Category Archives: ordination standards

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

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland This Week — The Media Build Up Continues

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland convenes in Edinburgh this Thursday. I’ll post once more before the Moderator calls the commissioners to order so that I can talk about something else.

But if you only read the mainstream media on this side of the world you would think that the Assembly is about one thing, and only one thing — The suitability of the lifestyle of a partnered gay man for service as the pastor at a church in Aberdeen.

I would like to think that the Assembly will deal with this in its usual decently and in order fashion. In fact, I expect that it will having followed these debates for a while. What I don’t know about will be what will happen after that.

The other problem that I have is that I am following this from 8261.97 km away. (That would be 5133.75 mi for those of us who only know the metric system as 2-liter bottles.) I have been struck in the last week by the prolific, and frankly hyperbolic, coverage by the media. They seem to be almost exclusively focusing on the conflict and “impending doom” that this controversy in the Church of Scotland will cause. Yes, there is coverage of other issues, but usually in an “oh, by the way” manner.

The hot topic of the week was the sermon preached on the last Lord’s Day by the Rev. Ian Watson. The title was “Jude: Fighting Truth Decay #3” and it is available on the Rev. Watson’s blog. (And I must trust that what is posted on the blog is what was preached.) From that the media got the following headlines

Anti-gay ‘Nazi’ slur causes Church of Scotland outrage – Ekklesia
Anti-gay Minister the Rev Ian Watson in ‘Nazi battle’ outrage – Times Online
Minister compares fight against homosexual clergy to resistance of Nazis – The Telegraph

Having read these articles and the sermon they are based on there is clearly a reference and implicit analogy to the run-up to the Second World War that would strike a nerve in many people. Related to that, here is exactly what the Rev. Watson posted on his blog. The Introduction:

There are very few people who enjoy conflict. The vast majority of
decent people will do almost anything to avoid situations of
confrontation. So, the soup may be cold, the meat tough and the
pudding inedible, but when the waiter asks us if we are enjoying our
meal we’ll smile and nod. We don’t want to complain, we don’t want to
make a fuss. We’ll even pay for the privilege.

This is how bullies succeed. They realize that no matter how
unhappy we are with their behaviour we’re not going to stand up to
them, because the last thing we want is a shouting match.

That was the gamble Hitler took when he marched German troops into
the Rhineland in March 1936 in breach of a condition forced on Germany
after World War 1. It was a huge gamble. If the French army,
stationed on the other side of the border, had marched against him, the
Germans would have had to retreat and there’s no doubt Hitler’s regime
would have collapsed. But he guessed correctly that the French had no
stomach for a fight. If only they had, then the tragedy of a second
World War might have been avoided.

And from the Conclusion

Let me assure you, neither I nor like-minded minsters enjoy
conflict. We long to be getting on with the work of the gospel in our
parishes. It’s a distraction we could do without.

But have we learned nothing from history? Remember Hitler and the
re-taking of the Rhineland. He got away with it. No one stopped him.
So next it was Austria, then Czechoslovakia, and then Poland and only
then world war.

I can’t help asking myself: if we say nothing, do nothing at this
time, what next? What scriptural truth is next for shaving? The
uniqueness of Christ as our only Saviour? The nature of God as Holy
Trinity?

What moral standards will we depart from? Can we expected unmarried
couples in our manses? A line has to be drawn in the sand, or the
whole edifice will come tumbling down (now there’s a mixed metaphor for
you!)

In between he makes no further reference to these events but talks about various conflicts in church history and his scripture passage, Jude 3-4, particularly v. 3 where it says

Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we
share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for
the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.

While many people found Mr. Watson’s sermon illustration disturbing, the press reports that I have read focused on the Germany analogy and did not properly convey, in my opinion, the full sense of the sermon. In addition the media states that many religious and political leaders have expressed disapproval, but are weak backing that up with quotes. The Telegraph article does give two reactions:

Rev Peter Macdonald, the leader elect of the Iona Community and
minister of St George’s West, Edinburgh, told The Times he found the
sermon disturbing while Rev Lindsay Biddle, chaplain of Affirmation
Scotland, a pro-homosexual group, said: “If you don’t like homosexuals,
then get on with it – but don’t use the Bible to justify opinions.”

