioners from the presbytery against which the complaint is filed (Aberdeen) may not participate as commissioners or vote. Being a judicial case the commissioners are to come to the case without “preconceived notions.” This is a bit different than my previous comments. In the discussion about the wider effects of this cases outcome the commissioners were informed that a decision in a judicial case does not set standards for the wider church and that whether a particular case sets a precedent can not be know at the time of the case but only when it is used as precedent in a future case. Finally, the vote was not a yes/no vote but rather a vote on two different motions, one supporting and one denying the dissent.

There was plenty of comment about the decision, as you can imagine, but the two Scottish bloggers that seem to have the best read of the situation are Stewart Cutler and Chris Hoskins. Neither disappointed in their analysis and comments on the day. In addition to a brief post Saturday night with the results of the case Stewart posted on Sunday about being between the two votes and the fact the situation was unsettled. (He also has a reaction to the motion passed today about the standards, but I’ll get to that another time.)

Chris Hoskins has an extensive post about Saturday and closes with a paragraph worth reading about the evening session to hear the case. Here is what he wrote:

Saturday evening was interesting. At the start of the evening I wasn’t
that as bothered about the outcome as I was about how the debate was
conducted. I don’t want to talk here about the outcome, plenty of
people are doing that, I want to talk about attitudes (again). I was
worried that people would be hostile and disrespectful to one another
during the debate. I think the way that the moderator handled the night
was fantastic. He made it clear from the start that he would not
tolerate ungracious behaviour and that he would not tolerate people
cheering or jeering. Overall I thought everyone did a great job of
upholding this. I thought that both parties did a great job of keeping
focused on the actual issue, and not allowing themselves to be derailed
from that. I was so grateful and proud for the respect, grace and
dignity that was displayed for all those who were involved and by all
those who spoke during the debate. The attitudes displayed gave me hope
for the future debates that will be had on this issue.

A couple of other blog reactions worth noting. John Ross at Recycled Missionaries has a long post on the theological decline in the Kirk titled A New Church For Scotland? There is another long post at Clerical Whispers which looks at the Church of Scotland decision in the context of other churches, particularly the Church of England which is a bit closer to Clerical Whispers’ regular territory of the Irish Roman Catholic church. Two other bloggers close to the controversy, Rev. Louis Kinsey at Coffee With Louis and Rev. Ian Watson at Kirkmuirhillrev have not posted any extensive or personal comments about the vote yet. I am sure they will when the time is right and I look forward to their thoughts.

(UPDATE: Much of this post was written before the motion at the Monday session that now asks members of the church not to comment to the press or on-line about these issues. In light of that new request we will have to see how individuals respond to the proceedings of the Assembly. As I mention above, I am working on a post about the request for not commenting.)

At this time I have not seen any official statements yet from two of the groups that are part of the discussion, The Fellowship of Confessing Churches and Forward Together. OneKirk did issue a press release expressing their approval of the decision. I am sure that more will be forthcoming now that the near-term situation is better known with today’s decision to study the issue.

Finally, I need not tell any GA Junkie that for the media the vote on Saturday night was simply about ordination standards and not process. At least Ekklesia acknowledges the nature of the vote. While the middle part of the article says “Although those campaigning against Mr Rennie purely because he is gay and in a faithful relationship…” they do have at the very end “The decision the Assembly took this evening was not specifically on the
question of sexuality, but about the rightness of the decision taken by
the local Presbytery in Aberdeen.”

I wish I could say much good about this Associated Press article published on the KXMC web site. The AP headline is “Church of Scotland votes to appoint gay minister.” The article begins with this line: “LONDON (AP) There’s a new Anglican church conflict over
sexuality this time, in Scotland.” I’m sorry, the Church of Scotland is Presbyterian, not Anglican. (A similar mix-up is apparent in the news story headlined “Another gay appointment rocks Anglican Church” from On Top Magazine who claims to have gotten the story from The Guardian. I could not find that error in the Guardian Story so at some point they will probably catch the mistake and correct the text.)

And the Herald had an interesting and extensive article about the debate titled “Landmark Victory or Ecclesiastical Fudge?” This question of a “fudge” gets back to the polity issue that the case, in and of itself, does not set a precedent but must wait for future cases to evaluate it’s precedent-setting status, or lack there of. The article is worth reading if for no other reason that it provides more quotes from the debate than I have seen in any other source.

There is certain to be more on this as everyone considers the two different actions taken as a package and snapshot of the Assembly. In particular, the Herald has an article saying that conservatives think they may yet be able to stop the Rev. Rennie’s appointment. We will wait for more developments.

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland — What Is Not On The Table But Waiting In The Wings

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The ordination/installation standards debate that has caught all the attention for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has distracted a lot of people from the other business of the Kirk. This is too bad since there is a lot of other important business to be done at the Assembly and I hope that last night’s debate won’t take too much wind out of the rest of the Assembly meeting.

One of the things that has really impressed me about the Church of Scotland is the spirit and seriousness with which they have been addressing the changing place of the church, dare I say mainline church, in modern society.

I think that there are a number of reasons for the Kirk’s success in addressing this, not the least of which is that while the debate on various aspects of human sexuality has been on the table (such as the issue of blessing same-sex unions in 2007 and multiple reports from the Working Group on Human Sexuality) the various issues have not distracted the church the way they have in some other denominations — Presbyterian and otherwise.

But another aspect is the length of time that the church has been seriously dealing with this. One major milestone was the “Church Without Walls” (CWW) report and group. The original report was commissioned in 1999 and presented in 2001 and it’s purpose was

To re-examine in depth the primary purposes of the Church

and the shape of the Church of Scotland as we enter into the next
Millennium;

to formulate proposals for a process of continuing reform;

to consult on such matters with other Scottish Churches;

and to report to the General Assembly of 2001.

