Category Archives: PC(USA)

Another Step In The Journey — Synod PJC Decision In Parnell And Others v. Presbytery Of San Francisco

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It strikes many Presbyterians with surprise, that the General Assembly… should be largely occupied in discussing the question… They ask with displeasure, “Are fundamentals never to be settled among us? Is the church never to be relieved of these debates, which thus agitate the settled foundations of our theory?” We may answer to these indignant questions with an emphatic No. The good brethren who thus deplore these renewed discussions of first principles misconceive the nature of the human mind and of free institutions. While man remains the creature he is, such discussions are to be expected and desired. Each generation must do its own thinking, and learn for itself its own lessons in first truths and general principles. If we insist that this generation of Presbyterians shall hold our fathers’ principles on trust, and by mere prescription, the result will be that they will not hold them sincerely at all.

I will let you live with that quote for a few minutes.  (If the curiosity is killing you about who said it and when then jump to the end or do a web search for it.) In a sense this quote is timeless and maybe captures the unique nature of Presbyterianism better than any other I know.  And while there has been some recent discussion and lamenting about how slowly our polity can move, the truth is that for a church that is supposed to embody a covenant community we do move slowly because it is about discerning God’s will through the journey of the whole community.  You may remember that in the PC(USA)’s predecessors, women were not ordained as deacons until American Presbyterianism was into its third century (1906), it was another 24 years until women were ordained as ruling elders, and then an additional 26 for ordination as teaching elders.  Changes in ordination standards are slow in moving and as one widely-cited GAPJC ordination decision from 1975 testifies, these issues may still be unsettled decades later.

So, the decision from the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Pacific that was released last week should be viewed as one little step in the larger context of the community’s discernment that has been on-going and is not yet complete.

I ultimately want to comment on the decision, and while I hesitate to once again recite the background that this decision comes out of, let me at least briefly remind those that don’t follow this debate as closely as some of us polity wonks of a few of the important background points that are applicable here:

First, while there have been multiple amendments sent to the presbyteries to try to remove or modify the ordination standards section in the Book of Order, also know as the “fidelity and chastity” section, G-6.0106b still remains a constitutional standard for ordination.  Yes, another amendment is being sent to the presbyteries this year but to date the collective discernment of the denomination has been to keep the standard.

Second, with the adoption of the Report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity in 2006  the 217th General Assembly adopted an Authoritative Interpretation (AI) that included the following section on applying the standards to those seeking ordination:

c. Ordaining and installing bodies, acting as corporate expressions of the church, have the responsibility to determine their membership by applying these standards to those elected to office. These determinations include:

(1) Whether a candidate being examined for ordination and/or installation as elder, deacon, or minister of Word and Sacrament has departed from scriptural and constitutional standards for fitness for office,
(2) Whether any departure constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity under G-6.0108 of the Book of Order, thus barring the candidate from ordination and/or installation.

The AI then goes on to say that one governing body’s application of the standards is reviewable by higher governing bodies.

In response to this AI some presbyteries passed policies about what are essentials, but in the Bush decision the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) ruled that there could not be blanket policies, but rather candidates must be considered on a case-by-case basis.  However, in that ruling the GAPJC also stated that:

“Under our polity, violations of behavioral standards are to be addressed through repentance and reconciliation, not by exception or exemption. The freedom of conscience granted in G-6.0108 allows candidates to express disagreement with the wording or meaning of provisions of the constitution, but does not permit disobedience to those behavioral standards.” The fidelity and chastity provision may only be changed by a constitutional amendment. Until that occurs, individual candidates, officers, examining and governing bodies must adhere to it.

The 218th General Assembly (2009) chose to issue a new Authoritative Interpretation that clarified the intent of the PUP Report as expressed in the rational, which was not binding.  This AI contradicted parts of the GAPJC Bush decision and rendered those sections void.  The AI said:

The 218th General Assembly (2008) affirms the authoritative interpretation of G-6.0108 approved by the 217th General Assembly (2006). Further, the 218th General Assembly (2008), pursuant to G-13.0112, interprets the requirements of G-6.0108 to apply equally to all ordination standards of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Section G-6.0108 requires examining bodies to give prayerful and careful consideration, on an individual, case-by-case basis, to any departure from an ordination standard in matters of belief or practice that a candidate may declare during examination. However, the examining body is not required to accept a departure from standards, and cannot excuse a candidate’s inability to perform the constitutional functions unique to his or her office (such as administration of the sacraments).”

