Category Archives: ordination standards

The General Assembly Of The Church Of Scotland — Review And Reform And Ministries

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Nothing like starting off with a “bang.”  But Mike gave us the heads-up on this…

Monday the first two reports to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland appeared on the Kirk web site and you know they are significant when the Kirk also issues a press release .  The two reports are for the Ministries Council and the Panel on Review and Reform .  And I intentionally let the names run together in the title since there is a great deal of review and reform in the Ministries report.

As anyone who has served on a ministries board would expect, the Ministries Council report contains a varied set of action items (25 total) dealing with various aspects of the ordained ministry from the system of tenure, to the process of training for the ministry, to the new Priority Areas Action Plan.  While all important items I will concentrate today on the part of the report that is the high-profile section, the proposal to reduce the ministerial work-force in the Kirk to “1,000 full time equivalent” posts.  And this is not central office staff but parish ministers and remember that all parish ministers are paid from the General Assembly level out of their budget, not at the congregation or presbytery levels.  Key among the reasons for this proposed change is the budget situation which due to the combination of economic factors and declining membership will leave the Ministries Council with a deficit of £5.7 million in 2010.  Because of the payment of salary to clergy through the Ministries Council it’s budget represents 87% of the total budget of the church.  The report has recommendations with both 2014 and 2020 target dates.

But as the report says “Out of crisis, however, can come both vision and opportunity.”  Specifically, the Council says of their work:

Undoubtedly the most urgent part of the 2020 Vision in terms of decision-making this year will be Building for Sustainable Future Patterns of Ministries, Finance and Presbytery Planning (1.4). In presenting the overall vision for the future, the theological and economic challenges contained in the proposals for reshaping ministries, planning for variety and achieving a sustainable pattern for the future through pruning for growth, the Council recognises the size of the task ahead for all of us. In the overarching context of 2020 Vision, however, it is a task which is full of opportunity if we can grasp the vision together. The task is both theological and financial: there is a budget to be balanced and that is a financial challenge. There is also, of more lasting theological significance, the need to establish patterns of ministry for the 21st century which see the stipendiary ministries of the Church more clearly in their proper context, the ministry of all God’s people. The Council invites the General Assembly to step forward into the future boldly and with hope.

The bottom line for this assembly, and almost certainly the next few as well, will be the summary of the report of the Special Commission on the Third Article Declaratory that the church has a call from Jesus Christ to bring the Gospel to the whole of Scotland, but not an obligation to keep doing it the same way.

To this end, the section on Building for Sustainable Future Patterns of Ministry (1.4) begins with this introduction:

1.4.1 Introduction
To address the issues facing the Church in terms of ministries will require both vision and discipline. The Council has offered such vision to the General Assembly in successive years… In receiving these reports the General Assembly affirmed ‘the concept of a “mixed economy church” within the Church of Scotland, where both existing and fresh expressions of church co-exist, not at the expense of the other, but for the benefit of the whole.’ (Deliverance 4, 2008).

In reality there is nothing new in this. This is the story of the church through two millennia. In dependence on the Holy Spirit every generation has gratefully accepted the best that exists and supplemented it with fresh ideas. Change is the norm rather than something surprising in the life of a Church which moves in tune with God’s Spirit.

As we embark on a process towards balancing the budget of the Council, it is crucial to see this in context. The theological work which has been ongoing to enable a rethinking of patterns of ministry is not an innovation to try and give some positive ‘spin’ to bad news about financial cuts! Far from it: the Council has been urging serious thinking about the shape of ministries since at least 2006 because it believes this is right for the mission and growth of the Church in the new millennium. That it is now also urged upon us by the economic circumstances should not allow us to lose sight of the genuine opportunity to find a future shape for ministry which recovers more strongly our historical and reformed commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ as a ministry of all God’s people.

And the Council points out they can not do it alone and there is no single “fix.”  The major “levers,” as they call them, that must work together are territorial ministry, presbytery structure, presbytery planning, training for ministries, and congregational resourcing.  The report then goes on to discuss the new staffing model:

The Council is absolutely clear that the issue of creating sustainable ministries is both a theological and an economic question. Theologically, we are being challenged to create new patterns of ministry which can carry the mission of the Gospel forward in the communities of Scotland and, where appropriate, beyond. Economically, there is the stark reality of a £5.7M deficit which must be addressed at once.

Having looked carefully into this, the Council has concluded that the Church can now afford 1000 full-time ministries and 75 two-day locums.

For reference, the report says that there are currently 1,234 posts although roughly 10% are usually vacant at any time.  The report allocates ministry posts across the presbyteries (Appendix 1) and explains:

It is the intention of the Ministries Council to move towards allocating each Presbytery a ministries budget which relates to the number of FTE posts. It wants to encourage Presbyteries to think creatively about ministries and believes that giving each Presbytery responsibility for its own ministries budget will help it do this.

The body of the report paraphrases the action requested in the deliverance (items 7 and 8) like this:

The Council invites the General Assembly to instruct all Presbyteries to review their plans with a view to achieving 1000 ministries by 2014. The intention is that all Presbyteries will begin this process at once seeking to implement the figure in column 4 of the table as soon as possible.

But as I quoted at the beginning “Out of crisis, however, can come both vision and opportunity.”

The need to create sustainable units in non-urban areas has often resulted in a series of linkages and/or unions, so that a minister today is often serving an area that four people might have served 50 years ago…

Now is the time to turn that notion on its head. Instead of asking, what area constitutes a viable unit that can justify the employment of a full-time minister, we should ask, what form of ministry is appropriate for the people of faith in this distinct community. If effective ministry and mission occurs in community networks we need to find ways of fitting ministry into existing communities, rather than creating artificial communities that fit a particular model of ministry.

Our planning has essentially worked with a single model of ministry, full-time Parish Ministers. While there are many places where this is the appropriate model of ministry and therefore should continue, in others places it is not.
…
While it is possible for paid and unpaid, ordained and lay people to work together, current structures do not encourage this. Those who try to work in this way often feel they are fighting against the structures rather than being assisted by them.

To this end the report lists several different types of pastoral ministry.  These would include non-stipendiary ministers, bi-vocational ministers and ordained local ministers which would all be filled by individuals “assessed, trained and qualified” for Ordained National Ministry but serving at different levels of church employment possibly with additional non-church employment.  In addition there are Readers who are locally trained and assessed and would receive payment just for pulpit supply.

To reach this goal the report notes the “chicken and egg problem” of planning and training.

The Ministries Council is currently engaged in a thorough review of training. Serious thought is being given to an approach to training that would lead to people serving not simply as full-time ministers of word and sacrament, but also in all the different styles mentioned. It thus makes sense for Presbyteries to begin thinking about how their mission might be enhanced if they could use people in these roles alongside full-time ministers of word and sacrament, and also to begin encouraging people to consider offering themselves for service in these roles.

Change is not easy, and at the end I’ll return the Ministry Council’s comment on that, but additional evidence for this is provided in the report of the Panel on Review and Reform where their first action item (after receiving the report) is

Approve the request for an extension of time to develop the proposals for reform set out in section 2 of the report and instruct the Panel to report further to the General Assembly of 2011.

The Panel has been involved in consultation and gathering input on at least five different models of presbytery restructuring and implications for devolved powers, resourcing, and the role and size of presbyteries, among other things.  The Panel comments on the complexity of the process saying:

2.1.4 There is no one single or normative model of church life. The Panel believes an agreed model for an alternative structure should take into account the particular circumstances in which a presbytery may find itself at any given time. For example, Highlands and Islands, central belt, urban, suburban, priority area and rural charges will have a common operating structure but require sufficient flexibility according to regional and local need. The Panel recognises that one size does not fit all and invites Presbyteries to work with them on a more dynamic model for the Church.