The recommendations of that report were:

Live with a Gospel for a year
Review community, worship and leadership
Integrate children and/or create new churches
Develop paths for the journey of discipleship
Plan strategically to develop leadership in congregations in worship, pastoral care and mission
Work in teams and partnerships
Recover the role of the evangelist
Turn the church “upside down”- priority to the local
Renew prayer life
Encourage sabbatical time from church activities
Fund new initiatives through special funding
Review overall financial strategy
Dare to take risks

Have a look at the summary of the 2001 report (DOC Format) And this year there was a GA “fringe event” to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the start of the CWW which Liz at “journalling” talks about yesterday and today.

Since 2001 this work has not stopped. While the 2009 GA voted on Thursday to fold the Church Without Walls Planning Group into the Mission and Discipleship Council the part of the charge “to formulate proposals for a process of continuing reform” has indeed been realized as have many other of the recommendations.

Monitoring of CWW, as well as changes to the Kirk structure originally fell to Assembly Council. But when that body was restructured the next group charged by the GA to look at the future of the Kirk, and the group that was keeping an eye on the CWW Planning Group, is the Panel on Review and Reform. It has as part of its charge:

…to listen to the voices of congregations and Presbyteries, to present a vision of what a church in need of continual renewal might become and to offer paths by which congregations, Presbyteries and agencies might travel towards that vision.

Formed in 2004 it has been holding discussion with presbyteries and congregations as part of its work. In their 2009 Report to the Assembly they discuss the continuing discussion process and also encourage all governing bodies and entities of the Church of Scotland to include the Kirk’s vision statement on their publications. That vision statement says:

The vision of the Church of Scotland is to be a church which seeks to inspire the people of Scotland and beyond with the Good News of Jesus Christ through enthusiastic, worshiping, witnessing, nurturing and serving communities.

However, the Church of Scotland has recognized that they have a constitutional, and traditional, impediment to reform in the Third Article of the Articles Declaratory:

lll. This Church is in historical
continuity with the Church of Scotland which was reformed
in 1560, whose liberties were ratified in 1592, and for whose
security provision was made in the Treaty of Union of 1707.
The continuity and identity of the Church of Scotland are
not prejudiced by the adoption of these Articles. As a national
Church representative of the Christian Faith of the Scottish
people it acknowledges its distinctive call and duty to bring
the ordinances of religion to the people in every parish of
Scotland through a territorial ministry. [emphasis added]

The Church of Scotland has a status that almost no other Presbyterian branch has and that is its standing as a National Church. They are, by the Kirk’s constitution, required to be everywhere in Scotland, and as you can imagine there are costs involved in keeping small churches open.

At the 2006 General Assembly there was a request, and the assembly complied, with establishing a Special Commission on Structure and Change. The purpose was to evaluate the changes to the central committees and offices of the church and to consider changes to the overall structure, including presbyteries. In the report presented to the 2008 General Assembly (DOC Format) they discuss the Third Article. Here is that section, absent the text of the Article which I included above:

13. The Third Article Declaratory

13.1 [Text of the Third Article]

13.2 The Church is accordingly constitutionally committed to providing a ministry, understood
as including a ministry of Word and
Sacrament, in every part of Scotland
without exception. It appears to us that everything that we have been called upon to
consider in the areas of structure,
finance and the allocation of resources,
flows from the imperative contained in the Third Article and, in particular, its third
sentence. It is the requirement to bring
the ordinances of religion to the people
in every parish of Scotland through a territorial ministry that determines that congregations
must be maintained, irrespective of
their ability to support themselves and
therefore that other congregations must take
on the burden of that support. It has implications for how resources are to be allocated.

13.3 We believe that the time is right for the Church to look critically at the Third Article and
decide whether it should be retained,
amended or removed altogether.

13.4 We question whether any valuable principle is dependent upon retaining the Third Article. We
would agree with the view expressed in Church Without Walls that it is a statement that needs to be
examined and questioned at the beginning
of the twenty-first century. It may be
that as a result of such an examination the Church will conclude that the time has come
humbly to lay down the title of
“National Church” and accept a new title
such as “A Church for the Nation”. It may be thought more meaningful for the Church to
“represent to” the Scottish people the
Christian faith rather than to assume
that the Church of Scotland is “representative of the Christian faith of the Scottish
people”. We are one of many Christian
denominations within our country and it
may be that an ecumenical outlook would be more effective in reaching all Scotland with
the Gospel. Major changes would not
necessarily see the Kirk lose its
Presbyterian identity. The Presbyterian Church in other countries has survived without being
“national” in its context. Our
self-identity would change in some ways but
so would the ability to earn greater respect within the nation. The example of Jesus as the humble
servant would seem to provide a helpful
model.

13.5 Whether there is a continuing role for the Third Article is helpfully discussed in a section of
Church without Walls. We have included that
section as Appendix IV to this report.
We commend it to the Church as a
starting point in its consideration of the question.

The 2008 Assembly established the special committee to look at the Third Article and how it impacts the church and it will report back to the 2010 Assembly.

This would be a major change as you can imagine and there is already discussion about what the implications are. At the National Youth Assembly this past September the youth debated this as part of their discussion of “Future Church.” In the National Youth Assembly Report to this General Assembly recommendation, or statement, number 10 is:

10. Believes that Territorial Ministries as outlined in Article 3 have a complex impact on the mission of the church; it could be perceived as the focal point in relation to the calling and training of ministers without appropriate attention to the possibility of using lay ministers and particular callings. At the same time territorial ministry offers a precious universality in the support of the country’s people.