And a defense from Rev. Watson

Rev Watson defended his sermon: “There is no doubt that there is a
conflict,” he said. “I was trying to explain why I am engaged in this.
People say to me, ‘This is not a hill to die on’, but I think it is a
fight worth fighting. “Evangelicals seek to defend the historic and
orthodox Christian faith. If we don’t what are we? I am a man of
convictions.”

So while I can see Rev. Watson’s perspective and why some are offended and concerned by the comments, I still find the media reports as superficial and too focused on the most controversial aspects. (And I would note that I have searched Rev. Watson’s posted text a couple of times and he does not actually use the term “Nazi” himself, instead referring to “Hitler” and “Germany.” I don’t know if the media uses the term for brevity or impact?)

The other thread that is going around related to this story, and again promoted more by the media than in direct statements that I am reading, is the prospect of schism. In the Telegraph article I have already quoted from the second paragraph opens with

His [The Rev. Watson’s] comments will widen divisions within the Kirk over the appointment of an openly gay minister to a parish church last year.

As far as I can tell this article is firmly in the News section, not the opinion, so I would fault the writer, Alastair Jamieson, for the inclusion of the “will widen” without a direct attribution. Yes, in the next paragraph he writes

Rev Kenneth MacKenzie, the minister at Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral,
which is attended by the Queen, has warned a schism would occur if his
appointment was confirmed.

But the way the article is constructed it appears Mr. Jamieson is using the Rev. MacKenzie’s statement to support his own thesis rather than report on other people’s concerns about divisions. And in many of these articles quotes from those who do not think there will be division are missing.

I should point out some good coverage of the issue. Two good examples come from the BBC. There is one story that tones down the headline a bit with “Church Split Warning Over Gay Row.” It also contains a 15 minute video that has a very good conversation between two CofS ministers, the Rev. Randall and the Rev. Gilchrist, discussing the issue and theological viewpoints. And they make the very important point that this controversy is about standards for ordained office, something that you could not tell from two of the three headlines I listed above. (Style points to the Telegraph for bringing that out in the headline.) The second article is on William Crawley’s religion blog Will & Testament. I enjoy William’s writing because it is usually balanced, well informed and relevant. This article is no exception.

At a news conference earlier this week the Moderator Designate, the Rev. Bill Hewitt, refused to answer questions about the issue, just saying it was his job to oversee the Assembly debate.

Finally, in another post William Crawley notes that religious leaders in Northern Ireland have added their names to the petition from The Fellowship of Confessing Churches that urges the restriction on those called to the pastorate. He points out that the list of signatories includes several former moderators of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

I expect not to address this issue again before it comes to the floor of Assembly at the end of this week. Debate on the filed protest of Aberdeen Presbytery’s actions is docketed for Saturday evening. I expect to be live blogging it. I do want to finish one more post before the Assembly begins, especially since there is another important matter that won’t come to the floor until next year, but will have an influence on several other items of business. (Update: Thanks to Iain I have been informed that there are not plans to webcast the Saturday evening debate. I guess I’ll have to depend on the reports after the debate.)

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.

Debate Preceding The Church Of Scotland General Assembly — Focus Shifts To Web 2.0

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When I last posted on the current controversy headed to this year’s General Assembly of the Church of Scotland I did not realize that I was writing at a point in time when the discussion was shifting from the Mainstream Media reports driving the Web, to the Web driving the media. I’ll not fully rehearse the specifics of the case again. You can check out my previous posts or some of the other links I’ll cite today for that. Let me give the essential information for this discussion that Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen called the Rev. Scott Rennie, a partnered gay pastor, to its vacant charge. Aberdeen Presbytery concurred but a protest was filed and that protest will be heard at the General Assembly that begins in just over two weeks.

In that previous post what I did not realize was that I had found the web site for the Fellowship of Confessing Churches on the day of its launch. Thanks to the Rev. Ian Watson for that information. You can check out his announcement on his blog Kirkmuirhillrev. Anyway, as I mentioned last time, on the Confessing Churches web site there is a petition supporting the dissenters and asking the GA to support the protest. Well this petition has gone “viral,” or at least as viral as something Presbyterian can go, and there are currently 2530 individuals from the Church of Scotland who have signed, 1404 from other Scottish churches, 1104 from other UK churches, and another 1193 from other churches worldwide for a grand total of 6233 as of this writing, and increasing by the minute.