So to develop models the Panel proposes forming “Presbytery Pilot Regions [PPRs] to plan and prepare the Church for reform.”  To implement this the report says:

2.1.9 The Panel proposes a progressive implementation of these proposals to begin in September 2010. Those presbyteries choosing to participate in the pilot will work with the Panel to develop their own structures and procedures that support mission. During 2011 and 2012, more presbyteries will be encouraged to join the pilot.
…
2.3.1 The Panel proposes to test a new model of regional church by establishing a scheme the purpose of which is to encourage presbyteries to focus on mission in the local context and to experiment with different forms of operation appropriate to their own situations…This is not about structural change for the sake of it but about renewal and engagement within and beyond existing structures where the presbytery is the regional resource and support for delivery of local mission initiatives.
…
2.3.4 The Panel’s consultations with Presbyteries demonstrated their wish to be mission-oriented rather than administration-driven. The primary objective of the pilot scheme is to strengthen presbyteries in ways that enable them to further the mission of the Church, to share the Gospel with all, and to provide resources and effective encouragement for the total Christian effort within the region. They would need to be adaptable to change and continual review, flexible enough to be aware of the possibilities for different forms of ministry, and open to exploring new directions where missional imagination could be realised.

The report then goes on to discuss at great length the vision of the church and the role of presbyteries as well as aspects of implementation of the pilot plan.  It does not discuss the structure or plan for any pilot region since that is to come from the pilot region itself.  This section of the report concludes with this:

2.20 A Church under reconstruction and unafraid of change

The Book of Nehemiah
is an important one for church
leadership. It is a significant model for the church
today: the origin of vision through prayer, the need to
share vision, and enable and empower others to become
involved in making it happen, and the need to maintain
leadership through periods of conflict and opposition.
(Panel on Review and
Reform, Strategy Paper, 2009)


2.20.1 Nehemiah challenged his people with a compelling vision to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He created an atmosphere which encouraged people to speak up. He recruited the leaders of the city to do the work. He used forty leaders with their teams working side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder to rebuild the wall. Some built large sections; others built next to where they lived. They each did according to their ability and resources.  The wall was just the pilot project for Nehemiah’s plan to restore the nation. He had mechanisms in place to enable feedback about progress.

2.20.2 The Panel has tried to follow Nehemiah’s model as it works to

1. offer a method to determine an alternative presbytery structure
2. ensure that enough time is allowed to do the task thoroughly
3. highlight the financial implications of reform
4. ensure the appointment of staff with the appropriate skills
5. provide training in place for those who need it
6. create an opportunity for all presbyteries to participate throughout the process.

2.20.3 It is our reformed tradition that we have been able to improve – sometimes quite radically – yet we retain our identity and our sense of calling and purpose as God’s people. We must constantly seek to re-articulate our vision, re-interpreting what it means to bring the ordinances of religion to the people in every parish of Scotland through a territorial ministry.

2.20.4 The whole witness of the Bible points to a God who calls his people out and on from where they are, not knowing where they are to go, and the true image of the Church is of the community of the future and not of the past.

2.20.5 The Panel offers a vision for taking measured steps to reform the regional structure of the Church to align with a mission strategy. We are excited by the challenge and opportunity that lies before us and trust that the wider Church will become enthused by the prospect of together reforming a church whose structures would be more focused on bringing the kingdom closer to the people of Scotland.

Similarly, the penultimate part of this section of the Ministries Council report is titled “It can’t be done!”  It echoes the need for a model of ministry appropriate to the local situation.  I leave you with this section:

In many Presbyteries there is a belief that it will not be possible for charges to continue to serve their communities if there is a further reduction in ministries numbers. This belief is found from cities to islands. Each Presbytery faces particular issues and each Presbytery believes the issues it is facing are unique and merit special dispensation. Through its contact with Presbyteries the Ministries Council is aware of the challenges facing the Church across the country. The Council does not believe that the answer is to give one Presbytery additional ministries, which can only come at the expense of all the other Presbyteries. Instead the Council believes that the answer lies in tackling ministry using these different models.

The Council has for some time been casting a vision of a different approach to ministries. Rather than having a single model of ministry (the full-time, professional minister serving a charge whose size is determined by the need to be sustainable as a full-time post), the Council believes there needs to be a range of ministry models, some full-time and some part-time, some paid and some not. The proposal to allocate each Presbytery a ministries budget based on FTE posts will gradually allow each one to determine what patterns of ministry are best suited to serve all the communities for which it is responsible.

Approaching The General Assembly Of The Church Of Scotland

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While not the first General Assembly meeting of the GA season, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is pretty close, convening in Edinburgh one month from today on May 20, 2010.  In the last few days various news items, some only tangential to the GA meeting, have been circulating in the Scottish press.  Here is a quick run-down:

Probably the most significant from a polity viewpoint is the debate on ordination standards, specifically as to what the place in the ordained ministry is for same-gender partnered individuals.  While the discussion and debate of the place of same-gender relationships in the Kirk has been circulating for a while now, the relationship to ordination standards came to the fore last year with the Assembly creating the Special Commission on Same-sex Relationships and the Ministry. This commission is not scheduled to report back until next year but it has the charge to consult with every presbytery and has developed a consultation paper for the session and presbytery discussions.  This paper sets forth the background and process for governing bodies to enter into this discussion.  There are four questions for discussion, #1 dealing with the Biblical witness, #2 talking about Approaches to Same-sex Relationships, #3 about ordination/leadership in the church, and #4 the Unity of the Church of Scotland.  The document provides a discussion of each of these to form the basis for group discussion.  The process then asks the body to vote on questions 2, 3, and 4 by secret ballot.  According to the Commission’s time-table this consultation process is almost over, intending to have it wrapped up by the end of May.  And being part of the official process it is not subject to the Kirk’s moratorium on public discussion .

This process has hit the news in the past few days for two reasons.  The first is that the special meeting of Greenock and Paisley Presbytery to debate the questions in the consultation is taking place today (probably as I am writing this in fact) and has been picked up by local press outlets — Inverclyde Now and Herald Scotland.  A couple of interesting quotes from the media reports.  Inverclyde Now says:

This level of consultation is almost unprecedented in the Church of Scotland and could involve the Special Commission in collating tens of thousands of responses.  The results will form part of their report to the General Assembly of 2011 at which the Kirk’s understanding of same-sex relationships in the ministry will be decided.

And Herald Scotland gives the historical perspective:

The issue of gay ordination threatens the greatest schism in the Church since 1843, when one-third of its body left to form the Free Kirk.

In a slightly amusing story from yesterday the Herald Scotland says:

The Herald has obtained a copy of a crucial consultation document that outlines for the first time the route the Kirk has taken to help members decide on the issue.

As best as I can tell this is the same consultation report available on the web site .  I have not been checking but I don’t think it just appeared today since the Commission has been using it for all of the consultations.  But maybe the Herald Scotland did get the scoop and it was only just posted.  I don’t know.  They do comment that the document seems reasonably broad, even if some of the descriptions are “not great.”

As I mentioned before, this Commission report is not due to GA for another year so I am not sure what if any related business will be on the docket — The agenda and reports are not posted yet.  However, it is certain that this will be on many commissioners’ minds next month and may raise its head in interesting places.

The other item of GA business that got some press coverage last week was the Church and Society Council‘s involvement in suicide prevention, especially teen suicides, as part of a national government campaign.  Maybe I am reading too much into this, but I think that I hear echoes of the National Youth Assembly 2008 deliverance on Healthy Relationships in here.  The key item in this program is to make available to everyone basic training in skills of recognizing a potential problem and working with a person to get help.

OK, there you have a couple of the high-profile business items which may or may not be in play at the Assembly.  In other Assembly news… The Garden Party is no more (at least not this year).  Traditionally The Lord High Commissioner hosts a Saturday afternoon Garden Party at Holyroodhouse that has been a fixture of the Assembly as long as anyone can remember. (Brief YouTube Video )  Well this year the event will not be held for cost savings reasons and other social functions will be scaled back as well.  The Scotsman reports :

The Queen’s representative to the General Assembly, the Lord High Commissioner, normally hosts the event for ministers, Kirk elders and other invited guests from across Scotland.

But after a cut in the commissioner’s budget for assembly week from the Scottish Government, the party has been axed as part of a savings drive that has also resulted in a scaling back of official dinners held at Holyroodhouse.

The Saturday afternoon garden party, thought to cost about £20,000 to stage, was widely regarded as one of the highlights of the Kirk’s social calendar.

However, reader’s comments posted by the Edinburgh Evening News seem favorable to the cutback considering current circumstances.

