I would suspect that most of you have heard by now that the unofficial vote tracking on Amendment 08-B places the count as 69 yes and 89 no as of last Saturday, a sufficient number to defeat the amendment.  It appears that the “fidelity and chastity” section in the Book of Order for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will remain for another two years.  That still needs to be verified by the Office of the General Assembly, but based on the official vote tally this appears to be the only item sent to the presbyteries that will not pass. (At this time amendment 08-I is listed as very close to passage but not yet.)  But voting is not over yet — there are still 15 presbyteries that need to vote and the General Assembly recognized that the process, and not just the vote, was important.

However, the results appear certain enough that the Presbyterian News Service has issued an article and the reports are spreading around the news services (exempli gratia Associated Press, The Christian Post, Advocate.com, Dallas Morning News), the advocacy groups (exempli gratia More Light Presbyterians, Presbyterian Coalition, Witherspoon Society), and the blogs (exempli gratia Presbylaw, Psalms Modern, A Classical Presbyterian, Ray’s Net, Mark Time).

Having now had 158 presbyteries vote, and 143 of those presbyteries with vote counts on both 08-B and 01-A recorded at PresbyWeb or the Presbyterian Coalition counting sites, there is a significant amount of data to crunch to compare the two votes and see if it says anything about the PC(USA).

Now, while I have some questions that the two amendments are really comparable since the text of the two is significantly different in content and action, it is still my conclusion that in many quarters they are viewed as similar actions.  For most of this analysis I will take it as a precondition that the two amendments are similar enough in their perceived intent, if not their text, that it is valid to compare the voting numbers.

I will break this analysis into several different posts primarily so as not to overwhelm the casual reader with extensive statistics.  As a research scientist I am used to providing and drinking numerical data through a fire hose.  I am going to try to spare you the experience.  Also, some of the individual case studies will wait until all the presbyteries have voted.  But with over 90% of the data in I will go ahead today with the summary statistics of the population.

Finally, as a research scientist I accept peer review and as a Presbyterian I welcome accountability.  If anyone does want to see my raw data I will gladly send you a copy of my source spreadsheet once I have most of my analysis presented.

And a word on philosophy:  I sometimes wonder if some of my readers view this as “dwelling on the past,” “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” “majoring in the minors,” or “analyzing the obvious.”  I however consider this interesting (yes, I am weird), I am concerned about some of the other statistics and their interpretation I see out in the news, and I do feel that taking a serious look at these things is part of the third note of the True Church – “ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered.”

Summary Statistics
From the data sources listed above there are 143 presbyteries that have voted on Amendments 08-B and 01-A for which vote counts are listed in the sources.  In the discussion that follows I will only be addressing presbyteries that have reported numbers for both votes.  There are 15 presbyteries that do not have reported numbers for one or both votes.

On 01-A 42 (29.4%) of these presbyteries voted “yes” and 101 (70.6%) voted “no.”  On 08-B 64 (44.8%) of these presbyteries voted “yes” and 79 (55.2%) voted “no.”  Of the presbyteries that voted “yes” on 01-A two (1.4%) have voted “no” on 08-B.  Of the presbyteries that voted “no” on 01-A 24 (16.8%) voted “yes” on 08-B.

Looking at the number of reported votes, on 01-A there were 21,732 total commissioners voting in these presbyteries.  Of these 9,375 (43.1%) commissioners voted “yes” and 12,357 (56.9%) voted “no.” For 08-B there were 18,562 total commissioners voting in these presbyteries.  Of these 9,189 (49.5%) voted “yes” and 9,373 (50.5%) voted “no.”  (Note: the data sources do not include blank or “abstain” ballots.  From experience these are <5 per presbytery and using an average of 3 per presbytery it could be another 429 ballots or roughly 2% of each vote that I would estimate as an upper limit.)

Between 01-A and 08-B the number of total voting commissioners in these presbyteries declined by 3,170 which represents a loss of 14.6% of the 01-A total votes.  The decline in commissioner “yes” votes is 186, a 1.9% drop relative to the 01-A “yes” total and a 0.8% decline relative to the total number of votes cast.  The decline in commissioner “no” votes is 2,984, a 24.1% drop relative to the 01-A “no” total and a 13.7% decline relative to the total number of votes cast.

Preliminary Analysis Comments
I don’t want to make any substantial comments on the analysis and conclusions until I have spread out some more detailed statistics in front of you.  However, let me set the framework in which I have been studying these numbers.