And the news media has picked up on a proposal to use video technology to provide ministerial presence in churches that have vacancies, particularly those in remote areas that have difficulty attracting ministers to their charges. The action item in the Ministries Council report says:

6. Note with concern the pressures being faced by the Church in Presbyteries facing numerous, lengthy vacancies, commend ministers, deacons, Auxiliary ministers, readers and elders who are enabling the Church in these presbyteries to evolve new patterns of life, and welcome in particular the possibilities that video technology, secondment and transition ministry offer.

Like other Presbyterian branches the Church of Scotland has difficulty getting their ministers distributed to all the churches with urban charges being preferable to small isolated churches on the islands in Orkney.

So as the Assembly continues this coming week we will see what other references are made to a church thinking out side the box and looking to the future to see what a 21st century church looks like. But the Assembly will also be looking ahead to the 2010 Assembly and the report on the Third Article that is now waiting in the wings.

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland — Saturday Night Session

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Greetings — I am semi-live blogging this session of the
General Assembly (2009) of the Church of Scotland. I apologize to those with e-mail feeds or a feed
reader since you will probably only get the first section of the post
since I’ll be adding updates throughout the session. Also, if you are
reading this on a browser live you will also need to refresh the screen
since I don’t have push technology on my blog. It’s tough being Web
1.99999 in a Web 2.0 world. Thanks for your patience.

This blogging is semi-live since I am not there and since only part of the session will be webcast. This evening session is to deal with two related items of business. The first is the protest of the call of the Rev. Scott Rennie to Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen. This is the business titled “Dissent and Complaint Against A Decision of the Presbytery of Aberdeen.” Since this is a judicial case the tradition of British judicial cases will be honored and there will be no webcast. There will be no official twitter comments either but there may be some from inside the Assembly Hall on the Twitter subject #ga2009. The second business item is a related overture from the Presbytery of Lochcarron-Skye proposing specific standards for these cases. Webcasting is announced to resume for that portion.

10:45 PDT (6:45 PM local)- At this point the business should have been going for about 15 minutes. An earlier Twitter comment indicated that the gallery was full and that the overflow room was going to be used.

10:55 – There are some Twitters (or is that tweets) from the Assembly Hall including Stewart Cutler. With Stewart in attendance I know of two bloggers, Stewart and Chris Hoskins at GA. Watch their blogs after the session for thoughts. UPDATE: My mistake, those tweets, including Stewart’s, are not coming from the Hall. Still, Stewart has good connections so read what he has to say when this is over.

11:05 – With nothing else to talk about there is a Twitter discussion going on about the session not being webcast but having observers and the media in attendance in the gallery. It seems to me the point is tradition, precedence, and the freedom for commissioners to speak freely in their debate as they try to discern the will of God on this matter. There is some question about impartiality of commissioners if they have already spoken out, but in the Presbyterian tradition they are now working together to discern the will of God. In fact, their opinions can come into play in the debate. They are not asked to be impartial. They are asked to be open to the Spirit’s leading as they discern the will of God.

11:45 – The Assembly Hall continues to maintain “radio silence” with no updates yet.

12:33 PDT (8:33 local) – Stewart reports on Twitter that there is a break and the “motions are about to be called for.”

12:51 – Then again, another on Tweet implies a decision is not close.
12:53 – Update from Stewart that the parties have presented their cases and now discussion/debate begins

2:35 PM PDT – Twitter has come alive to report that the Assembly has voted to refuse the complaint and dissent regarding the Presbytery of Aberdeen’ approval of the Rev. Scott Rennie’s call to Queen’s Cross Church.

Conclusion: The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland passed the following motion (from the Update page, but that will disappear at the next business session.)

The following motion is agreed by the Assembly:

a)
refuse the dissent and complaint of Aitken and others and sustain the
decision of the Presbytery of Aberdeen on the basis that the Presbytery
followed the vacancy procedure correctly in Act VIII 2003.

b) affirm for the avoidance of doubt that this decision does not alter the Church’s standards of ministerial conduct.

The business regarding the overture has been remaindered (postponed) until 4:00 PM Monday.

UPDATE: A couple more thoughts
1) In good Presbyterian manner the motion that was passed is really about the process not the candidate. While I have not yet gotten info on the debate it appears that the GA, correctly in my opinion, separated the individual from the issue and at least acted only on the issue. And the issue here appears to be the process. The debate on the overture will deal with the issue of standards.

2) According to an early article in The Herald the vote was 326 to 267. It will be interesting to see how Monday’s vote compares.

It will be interesting to see both the reaction to this decision and the debate on Monday. I will follow up on both.

Voting Trends For Amendment 08-B — Part 3 – Breakout Sessions

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Since I posted the analysis last week eight more presbyteries have voted with the unofficial tally at 77-94. There are only two more presbyteries left to vote. This past week there were two more presbyteries that switched from “no” to “yes” bringing the total of presbyteries to switch in that direction to 33.

In the first post I looked at the total votes without regard to presbytery groupings. In the second part I discussed the distribution of voting patterns for the presbyteries. In this post I want to focus on the groupings of presbyteries and a couple of interesting features that appear.

From the usual sources 154 of the 171 presbyteries that have voted have numbers reported for both the 01-A voting and the 08-B voting.

In the following frequency distribution plots the vertical and horizontal axes are the same in all the plots (except the All Presbyteries/Total vote plot has an extended vertical axis) and the horizontal axes are aligned with a reference line through the 1.0 (no change) point. Data are binned and counted on intervals of 0.05 with the number on the horizontal axis the upper inclusive limit of the bin.

To look at the details the presbyteries have been grouped by those that voted “Yes” on 08-B and those that voted “No” on 08-B. There are also subgroups of each of these for the presbyteries that switched their votes from the previous round of voting. Since the “Yes” to “No” subgroup has only two presbyteries those are briefly discussed but not plotted.

Total Presbytery Votes

First the note that the top chart has a vertical axis from 0-30 while the upper limit on all of the other vertical axes is 20.