Finally, there is another news story that is more tangential to the Assembly and probably only hit the press because of the celebrity of the individual involved and possibly his sexual orientation.  There are stories circulating, I’ll point to the one from Pink News , about actor and gay rights campaigner Alan Cumming being asked to leave the Church of Scotland.  The story quotes Cumming as saying:

Writing in an online question and answer session with fans, he said: “It was more about tradition, habit, the thing to do. Then I began to realise that my being a part of it was only condoning and validating lots of things I disapprove of: oppression, guilt, shame etc.

“I began to talk about my lack of belief in the press, because, just like gay rights, I think more people need to speak out to highlight hypocrisy and fear.

“The Church of Scotland wrote to my mum and said they had read something about me being an atheist and would I like to leave the church, and I did. So I was excommunicated.”

The story also says:

A Church of Scotland spokesman told the Herald: “We have no knowledge of this. Such a decision could be made at the discretion of an individual congregation’s Kirk session.”

As I read this the information is slim but it just sounds like good Presbyterian polity to me — the session that had responsibility for him had questions about his Christian faith and appear to have made the inquiry of that faith and suggestion that if he did not agree with the Kirk’s doctrine he might consider removing himself.  There is no mention at all of any ecclesiastical judicial action which I would take to be a formal excommunication.  That appears to be the term he uses, not the term used by the Kirk.

UPDATE: As I was writing this Queerty posted a story titled “Is Alan Cumming Exaggerating About Being Excommunicated From Church of Scotland?” with one comment so far supportive of the exaggeration view.

Anyway, we are getting close to GA.  The Twitter hashtag #ga2010 is in use and there may be others.  I am watching for the agenda, reports and blue book to get posted and I’ll let you know as soon as I see that they have been.

EPC Report Of The Interim Committee On Women Teaching Elders

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The Evangelical Presbyterian Church has released the Report of the Interim Committee on Women Teaching Elders1 and it is a document that polity wonks will want to have a look at.  It lays out a rational for the EPC to structure itself in light of its motto “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things charity”2 to accommodate the ordination of women in some congregations and presbyteries. Now you may not agree with the committee’s analysis and recommendations, and in fact the report acknowledges that some people won’t when it says:

The interim committee does not advocate running from this potential conflict but heading into it with humility and a conviction that we will honor God by treating one another respectfully. The unique ethos of the EPC on women’s ordination intrinsically implies that not all Presbyterians will be comfortable with our ecclesiastical arrangement.

The report begins with a review of the situation in the EPC.  The first line says “A guiding principle of the EPC from its beginning has been our declared intent to allow liberty on the women’s ordination question.”  The second paragraph sets out the polity basis for this stance:

At the beginning, we must acknowledge the fundamental principles that inform the EPC’s liberty on women’s ordination. The Biblical Principle: The Holy Scriptures are the inspired Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. This authoritative Word is true in all that it teaches. The Ecclesiastical Principle: Women’s ordination is a non-essential issue about which faithful believers may have honest differences of biblical interpretation and practice. One’s view of women’s ordination is not an essential element to the catholic faith, Evangelical Protestantism, or the Reformed Tradition. The EPC has always affirmed that women’s ordination is a matter of biblical interpretation, not biblical authority.

So the committee sets forth at least two important Presbyterian principles here — The primacy of Holy Scripture and the freedom of conscience in the matters of non-essentials.  (Whether this issue falls into the category of essential or non-essential we will return to later.)

Another Presbyterian principle the committee bases their recommendations on is the right and responsibility for electing officers:

“The particular church has the right to elect its own officers” (§BOG 7-2). This right is guaranteed in perpetuity to all churches in the EPC. Similarly, the authority of presbyteries to determine their membership is granted in the constitution.

So given these principles as the doctrinal basis the committee makes three recommendations:
 
1) Reaffirmation of the EPC Position on Women’s Ordination
The committee recommends making the denomination’s stance as set forth in the Position Paper explicit in the constitution :

Recommendation: That BOG §2-2 be amended by adding an excerpt from the EPC Position Paper on the Ordination of Women to the existing statement. The amended BOG §2-2 would read:

The Officers of the Church as set forth in Scripture are: Teaching Elders (designated by many titles in Scripture, including Ministers and Pastors), Ruling Elders, and Deacons. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church does not believe that the issue of the ordination of women is an essential of the faith. Since people of good faith who equally love the Lord and hold to the infallibility of Scripture differ on this issue, and since uniformity of view and practice is not essential to the existence of the visible church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church has chosen to leave this decision to the Spirit-guided consciences of particular congregations concerning the ordination of women as Elders and Deacons, and to the presbyteries concerning the ordination of women as Ministers.

The rational argues that while the Position Paper has functioned as justification of BOG §7-2 “it would be appropriate to insert these succinct excerpts from the Position Paper into the constitution.”  They also point out that there is precedent for doing something like this from when the document Essentials of Our Faith was incorporated into the constitution.

2) Transfer of Congregations to Adjacent Presbyteries for Reasons Regarding Women as Teaching Elders

The interim committee recognizes the tension inherent in our polity regarding the ordination/election of women as Teaching Elders. Basic polity rights can actually compete with one another in presbyteries on this issue. The right of the congregation to elect its officers and the authority of the presbytery to examine persons for a position as Teaching Elder can create conflict. A congregation may elect a woman as a Teaching Elder while a presbytery may decline that call due to the majority interpretation of Scripture on this issue. This creates an obvious tension that we would like to resolve.

The committee goes on to recognize the situation of a congregation transferring into the EPC through the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery with a female TE in place.  So how does the denomination provide this liberty within the structure of the geographic presbyteries?  The committee writes “We desire to provide freedom for these congregations without compromising the constitutional authority exercised by presbyteries.”

In this section the committee provides only general guidance for changing the BOG not specific wording like Recommendation 1.  For this recommendation part A suggests “In specific cases, for reasons related to the prohibition of the ordination or reception of women as Teaching Elders, a church may petition a geographically adjacent presbytery for membership.”  This would require all the usual approvals that we Presbyterians are familiar with for transferring presbyteries — request by the session with explicit reasons regarding this ordination issue, approval by the receiving presbytery and approval by the dismissing presbytery, both by majority vote.  And the wording of the recommendation is clear that congregations with positions on either side of the issue could request to transfer.

The second part of this recommendation addresses churches entering the denomination through either transitional presbyteries or directly.  The proposal is that the BOG would provide for the church to first consult with the geographic presbytery they would be within and “If, after such consultation, the presbytery discerns the need for relief for the entering congregation on this issue, then it will contact the adjacent geographic presbytery and recommend admission of the church”

3) Immediate Relief for a Presbytery in Conflict
Finally, this committee arose from a specific overture at the last General Assembly by Mid-America Presbytery to permit the Presbytery to act as two parallel presbyteries in the same geographic area.  The committee recommends dividing the Presbytery into two geographic presbyteries roughly along the Mississippi River with the expectation that one would permit ordaining/electing women Teaching Elders.

Discussion:
If you are tracking the debates in the PC(USA) and the PCA over ordination standards you have probably already read this document with one or the other or both of those branches in mind.  Here are my thoughts…

The issue of presbytery membership is the easier one to discuss and for the EPC with their tradition of “local option” the recommended relief seems to make a lot of sense.  I have not analyzed the pattern of presbyteries to see how far a church would have to “reach” to find a compatible presbytery, but one could envision the membership patterns becoming a checker board with fuzzy boundaries between the “yes” and “no” presbyteries.  If this recommendation is adopted it will be interesting to see how much this becomes a point of consideration in the future in forming new presbyteries like it is part of the thinking in Recommendation 3.  In other words, will there be consideration of whether a “permissive” or “restrictive” presbytery is needed in a particular geographic area.

It is interesting to compare this with the proposals coming to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that call for flexible presbytery membership and an alternate synod structure.  It strikes me that this EPC proposal tries to preserve the geographic nature of presbyteries to the maximum extent possible, something not a prominent in the PC(USA) proposals.