In modeling the data I have selected five different factors that I think are influential.  These five factors pretty much cover any of the reasons for changes in the vote numbers and so as a whole probably introduce too many degrees of freedom.  However, in working with the numbers it seemed that relying on only the three “general” factors still left out some identifiable variation.  This is part of what prompted my “every presbytery is different” post a bit over a month ago.

The nice thing about working with the overall statistics is that the larger population size should minimize the influence of the special cases and that individual special cases might average, or cancel, out.  I will investigate each of these in detail later, but briefly the three general
factors that I am working with are:

1) Overall, uniform membership changes.  This is the documented membership change (generally decline) in the membership of the PC(USA) and how it would translate into changes in the number of commissioners voting.

2) Vote changes.  This is the switching of commissioner votes from “yes” to “no” or “no” to “yes” between the two votes.

3) Selective decline due to realignment of churches.  This is not the uniform membership decline but the selective departure of churches and individuals of one particular theological perspective that has been happening over the past few years.  The theory is that it is primarily conservative churches that are leaving the denomination so this should manifest itself as a preferential decline in “no” votes.

There are also two special cases that I am considering.

A – Fundamental change in the presbytery.  In some (probably limited) cases there are changes the presbytery has made, apart from typical membership changes, that would influence the number of commissioners voting.  The changes to counting active membership in San Gabriel Presbytery would fall into this category (I discussed that back in March.)

B – Special circumstances of that meeting.  Situations where some external cause influences the number of commissioners at that particular meeting.  There was discussion that the number of commissioners at the John Know Presbytery meeting was significantly reduced (60%) by a winter storm and that there were conflicting conferences that influenced the attendance at the San Francisco Presbytery meeting.

It appears that both of these special cases are very limited.  While it is tempting to consider the factor as uniform across “yes” and “no” votes, if a special circumstance was involved in the San Francisco vote change is was clearly not uniform.  I will drop the special cases for now and return to that topic a few posts from now.

So, looking at the changes in the summary statistics what can we say as a first pass?  The number of both the “yes” and the “no” votes declined but the “yes” only slightly and the “no” substantially.  You can not explain the difference with only changes in the vote.  You can not explain the difference in the votes with any one of these three factors alone.  A combination of two or more is required.

(Factors 1&2) If you want to say that the difference in the total is uniform decline then you could expect about 8000 “yes” votes on 08-B based on the 01-A percentages.  That would mean that there was a net change of 1200 commissioners (6.5% of the 08-B total) changing votes from “no” to “yes.”

(Factors 1&3) You could also interpret the numbers to say that there was no changing of votes, but rather the differences in votes reflects a 0.8% uniform decline (the 186 vote decrease in the “yes” votes) and then an additional 12.9% decline in the “no” votes due to conservative departure.  (That would be the 2984 total “no” vote decline split between 188 uniform decline and 2796 selective decline.)  With a total uniform decline of a bit less than 400 votes in this scenario the conservative departure is clearly dominant and this comes closest to explaining the voting differences with a single factor.

(Factors 2&3)  The other possibility is that there is no uniform decline but the 3170 vote drop in numbers reflects the loss of only conservative “no” votes combined with 186 “yes” votes switching to “no” votes to account for the drop in the number of “yes” votes.

From the summary statistics we can probably say all three of these factors are present but it is difficult to distinguish the level of influence of any of these three factors individually.  As this series of posts progresses I will work my way up to my model where individual presbyteries can be classified as having one or two of these factors dominate the vote changes.  The factors will get limited on a presbytery level so we have an over-determined rather than an under-determined matrix for the model.  (That is mathematical jargon, not a psychological analysis of the matrix.)  And I have found that there are a couple of presbyteries where there is statistically no change in the vote pattern.

But all that is in the future.  For today it is enough to say that from my analysis of these summary numbers the statistic that really jumps out is the 13.7% drop in the number of “no” votes between 01-A and 08-B.  Based on other membership numbers it appears unlikely that this drop could be accounted for in uniform decline alone and it can not be purely vote changes since the total numbers show a similar 14.6% decline.  The question then is how much of the vote shift seen between 01-A and 08-B is truly a shift at the individual level, and how much is a mathematical result of the departure of conservative churches.

Stick with me and I’ll give you an answer to that question.  Next time we move from the denominational level to the presbytery statistics and start including pretty pictures with charts and graphs.

It ain’t over until it’s over… But it is now very close with the unofficial vote at 68 yes and 86 no.  That is one “no” vote away from being defeated.

The headline from yesterday is that of the four presbyteries voting, three switched votes from their previous position.

The part of that which is the real headline is that the first presbytery switched from “yes” to “no,”  and the really surprising news is that it was San Francisco Presbytery that switched.