This AI was based upon an overture to the 218th GA from the Presbytery of John Knox and has acquired the informal title “Knox Authoritative Interpretation” or “Knox AI,” a title propagated in the decision we are about to look at to distinguish it from the earlier “PUP AI.”  The original overture from Knox carries the title “On Adopting an Authoritative Interpretation of G-6.0108 to Ensure Proper Application of Ordination Standards.”

The third perforatory point I want to make is that although there have been several GAPJC decisions related to ordination standards all of them have dealt with procedural matters and issues of timing.  Specifically, the earlier cases have clarified that a statement of departure must be made by the candidate and assessed by the presbytery at the time of their examination for ordination.  Specific to this case GAPJC decision 219-11 (Naegeli and others v. Presbytery of San Francisco) specified that examination on a departure must take place at the time of examination for ordination.

While the brief (yes, for this issue that is brief) review above may be familiar to many of my readers, I include it here because in my discussion that follows there are points that refer to these pieces of the past history.

It is important to remember that up to this point all of the case history of all of the judicial cases dealing with declaring exceptions to ordination standards are related to the process of doing so and rulings have not been rendered related to a specific candidate’s declared exceptions and how the presbytery has dealt with them.  That is what makes this new decision different.

This new case, Eric Parnell, Bruce McIntosh, Cordelia Shieh, Margaret Gelini, Greg Roth, Marsha Roth, Randy Young, and the Session of Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church, Complainants, v. The Presbytery of San Francisco, Respondent, is a remedial case brought by the complainants following the November 10, 2009, examination for ordination of candidate Lisa Larges.  This was the court of first impression and the Synod of the Pacific PJC heard testimony on the case and in a 5-4 decision did not sustain any of the five specifications of error.  The minority submitted an extensive dissent in which they disagree with the majority on four of the five specifications.

The ruling of the majority can actually be summed up very succinctly:  The presbytery’s actions were consistent with the current Authoritative Interpretation and the previous GAPJC rulings.

The dissenting opinion is a bit more complicated but I would summarize that as: While the facts in the case are not in dispute there are essentials of faith and polity here for which exceptions should not be granted.

Now, if all you wanted was the executive summary you can move on and I invite the polity wonks to stick around and see if you concur with my analysis of the decision.

Let me begin with the fourth specification of error, the one everyone agreed not to sustain.  That specification was that the presbytery erred in granting a departure to G-6.0106b “because departures can only be granted with regard to the interpretation of Scripture, not conduct.”  The relevant section of the Book of Order here is G-6.0108b:

b. It is to be recognized, however, that in becoming a candidate or officer of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) one chooses to exercise freedom of conscience within certain bounds. His or her conscience is captive to the Word of God as interpreted in the standards of the church so long as he or she continues to seek or hold office in that body. The decision as to whether a person has departed from essentials of Reformed faith and polity is made initially by the individual concerned but ultimately becomes the responsibility of the governing body in which he or she serves. (G-1.0301; G-1.0302)

This looks like a good call on the part of the PJC because while the most recent AI addresses behavior this section does not place Scripture and conduct in this context.

Now considering the specifications of error which the PJC disagreed on – The first was that the candidate’s refusal to abide by G-6.0106b, a constitutional requirement, was equivalent to answering “No” to the fifth constitutional question for ordination about being “governed by our church’s polity.”  The second was that wishing to be exempted from G-6.0106b is “a serious departure from Reformed faith or polity.” The third specification of error was that the the presbytery was wrong to grant the exception because “such an act obstructs the constitutional governance of the church.”  Finally, the last error was that the exception that was granted “exceeds the bounds of freedom of conscience for one who seeks to hold office in the PC(USA).”

In answering all of these the prevailing decision references the most recent AI, the “Knox AI,” to argue that the process the presbytery followed complied with the current interpretations of the Book of Order.  Regarding whether the declared objection was “a serious departure” the decision says, in part:

In the absence of a preponderance of evidence showing that Presbytery erred in its decision to accept the candidate’s departure, this SPJC accepts the Presbytery’s decision that the candidate’s departure did not constitute a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity. (p. 4)

So, given the evidence at trial, and lacking strong evidence to the contrary, the SPJC finds no errors in the presbytery’s process and finds no reason to overturn their collective decision on the matter.

