Category Archives: ordination standards

The EPC General Assembly And Other Developments Related To The Ordination Of Women

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It is widely acknowledged that one of the details that is a point of complexity with churches leaving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and going to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church is the ordination of women.  In the EPC this is a point of local option — Teaching elders (ministers) for the presbytery and ruling elders and deacons for the session with presbytery concurrence.  (For more on this you can check out a previous post from last August and the EPC Position Paper on the Ordination of Women.)  Back in November a special announcement from the EPC outlined the current status, or box score:

In the EPC, we currently have two presbyteries that
prohibit women teaching elders, two that will not use gender as a
consideration in approving ministers and candidates, two others who
have a procedure in place that allows consideration of women ministers
and candidates without violating conscience, and two that are still
working on the issue and will have come to a conclusion by the second
week of February 2009. One of these, Mid-America Presbytery, will
consider an overture asking the 2009 General Assembly to approve an
affinity presbytery within its boundaries as a response to women
teaching elders.

This special announcement was about a proposal that would be coming to the General Assembly from the New Wineskins/EPC Transitional Presbytery Commission.  This proposal would create a permanent non-geographic presbytery that would have accepted the ordination of women, a presbytery that would have helped PC(USA) churches that realigned with the EPC.

Well it has now been announced in the last couple of weeks that the NW/EPC Transitional Presbytery Commission has withdrawn this proposal.  The announcement lacks specific details, only that it has been discussed at regular meetings over the last couple of months and “At the conclusion of those discussions the Commission decided to withdraw the proposal.”

The announcement from November says that Mid-America Presbytery is considering an overture for an affinity presbytery within it’s bounds, and there is word that this passed at the presbytery meeting last week.  However, there is as yet no overture information on the EPC GA web site, we are waiting for the next edition of the EP News, and I have not yet gotten responses to a couple of inquiries I have made.  So, we will have to wait a bit longer for official confirmation and the details.

Also in the last couple of weeks we have the news reported by Backwoods Presbyterian (Benjamin Glaser) on PuritanBoard and the Rev. David Fischler at The Reformed Pastor that the Presbytery of the East has approved a policy and guidelines for the ordination of women.  The text of the policy:

1. The Presbytery of the East of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church
(EPC) will honor the Christian liberty of individual congregations to
call their ministers and, therefore, will not prohibit candidates for
ordination as Teaching Elders from being processed and presented to
Presbytery due to their gender.

2. All candidates will be
processed as set forth in the Book of Order of the EPC, the EPC
Procedural Manual for Ministerial and Candidates Committees, and the
Presbytery of the East By-Laws.

3. All candidates will be examined in accordance with the EPC’s
specific criteria for ordination and ministerial preparation and must
agree with the Essentials of Our Faith and subscribe to the Westminster
Confession of Faith;

4. Once presented on the floor of Presbytery, candidates will be questioned as set forth in the Book of Order of the EPC.

5. Members of Presbytery will be allowed to vote their consciences in
regards to their Biblical convictions concerning an individual’s
ordination.

6. All members will be treated during the entire process with charity,
grace and the respect due to one who seeks to submit themselves to
Scripture and the calling of the Holy Spirit.

There was some discussion about this on the PuritanBoard and how the influx of PC(USA) churches will put pressure on the EPC regarding complimentarian versus egalitarian views of ordination.

So, I  will keep watching the news and welcome further details or insights on any of these presbytery developments.  And I anticipate an interesting discussion at GA.

Status Of The Controversal Call To A Charge In The Church Of Scotland

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Like the PC Ireland post from earlier today, this is more of a status report and we are awaiting significant decisions to be made.

For more background you can check my first and second posts on the situation as it developed, but in brief Queen’s Cross Church called the Rev. Scott Rennie to be their pastor and the Presbytery of Aberdeen concurred.  The issue is that the Rev. Rennie is, to use the PC(USA) jargon, a “self-acknowledged practicing homosexual” and intends to live in the manse with his partner.  This was controversial and not everyone approved, including 24 of the 84 members of presbytery that voted on the concurrence.