Looking at these distributions it can be seen that the changes in the total number of votes cast was very similar whether you are looking at the total population or the split-out groups. Total votes are slightly higher in “Yes” presbyteries but it is not much. All have averages and medians in the 0.86 – 0.90 range and while the standard deviations show a bit more variation ranging from 0.15 to 0.24, the difference is not extreme.

Presbytery “Yes” Votes

Here is where the division into groups and subgroups shows the most interesting results. Just splitting the population into “yes” and “no” presbyteries shows no significant changes in the population. The total, “yes” group and “no” group all have averages a bit above 1.00, medians very close to 1.00, and standard deviations in the 0.35 – 0.47 range. It is tough to make a case that much is different between the “yes” and “no” presbyteries.

But if we split out the “yes” presbyteries that previously voted “no” it is clear that these presbyteries had a clear increase in the number of “yes” votes. Of the 29 presbyteries, 7 had no change or a decrease and the other 22 had in increase in the “yes” vote. I’ll return to this group at the end and take a detailed look at the behavior.

Presbytery “No” Votes

While the patterns in the “Yes” vote were not seen and the differences in the Total was slight, there is a bit more difference to be seen in the break out of the “No” vote. All the presbyteries together had an average no-vote ratio of 0.76 while the average in presbyteries that voted “No” on 08-B was 0.83 and the average for “Yes” presbyteries was 0.68. The numbers for the presbyteries that switched were statistically close to those for all the “Yes” presbyteries.

So presbyteries that voted “No” on 08-B generally had a lower decline in “No” votes, presbyteries that voted “Yes” had a higher decline, and no appreciable difference from that was seen for the subgroup that switched from “No” to “Yes.” In other words, as a group a “No” to “Yes” switch was characterized by a statistically greater increase in “Yes” votes with a “No” vote decrease characteristic of the other “Yes” vote presbyteries. This in contrast to a possible switch due to no increase in “Yes” votes but a statistically greater decrease in “No” votes.

Details of the “No” to “Yes” Switch
Taking a look at the 29 presbyteries that switched votes, two (6.9%) appear to be pure swing with almost equal numbers of lost “no” votes and gained “yes” votes. (In this discussion “almost equal numbers” means a difference of usually zero or one, but no more than two votes.) Six (20.7%) show little to no change in the number of “yes” votes and only a decrease in “no” votes, and five (17.2%) show a notable decrease in both “yes” and “no” votes with a larger “no” vote decrease. These 11 (37.9%) appear to be more related to differential losses. One (3.4%) shows a significant increase in both “yes” and “no” with a more pronounced increase in “yes,” but looking at previous votes 01-A has a significantly lower vote total and this is probably a special circumstance for 01-A. Half the presbyteries, 15, show a more complex behavior with a gain in “yes” votes and decrease in “no” votes. Five of those have a “yes” gain greater than the “no” loss and ten of those had a larger “no” loss than “yes” gain. These, plus the two pure swing, suggest that 17 (58.6% of the switches and 11.0% of the total) presbyteries changed their vote from “no” to “yes” at least in part by a significant switch of voters between those positions.

Details of the “Yes” to “No” Switch
With only two presbyteries making the switch in this direction it is impossible to make generalizations, especially since their patterns of change are totally different. In the case of San Francisco Presbytery the vote went from 216-186 on 01-A to 167-177 on 08-B. There was a significant preferential decrease in the number of “Yes” votes attributed variously to complacency or attendance at conferences. The case with Sierra Blanca is exactly opposite with the number of both “Yes” and “No” votes increasing, but the “No” vote increasing dramatically and preferentially. On 01-A Sierra Blanca voted 18-17 while on 08-B they voted 23-30. Again, special cases, but when you look at the details of many of the presbytery votes you begin to think that there is a back story to the voting.

Changes Relative to Strength of Voting
I will do a lot more with multi-variant statistics later, but this one jumped out at me and I thought it appropriate to include here. I have previously commented that looking for correlations between various factors has yielded little, but here is a case where something of interest does appear.

I hope that this graph is not too confusing. On the x-axis I have the “yes” vote on 08-B in percent. All of the blue squares represent presbyteries that voted yes and so are above the 50% line, and all the red squares are presbyteries that voted no and so are on or below the 50% line. On the top plot I show the change in the number voting in opposition from one vote to the n
ext as a ratio of 08-B votes to 01-A votes. So on the left is the change in the number of “Yes” votes in presbyteries voting “No.” And on the right are the change in the number of “No” votes in presbyteries voting “Yes.” For the subgroup of presbyteries that switched from “No” to “Yes” the plot did not differ significantly so I did not include that data as a separate plot.

In the upper plot the trend for “No” votes to decline in presbyteries voting in the affirmative is strong with an R-squared=0.32 for the correlation. The trend for the other half is not as strong and while visually suggestive the higher scatter results in an R-squared=0.02. But based on the grouping of points in the down-to-the-left trend an argument could be made for some presbyteries with similar behavior, but a closer look at the outlying points for special cases would be necessary to really verify that. It should be recognized that changes in small numbers of votes as is found near the ends of the X axis are amplified more than similar changes near the middle of the axis.

In the lower plot the change in concurring votes is plotted and for both the trend is statistically indistinguishable from flat. In the “No” votes in “No” presbyteries there is a slight, but statistically insignificant, upward trend to the lower percentage votes that if true, and combined with the decreasing “Yes” vote in the upper plot, would actually suggest a swing from “Yes” to “No” in the presbyteries with the strongest “No” votes. It is clear, both visually and statistically, that no such conclusion is even hinted at in the “Yes” presbyteries. So there is a trend seen in “Yes” voting presbyteries, and suggested in “No” voting presbyteries, for the greater the strength of vote is the fewer opponents showed up, or were still around, for the vote on 08-B.