While the actual decision portion of the prevailing decision takes up about two pages, the dissenting opinion takes just over four pages.  The heart of the decision is the discussion of the second and third error specifications combined.  They begin their argument from the testimony of the expert witnesses for both sides:

From the testimony heard we conclude that the preponderance and emphasis of scripture supports the conclusion that the unanimous witness of both Old and New Testament is that fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness are Reformed mandates to be applied to those called to leadership in the Church. “Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable…” [I Timothy 3:2]. Many other texts, Old and New Testaments, confirm this conclusion, such as Genesis 2:24, Genesis 18:20ff, Mark 10:10, Romans 1:26-31, I Corinthians 6:9-10, Jude 7, to mention only a few. No texts suggest that fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness are in violation of Scripture or that infidelity in marriage or sexual activity in singleness are consistent and supported in Scripture.

For the Candidate to separate her actions from Biblical truth is a serious departure from Reformed faith. (p. 7)

They then go on to review the PUP AI and then discuss the examination process:

In this case, the facts are clear and undisputed. The Candidate for ordination to the office of Minister of Word and Sacrament appeared upon the floor of the Presbytery of San Francisco, and during her ordination examination, declared a departure pursuant to G-6.0108 using the process described in the PUP AI, specifically in section c(2).

In her Statement of Departure, the Candidate declared that she was bound by her conscience to reject the authority of G-6.0106b, with respect to the “requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between and man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness.” She expressly declared, “By my conscience, faith, and theology, I cannot and will not accept the terms of this standard”.

Each party to this matter urges divergent scriptural and constitutional interpretations but neither party contests the operative facts of this case. In a like manner, neither party asserts any deficiency in the process of the presbytery in arriving at its decision in this matter.

We are therefore squarely faced with the determination as a matter of law or polity whether the departure of the Candidate was a serious failure to adhere to the essentials of the Reformed faith as expressed in the constitution.

We find that it was.

When it comes to the living of one’s life there may be considerable divergence of opinion of what it means to live one’s life “in obedience to scripture and conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church.” We may not have, nor may it be desirable to have, an exhaustive list of what those standards are. But we know one of them. The second sentence of G-6.0106b emphatically declares that it is the “requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness” [italics added]. The language of the Constitution specifically and explicitly declares that requirement to be among the historic confessional standards of the church. (p. 8-9)

They finish this section by arguing for, and concluding, that the most recent AI and the Book of Order are at odds here.  “G-6.0106b and the Knox AI cannot both be honored in this case.” (p. 9)  Without citing the Bush decision they echo Bush where that decision says:

While the General Assembly and the GAPJC may interpret these standards, the Authoritative Interpretation did not (and constitutionally could not) change any ordination standard, including the requirements set forth in G-6.0106b. Similarly, no lower governing body can constitutionally define, diminish, augment or modify standards for ordination and installation of church officers. (p. 5)

and again from Bush:

The SPJC correctly stated that the fidelity and chastity provision of G-6.0106b is a mandatory standard that cannot be waived…. Presbyteries do not have the authority to restate or define such standards. (p. 7)

As I said, that is the heart of the dissent.  For error 1 the minority briefly argues that answering a constitutional question by saying “yes, except for…” is essentially saying no.  For error 5 the dissenting opinion appeals to the preceding argument about essential standards to say that if something is indeed essential, than rejecting it does exceed the bounds of conscience.

Finally, it is important to note the comment attached to the decision that, in part, says:

Given the importance of these issues to the instant parties, this Commission and the larger church body, we look forward to the GAPJC’s guidance and direction. This Commission joins with the parties of Bierschwale II in imploring the GAPJC to rule on the continued authority of Bush v. Presbytery of Pittsburgh (Minutes 218-10, p.319) in light of the 2008 Authoritative Interpretation on G-6.0108b.

Well, the complainants have stated that they intend to appeal so a stay is in place for 45 days to give the complainants time to file the appeal and the GAPJC time to accept it.  This raises an interesting question about the appeal timeline and the voting on the amendment to G-6.0106b — Might an appeal be rendered moot and denied when no remedy is necessary if the amendment were to pass?  On the other hand, are these issues important enough and general enough that a GAPJC decision would be useful regardless of any changes to the constitution because the section at issue is actually G-6.0108 and not the “fidelity and chastity” language?

If you are interested in other coverage of the decision you can find it in all the usual places: Presbyterian News, The Outlook, The Layman , and the Covenant Network.