So, thanks to PresbyWeb, here is what happened yesterday…

National Capital voted “Yes” with numbers very consistent across the years:  222-102 yesterday, 220-116 on 01-A, 212-71 on 97-A, and 105-226 on 96-B.  (For all of these remember that pro-equality is a yes except on 96-B when it is a no vote.)

Salem and Wabash Valley switched from no to yes.
Salem: 156-149 on 08-B, 160-187 on 01-A, 141-156 on 97-A, and 153-143 on 96-B.  (Interesting to note the spike in turnout for 01-A.  They other votes are strikingly similar in numbers, with the reversal on 08-B.)

Wabash Valley: 84-67 on 08-B, 83-102 on 01-A, 76-125 on 97-A, 116-100 on 96-B.  (Wabash Valley has had a number of churches depart the denomination and the change in no votes from 01-A to 08-B may reflect that.  It is notable that the switch occurred not because the yes votes increased, they are statistically identical.  This may be one of the few cases that a significant decrease in no votes can be clearly tied to churches realigning.)

San Francisco:  167-177 on 08-B, 216-186 on 01-A, 207-167 on 97-A, 179-214 on 96-B.  (The previous votes show a significant consistency, as does the no vote with the past vote numbers.  In this case it appears that the yes voters were not there because it shows a decrease of 40+ votes from the typical level.)

Anyway, to have San Francisco vote no took many people by surprise.  There is a lot of reaction on Facebook, which I won’t link to.  The vote results must have been announced late because the news media has not picked it up yet.  (The results had not been posted when this left-coaster went to bed at a later than normal hour.)

East coast blogs are starting to pick it up and you can count on John Shuck for a lively response:

This is an embarrassment. The presbytery of San Francisco

• Home of the PCUSA moderator…
• Home of out candidate, Lisa Larges…
• Home of the Covenant Network…
• Home of Jack Rogers…
• And well it’s freaking San Francisco…

voted No on amendment B last night 167-177. San Francisco has the honor of being the only presbytery
to switch from equality to inequality in this year’s voting. Last time
the vote was 216-186. That means 40 commissioners decided they had
better things to do than to show up for the meeting.

Looks to me like they took it for granted while the opposition organized.

[Editorial note:  We down here in SoCal claim Jack Rogers now. ]

As news and blogs respond to the vote I’ll add updates to this post.

Update:
The Layman has posted an article that Amendment 08-B has now failed with 86 negative votes.  They say at the end of the article that 171 presbyteries are voting, which would require 86 on one side or the other.  Not sure where they got that from because the official PC(USA) vote tally page sets 87 as passage.

In addition, and maybe I’m reading too much into this, the Layman seems to extract a bit of “turn-about” in the article, citing San Francisco as the home presbytery of GA Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow.  This could be interpreted as a “back at you” for John Edward Harris‘ observation that the first presbytery to switch, Western North Carolina, is the home of the Layman’s long-time editor.  Or maybe I’m just too into conspiracy theories and reading articles for hidden meanings.  I very well could be wrong and it is all innocent reporting.

Update:  I must confess my surprise that now almost 24 hours out there is not more reaction in the news or on the blogs.  The PC(USA) Presbyterian News Service did release an article about the vote in general that included yesterday’s votes in the tally but no reporting on any of the presbytery meetings themselves.

Probably the most interesting comment so far has been by Clay Allard on his blog The Right Side of the Trinity.  (For those not familiar with the geography of Dallas, TX, the title is a clever turn of phrase on the Trinity River that flows through the city.)  The best thing about Clay’s comments is that he takes a bigger view – “The amendment has failed, now what?”  He writes:

Now That the Voting Is Over

What an interesting sense of humor God has. As Amendment 08-B moves to
defeat, I was sure that the Puerto-Rican presbyteries would deliver the
coup-de-grace. But instead– it’s SAN FRANCISCO?! I think that it’s
time to examine all the ideas and attitudes that have been slain by
this vote.

and he closes with

Let’s spend some time outside of our own echo chambers, not acting like
this is a football game and we are just “fans” of our side. Instead of
figuring out a strategy of beating “them,” why don’t we find out who
“they” are, and what they want? Why don’t we act like we are not
competing for some prize, but that we are trying to be faithful to
Christ? The voting is over– let the learning begin.

Also, More Light Presbyterians has an article up about the San Francisco vote and the significance of the presbytery meeting being held at Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church.

Elsewhere, Wrestling With Wrelevance and Life Along The Homeschooling Journey comment on the San Francisco vote and the almost-defeat of 08-B.   The Reformed Pastor has reaction to both the San Francisco vote as well as the Layman article.