Well, enough of this for now.
One of the things I keep getting asked about all of this is something like “Wasn’t the vote on 01-A ‘different.'” There have been several ways that people have suggested the last vote was different but the most often mentioned one is that presbyteries voted “No” because the PUP Task Force was beginning work and they wanted to let that process play out.

Well, in multiple respects the voting on 01-A was different and in my next installment in this series I will look at that quantitatively and show, well, that every presbytery is different. Actually, I’ll show that there are several different sets of behaviors seen for 01-A voting of which a shift to vote “No” is just one of them. Sometimes that “No” shift came with no change in total vote, a true swing. And sometimes that shift in percentages came with a significant increase in the total number of commissioners voting, a behavior that looks like a “get out the vote” campaign for those favoring the retention of the “fidelity and chastity” requirement. My point right now is that an “undoing” of either of these would support some of the behavior seen in the data for 08-B voting. So next time I’ll lay out those numbers.

What Does It Take To Get Ordained Around Here?

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What does it take to get ordained around here?

You can tell that my younger son has grown up in a Presbyterian family. This past weekend he had a telling Freudian slip when he was reading a line in a presentation and instead of saying the correct word “obligation” he substituted the word “ordination.”

But when you get down to it much of the current discussion and debate in the Presbyterian church branches is around what it takes to be ordained an officer in the church and the standards for ordination and ordained officers.

The PC(USA) is wrapping up the vote rejecting the replacement of the “fidelity and chastity” section in the Book of Order. There are also judicial cases (Paul Capetz, Lisa Larges) in process related to declaring exceptions.

The EPC will be discussing transitional and affinity presbyteries at its GA to accommodate the various theological positions permitted under their “local option” and “in non-essentials, liberty” regarding ordination of women as officers.

The PCA is actively debating and discussing women in helping ministries and when their role begins to be comparable to that of a man’s role as an ordained deacon. (This issue has been developing so quickly that I have not had time to properly package it up for posting so here is only one of many recent news items on this topic.)

The moderator designate of the GA of the PCI has received some notoriety for his views that women should not be ordained ministers.

And as the Church of Scotland GA rapidly approaches the discussion continues over the call of a partnered gay man to a church in Aberdeen and the protest of that call to be heard by the Assembly as well as an overture clearly stating the standards for ordination and service.

With all of that GA business, an additional story has taken on a life of its own…

Over the weekend Adam Walker Cleaveland over at pomomusings wrote about “When an M.Div. from Princeton isn’t enough…” and his attempt to come under care of San Francisco Presbytery and the requirement from their Committee on Preparation for Ministry (CPM) to take six more classes to fulfill their education requirements even though he has the degree from a PC(USA) seminary. Getting ordained has been a continuing struggle for him and this is only the latest speed-bump, road block, brick wall, on-coming train… you pick the metaphor.

I have known many people who had trouble with their CPM’s like this but what makes Adam’s current situation interesting is that his friend the Rev. Tony Jones, who has a soap box on beliefnet to broadcast this far and wide, has take up his cause and started a petition to support Adam. It currently has 130 signatories. In the blog entry Mr. Jones writes:

Few things piss me off as much as the sinful bureaucratic systems of
denominational Christianity. When rules and regulations trump common
sense, then the shark has officially been jumped.

But what gets
to me even more is that bright, competent, and pastorally experienced
persons like Adam continue to submit themselves to these sinful
systems. They assure me that it’s not for the health insurance or the
pension. They do it cuz they feel “called.” And if I hear another
person tell me that they’re sticking with their abusive denomination
because, “They’re my tribe,” I’m gonna go postal.

So, it’s time
for us to do something. It’s time for us, the body of Christ, to ordain
Adam. To that end, I’ve started a petition, beseeching Adam to quit the
PC(USA) ordination circus and to accept our ordination of him.

This led another friend of Tony’s (FOT?), PC(USA) minister John D’Elia to argue, among other things…

On the other hand, your friend may have erred in being unwilling to
demonstrate that he could take direction and counsel from a governing
body—something that I believe has a place in the context of the
American religious free market. In the PCUSA, the process of becoming
ordained is partly an exercise in learning healthy submission to peer
authority (I can see the eyes rolling back in your head). Now setting
aside the not-nearly-rare-enough instances where the submission
required is unhealthy, it’s not a bad lesson to learn. More
importantly, once candidates have completed (survived?) that process,
we have enormous freedom to live and serve as our own calling leads us.
It’s OK with me that we disagree on this point. That’s not the problem.

(I should add that Rev. D’Elia has posted an apology to Rev. Jones for drifting into a personal attack in this post.)

Tony Jones has a follow-up post where he writes:

I’ve got a bunch of people upset at me for encouraging my friend, Adam Walker-Cleaveland, to forsake the ordination process of the Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination. I even went so far as to post an online petition
to attempt to convince Adam to drop out of the PC(USA) process and
consider himself “ordained” by the Body of Christ — that is, by all of
his fellow believers.

and then he continues the discussion responding to the Rev. D’Elia. It ends with a “To be continued…”

This publicity provided by Tony Jones has resulted in some additional articles about Adam’s situation and this discussion, including Out of Ur, neo-baptist, and koinonia.

Two observations on all of this:

1) The ordination standards debate is nothing new. It was part of the disagreement in American Presbyterianism that lead to the Old-side/New-side split of 1741. The question there was over, wait for it, THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION and “religious experience.” The Old-side Presbyterians were questioning the preparation and theology of the New-side Presbyterians being produced by the Log College, an educational institution sometimes pointed to as a predecessor of, yes, Princeton. (Note the argument that there is not an administrative lineage between the two schools like the theological heritage they share.) The more things change…

2) “The governing bodies are separate and independent, but have such mutual relations that the act of one of them is the act of the whole church performed by it through the appropriate governing body.” [from PC(USA) Book of Order G-9.0103]

This one sentence is at the heart of these ordination debates in the Presbyterian Churches. In Presbyterianism the idea is that once an individual has been ordained by one governing body the whole church recognizes that ordination. This sets up an appropriate tension between individual ordaining bodies and the broader church to set standards for ordination so that others are comfortable accepting an officer ordained by another governing body.