And this petition is now being advertised and debated in the blogosphere. Over on the Reformation 21 blog, Carl Trueman announced the petition but indicated he would not sign. However, other writers on the blog, like Phil Ryken and Rick Phillips did sign and post their comments about why they did. Carl Trueman posted a second, much more extended comment on his view of the situation in response to Rev. Ryken’s post.

But the first post from Carl Trueman found responses from elsewhere in the blogosphere, some supporting his position (e.g. Thomas Goodwin, Joshua Judges Ruth and Knoxville) and some who argue for signing (e.g. Michael Bird at Euangelion). And there is Darryl Hart on Old Life Theological Society who finds positives in both positions. I find it interesting that many of the respondents are associated with the Presbyterian Church in America which will be dealing with ordination standards as they again address the issue of ordaining or commissioning women as deaconesses at their GA this year. In fact the Rev. Dave Sarafolean makes this connection directly in his post at Joshua Judges Ruth (and his quote from Carl Trueman comes from Trueman’s second post):

Having just come back from presbytery
and preparing for General Assembly in a few weeks I found this quote
from Carl Trueman very helpful. I say this because of the on-going
debate in the PCA about the topic of ‘deaconesses’ (which are not
prescribed by our constitution):

“The policy of
ceding church courts to the liberals has proved disastrous. I feel for
friends caught in the crossfire in Aberdeen but, as I said earlier, a
petition is too little too late. These battles are not won by petitions
which have no ecclesiastical status; nor are they won by preaching to
the converted at large Reformed conferences or to congregations of the
faithful in the big C of S churches. They are won by the nasty,
brutish, hard labour of fighting in the church courts, face to face,
toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball, with those who would seek to take over
session, presbyteries, synods, and General Assemblies for evil”

There are a number of other facets to this debate that have developed over the past week. The one that hit the mainstream media was a correction and apology that the conservative group Forward Together issued after they said that the Rev. Rennie had left his wife while it was actually the opposite. This correction was widely covered by the press, such as these articles in Scotsman and The Herald. However, the Rev. Louis Kinsey at Coffee with Louis takes issue with the tone of some of the press coverage and the bias he perceives in the reporting of the correction. Similarly, he comments on bias in the headline of another news story about the petition.

From a different perspective Mr. Stewart Cutler has a blog post titled “Not In My Name” where he says why he will not sign the petition and he concludes with

So, no. I won’t be signing your petition. And I hope no-one else does
either. Not because I don’t believe in your right to have one. Not
that because I don’t think you have the right to hold your opinion.
But because I believe that we are called to love one another and to
conduct our discusions with love and respect.

In another blog entry Mr. Cutler points us to the latest OneKirk Journal which has an extended interview with Rev. Rennie. From all the reading that I have done on this story I think these are the most extensive comments by Mr. Rennie since the controversy broke. The comments are serious, heartfelt and honest. When the interviewer ask about the affect on his faith this controversy has had Mr. Rennie says:

Interestingly, it has greatly strengthened my faith. It has heightened my sense of call, opened my eyes to a wealth of kindness and Christian love from other people; some of whom I know, and some of whom I have never met. It is always easy in these kinds of circumstances to focus on the negative, but the reality is that most people are kind, compassionate and good at heart. Through them, God reveals himself to us all. I keep hearing in my mind the verse of that children’s hymn we all grew up with: ‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so’.

This article and this quote have also been picked up by the print media including an article in The Times Online today with the very attention-getting headline “Gay Church of Scotland Minister Hits Back at Evangelical Critics.” I’m wondering if the Rev. Rennie would consider the OneKirk interview “hitting back” or just “telling his side”?

So as we approach the Assembly meeting the Journal article gives us one additional item — An Order of the Day: This protest will be heard at 1900 on Saturday May 23 and decided in that session. I appreciate the information so that I can rearrange my schedule and referee an earlier football (soccer) match that day. I am still looking for the Blue Book or the docket to know when the related overture will be debated.

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.

Voting Trends For Amendment 08-B — Part 1 – Summary Statistics

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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.