The other issue in this proposal is what is essential, or how ordination standards are “Biblical Principles” and not subject to “honest differences of biblical interpretation.”  The Presbyterian Church in America is clear that the ordained offices of elder and deacon are open only to men based upon the witness of Scripture.  The discussion that is ongoing in that branch is about interpretations and practices that are nibbling around the edges of that doctrine regarding the participation of women as commissioned helpers of deacons.

The situation in the PC(USA) is the opposite and they have inherited a stance from the former United Presbyterian Church that the ordination of women is an essential.  Knowing that this post was in the works, at the very end of my last post I made a cryptic, and probably snarky, comment that referred back to the 1975 General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission decision in the case of Maxwell v. Presbytery of Pittsburgh, now universally known as the Kenyon Decision.  In that case Mr. Walter Wynn Kenyon was denied ordination as a Teaching Elder because he disagreed with the ordination of women.  He was clear about his declared exception and the fact that he would not participate in the ordination of a woman, but he also said he would not hinder someone else doing it.  Pittsburgh Presbytery approved his exception and cleared him for ordination but the Presbytery decision was challenged.   In the end the GAPJC decided:

The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and guided by its confessions, has now developed its understanding of the equality of all people (both male and female) before God. It has expressed this understanding in the Book of Order with such clarity as to make the candidate’s stated position a rejection of its government and discipline.

In the PC(USA) accepting the ordination of women is an essential according to the GAPJC decision.

So what if you read this report and try to imagine it as applying to the PC(USA) and its current controversy which has been cast to be about biblical interpretation of non-essentials and the presbytery’s authority to decide who can be ordained? An ordination standard currently in the Book of Order (G-6.0106b), seen as a “clear mandate” by some , is included in a General Assembly Authoritative Interpretation as something that can be declared by a presbytery as a non-essential.  The overlap and parallel nature of these discussions is striking.

But this discussion in the PC(USA) is not an independent one because it has the shadow of the Kenyon decision cast across it — how is a 1975 decision about what the Book of Order says is essential applicable to the denomination today?  I am not the first to consider this juxtaposition and the Kenyon decision has been cited as one of the reasons for churches leaving the PC(USA) for the PCA and EPC in the 70’s and 80’s over the disagreement of not just the essential itself but over the GA, and not the presbytery, being able to specify that as essential.

On the other hand this new report points to the principle advocated by the recent PC(USA) AI that presbyteries have the right and responsibility for deciding on the suitability of candidates for ordination or election.  Essentially all leadership decisions are to be done under “local option.”  (And again it is noted by some that the Kenyon decision and G-6.0106b properly or improperly raised certain ordination standards to the level of denomination-wide essentials.)

So as I said at the beginning this report crafts a resolution suitable for the “ethos of the EPC,” but a resolution that will not have the concurrence of all Presbyterian polity wonks.  I believe that the committee has done a good job of crafting a solution that fits the circumstances and polity of the EPC.  How the overtures in the PCA and PC(USA) that includes facets of the EPC report recommendations will fare will be interesting to see.  At the present time the EPC model does not fit the polity of these other branches which have some significant internal challenges.  Going forward it will be interesting to see how essentials and non-essentials and unity and liberty are balanced in each of these.  And of course, “In All Things, Charity.”

Footnotes
[1] This link is to a PDF format version I created for easier download. The original is a Word document file available from the EPC web site .
[2] An interesting discussion on the origin of this phrase can be found at http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/augustine/quote.html

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — A Survey Of The Landscape

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Over the last few days I have become refocused on the upcoming General Assemblies and trying to map out my strategy for blogging in advance of each one.  Needless to say, if I am going to blog about every overture submitted to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) it will take some time.  Or maybe not…

At the present time there are 102 overtures, two committee reports, and 52 recommendations from standing committees of GA entities.  But of those 102 overtures, well over half fall into six predictable categories.  Here is the landscape we are looking at:

Ordination Standards:  It should be no surprise to anyone following the PC(USA) these days that the hottest topic for this GA, as measured by the number of overtures, is ordination standards.  There are seventeen overtures that directly address G-6.0106b or other sections of the Book of Order that deal with ordination standards.  In addition, there are a few more that address the way that the General Assembly does it’s business that could influence the ordination standards status as well.  And there is one, Overture 56, that proposes to change the Book of Order to require future changes to the Book of Order to have the concurrence of two-thirds of the presbyteries making it significantly harder to change the Constitution.  (For reference, there are other Presbyterian branches, such as the PCA, which do require a 2/3 vote.)

Marriage:  Second in the number of related overtures is the topic of Marriage.  Not counting the report of the Special Committee on Civil Unions and Christian Marriage and the minority report, which have not appeared on PC-Biz yet, there are eleven overtures asking for Book of Order changes or Interpretations related to this.

General Assembly operations and procedures:  This is the most “jello” category, a little hard to nail down, but I count about 15 overtures that address how the General Assembly does it’s business.  While a few ask for constitutional changes, like Overture 54 to reduce the number of commissioners that I mentioned yesterday, most are changes to the Standing Rules.  This assortment of overtures deals with who can speak, who can vote, what and when business can be transacted.  There are some interesting and attractive items in here, like Overture 38 to give priority to controversial items or Overture 74 which would have the standing rules require committee reports and votes on business items to all be placed ahead of dinner before commissioners get too tired.

But what is interesting about this category is that there are several additional items in the recommendations category.  One of these is Recommendation 38 from the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly which would add the requirement that when the Moderator is empowered to appoint a task force or special committee the Moderator consults with the Nominating Committee.  (Maybe Bruce was a bit too free wheeling and independent in his appointments and they don’t want that to happen again.  We just want to make sure it is done decently and in order.)

New Form of Government (nFOG): The three remaining categories are all close but this weighs in at number four with seven overtures.  Some try to perfect it while two, Overtures 44 and 95, ask for more time to consider it and one, Overture 98, wants to dismiss the task force and ask the presbyteries to roll back all the resent changes including the undoing of the Chapter 14 change made a couple of years ago.  And then Overture 95 invites more suggested changes from the church on the nFOG.  We could take one step beyond their suggestion, post it on a Wiki, and let the whole church work away at it for two years.  (And no, I am not being sarcastic but am seriously considering if it would be a worthwhile exercise.)  Overture 53 seems to say that the nFOG is only a starting point and after we approve it further revisions are still necessary to make it a manual of operations.

Middle East:  Again, this category is tied to both an ongoing discussion in the church and a just released task force report that is not on PC-Biz yet.  This is the area that seems to be receiving the most outside publicity and criticism from Jewish groups and the mainstream media.  There are six overtures in this area, most of which do not directly address the report since the report was so recently released.  In addition, there are three recommendations from GA permanent committees on this topic.

Middle Governing Bodies: Finally, there are five overtures and one recommendation to study or change the middle governing body structure.  These include two overtures to increase flexibility, one in presbytery membership (45) and one in synod membership (36), and the rest to decide if we need to cut some of them back.

Finally, across all the categories there are two overtures and four recommendations that request a task force, special commission, and even an Administrative Commission to get something done.  I am still trying to decide if the fact that twice as many of these recommendations come from the permanent committees means something significant, positive or negative, about the way the PC(USA) does business.

Those six categories cover 61 of the 102 overtures posted on PC-Biz.  So the landscape is dominated by these controversial issues.  But in between we find some interesting individual items.  There is Overture 12 “On designating May 1 every year as a Day of Prayer for Healing.”  (Interesting idea although I would have liked to hear the rational for that particular date since there are other things on May 1 as well.)  And Overture 48 which would add language about the Covenant Community to the section on membership.

At this point we are well past the 120 day deadline so no more overtures proposing changes to the Book of Order would be expected.  But there is plenty of time for other overtures before the 60 day (those with financial implications) and 45 day (all others) deadlines so the number should continue to grow.  At this point before the 218th GA there were only 75 overtures posted so we are well ahead of that pace this year and we can probably expect more than the 128 overtures there were for that meeting.  We shall see where it finally ends up.

Upcoming 38th General Assembly Of The PCA — Mid-February Update: Intro and Overtures 1-5

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The 38th General Assembly (2010) of the Presbyterian Church in America will convene in Nashville, Tenn., on June 29th.  The PCA is getting ready with the announcement of their 50 Days of Prayer for the General Assembly devotional, this year to focus on the Sermon on the Mount.  The web page for the Assembly is up (although sized a bit larger than I usually keep my monitors) with a link for registration and the overtures page.  There is no docket yet but the schedule is posted.