This is not to say that once ordained you are a “free agent.” On the contrary, you agree to the discipline of the church and if you stray from the church, its standards and its beliefs, the discipline of the church is to restore you and reconcile you with your brethren. Again “the act of one of them is the act of the whole church.”

It is interesting that one of the important points in the discussion between Tony Jones and John D’Elia is that the Rev. Jones was ordained in the Congregational church and the Rev. D’Elia was ordained in the Presbyterian church and that is reflected in their views and arguments. The role of the “institution” is at the heart of their discussion.

In most Presbyterian branches the Presbyteries are responsible for the admission, preparation and examination of candidates for the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. In the PC(USA) there are certain national standards for education and written examinations in particular areas. But the presbyteries are given some flexibility even in these to set their own standards for candidates. That is where Adam is getting tripped up. And because of the presbytery’s control and authority it is recommended, as Adam points out, that you do not switch presbytery of care during the process. I can point to several cases I know of where that was nearly disastrous for candidates. I also know of cases where an individual was not accepted into the process in one presbytery but was later accepted by another. That is the nature of the Presbyterian system and on-balance we believe that it works.

From my reading of Adam’s transcript I would have accepted his education with the exception of the weak area he notes himself (Greek exegesis). But I’m not on a CPM or in the presbytery he wants to come under care of so I have to trust it to them. So if/when he is finally ordained I do accept the actions of that presbytery as the “act of the whole church.”

Are there problems? “All synods or councils, since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred.” [Westminster Confession, XXXI, IV] So yes, problems arise. But that is also part of our Reformed theology that we are more likely to get it right as a group than we are individually.

Where this is getting difficult at the present time is in declaring exceptions to non-essentials. While the PC(USA) still has “fidelity and chastity” in the constitution one part of the church considers it at least binding if not essential. Clearly there are those with the view that just because it is in the constitution it does not mean it is binding or essential. But there are some on both sides that do recognize that if something so clearly stated in the constitution can be “scrupled” that this at worst will lead to a breakdown of the trust relationship between ordaining bodies, and at best court cases over the obligation of one presbytery to accept the ordination of another when an exception has been declared. It makes an end-run around the established system that holds us in tension and accountable to each other.

So we will see how all of these develop. There is a lot to watch in the coming weeks.

Voting Trends For Amendment 08-B — Part 2 – Summary Statistics For The Presbyteries

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In the last week the news on Amendment 08-B includes: (1) Five more presbyteries have voted with one a repeat “yes,” three switching from “no” to “yes,” and one repeat “no.” This puts the unofficial vote at 73-90. (2) The official count at the Office of the General Assembly now confirms Amendment 08-B as being the only Amendment to be defeated in this round.

While the dominant “yes” vote this week has resulted in some minor changes in the summary statistics I discussed last time, the basic conclusions still hold and I will update those statistics later related to the overall conclusions.

I now want to turn to the numbers that first caught my attention and that probably stand by themselves with the least need of dissection or interpretation.

Presbytery vote counts
Much has been made of the change in the percentage of “Yes” votes between the Amendment 01-A vote and the 08-B vote. This “vote swing” has been pointed at as an indicator of changes in the denomination, primarily changes in attitude concerning this issue.

But as I pointed out in the first part of this series, in the total vote numbers the actual number of “Yes” votes is substantially unchanged from the previous vote while the number of “No” votes has decreased by about 3000 or roughly 14%. Now, I do believe it is more complex than just saying the “No” votes are not showing up for presbytery meetings or leaving the presbyteries, but if you want to reduce the changes in the vote numbers to a single cause that would be it — no changed attitudes just changed demographics. (See the first post for a more detailed discussion of possible factors and combinations of those factors.)

Viewing this on a Presbytery level is when you see that it is a more complex situation. (Again, my previous post on every presbytery is different.) But as would be expected the general trend is the same as the combined numbers.

As before, my data comes from the usual sources, PresbyWeb and Presbyterian Coalition. I am still considering 01-A and 08-B as similar amendments so that their voting records can be compared. (As I will show in the second post from now this may not be valid for 100% of the presbyteries, but it looks like a good working hypothesis for most.) And in the analysis I am about to present I use the ratio of the number of votes on 08-B to the number of votes on 01-A. This can result in a divide by zero error if there were no votes in that category for 01-A and can produce large ratios when there were a small number in 01-A. The number of instances of each of these are limited.

So here we go with the charts and graphs and the 27 8×10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one… Or something like that.

The three frequency distribution graphs below illustrate what caught my attention from the very beginning of the voting on Amendment 08-B. They are the distributions of the ratio of the number of votes in each category (yes votes, no votes and total votes). The red arrow is the average and the solid line running vertically through all three is the value of 1.0. (no change) As you can see they are aligned with the same horizontal scale for visual comparison. Frequency count bins are 0.05 wide and the number listed on the x-axis is the upper inclusive value of the bin. For the “yes” votes there are six more presbyteries off the right hand side of the scale but I do not show them so all three graphs can be scaled equally. (The large ratios are mostly due to changes in small numbers.) Those presbyteries are included in the statistics. For the two presbyteries that had no yes votes on either vote their ratio for “yes” is fixed at 1.0. For the one presbytery that changed from no “yes” to one “yes” it was entered as 2.0. (Yes, I probably should have discarded them but I haven’t.)