And two brief additional comments: 1) The 5-4 vote by the SPJC was in very similar proportions as the 156 to 138 presbytery vote to sustain the candidate’s examination.  (56% to 44% compared to 53% to 47%)  2) Counsel representing the complainants included Mary Naegeli who was the lead complainant on the earlier case I mentioned in this sequence, Naegeli and others v. San Francisco Presbytery.

So that is my take on this decision and the status of declared departures in the PC(USA).  Of course, declared departures and “scruples” are nothing new being almost as old as American Presbyterianism itself.  But once again, even as the denomination looks at adding to its confessional standards, there is the necessary discussion about what is an acceptable departure from the essentials of the Reformed faith.

And that quote at the beginning of this piece?  It may or may not surprise you that it is 150 years old – a point in time almost exactly half-way between the beginnings of American Presbyterianism and today.  We keep on arguing, but we have been for 300 years.  Polity takes time, struggle, and a willingness to be in discussion, discernment and prayer as we seek the will of God together.

And so for completeness I leave you with the full, unedited, opening line from Robert Dabney in his essay “Theories of the Eldership.”

It strikes many Presbyterians with surprise, that the General Assembly and our leading periodicals in this year 1860, one hundred and fifty years after the beginning of our church in America, should be largely occupied in discussing the question, “What is Presbyterianism?”

Sunday Worship At The PC(USA) 219th General Assembly Catalyzes Global Discussion

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To say that the Sunday worship service at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) does not really follow the Regulative Principle of Worship is probably an understatement.  It is always a major production with the message from the outgoing Moderator, the Lord’s Supper, liturgical dance, massed choirs, commissioning of missionaries, remembrance of those Teaching Elders who have joined the Church Triumphant, and lots of music.

I intentionally use the word “production” in the preceding paragraph because this worship service is one:  It is planned a year in advance, is held in a custom decorated worship space, is carefully choreographed and planned, involves hundreds of people, communion is served to thousands of attendees, and is expected to be culturally sensitive or politically correct, depending on your point of view.  Those years that I have attended GA I have always gone to the worship service but I have friends who, for a variety of reasons, have avoided it and found alternate worship services.

Well this year, in addition to the usual worship elements, at the 219th General Assembly there was an additional element that I don’t remember from any previous year: giant puppets.

Now, before I get into this specific case it is probably helpful to point out that the use of giant puppets in worship has become a hot topic in worship circles recently so the use of puppets by the PC(USA) just fed into this controversy.  This YouTube video set off a round of discussion a couple of years ago that included comments from First Things and Insight Scoop among others.

Well this summer, a couple of videos from the opening Sunday worship went viral with corresponding discussion.  I heard about the puppets from the press release but looking back it was probably Viola Larson’s posting of the video and a second video where I first saw them.  It was then picked up by Bad Vestments with their “Giant Papier-mâché Calvinist Puppets of Doom.”  (And Bad Vestments quickly followed with two more examples from other churches.)  At this point the blogosphere weighed in, most with critical comments, including Ad Dominum, Stand Firm, and Gairney Bridge.  Jody at Quotidian Grace ran a poll and of the 43 readers  that responded, 2/3 answered the question “Are giant puppets appropriate in worship?” with “Hell No!”

I’ll say that considering the discussion about this topic that has been going on none of this current controversy seemed out of the ordinary to me.  But then it crossed the Atlantic…

On August 28th the immediate past Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland weighted in on his personal blog, and he too was critical:

It all looks a bit pagan to me, and certainly out of place in a denomination that claims to be Christian and reformed.

…

Given the other decisions and proposals of the General Assembly with regard to Christian marriage and the place of practising homosexuals in leadership, it seems that PCUSA has drifted away from its biblical and reformed roots. But some people have been pointing that out for many years.

At the present time there are 16 comments to this post — check them out, there is some good material in there.  Today Will Crawley of the BBC Northern Ireland on his blog Will & Testament highlights Dr. Carson’s blog post and the responses in the comments section.  It turns out that that the commenters are mixed in their opinion and include a brief one saying “Not nearly as silly looking as an Orange or Black parade,” and another that observes “There are children and young people present at the opening of their general assembly. Maybe they do some things better than us.”

One long comment, and most reasoned response in my opinion, comes from the noted Belfast blogger Alan in Belfast.  In the comments he says in part:

Stafford, some might say that the opening procession has a bit more life and colour about it than PCI’s stately procession of ex-moderators! But surely it is difficult – perhaps dangerous – to pick a 5 minute excerpt out of an opening event that took a couple of hours and criticise it. Cherry-picking lacks context, lacks any verbal or written explanation of the significance of what was happening. Surely General Assembly Opening hermeneutics requires a bit more context and material before jumping to conclusions.