Since my last post the presbytery vote has been appealed by 12 members of presbytery because of Mr. Rennie’s lifestyle and the appeal has been accepted by the Commission of Assembly.  The council will hear the appeal on March 25 and decide what will happen.  My thanks to Louis Kinsey and his explanation of what could happen from there on his blog Coffee with Louis.  Here is an excerpt of what he wrote:

The Commission of Assembly is appointed by the General Assembly each
year and comprises one tenth of the ministers, elders and members of
the diaconate of that General Assembly, plus members ex officiis of
the General Assembly, minus the previous Moderator.  The powers of the
Commission are considerable and its judgements are not subject to
review:

‘provided that any case in which, in the opinion of the
Commission, an important issue of principle is at stake may be referred
by the Commission to the General Assembly.’

It may therefore be the case that the complaint is upheld or denied
there and then, or it may be referred to the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland in May.  Only the Lord knows.

So, at this point we are waiting for the Council meeting on March 25 to see what will happen next.

An Account Of The Amendment 08-B Process In The Presbytery of Western North Carolina

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My thanks to the Rev. Carolyn Poteet and The Layman Online for a good description of the process and deliberations regarding Amendment 08-B in Saturday’s meeting of the Presbytery of Western North Carolina.  The presbytery voted 144 to 108 in favor of the amendment becoming the first presbytery to change their general stance from the vote in 2001-2002.

What does Rev. Poteet identify as a critical or central point?  Here she says:

The
pro side consisted of those wanting to remove the current G-6.0106b and
its fidelity and chastity clause, and put in its place new language
approved by the General Assembly last June. The single most effective
point they made was this: the new language called for obedience to
Jesus Christ first and foremost, while the old language doesn’t mention
Jesus at all. They have a point.

She describes the process the presbytery followed:

I
do want to applaud the way the debate was handled. Two ministers, one
from each side, were allowed seven minutes each to present their cases.
This was followed by a time of silent prayer.



The debate that followed was to be an hour long, with two minutes per
speaker, alternating between pro and con sides. All was decently and in
order. Both sides had excellent moments and awkward moments.



Following the debate, we had another silent prayer and then we voted by
secret ballot. They asked that no one applaud when the results were
announced. We continued on to the rest of our docket, interrupted
briefly by the moment when the counters returned with the news, then
back to our regularly scheduled meeting reports. We were deeply
disappointed, but having a fair hearing did make the results a little
easier to take.

She has a lot of description of the debate itself but makes these observations about the general tone:

Listening
more closely, though, it seemed like the pro arguments sought to mold
Jesus and Scripture into the image of today’s world. If anyone in
history was ever counter-cultural, it was Jesus – followed closely by
Paul. Neither of them was afraid to tell the culture that what they
were doing was wrong.

and

When
it came down to it, the line at their [the pro] microphone was longer than ours.
They had more people with prepared, precisely-timed, two-minute
speeches. And their arguments fit well into the strong current in which
our whole culture has been drifting.


I also thank Ms. Poteet for filling in a significant piece of demographic information for me:

Perhaps
Saturday’s result was because we have lost several of our brothers and
sisters to the greener pastures of the EPC. Perhaps it was because the
heart of our presbytery, Asheville, N.C., is living up to its title of
the “San Francisco of the East.” Perhaps God is at work in ways we
can’t understand right now.

I would note that three churches have departed from the presbytery since the last vote, the largest being Montreat Presbyterian Church.

There is lots more in the piece and while Ms. Poteet’s viewpoint is clear, it is labeled as commentary after all, it strikes me as a very fair and informative assessment of the meeting.  Thank you.

Moderator Designate Of The Presbyterian Church In Ireland

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Greetings — This post will be in two parts.  Part I will be posted before the vote and then I will add Part II after the vote.  Therefore, if you get this by e-mail or you check your feed reader early you may need to check back if you are interested in the result.