For the “Yes” votes the average is 1.06, the median is 1.00 and the standard deviation is 0.42. For the “No” votes the average is 0.76, the median is 0.75, and the standard deviation is 0.21. For the total number of votes the average is 0.87, the median is 0.86 and the standard deviation is 0.20. For all three groups the number of presbyteries counted is 147. While the distributions have the general appearance of being normally distributed and follow the central limit theorem I’ll address the exact nature of the distributions later in this series.

For those who are looking for the bottom line — The number of “Yes” votes in the presbyteries shows a slight to no increase, the number of “No” votes shows a significant downward shift, and the total number of commissioners voting show a more moderate decrease. In fact, only 12 presbyteries, 8%, have an increase in the number of commissioners voting no and 43 presbyteries, 29%, show a ratio greater than 0.95 for the ratio of total number of votes cast on 08-B versus 01-A. That would be a low probability of just being random variation.

Another interesting feature is how much wider the spread of values is on “Yes” votes than “No” votes with a standard deviation of 0.42 for the former and 0.21 for the latter. Some of this can be attributed to presbyteries that have very low numbers of “Yes” votes so a change of one or two votes can produce a very large ration. But in spite of that a visual comparison of the “Yes” and the “No” distributions shows a markedly wider distribution for the “Yes” differences. So it can be said that the number of “No” votes more uniformly declined while the “Yes” vote showed no decline in the average but more variability in the changes.

Changes in vote percentages
As I mentioned above the percentages of yes and no votes, without regard to the changing size of the populations, has been a focus in this voting round. So here for your viewing pleasure are those frequency distributions for the presbyteries.

For 01-A the average “Yes” vote was 0.42 and for 08-B it was 0.48. While the average shifted upward the standard deviations were relatively close at 0.16 on the first and 0.19 on the second. In this view the distributions show somewhat different shapes but the upward shift is still visible.

Total vote ratio with time
I throw in the following graph for fun. It shows how the ratio of the total number of votes changed as voting proceeded.

It is tempting to attribute higher turnouts later in the voting to increased awareness, get-out-the-vote campaigns, or people getting nervous/hopeful about the outcome. But note that the scatter also increases. This slight, and maybe statistically insignificant (R-squared is only 0.01)
increase can be nearly completely accounted for by the fact that “No” presbyteries voted earlier and “Yes” presbyteries generally voted later so the sustained level of “Yes” votes late in the process tilts the trend line.

Well, now that I have gotten your eyes to glaze over properly today I will leave you with that data to ponder until next time. No further discussion or conclusions now — I’ll leave that until I’ve spread a bit more data before you. Having now looked at the numbers as the whole group of presbyteries next time I’ll split the presbyteries apart into a couple of different groupings and see if that shows anything interesting. After that I’ll expand the study to include all four votes and ask whether any given year is different, or different enough.

Two Additional Overtures To The 37th General Assembly Of The PCA

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With about a month and a half to go before the opening of the 37th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America two additional overtures have been posted to the overtures web page.

Overture 14 – Amend BCO 25 by adding Section 25-12 regarding Giving Notice to Presbytery of Intention to Withdraw from the PCA
This overture from North Texas Presbytery seeks to add a new section to Book of Church Order Chapter 25 on Congregational Meetings. The overture recognizes the different nature of the relationship of a teaching elder with the presbytery and that of a congregation. Section 25-11 permits congregations to vote to leave the denomination, but teaching elders as members of the presbytery are not automatically released with the congregation but must be released by the presbytery. In fact, this overture would encourage teaching elders to leave without taking the congregation where it says in one whereas: “ministers participating in, instigating, and leading congregations out of the denomination are not being faithful to the Scriptures or their ordination vows. If they can no longer remain in the denomination then they should seek their own dismissal without seeking to create schism and take a church as well.”

The proposed language for the BCO would require teaching elders to “give reasonable advanced notice to the Presbytery of the intentions of the local church to withdraw.” With this notification the Presbytery “shall assist the local church in making an orderly withdrawal.” The proposed new section closes with this:

It should always be the desire of a faithful minister of Christ to effect reconciliation between all bodies of Christians but especially those of his own denomination.

Overture 15 – Direct Philadelphia Presbytery to Adopt Specified Policy on Role of Women in Mercy Ministry
First, it must be pointed out that this overture comes directly to the GA from a session (Crossroads Community Church, Upper Darby, PA) after it was unanimously adopted by the session but rejected by their presbytery (Philadelphia). The Session adopted it on August 11, 2008, it was received by the Presbytery at their meeting of September 10, 2008 and then rejected at a special meeting on March 31, 2009. The Session then voted to send it to the GA themselves on April 13, 2009.

The overture itself is actually an overture to the Presbytery, not the
General Assembly, which was moved up when the Presbytery rejected it. While clearly unusual I’m not sure if this is a proper use of the overture process. It is my understanding that the appropriate response would be to take an overture addressed to the Assembly to the Presbytery for endorsement and then if rejected send it on to the Assembly from the Session.

This overture comes with an arriving note that the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and the Committee on Constitutional Business ( CCB ) advise that the overture is out of order. The reasons are not given here but will appear in the Clerk’s Report. One possible reason is that based on the Rules of Assembly Operations Chapter 11 this overture, since it does not propose a change to the Book of Church Order, should have been submitted 90 days before the Assembly convened and it was barely submitted 60 days before (RAO 11-7). It appears that from a timing perspective it was held up by the scheduling of the special meeting of Presbytery, but I am not familiar with the history and that is only an interpretation based on the reported dates of meetings. Another possible reason for the advisory may be related to the nature of the overture as I discuss in the preceding paragraph. The GA Junkie in me eagerly awaits the rational for the opinion.