The theme for the Assembly is “Love, Sing, Wonder.” As the Organizing Committee web site explains, this is taken from the first line of a hymn written in 1774 by John Newton, “Let us love and sing and wonder.”  And these are words which have found a new audience in a contemporary musical arrangement.

There are currently five overtures posted:

Overture 1: “Ministry to Seniors” from New Jersey Presbytery.  This overture seeks to affirm and encourage both ministry to seniors as well as ministry by seniors.  It asks for five things: 1) Commending the Christian Education and Publications Committee (CEPC) for their good and ongoing work in this area. 2) And while commending them request their continued work in the area and this work be included in their reports to future GA’s and (3) that it be sure to include the Biblical importance of ministry by seniors as well as ministry to them.  4) That the Sunday following Labor Day be designated “Seniors’ Sunday” and (5) that the CEPC help promote the special Sunday and consider a week-long special event, as appropriate.

On the one hand the second Sunday in September has now become “Grandparents’ Day” in our secular society and this presents a way to turn that to the Lord’s purposes and recognize the wide variety of contributions made by seniors, not just their being grandparents.  On the other hand, how often are we to find special purposes for the Lord’s Day beyond the regular worship of God.  Are other Sundays throughout the year held up by the PCA for special recognitions like this?  For a strong argument against the hybridization of Sundays for purposes like this I suggest reading Andrew’s comments on Overture 1 at A Profitable Word. 

Overture 2:  “Amend BCO 9-7 to Prohibit Deaconesses” from Central Carolina Presbytery.  This overture asks the Assembly to send to the presbyteries an amendment to the Book of Church Order section 9-7 which would append to the end of that section about deacons’ assistants the following line for clarification:

These assistants to the deacons shall not be referred to as deacons or deaconesses, nor are they to be elected by the congregation nor formally commissioned, ordained, or installed as though they were office bearers in the church.

I don’t think it is news to any of my readers that this is currently a hotly-debated subject in the PCA and this is probably only the first of several overtures on both sides of this discussion.  Once all the overtures are in and we know the lay of the land I may have more to say.  In the mean time you can check out my comments about this overture (as part of a related discussion) from earlier this month and Kevin’s exhaustive analysis of the overture and broader situation over at A Profitable Word.

Overture 3:  “Expand Boundaries of Pacific Northwest Presbytery” from the Pacific Northwest Presbytery.  This overture asks the Assembly to approve the expansion of the Pacific Northwest Presbytery to encompass all areas of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska where there are PCA churches not yet within the bounds of a presbytery.  Specifically,

Therefore, the Presbytery of the Pacific Northwest overtures the 38th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America to expand the borders of the Presbytery to include the entirety of the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

First, where is the Presbytery now?  The Presbyteries web page tells us “All of Washington west of and including the counties of Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish, King, Pierce, Lewis and Skamania.”  According to the church directory page there are 24 PCA churches in the State of Washington, 19 in Pacific Northwest, three in Korean Northwest, and two in Korean Southwest Presbytery.  The directory also tells us that there is one church in Alaska, seven in Oregon (one of those in Korean Northwest), and one in Idaho.  Interestingly the directory associates all those churches with Pacific Northwest, if not already with Korean Northwest, even though this overture asks to formally expand the borders to include them.

In order to fully appreciate this overture it is also helpful to have a look at the Guidelines for Dividing Presbyteries since certain of the language in the overture’s whereases is referential to that document.  This document not only concerns dividing presbyteries but presents what are considered preferred parameters for a presbytery.  The first nine of the twelve considerations are:

  1. A radius of 2 1/2 hours maximum driving distance
  2. A minimum of 10 churches
  3. A total communicant membership of at least 1000
  4. Presbytery boundaries should not partition metropolitan areas
  5. A presbytery should have regional cohesiveness
  6. A presbytery should have at least three churches each having a membership of at least 125 communicant members
  7. Presbytery boundaries should be such that its member churches have a potential for shared ministries
  8. Presbytery boundaries should be such that its member churches have a common commitment to the region within the boundaries and sense their shared responsibility to cover the region with the Gospel
  9. When a presbytery reaches 30 churches it should consider whether subdivision would lead to more effective ministry

So where does this put the expanded Pacific Northwest?  It will clearly be larger than ideal in driving distance but with on
ly one church in Alaska there is not much that can be done there.  Yet even the Washington/Oregon/Idaho churches will be too far apart for that to be reasonable.  The expanded presbytery will have 27 churches, well more than the minimum and approaching the suggested upper limit.  Beyond that, without some more research I can not speak for the membership or church sizes but the expanded presbytery would probably still have the regional cohesiveness and potential for shared ministries.

In short, because of the distances involved and the potential situation of lots of churches in sparsely populated areas I can understand the objective of one large presbytery with many congregations.  However, under the established guidelines I would hope some study would be done to see if two presbyteries would provide a better arrangement “to cover the region with the Gospel.”

Overture 4: “Revise Boundary of Central Georgia Presbytery” from Central Georgia Presbytery.  This one is short and sweet – Central Georgia and Savannah River Presbyteries both agree that two counties now in Savannah River would be better served for spreading the Gospel if they were in Central Georgia.  A concurring overture from Savannah River Presbytery would be expected.

Overture 5:  “Amend BCO 26-2 to Clarify How Non-binding Sections of the BCO May Be Amended.” from Covenant Presbytery.  The requested change to the Book of Church Order reads:

Therefore be it resolved that BCO 26-2 be amended as follows (new text in bold and underlined):
26-2. Amendments to any portion of the Book of Church Order, whether constitutionally binding or not, may be made only in the following manner:

  1. Approval of the proposed amendment by majority of those present and voting in the General Assembly, and its recommendation to the Presbyteries.
  2. The advice and consent of two-thirds (2/3) of the Presbyteries.
  3. The approval and enactment by a subsequent General Assembly by a majority of those present and voting.

This seems straight forward, but let’s unpack this a little bit — The PCA Book of Church Order has binding and non-binding parts, as this overture recognizes.  The problem that arose was that the previous GA interpreted the BCO such that they went ahead and amended non-binding parts by themselves without sending the changes to the presbyteries for their concurrence.

So now we have this overture which provides a catalyst for interesting thought and discussion among polity wonks.  The issues involved touch on the intersection of two parts of Presbyterian polity: 1) When does a General Assembly action requires concurrence of the presbyteries, and 2) in what cases and to what degree the constitutional language is binding.

On the first question there are two general models.  The first are branches that require presbytery concurrence any time the constitutional language is to be changed.  This would include most American Presbyterian branches that have a Book of Church Order or Book of Order that has constitutional authority.  In this case for the PCA this overture requests to make it clear that this is the case for their BCO.

The other approach to requiring presbytery concurrence is usually referred to as a Barrier Act and is seen throughout much of the rest of the world including Scotland, Canada and New Zealand.  Part of the Church of Scotland Barrier Act says:

…that General Assemblies be very deliberate in making of the [Acts of Assembly], and that the whole Church have a previous knowledge thereof, and their opinion be had therein, and for preventing any sudden alteration or innovation, or other prejudice to the Church, in either doctrine or worship, or discipline, or government thereof, now happily established;

So the areas that an Assembly must seek the concurrence of the “whole Church” are “doctrine or worship, or discipline,” or ecclesiastical government.  In general, these branches have a collection of Acts of Assembly instead of a Book of Order and the Barrier Act is applied in an Assembly to specific acts that involve the four “core” areas.  But rules here are not hard and fast — the Presbyterian Church in Canada has the whole collection with the Barrier Act, Acts of Assembly, and the Book of Forms. And the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand has a Book of Order but has marked those sections subject to the “special legislative procedure,” which is their term for needing the concurrence of the presbyteries.