Also, a hat tip to my favorite source of insight into the PCI, Alan in Belfast, for making the connection about one of the candidates.  I’d been keeping up on the vote, but had overlooked the back story.

Part I
In a few hours the presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will be voting on the designate for the Moderator of this year’s General Assembly.

Up until a few years ago the process was that the presbyteries met simultaneously and each came up with their own choice with no pre-defined list.  Now there is a list, this year with three nominees, and the presbyteries all on the same evening select their choice from that list.

This year the nominees are:
Rev. Norman Hamilton, O.B.E.: Minister at Ballysillan since 1988, ordained in 1983 and serves on the Church and Society Committee

Rev. Derek McKelvey: Minister at Fisherwick since 1994, ordained in 1971 and has been the convener of the Students’ Bursary Fund and the co-convener of the Strategy for Mission Committee

Rev. Stafford Carson: Minister at First Portadown since 2005, ordained in 1983 and has been the convener of the Review of Theological Education Committee and the Committee re Deacons.  He currently convenes the Resourcing Christians for Ministry Committee and was an administrator at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.

Back story #1 (which I have been following and will do an update on in the near future): The collapse of the Presbyterian Mutual Society.  I expect questions about this to come up at the press conference tomorrow morning.  The current and past Moderators have been injecting themselves into this situation more and more.

Back story #2 (H/T Alan):  I had not made the connection that the Rev. Carson was one of the ministers involved in the Christmas service controversy in Portadown beginning back in 2007.  Briefly, Rev. Carson’s church and neighboring Armagh Road Church have a tradition of doing joint Christmas services with the visiting pastor preaching.  However, in 2007 when the service was to be at First Portadown Rev. Carson would not permit the female pastor of Armagh Road to preach, citing the privilege given to a pastor to approve who may preach at their church, a provision granted in the PC Ireland for those pastors that have scripturally-based objections of conscience to ordaining women.  No compromise could be reached between the churches in 2008 so the service was not held again.  If Rev. Carson is elected this evening, as Alan is predicting, expect some questions on women as clergy tomorrow at the press conference.  There could also be some interesting situations throughout the Moderatorial year.

Part II  And the Moderator designate is…

Well, it looks like Alan in Belfast both broke the story with the results, as well as correctly predicting the outcome in his earlier post.

The 21 presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland this evening selected the Rev. Stafford Carson, pastor of First Portadown, as the moderator designate for the 2009 General Assembly.  Mr. Stafford was selected by ten presbyteries while Mr. Hamilton was selected by six and Mr. McKelvey by five.

I’ll update tomorrow after press releases and stories as well as the traditional news conference.

Amendment 08-B Voting At The 20% Mark

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Over the weekend we reached, actually almost reached, the 20% mark of presbyteries voting on Amendment 08-B to change the “fidelity and chastity” section, G-6.0106b, in the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  With the five presbyteries voting on Saturday, 33 out of the 173 presbyteries have now voted, at least according to the unofficial vote counters (Layman, PresbyWeb, Presbyterian Coalition, More Light Presbyterians).  As always, the official tally reported by the stated clerks can be found at the Office of the General Assembly.  There has been an noticeable and expected acceleration in the rate of
voting:  The first 18 voted over the course of three months while the
next fifteen voted in the last week and a half.  At this moment the voting stands at 11 yes and 22 no.

Two interesting developments:
1)  On Saturday we had the first presbytery to approve the new language after voting against changing G-6.0106b in 2001-2002.  The Presbytery of Western North Carolina voted in favor of 08-B by 144 to 108 after voting 100  yes and 187 no for Amendment 01-A.  On both my list and the list kept by Bruce Hahne (and quoted by More Light Presbyterians) this presbytery was not expected to change this much and I will be curious to hear what it was about their process or the situation this time that led to a significant swing.  (I’ll update here if I find anything)

2) Saturday January 24 and Tuesday January 27 must have been good days to attend presbytery meetings because after a string of vote totals that were lower than previous years (with one even), there were two presbyteries each day that exceeded their vote totals on 01-A.  On the 24th Albany had one additional vote and New Castle had ten more.  On the 27th Carlisle had six more.  So not all presbyteries are showing the decline in voting totals.  (In perspective of the long-term totals including the older votes Albany shows a decrease and the other two are fairly constant totals.)