The overture begins by running through the BCO references to the different ordained offices and the requirements, including that they are only open to men, for those offices. It then points out that some candidates and transfered elders hold opinions contrary to this. Finally, it includes the decisions from the last GA that arose from the records review of Northern California and Philadelphia Presbyteries where their records showed women commissioned to the diaconate.

The overture asks Philadelphia Presbytery to acknowledge the BCO requirements for deacons, to have candidates and ministers transferring in to affirm these standards and promise to “conform their practice” to this position, to remind elders that have a substantive exception to these confessional standards that exceptions are in belief only and not practice, and that Sessions be reminded of these standards. Finally, it requests that churches not presently in accord with the BCO present a plan to come into compliance.

It will be interesting to see the Clerk’s opinion on this overture and to see if the Assembly agrees. It will also be in the mix with the other three overtures related to women in the church and a consistent response across all of these would be expected. We will have to wait and see.

Finally, it is always interesting to see how certain elements of the polity issues one Presbyterian branch is working through are echoed in another branch. In this case the aspects of reconciliation and church departure in Overture 14, and the reminder that exemptions can be in belief but not practice as mentioned in Overture 15 are both issues the PC(USA) is also dealing with.

The Current Church of Scotland Controversy Remains Active

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In many ways I regard the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as very similar branches of global Presbyterianism. They are both the largest and most visible Presbyterian denomination in their respective countries and both have a wide theological diversity in their membership. But they have differed in two significant respects. First, the Church of Scotland is a national church while the PC(USA) is one mainline denomination among many. The second is that the Church of Scotland seemed, at least from this distance, to have a much less vigorous debate going on regarding the place of GLBT individuals in the church. Until now…

Back in 2006 the CofS General Assembly sent to the presbyteries an item approving the blessing of same-sex unions. The item was defeated. But what made the business interesting, and in some ways telling, was that it came from the Legal Questions Committee which deals with civil legal issues, not from a theological or polity committee. In a sense, the issue was co-opted for the church to make a statement on same-sex unions. The Kirk has had several groups working on reports related to aspects of human sexuality, principally the 1994 and 2007 reports, but most have been accepted only for reflection and discussion and they have not lead to statements or acts concerning polity or theology.

Now a relevant issue has come up regarding ordination standards and clergy lifestyle when a previously ordained minister was called to a church in Aberdeen and he will be bringing his gay partner with him. The presbytery approved the call, some of the commissioners protested to the Commission of Assembly, and the Commission decided (correctly in my opinion) that this was too significant in issue for it to decide and they sent it on to the full, new General Assembly less than a month from now. So far all done in a very Presbyterian manner, decently and in order.

The issue “blew up” when an editorial appeared in the CofS official, but editorially independent, monthly magazine Life and Work that expressed the opinion that the Kirk should be broad and accepting and that this call should be approved by the GA. Conservative ministers in the CofS were upset about the editorial and the Scottish press ran with the story.

Well, the press is still running with it, but more about that in a moment. Decently and in order stuff first…

The Presbytery of Lochcarron and Skye have overtured the General Assembly in this matter. The overture is short and the “whereases” are telling so here is the full text, courtesy of The Fellowship of Confessing Churches:

OVERTURE

ANENT MINISTERIAL CONDUCT

From the Presbytery of Lochcarron-Skye

Whereas:

1. the Church’s historic understanding of the Biblical teaching on homosexual practice has been questioned in recent years.

2. a lengthy period of reflection has elapsed without a resolution of the issue.

3. it is undesirable that the courts of the church should be asked to judge on individual cases in advance of any such resolution.

It is humbly overtured by the Reverend the Presbytery of
Lochcarron-Skye to the Venerable the General Assembly to receive the
Overture set out below,

“That this Church shall not accept for training, ordain, admit,
re-admit, induct or introduce to any ministry of the Church anyone
involved in a sexual relationship outside of faithful marriage between
a man and a woman”.

Polity wise this is a simpler, yet broader, version of the PC(USA) “fidelity and chastity” requirement. The PC(USA) standard applies only to candidates for ordination. The GAPJC extended preceding statements to apply to “positions that presume ordination.” As you can see in this overture it proposes applying a standard to ministers only, but applying the standard to both the ordination as well as the call process. (That would be the “induct” or “introduce” for the American readers who “install” pastors.)

In addition to the overture there is also a statement/online petition from The Fellowship encouraging the GA to oppose the call and another conservative group, Forward Together, has a statement on their home page also opposing the call. The liberal group Affirmation Scotland has a statement posted on their website supporting the call.

In the popular press this issue continues to make headlines and apparently The Sunday Times surveyed CofS ministers and found a significant number that said they would consider leaving the church if the call was upheld by the General Assembly. The survey is reported on-line by Pink News (I searched and could not find an original reference to it at The Times Online so I have to wonder if it was only in the print edition of the paper.) According to the report 50 ministers were surveyed, 23 said they opposed the call and eight said they would consider leaving. (GA Junkie note: Pink News, and maybe The Times, refers to it as a question about the “ordination.” In this case the minister is already ordained so the question is about the call to this pastoral position.) There is independent on-line verification of this survey from the Rev. Jim Dewar’s blog. He reports that he was one of the ministers contacted by The Times and that he told them he was opposed but not considering leaving. In regards to whether he would leave he says that he told the reporter “No; there is more to the Christian faith, more to my ministry and the mission of the Church than sexual ethics!”

So the story continues. The General Assembly convenes three weeks from tomorrow and more than one story I read predicts that this could be the most controversial, or at least the most closely watched, in two decades. As an indicator, this story has been picked up by blogs not specific to Scotland (Reformation 21) and other denominational writers (Anglicans United, Virtue OnLine, Clerical Whispers). Let us pray that by the time GA gets here the commotion will have calmed down so the commissioners can focus and discern God’s will.