Later he continues:

The second video – the puppets – has no connection with PCUSA as far as I can tell. It might have helped in the post if you’d made that clear. Maybe it’s because I spent a very pleasant half hour recently talking to Oscar the Grouch, but I do note that puppets seem to have a place in NI Christian teaching. My daughter attended a holiday Bible club a few weeks ago which featured a pair of camels that could be accused of helping spread the Gospel. And the same puppets (or is the puppeteers) have taught children from PCI at more than one Kid’s Praise Party.

And Alan concludes with:

Is there no light to be had at all in either of these situations? As the “standards of the church” that get read out at PCI ordinations and installations say:

“In exercising the inalienable right of private judgement the Christian is not to set his reason above the Word of God, or to refuse light from any quarter.”

Dr. Carson responded:

Alan, you are absolutely right about the importance of context, and nowhere is this more important than in your last statement. “Not refusing light from any quarter” does not mean that anything goes or that all opinions are equally valid for reformed Christians. The statement comes in the context of affirming the authority and sufficiency of Scripture and the inadequacy of human reason. The statement goes on to say that conscience is free from “the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to His Word or beside it, in matters of faith and worship.” It is for that reason that traditionally reformed churches have opted for only those elements in worship which are commanded or recognised in the Bible. No one’s conscience should be bound by being required to participate in worship which includes other elements not prescribed by Scripture.

Peter, another commenter, also has a long and thoughtful response to Alan where he talks about children wanting to know “what is real.”  He concludes with “Real sins, like exclusion, are dealt with by participating in real dramas, real dramas like eating and drinking with people, real dramas like words, words of kindness and grace, real dramas like offering, again, the hand of friendship even after it has been spurned. Real dramas like the Cross.  And that, to my mind, is what is pagan about such events in the church, it is the replacing of the real drama with a made up one of our own, one behind which we hide… and the really disturbing thing is that we can hide behind the most orthodox of doctrine.”

But the real zinger in this discussion, and thanks to Will Crowley for pointing this one out, is from a “Bemused Parent” who was at Dr. Carson’s church, First Portadown.

Truth is stranger than fiction ! ! !

At First Presby’ Portadown, on Sunday, our children’s address consisted of one man dressed all in black, he was the Dark Destroyer(Satan) and the other, dressed in white, was Jesus. They had a tug of war! Go(o)d v’s evil. First time evil won then Jesus with the help of his “friends”, won.

We were all encouraged to cheer and boo the appropriate “hero”.

Stafford, your children’s address was different, are you taking your led from PCUSA? You obviously do not reject light from any quarter. What are you planning next week?

Maybe the best summary of all this is a phrase that Peter and Alan have been discussing back and forth in the comments — “Where do you draw the line?”

PC(USA) Constitutional Amendment Booklets (Mostly) Available

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Well, you knew this would be big, and not just in a metaphorical sense…

The Office of the General Assembly has made available on their web site the publication with the changes to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Constitution that the 219th General Assembly is sending down to the presbyteries.  It comes in three parts so get those reading glasses ready!

Part 1 is the nFOG , or technically the new Foundations of Presbyterian Polity section and the revised Form of Government section.  Fifty eight pages long — All the new Book of Order text plus the “Advisory Handbook for Councils for the Development of Policies and Procedures Required by the Form of Government.”  Then there is a second eight-page booklet to serve as a guide in considering the nFOG with links to the online resources about the revision.

I say that the booklets are mostly ready because the spot for the second amendment booklet is there but no link is provided yet.  By process of elimination this must be the proposed amendments to the Book of Confessions, the addition of the Belhar Confession.  I will revise and link here when posted.

Part 3 is all the other amendments to the Book of Order.  There are 15 amendments in all covering the G, W and D sections with numbering for the current Book of Order.  If you are keeping count, that will be another 32 pages of reading. For each G section amendment there is an editor’s note about how that would translate into the nFOG. 

(It is also interesting to note a typo in the cover letter to Part 3 that says Belhar will be part 3.  No big deal.)