The last presbytery of the four is Utica which voted by voice vote so only an approximate number is available.  A voice vote was appropriate since it was overwhelmingly yes.  The unofficial sites that list the vote totals for Utica all agree on 70 yes and 3 no.  This is a significantly larger total number of votes than the last time which was 24 yes and 8 no.  Checking out the presbytery, it has 35 churches so a minimum of 70 commissioners and then there would be additional for multi-staff churches, those in validated ministries, H.R.’s, and at-large members.  A total of 73 votes would be a high turn-out but seems reasonable to me and I have included it in my statistics, even though the ratio of 2.28 is significantly above all the rest.  I’m considering “correcting” the vote on 01-A.  Going back to the two votes before 01-A the totals are similar, 57 and 61, so 08-B is high and 01-A is low. It would be interesting to see if there was weather or other factors that might have depressed the attendance for voting on 01-A. 

However, in spite of those four increased totals, vote totals are still running below those for 01-A.  The numbers are averaging 86% of what they were last time and enough presbyteries have reported now that a normal distribution (Gaussian) is developing with a mean of 0.86 and a standard deviation of 0.28.  The Utica number is included in there but is a significant outlier and an “adjusted” number brings the standard deviation down to 0.14.

Finally, I am interested in the discernment process that presbyteries are using in voting on 08-B.  A member of Newton Presbytery, the Rev. Mitch Trigger, who is also an officer of the Witherspoon Society, provided the Witherspoon Society web site an account of how the Newton Presbytery discernment process worked.  He notes that it was borrowed from Mid-Kentucky Presbytery.  The process involved responding to three questions about the current language and proposed language using mutual invitation.  In response to this description, Viola Larson at Naming His Grace has posted her own her view of the “spiritual manipulation” involved in the Newton Presbytery process.  I have to agree with a couple of her points about using mutual invitation in a deliberative setting.  From my own experience I have found mutual invitation a useful tool for group study of scripture but it broke down when a task force I was on tried using it for conducting business.

Well, if you thought the last two weeks were busy you should brace yourself because there are still 140 presbyteries to go and most will probably vote in the next two months giving about 18 per week.  While my projections and conversations still seem to be trending against passage, the flip by Western North Carolina has caused the Layman to reevaluate their numbers and admit the possibility of passage of 08-B if more major swings occur.  Needless to say, those that favor 08-B take the Western North Carolina swing as a hopeful sign.  We will see.  Stay tuned.

Some Brief Observations On PC(USA) Amendment 08-B Voting

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In the last week and a half five more presbyteries have voted on Amendment 08-B (the modification of G-6.0106b that would remove “fidelity and chastity” language) sent to the presbyteries by the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  Some brief news, observations and comments…

1)  The unofficial vote count now is 4 yes and 14 no.  You can follow the unofficial vote count at The Layman, Presbyweb, or the Presbyterian Coalition.

2)  The official vote count, that is those votes that have been received by the Office of the Stated Clerk, is 1 yes and 11 no.  The official tally list has the reported votes for all the amendments and ecumenical statements.

3)  At this time no presbytery has switched its vote from the last similar vote in 2001-2002.

4) The National Korean Presbyterian Council, an organization of 400 Korean churches in the PC(USA), has sent a letter to the churches in the PC(USA) arguing against any changes to G-6.0106b.  The letter is available in Word format from the Presbyterian Coalition web site.