The second question that this overture touches on are what parts of our Presbyterian polity are binding and which are not.  For the PCA BCO this is clearly stated in the head note to the Directory for Worship:

Temporary statement adopted by the Third General Assembly to preface the Directory for Worship: The Directory for Worship is an approved guide and should be taken seriously as the mind of the Church agreeable to the Standards. However, it does not have the force of law and is not to be considered obligatory in all its parts. BCO 56, 57 and 58 have been given full constitutional authority by the Eleventh General Assembly after being submitted to the Presbyteries and receiving the necessary two-thirds (2/3) approval of the Presbyteries.

Those three specified sections that have full constitutional authority are ones dealing with the sacraments.

(This raises three slightly-related, and possibly frivolous, questions — 1) This preface uses “obligatory” and the overture uses “binding.” Should they be harmonized? 2) Is a “temporary statement” from 35 GA’s ago still truly a temporary statement.  (I have to laugh because my church got away with a building with a temporary use permit for about that long.) 3) Since this preface is in the Directory for Worship but not in one of the specified sections, is it not obligatory itself?  (I told you this was going to get frivolous.))

One of the reasons I do bring up that last frivolous statement is because there is a case on appeal in the PC(USA) regarding the binding nature of their Directory for Worship.  The PC(USA) uses terminology rather than itemization to determine what is obligatory and the preface to the whole Book of Order lays this out:

In this Book of Order
(1) SHALL and IS TO BE/ARE TO BE signify practice that is mandated,
(2) SHOULD signifies practice that is strongly recommended,
(3) IS APPROPRIATE signifies practice that is commended as suitable,
(4) MAY signifies practice that is permissible but not required.
(5) ADVISORY HANDBOOK signifies a handbo
ok produced by agencies of the General Assembly to guide synods and presbyteries in procedures related to the oversight of ministry. Such handbooks suggest procedures that are commended, but not required.

And as we saw in the Presbytery PJC decision in the Southard case there is disagreement over the role of the Directory for Worship and the authority of any specific paragraph if it does not contain one of these prescriptive words.  That will be settled by further judicial review.

So, getting back to the overture at hand — In the model of Presbyterians who operate with a Barrier Act, there is a tradition and logic to the interpretation last year that changing sections that are not “core” and obligatory need not have the concurrence of the presbyteries.  However, this overture would make the language clear, and hold it in line with American Presbyterian tradition, that if language in a constitutional document is to be changed it must be sent to the presbyteries for approval.

Now, I have used this overture as a platform to launch into a discussion of a couple related, but not necessarily germane, topics.  For a more focused discussion I again point you to A Profitable Word where Andrew has a post mostly discussing Overture 5, but touching on 3 and 4 as well.

(And I should say, in case you have not figured it out by now, that the blog A Profitable Word is a relatively new blog written by a team of four polity-knowledgeable elders from the PCA who know the PCA history, nuance and back-story to their polity better than I do.  A good blog for polity wonks to keep an eye on.)

So there is the start to this General Assembly business.  We know that more waits in the wings and I will return to that in a future post.  Stay tuned.

Some Brief Updates

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There are a number of stories I have covered recently that now have updates that I have been collecting.  However, with no sign that there will be enough other related information for any to warrant a post of their own in the short term I now present a series of these in one general post.

Church of Scotland/Free Church of Scotland Discussions

In an update to the internal discussion in the Church of Scotland over ordination standards, it was announced by the Free Church of Scotland last week that they have decided to suspend their biannual talks with the CofS.  In the news item they say:

However, the Free Church has said that, in the light of the uncertainty over the Kirk’s position on homosexuality following the induction of an allegedly gay minister earlier this year, which appeared to be sanctioned by their General Assembly, it cannot for the time being continue “as if nothing had happened.”

The announcement goes on to say that the decision was accepted with regret and then quotes the convener of the Free Church committee:

Rev. Iver Martin, Convener of the Free Church Ecumenical Relations Committee, said, “Suspending the talks, whilst regrettable, was the most tangible way of expressing the Free Church’s discomfort with the failure of the Church of Scotland to take a thoroughly Biblical stand on the place of marriage between one man and one woman.” The Free Church continues to value and encourage the close relationship that there is between congregations of both denominations in many areas of Scotland.

Case heard by the Presbyterian Church in America Standing Judicial Commission

It has been over a year since I have touched on the Federal Vision discussions in the PCA, and in that time the controversy has been moving along quietly but steadily.  Since the 35th General Assembly adopted the report of a study committee that was critical of this theological perspective the denomination has been dealing with it in the regular presbytery review process.  For the Pacific Northwest Presbytery this began with a theological examination about 13 months ago and the presbytery accepting that examination.  A complaint was filed and this past week the Standing Judicial Commission of the PCA heard the complaint.  Jason Stellman over at De Regnis Duobus is one of the complainants in the case and has provided his observations of the proceedings.  He includes this description:

A couple of the eyebrow-raising statements from the respondant include: (1) His insistence that the Westminster Standards do not teach that the covenant of works sets forth a distinct principle by which we receive eternal life from that of the covenant of grace; (2) His encouragement to the SJC that they all read John Frame’s review of Horton’s Christless Christianity so as to learn from Frame how to avoid the dangers of Westminster Seminary California’s sectarianism; and perhaps the most telling of all was (3)seeing firsthand what happens when one flattens out redemptive history so as to take Yahweh’s dealings with Old Testament Israel under the conditional, Mosaic covenant as an unqualified, across-the-board paradigm for understanding how God relates to the church today. When asked by the commission, “In what sense are we saved by baptism?”, the response was given, “Well, in the same sense that God can pardon his people and then damn them.”

The PCA SJC has 42 days to render their decision (unlike the PC(USA) GAPJC which must render their decision before the meeting adjourns).  TE Stellman concludes with this:

And to those of you who love asking, yes, if they find in favor of Leithart [the respondant] and against us, I will submit to that and never bring it up again.

Deaconess Issues In The PCA

The more prominent discussion in the PCA recently has been the status of women serving in ordained office, or what seems to resemble ordained office.  Recently, the discussion was fueled by a video of a commissioning service at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, NY.  Well, Bob Mattes asked the senior pastor at Redeemer, TE Tim Keller, about the video and has posted the response at Green Baggins.  In short, Rev. Keller writes:

We do not ordain our deaconesses nor do we ask our congregation to obey and submit to them. The minister in the video is newer on our staff and he accidentally read the deacons’ questions from the BCO and did not use the different questions we commonly use for deaconesses.  Others who go to Redeemer can attest that this is not our practice, and it will not be in the future. The minister in the video apologized when he realized what he had done.

While Mr. Keller has provided this explanation I would note that the BaylyBlog, one of Redeemers strongest critics, has updated the original post to acknowledge the explanation, but they basically say there is still a problem with what Redeemer does.

Responses To A Minister’s Term Not Extended By The Uniting Church In Australia

A couple of months ago I posted some comments on my initial review of the polity in the Uniting Church in Australia and illustrated that with a controversy that had erupted when the Illawarra Presbytery declined to extend the term of the Rev. Gordon Bradbery to his present call at Wesley Uniting Church on the Mall.

Now, before we go getting too Presbyterian about this, let me remind you that this is the Uniting Church and while the Presbyterians were part of the union that formed the church the polity is a bit different.  In that denomination the pastors are called with specified term lengths which may or may not be renewed or extended.  In addition, even though a congregation may vote overwhelmingly to want the call extended by the fixed amount, the presbytery, and in this case the synod as well, have substantial input into the extension.

So in the last two months there has been no change in the presbytery’s decision not to extend Rev. Bradbery’s term, but there has been plenty of activity regarding the decision and trying to get popular support for reversing the decision.  This includes a meeting of presbytery leaders with Rev. Bradbery (what the Illawarra Mercury called “peace talks”) and a letter from the Presbytery, a Facebook page to gather support and communicate to his supporters, an online petition (currently 20 signatures), as well as a recent op-ed piece in the Illawarra Mercury.  Too early to tell if the popular support will sway the presbytery but it is interesting to see the role the Internet is playing in the rather local story.

And finally, not an update but a news brief…

New Official PC(USA) Blog – Beyond the Ordinary

There is a new official blog from the PC(USA) called Beyond the Ordinary that discusses the U.S. Congregational Life Survey.  It is written by staff from the PC(USA) Research Services office and, as you would expect from them, deals with their statistical numbers.  It will be interesting to see what they have to say.