But here is an interesting insight into how Presbyterians do things:  According to those editors notes five of the eight G section changes would add language to the Book of Order if the nFOG version is adopted.  Only one, the change to current section G-6.0106b, would actually change wording in the nFOG, and two amendments would be rendered moot by adopting the nFOG.  So we reduce our polity and make it flexible only to immediately start adding to it. I’ll analyze all that another time.

So start downloading and have at it.

Presbytery PJC Decision In Redwoods v. Spahr (2010)

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The last three days the Permanent Judicial Commission of Redwoods Presbytery has been hearing arguments in the disciplinary case of Redwoods Presbytery v. Jane Adams Spahr.  The Rev. Spahr is accused of conducting ceremonies for same-sex couples that are prohibited by the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) but were legal civil marriages under the laws of the State of California at the time.  If this sounds familiar it is — this is a variant on the case filed against Rev. Spahr in 2004 that lead to General Assembly PJC Decision 218-12 that gave us the, shall we say interesting, decision that the Rev. Spahr could not have been guilty of conducting same-sex marriages because “The SPJC found Spahr guilty of doing that which by definition cannot be done. One cannot characterize same sex ceremonies as marriages for the purpose of disciplining a minister of the Word and Sacrament and at the same time declare that such ceremonies are not marriages for legal or ecclesiastical purposes.”  It may be a unique legal decision, but it is the prevailing interpretation on this subject and figures in the Commission decision.

This Commission sustained three of the four charges against Rev. Spahr, all related to the authority of the Book of Order and her persisting in preforming these ceremonies after the previous GAPJC decision.  But the Commission also weighed in with their judgment about the current polity situation in the the PC(USA).

Before I get to a discussion of the decision, I want to make a couple of observations about the trial itself.

One aspect of this trial is that it was probably the first one with significant real-time commentary on Twitter.  You can find most of the tweets under @revjanespahr and #revjanie.

It was interesting to follow the trial play-by-play, but as with most things on Twitter these days it also came with the attendant amount of snark, such as: “Oh God, she just mentioned the ‘silent majority.'” and “Blackstone: Same old same old — GAPJC.”  I would also note that virtually all of the tweets I saw were from Rev. Spahr’s supporters with none, that I saw, from anyone clearly supporting the prosecution.  Maybe I just didn’t find the hashtag.

A couple of items came across in the tweets that I wanted to comment on.
1) The argument that the Directory for Worship is descriptive and that it contains no “shalls.”  This was the argument that carried the day in a Presbytery PJC decision that acquitted the Rev. Jean Southard in a similar case in Boston Presbytery.  However, on appeal the Synod PJC found that the Presbytery PJC was in error in this reasoning and we await a General Assembly PJC case to clarify this.  But I will also say that after serving on the Special Committee on Civil Unions and Religious Marriage I came away with the understanding that W-4.9001 was the equivalent of a “shall” section and that is why I wanted to recommend to the General Assembly wording to make the civil marriage section of the definition more flexible.

2) Also related to the Special Committee and the definition, I think several of us on the Committee, myself included, came away from the study wondering if the church should be acting as the agent of the state in executing marriage licenses.  In my own experience I know that in such diverse settings as Mexico and Germany the civil marriage and the religious marriage are two distinct events with the religious ceremony possibly happening minutes or years after the civil ceremony.  This concept came up in this trial, based on the tweets, with arguments by the defense that the two are linked in the Book of Order and by the prosecution that they are not.  At least that is what I gathered from two 140 character messages.

Anyway, with that as preface, and with the understanding that this case probably has two appeals to go before it is settled, what did Redwoods Presbytery PJC give us this time?

Charge 1 was that Rev. Spahr solemnized a marriage “in direct violation of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (GAPJC) in its Decision and Order in Disciplinary Case 218-12.”  This effectively says that W-4.0991 is a constitutionally binding requirement of the Book of Order.

Charge 2 was that Rev. Spahr “persisted in a pattern or practice of disobedience concerning the aforementioned authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order.”  In other words, since the previous GAPJC decision she had conducted multiple same-gender marriages.

Charge 3 was that Rev. Spahr “By intentionally and repeatedly acting in violation of the above-referenced authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order as set forth in Disciplinary Case 218-12, you, JANE ADAMS SPAHR, failed to be governed by polity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in violation of your ordination vows (W-4.4003e).”

These three charges were sustained by the Commission on a 4-2 vote.

The fourth charge was unanimously not sustained: By publicly, intentionally and repeatedly acting in violation of the Book of Order, you, JANE ADAMS SPAHR, have failed to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church (W-4.4003g).