5)  About 10% of the presbyteries have now voted — 18 of 173.  The final tally in 2002 was 46-127, the current 4-14 mirrors 10% of that pretty well.  This is either by shear luck (or providence) or voting order is pretty random if the final numbers end up about the same as the last vote.

6)  The decline in total numbers of commissioners voting continues with vote totals being an average of 80% of what they were in 2001-2002, a trend I noted earlier and my analysis has been confirmed by The Layman with a bit more data and similar explanations.

7)  In a fit of shear geekiness I threw together a model to project the presbytery vote counts into the future.  I’m still refining the methodology and would like to have more data from this round before I put out my forecast for the future of G-6.0106b.  Stay tuned for that.  But one striking feature of my current model projecting forward three GA’s  (2014) is that in that time as many presbyteries disappear (decline to zero votes) as change their votes.  I was not expecting that many to disappear, that was not part of the model, so I’m looking to see if that is a reasonable result and rethinking some of my algorithms for the next iteration.

I won’t go into more details on this topic since not much has really changed with this situation since my previous discussion, the favorable response of More Light Presbyterians to a string of three yes votes in one day, not withstanding.  Maybe the one significant piece of news is that only 18 presbyteries have voted so far, a number below past votes, and that might suggest the discernment process the GA recommended is being used and presbyteries are taking time to discuss this issue.  I’ll update again when there is significant news or more data.

Further News And Comments On The Developing Controversy In The Church Of Scotland

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My thanks to the Rev. Ian Watson of Kirkmuirhill and his blog Kirkmuirhillrev which has been a great source of information in this controversy.  Also, my apologies for not realizing that two of the blog entries I cited in my first post were essentially identical, and the second was copied from Rev. Watson’s original.  I have added a clarification to that post.

Rev. Watson has a second post with some more information on the matter, pointing us to an article in The Sun.  In that article there is a quote from an unnamed worshiper who says [italics in the original]:

“What he does outside the church should be his business and nobody else’s.”

Now, I want to set aside the fact that this controversy is about sexual orientation and speak generally about this quote.  I also realize that I am taking this quote out of context, not that there was much in the original article.

What condition is the church in if we don’t care about people’s lives outside of church?  The quote seems to convey the modern attitude that religion is a private affair and how it interacts with our lives the other 6.75 days of the week is no business of anyone else.  I find this particularly ironic coming from a member of the Church of Scotland.  While the CofS has since adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith as a principle standard, regular readers of this blog know my affection for the notes of the Kirk (Church) in Chapter 18 of the Scots Confession (emphasis mine):

The notes of the true Kirk, therefore, we believe, confess, and avow to
be: first, the true preaching of the word of God, in which God has
revealed himself to us, as the writings of the prophets and apostles
declare; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ
Jesus, to which must be joined the word and promise of God to seal and
confirm them in our hearts; and lastly, ecclesiastical discipline
uprightly ministered, as God’s word prescribes, whereby vice is
repressed and virtue nourished.

The church is not about an hour on the Lord’s Day but it lays claim to our whole lives.  And the church is not just the kirk session keeping watch on us, although they have primary responsibility for ecclesiastical discipline, but the whole covenant community caring for each other.

OK, down off soap box.

Back to the specifics of this particular controversy:  The article in The Sun quotes the locum preacher at Queen’s Cross Church, The Rev. Mike Mair, as saying: “Queen’s Cross elected [The Rev.] Scott [Rennie],
with a trivial number — like ten out of 200 — voting against him.”

In addition, an article in The Courier provides a bit more background on Rev. Rennie (interesting to see the ties back to U.S. seminaries):

Mr Rennie was born and raised in Bucksburn in Aberdeen.

He served as assistant at Queen’s Cross church before winning the Scots Fellowship to study for a masters in sacred theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

He returned to the UK in 1999 when he was called to be minister at the [Brechin] cathedral.

He is on the Church of Scotland’s taskforce on human sexuality and is treasurer of OneKirk—a network of ministers and members of the Church of Scotland working for an inclusive, progressive church.