Church Of Scotland Commission Of Assembly Meeting – Ordination Standards Debate And Manse Occupancy

This was an interesting meeting last Friday (Nov. 13) in a number of ways.  One way that it was interesting was because of the media attention that was paid to it.  I seldom see much, if any coverage, of the meetings of the Commission of Assembly.  But extending on that it was interesting in what the media coverage was about.  With two controversial decisions to be considered by the Commission, only one of them seemed to get any media attention, particularly in advance.  I will cover that item second, but a brief reminder of the role of the Commission and the other item that did not get much media attention.

In the Church of Scotland each General Assembly establishes a sub-group to act on important matters in the interim year until the next Assembly meets.  As a commission they are empowered to act with the full authority and power of the whole Assembly on many matters.  We are fortunate that the Rev. Ian Watson of Kirkmuirhill served as a commissioner to this meeting and brings us a lot of insightful details in his blog.

The first item relates to the continuing journey regarding ordination standards in the Church of Scotland, specifically as it relates to same-sex partnered clergy and candidates.  The short review is that after a church called a minister last spring the call was protested and the GA decided to deny the protest.  But, the GA also decided that the topic should be looked at by a special commission and during the two years the commission is working there are to be no calls or ordinations of same-sex partnered clergy.  But what about individuals starting the process?  An individual was approved by the Presbytery of Hamilton, a dissent and complaint was filed and the individual withdrew. However, that withdrawal did not halt the protest and there was a request for clarification whether the moratorium did apply to candidates.  That is the question brought to the Commission of Assembly last week.

In his detailed post about the meeting Rev. Watson tells us:

The end result was that the Commission decided to uphold the dissent and complaint against the Presbytery of Hamilton.  The practical result is that the deliverance brought in the name of Rev. Dr. John McPake at May’s General Assembly (amended after long debate)—the moratorium—is to be interpreted broadly and not restrictively.  When it instructs Courts, Councils and Committees of the Church not “to make decisions in relation to contentious matters of sexuality, with respect to Ordination and Induction” that includes training for the ministry, which, by its very nature looks towards ordination and induction.   Should a Court, Council or Committee be faced with making a decision in this regard they must decline to do so, sisting the matter if appropriate, until 31st May 2011.

In his description of the meeting he talks about the background to this presbytery’s decision and the advice they had received from the Principle Clerk’s office.  He also talks about what the intent of the moratorium was and how a literal versus intended interpretation was applied.  He sums up that section with this (emphases his):

While it might seem that the Presbytery had reached a wise compromise, it presented the wider church with a problem.  Was this indeed the outcome May’s General Assembly had in mind?  Some felt that this was too narrow an interpretation.  While Hamilton Presbytery might wish to add a rider to their acceptance of the candidate, other Presbyteries might not.   Were this decision to go unchallenged, it would appear that the Church of Scotland had not decided not to train sexually active homosexuals for the ministry. 

Many believe that the moratorium provided the church with the chance to calm down.  The relative peace which has descended upon the church would be endangered if it become known that the moratorium was being applied so strictly as to be null and void for all practical purposes.

In the end the Commission agreed 43-38 to the counter-motion, made by Rev. Watson, that the moratorium applied to those training for the ministry as well.

As I said at the beginning, outside of Rev. Watson’s account, and the blogs like this one that link to it, the coverage of this action has been limited.  I have seen no coverage in the mainstream media, but there is some in the alternative media.  One example is an article from PinkNews which mentions the meeting and decision in the first line, and then spends the rest of the article profiling the candidate who was approved and then withdrew.  In the blogosphere there are some interesting comments by John Ross at Recycled Missionaries.

The second item did get the coverage in the mainstream media leading up to the meeting including the Edinburgh Evening News and The Sun.

This question revolves around a provision in the Regulations of the General Assembly, specifically Reg VII 2007 item 2. (Reg. VII 2007 in Word Format.)  That item says:

2. A Minister has the right to live in the Manse and a corresponding duty to occupy it.

The question raised is “what does it mean to ‘occupy’ the manse?”

The specific situation is that the Rev. John Munro, pastor of Fairmilehead Church near Edinburgh, lives in his personally owned home about 1/2 km from the church.  He and his wife did live in the manse next to the church for about 5 years but moved about two years ago reportedly because his wife did not enjoy living in the manse.  However, Rev. Munro made a good-faith effort to “occupy” the manse by working there every day.  Edinburgh Presbytery ruled that using the manse’s library and having possession of the manse’s contents were not sufficient and that occupying the manse entailed living there.

The Commission of Assembly agreed with the Presbytery by a vote of 64 to 5 (as reported in the Edinburgh Evening News) and has sent the case back down to the Presbytery for its action.

At this point I, as someone outside the Church of Scotland, am scratching my head a bit.  First the action is reported but the reasons behind this regulation are not clear t
o me.  (Or maybe I should say that I can think of a dozen reasons for the regulation but I don’t know which one is correct.)  The best indication we have is one reference in The Sun article where an unnamed friend of Rev. Munro says “They fear if the Inland Revenue thinks manses are no longer necessary for the job, they will change its tax status. But they are being paranoid. Since 2003 only five people have asked to live out with their manse in Scotland.”

Here in the states many churches have done away with the manse for a variety of reasons.  These include the fact that a manse is “one size fits all” and the minister and their family don’t always fit the property.  Also, some view the opportunity to own their property outright as an investment to help when they reach retirement.  And in the recent “housing bubble” many new church plants could not afford to purchase land for the church, let alone a manse for their pastor.  Finally, in the states the tax codes generally allow a minister similar tax treatment if they are in a manse or receive a housing allowance for their own property.

So this case in Edinburgh goes back to the Presbytery and possible outcomes range from censure to full dismissal from the charge.  We will see what the Presbytery decides.

Ordination Standards In The Evangelical Presbyterian Church — The Current Discussion

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In the Evangelical Presbyterian Church the discussion on ordination standards appears to me to be more of a speed bump than the litmus test it seems to have become in other Presbyterian branches.  The church is holding their stated position, that whether or not women should be ordained is a non-essential and therefore a local standard, in tension with the incumbent position of the churches coming in from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the conflict they may be in with the geographic presbytery in which they reside.  Because the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery provides a temporary location for these churches the issue is important but not immediately pressing.

At the last General Assembly the Presbytery of Mid-America proposed one solution for co-existence which did not meet constitutional muster.  Recognizing this as an issue that required a solution the PJC recommended that an Interim Committee be formed to look at the situation.  The Moderator has now named this Committee and they held their first meeting in Memphis, TN, last week according to the article in the EP News.  The committee is composed of 18 members — one teaching elder and one ruling elder from each presbytery.  Its charge is to “explore ways to include those pastors and churches with conflicting positions on Women Teaching Elders in the presbyteries of the EPC” and is to report back to the 30th General Assembly in 2010.

I have seen no reports from the meeting itself yet but it will be interesting to follow the path they take in working through this issue.  In closing I will leave you with the words of the PJC about the importance of this discussion from its decision last summer:

The PJC wants the record to reflect that it recognizes and deeply appreciates the serious nature of the issues prompting the Mid-America Overture, the historical background and self-described struggle in the Mid-America Presbytery, the extraordinary effort and prayerful attention exhibited in working in harmony and love with one another, and the heartfelt and deep concern for the peace, purity, and unity of their presbytery reflected by the Implementation Committee in their presentation. Here it must be added that the PJC is saddened by the possibility that there may come a time when wonderful children of God might decide to divide themselves over an issue now established in the Church as a non-essential.

Current News In The Ordination Standards Discussion In The Church Of Scotland

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Compared to my two previous notes on developments in the PC(USA) and the PCA this recap on developments in the Church of Scotland will be relatively short since their process is much more focused at the moment.

You may remember that the last General Assembly dealt with a protest filed by a group of presbyters who considered their presbytery’s action to concur with a church’s call to a partnered gay man to pastor the church to be out of order.  The GA upheld the presbytery decision and denied the protest.  Along with the protest there was also an overture filed by another presbytery to establish some standards for ordained office regarding lifestyle and sexual orientation.  Instead of acting on that the Assembly chose to structure an environment to engage the church in discussion over this issue.  This environment includes a Special Commission to study the issue and report back to the 2011 Assembly, a moratorium on installations and ordinations of partnered same-sex individuals as officers of the church, and a ban on officers of the church talking publicly about the issue.  The moratorium and the gag order are for the two years the Special Commission will be working.