Amendment 08-B One Vote From Failing With More Presbyteries Switching Votes Yesterday

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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.

Controvery Headed To The Church Of Scotland General Assembly Increases

Reflections On The Amendment 08-B Voting — Preliminary Musings On The Text

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While not quite finished, at this time the voting on Amendment 08-B to modify the “fidelity and chastity” section (G-6.0106b) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Order is closing in on the conclusion. Yesterday there was a split vote, San Jose Presbytery voting “Yes” and the Presbytery of South Louisiana voting “No.” This brings the unofficial tally to 65 Yes and 82 No. (Presbyterian Coalition, PresbyWeb)

If you look at the remaining 26 presbyteries, there are five that have solidly voted against “fidelity and chastity,” and another six that have split votes in the last two votes (i.e. voted once for it and once against it). In addition, Boise tied on 01-A and Pacific was one vote away from a tie. Of the remaining 13 that voted no on the last two votes, five presbyteries did overwhelmingly in near or total unanimity. Those five, if they again vote “No”, should give the necessary 87 votes to defeat 08-B. So after yesterday’s results I, and some others (e.g. John Shuck), consider the passage of 08-B somewhere between highly unlikely and miraculous. I won’t say “impossible” because that word is not in God’s vocabulary.

This vote was much closer than I and many of those I talk with initially felt it would be. At the present time 25 presbyteries have changed their votes from 01-A. Why? This question has been rolling around in my head for almost two months now and I’ll give some numerical analysis when the voting concludes. Related to what I talked about a couple of weeks ago, and what I see in the numbers, there is probably no single explanation. Where there is truly a swing in votes why did the votes change? One explanation is a greater “pro-equality” sentiment — that is that commissioners have switched views from “pro-fidelity and chastity” to “pro-equality.” But I want to have a detailed look at something else first: The text of the Amendment.

Looking back at the history of G-6.0106b, and it is laid out in the Annotated Book of Order and Constitutional Musings note 8, you can see that attempts to add fidelity-like wording date back to 1986. The current wording was added from the 208th General Assembly, approved by the presbyteries 97-74. The next year the 209th GA sent out to the presbyteries an “improved” wording that would have left “fidelity and chastity” but removed the “which the confessions call sin” line. At that GA the Advisory Committee on the Constitution advised against making the change. The Assembly approved the change and sent it out to the presbyteries who did not concur by a 57-114 vote. The 213th GA sent out Amendment 01-A to strike G-6.0106b and add a line to the remaining G-6.0106a about suitability for office and the Lordship of Jesus Christ, but that too was not affirmed by the presbyteries, this time 46-127.

So here is my hypothesis: I wonder if Amendment 08-B is having more success because it is more of a compromise text. The previous two attempts to amend dealt with removing all or part of G-6.0106b. Amendment 08-B would replace G-6.0106b with new language:

Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by their assent to the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards.

The new language does have a number of theological points that make it attractive and that are being used by those advocating for 08-B as benefits. These include a pledge to “live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church,” and stating the hierarchy of Jesus, scripture and confessions, in that order. While the opposition argues that this now leaves important standards up for interpretation and heterogeneous application across the denomination, I can see how this would be a more palatable form of standards for many in the church.

So I do have to wonder whether comparing 08-B to 01-A or 97-A is comparing apples to oranges. While it is frequently viewed or portrayed as a battle of “good versus evil” (you define the sides for yourself), when it comes down to the vote by a particular commissioner in a given presbytery if the decision and vote is much more nuanced. How many commissioners have not changed their opinions but have changed their vote because the language has changed? Because the wording changes from one vote to the next do these black and white decisions have many more shades of gray than we want to admit.

Something to think over until my next post on this topic when I’ll put numbers on these shades of gray.

The GA Junkie

The Politics of Presbyterianism

Category Archives: ordination standards

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

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The Current Church of Scotland Controversy Remains Active

Voting Trends For Amendment 08-B — Part 1 – Summary Statistics

Amendment 08-B One Vote From Failing With More Presbyteries Switching Votes Yesterday

Controvery Headed To The Church Of Scotland General Assembly Increases

Reflections On The Amendment 08-B Voting — Preliminary Musings On The Text