He is working towards a doctor of ministry degree at Aberdeen University and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.

The information from Rev. Watson is that this call is being protested so we will see how it develops.  In addition, he adds that Forward Together, the evangelical network in the CofS, has not commented yet.

Update:  First, Forward Together has now issued a statement expressing their concern about the call of Rev. Rennie.  Second, thanks to Reformed Catholic for his comment below with information about the cooperative D.Min. program Mr. Rennie is in.

Controversy Over A Pastoral Call In The Church Of Scotland

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Within the last week a controversy has developed in the Church of Scotland over a minister who has received a call, with the presbytery concurrence, to an open pulpit in Aberdeen.

At its meeting on January 6 the Presbytery of Aberdeen, by a vote of 60-24, sustained the call of the Rev. Scott Rennie to the Queen’s Cross Church.  The controversy is that Rev. Rennie is an openly practicing homosexual in a public enough way that his call may be the first to be challenged because of his lifestyle.  (The Rev. Ian Watson, in his blog Kirkmuirhillrev states that Rev. Rennie is the first gay man to be called, while a news article from the Evening Telegraph quotes an unnamed CofS spokesperson that Rev. Rennie is not the first.)  It is expected, according to these sources, that some in the minority will challenge the appointment to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, possibly putting the call on hold for five months.  Two years ago the presbyteries of the Church of Scotland rejected the blessing of same-sex civil partnerships.  In his blog Coins for Change, Boris Delahoya describes a bit more about the process ahead.

[Correction:  I missed the fact that Ian Watson’s and Boris Delahoya’s blog entries are essentially identical (I did see that they were very similar).  In the comment below Rev. Watson clarifies that he is the original author of the material.]

There are a couple of interesting nuances to this story which I am not seeing dealt with in the press reports. The Press and Journal, states that the Rev. Rennie is/was married and has a daughter with his wife.  The first is the probable fact that his sexual practice was heterosexual at the time of his ordination.  Therefore, the ordination is not an issue but rather the call based upon his present lifestyle.  The second nuance is that the news story lists his marital status as “separated” not divorced.  Scottish terminology or law may be different than here in the states (please let me know if it is) but being engaged in a sexual relationship with someone other than your spouse before a divorce is finalized is generally not considered an appropriate lifestyle for an ordained officer of the church regardless of the orientation of the relationships.  (Although it seems to be sometimes overlooked if you are discreet about it.)  If the protest is filed it will be interesting to see if and how these details play into it.  Very little of the presbytery discussion has been reported so far.

In a related development, Adam Walker Cleaveland, on his blog pomomusings, recently posted on “The Bible & Homosexuality: Enough with the Bible Already,” which you can probably imagine from the title got a lot of comments, both on the blog and elsewhere.  Now there is a well written counter argument, whether or not it was intended as a direct response, by Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary.

Churches Leaving The PC(USA) And The Status Of Women’s Ordination

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One of the continuing challenges, and discussions, for churches that are considering departure from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is about the ordination of women as deacons, elders, and clergy.  The problem is that as churches look to leave the PC(USA) because of concerns symbolized by one debate over ordination standards, they by necessity step into another debate on ordination.  No Presbyterian branch in the United States, besides the PC(USA) and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, uniformly accepts women to ordination as officers of the church, and in all but one of these branches it is completely prohibited.

As I have discussed before, the branch with “local option” is the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which probably helps explain why for departing PC(USA) churches this is the denomination of choice to realign with.  For churches who realign through the New Wineskins Presbytery of the EPC, associated with the New Wineskins Association of Churches, the ordinations are not a problem since that presbytery recognizes the ordination.  But this is to be a transitional presbytery which will disappear in five years and the churches in it are to transfer to standard geographic presbyteries.  (Then again, the PC(USA) has had several “transitional” Korean language presbyteries which were supposed to have a limited lifetime but don’t seem to be going anywhere yet.)