Well yesterday brought news that Lord Hodge will chair the special commission.  Lord Hodge is a Judge of the Supreme Court and was previously Procurator to the General Assembly, among other legal and judicial positions.  The news article also lists an additional four members of this nine member commission:

Other members of the commission include the Rev John Chalmers, former minister of Edinburgh’s Palmerston Place Church; advocate Ruth Innes, a member at Palmerston Place Church; former Moderator the Very Rev Dr Sheilagh Kesting; and the Rev Peter Graham, former clerk to the Edinburgh presbytery.

Thanks to the Edinburgh Evening News for this, but I look forward to a formal press release from the CofS Newsroom, or a more detailed media article listing the full membership of the commission.

A sidebar here, (pun intended) on the leaders of these Church of Scotland special commissions.  For those of you keeping score at home, this is the third special commission in three years that I am aware of.  The first of these, created by the 2006 General Assembly, was the Special Commission on Structure and Change which reported back to the 2008 Assembly.  What I find interesting was that commission was headed up by Lord Hodge’s colleague on the high court, Lord Brodie.  Not every commission is headed up by a distinguish justice because the third commission, and one that is currently working, the Special Commission on the Third Article is chaired by the Moderator of the 2006 Assembly, the Very Rev. Dr. Alan D. McDonald.  (And if you want more on the Structure and Change and Third Article stuff, you can check out my earlier discussion of all that.)  But in summary, you have to be impressed with the church’s integration in the culture to be able to get such secular leaders onto GA commissions.  (And you have to wonder how they have time to do it.)

Finally, I was looking back and I probably should close the loop on one more related item.  Back at the beginning of September the Presbytery of Hamilton voted to admit to training for the ministry an individual whose lifestyle was the subject of the new discussion in the church.  The issue at the time was focused on whether this presbytery action was a violation of the GA action, in spirit if not in letter.  Subsequently, the individual, Mr. Dmitri Ross, withdrew his application after the controversy erupted.  In a Time article he is quoted as saying:

“I do not wish, and have never sought, to be a cause of division within the Church I love so dearly. Therefore, after much heartfelt deliberation, and after much prayerful consideration, I have decided to withdraw as a full-time candidate in training for ministry of word and sacrament in the Church of Scotland.”

Like the other ordination debates, all of this is a point in the journey, or a step in a process, that will play out.  Stay tuned…

The Continuing Ordination Standards Discussion In The Presbyterian Church In America

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I know, this ordination standards discussion/debate is getting old.  It seems to keep on going, there are overtures to every GA about it, some congregations seem to ignore or nuance the standards that are in the constitution, and we keep having judicial cases over it.

Well, I could be talking about the mainline and the recent developments there, but today I turn to the ongoing discussion in the Presbyterian Church in America over ordination standards.

For those from any of the Presbyterian branches who just wish that ordination standards debates would go away… don’t hold your breath.  The discussion over ordination standards has been with the American Presbyterians pretty much since its founding three centuries ago and was one of the factors in the Old Side/New Side split of 1741.  The concept remains constant and the particular contested standard shifts.

The discussion in the PCA of course is over women serving as deacons, or more precisely as deaconesses.  Everyone agrees that the PCA Book of Church Order does not allow women to serve in ordained office.  (A fact that seems a little irritating to a few who joined the PCA when the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod, which had female deacons, merged with the PCA back in 1982.)  But there appear to be many ways to nuance this from having men and women as non-ordained deacons sometimes with commissioning, to having a board of deacons but having men and women assistants that are not particularly distinct from the board that leads them.

Within the last couple of days this has become a fresh news topic because of developments on both sides of the issue.

On the side of flexible implementation of the diaconate come copies of the e-mail that Redeemer Presbyterian Church sent out to its members soliciting nominations for church office.  The text of this e-mail is posted on both the BaylyBlog and the PuritanBoard.

Maybe the most amusing part is their terminology.  Since there is a general understanding in the PCA that a deacon is male and a deaconess is female, Redeemer apparently uses the term “deek” as a gender neutral title for a deacon/deaconess.

But it is clear from the email letter and from the Redeemer web site that, at least publically, there is no distinction or acknowledgment of ordained deacons being only men in the PCA.  From both of these sources you would never know that is a standard of the church.

In the email it says:

There are 49 men and women currently serving on the Diaconate and 20 men serving on the Session as ruling elders. These men and women have been elected by the congregation and have gone through theological and practical training to master the skills and the information necessary for these positions.

At least in the email there is implicit recognition of elders being men, a distinction that is not on the church’s Officer Nomination web page:

Qualifications of Officers

The following are requirements for all nominations.

FOR DEACON/DEACONESS NOMINEES: Nominees should be a Christian for at least three years and a member of the Redeemer for at least one year; OR, a Christian for at least three years and a regular Redeemer attendee who has been committed to Redeemer as their primary place of worship for at least two years and a member for at least six months.

FOR ELDER NOMINEES: At the time of nomination, an elder nominee should have been a Christian for at least three years and a Redeemer member for at least one year.

And on the Diaconate page it says:

Who We Are and What We Do

The Diaconate, a group of men and women nominated, elected and appointed by the Redeemer members, exists to contribute to the building of a repentant and rejoicing community through loving, truth-telling relationships where practical, visible needs are being met while hearts are being changed through encounters with Jesus and one another. We express in practical ways Christ’s command to all believers to love our neighbor as ourselves.

As I said, from everything I have seen from the church the PCA requirement that ordained officers are only men is, at a minimum, obscured to the routine observer.

Contrast this with the overture to the 38th General Assembly of the PCA that was passed last week by Central Carolina Presbytery. (Reported by The Aquila Report.)

Amend Book of Church Order 9-7 by adding, “These assistants to the deacons shall not be referred to as deacons or deaconesses, nor are they to be elected by the congregation nor formally commissioned, ordained, or installed as though they were office bearers in the church.”

That seems to directly address the ambiguity present in the material from Redeemer.  If there is any doubt, consider the last three “Whereases” in the resolution:

4. Whereas while some RPCES congregations had women on their diaconates, the RPCES resolved as part of the J&R agreement with the PCA to “Amend the existing doctrinal standards and Form of Government of the Reformed Presbyterian church, Evangelical Synod, by substituting for them the doctrinal standards and Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America” ; and

5. Whereas several churches in the PCA currently elect and commission women to the office of deacon and call them by the title deacon or deaconess and allow them to serve on the diaconate; and

6. Whereas BCO 9-7, which states that women may be selected and appointed by the session of a church to serve as assistants to the deacons, is often cited as pretext for this practice of electing and commissioning female deacons;

In the past few years the GA has usually had overtures that would set up study committees to make recommendations about the situation and constitutional language.  This addresses the constitutional language head-on proposing a clarifying addition.

Finally, there are complaints filed against Metropolitan New York Presbytery for actions taken at their presbytery meeting last March.  (And thanks to the BaylyBlog for their publication of the full text of the actions.)

The presbytery action in March affirmed that the various flexible implementations of deacons, such as commissioning instead of ordaining or women serving as non-ordained deaconesses in the same capacity as ordained men, was not a violation of the BCO. The first complaint, filed in April, argues that the practices permitted by the presbytery are in fact a violation of the BCO.

At the May presbytery meeting the presbytery rescinded it’s March action but took no further
action regarding making a statement that some of the existing practices in the Presbytery were in violation of the BCO.  They did begin considering ways to discuss the issue.  A new complaint was made by two of the original complainants with the Standing Judicial Commission of the GA.  In September the officers of the SJC ruled that the complaint was filed prematurely since the Presbytery had responded by rescinding its action and was still in discussion about the other requested items in the original complaint.

That is where this issue sits at the present time in that Presbyterian branch.  With nine months to go before the 38th General Assembly there will probably be a few more twists and turns before the Assembly convenes.  However, whether it be the PCA or the mainline relative I find it striking the similarities in the two situations and how they keep moving along in such parallel manners.