We now receive news, through an EPNews Special Edition news item, that a permanent non-geographic affinity presbytery may be considered by the 2009 EPC General Assembly.  The recommendation was made by the NW/EPC Transitional Presbytery Commission to the EPC Committee on Administration (COA).  The article has a nice run-down of the status Of EPC presbyteries at this time:

In its discussion about the proposal, the COA noted that much of the
energy driving it was the sensitive issue of the ordination of women as
teaching elders. In the EPC, we currently have two presbyteries that
prohibit women teaching elders, two that will not use gender as a
consideration in approving ministers and candidates, two others who
have a procedure in place that allows consideration of women ministers
and candidates without violating conscience, and two that are still
working on the issue and will have come to a conclusion by the second
week of February 2009. One of these, Mid-America Presbytery, will
consider an overture asking the 2009 General Assembly to approve an
affinity presbytery within its boundaries as a response to women
teaching elders.

Note that only teaching elders are discussed since the ordination of ruling elders and deacons is local option on the congregational level.

The article goes on to say:

In its written response to NW/EPC Transitional Presbytery Commission,
the COA declared, “We recognize that an affinity presbytery is one of a
number of possible solutions to the dilemma of women teaching elders in
the EPC. While we do not believe it is the ideal solution,
nevertheless, it may be the ultimate solution. In the EPC, it has been
more than a decade since we have engaged in serious discussions about
establishing an affinity presbytery. An affinity presbytery certainly
has attractive features. However, we believe there are significant
issues that need to be addressed and resolved before a proposal such as
this can be advanced to the General Assembly. We would like to work
with you to address those issues as we pursue this as a possible
solution for 2009 General Assembly consideration.”

So, in the EPC the possibility of an affinity presbytery is being discussed as a way to accommodate this disagreement between churches over ordination standards while in the PC(USA) the same accommodation has been rejected by the General Assembly multiple times (2006, 2008) but is still one of the options talked about for keeping churches in the PC(USA).

I would note that the concept of affinity presbyteries is almost as old as American Presbyterianism itself, and was a way that the Old Side and New Side branches of the church could facilitate a reunion in 1758.  (Yes, within the first fifty years of American Presbyterian history the church went through a split and a reunion.)

It is also interesting that there is news today from the Living Church News Service that Anglican dioceses that have realigned away from the Episcopal Church are beginning a planning process for a new North American Anglican Province.  While not a parallel structure within the Episcopal Church, it would be a parallel Province within the Anglican Communion.

Going forward we will have to see where this leads us.  But it is interesting how this conservative group within the PC(USA) is requiring both the PC(USA) and the EPC to wrestle with these ideas even if they are in slightly different forms.

Women Clergy Controversy Continues In Ireland

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A quiet controversy in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland became headline news last Christmas when a sixty-year-old tradition broke down over the new female minister at a church.  The two churches in Portadown, First Presbyterian Portadown and Armagh Road, traditionally joined together for a Christmas service, alternating locations and having the visiting clergy preach.  However, in 2007 the invitation from the Rev. Stafford Carson at First Portadown specifically excluded the invitation for the Rev. Christina Bradley, pastor of Armagh Road, to deliver the message.  The church declined the invitation and the two congregations had separate services.  Under PC Ireland polity, when the ordination of women to be clergy was adopted an “opt-out” clause was also adopted so that ministers who believe women should not be ordained as clergy could prohibit women from preaching at their churches.

The Portadown Times now reports that negotiations to have the joint service this year have broken down.  According to the article Armagh Road suggested a pre-Christmas service of carols while First Presbyterian Portadown suggested the Christmas service with the message delivered by the host pastor.  Each church turned down the other’s offer so at the present time there is no common service planned this year.

In an interesting side-bar, the current Moderator of the General Assembly, the Right Rev. Dr. Donald Patton, grew up at Armagh Road Church.  I have seen no comment from him on this situation.  Last year then Moderator, the Rev. Dr. John Finlay, met with the ministers but was unable to work out a resolution.