OK, that is the verdict.  Expect an appeal and another trip to the GAPJC. (And expect mainstream media reports to miss the nuances of the polity.)

What is most interesting about the decision is the second page with the commentary by the Commission.  They begin:

The Permanent Judicial Commission, in sustaining the first three charges, recognizes that while the Rev. Dr. Jane Spahr has indeed performed these marriages, which were and continue to be legal marriages, she did so acting with faithful compassion in accord with W7.3004. These marriages were legal in the State of California, being civil contracts (W4.9001), and are different from same sex ceremonies. The testimonies of those at court clearly demonstrated this difference.

We commend Dr. Spahr and give thanks for her prophetic ministry that for 35 years has extended support to “people who seek the dignity, freedom and respect that they have been denied” (W7.4002c), and has sought to redress “wrongs against individuals, groups, and peoples in the church, in this nation, and in the world” (W7.4002h).

But their commentary goes on as a word for the whole church:

In addition, we call upon the church to reexamine our own fear and ignorance that continues to reject the inclusiveness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.(G3.0401c) We say this believing that we have in our own Book of Order conflicting and even contradictory rules and regulations that are against the Gospel.

But the decision concludes with these words:

Notwithstanding the foregoing, we are constrained to accept that the following language in GAPJC Disciplinary Case 218-12 is authoritative and should be followed until and unless modified: “We further hold that the officers of the PCUSA authorized to perform marriages shall not state, imply or represent that a same sex ceremony is a marriage. Under W4.9001, a same sex ceremony is not and cannot be a marriage.”

and

We implore the Synod and General Assembly levels of our church to listen to these testimonies, which are now part of this record, to take them to heart, and to do what needs to be done to move us as a church forward on this journey of reconciliation.

The penalty imposed is censure with rebuke (D-12.0102) and she is “enjoined to avoid such offenses in the future.”  If the decision is appealed the censure is held until the completion of the process if this decision is upheld.  Censure with rebuke is the lightest option available to the Commission and is effectively a formal declaration that what she did went against the constitution of the PC(USA).

Addendum:  A couple of additional words of commentary on this decision.  I waited a few hours to add this both to give me time to think about it and because I thought the decision pretty much spoke for itself. But to cast this in light of our polity the members of the PJC walked the fine line between “God alone is Lord of the conscience” [G-1.0301a] and “It is necessary to the integrity and health of the church that the persons who serve in it as officers shall adhere to the essentials of the Reformed faith and polity as expressed in The Book of Confessions and the Form of Government.” [G-6.0108a]  Their commentary clearly, to me at least, reflects their personal frustration that while they agree with the pastoral care Rev. Spahr has carried out and disagree with the applicable sections of the Constitution and the current interpretations, the majority none-the-less recognized their obligation to abide by the current standards enacted by the majority.  One can object to the strength or extent to which the PJC majority expressed their personal beliefs, but one must admire and appreciate their faithfulness to the PC(USA) process and connectionalism.  So yes, they effectively said “These are the rules, you have broken the rules, we think the rules are wrong but we must still find you guilty.”  This was further expressed in the penalty, which is the lightest that can be imposed and is effectively saying “Go and sin no more.”

Also in contemplating this decision the question keeps coming round of what specifications of error could be cited as grounds for appeal?  Since the defense seems to have focused on the idea that W-4.9001 is descriptive and prescriptive, that is that there is no “shall” language in there, that is certain to be one of the points.  This has been discussed for a while now and it will be useful if the GAPJC does provide guidance on what it means for the Directory for Worship to be descriptive.  From what I have seen and heard I don’t think I can pick out any procedural points that would be grounds for appeal but I did not follow extremely closely.  I don’t think that either personal conscience or the difference between civil and ecclesiastical definitions of marriage would be strong points of appeal.

Expecting an appeal, or possibly a decision in the Southard case that could impact this one, it is far too early to say this is the final word on this decision and this issue.  However, it does highlight where the PC(USA) is right now with different understandings on marriage and the fact that there needs to be a recognition that same-gender marriages are legally recognized in some jurisdictions and countries.  As the Special Committee report said…

We can not agree

but

By the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the love of God, and in the communion of the Holy Spirit, we covenant together to:

• Honor the truth that Christ has called and God works through each member;

• Listen to one another with openness and respect;

• Support and pray for each other and for one another’s ministries;

• Earnestly seek and carefully listen to each person’s discernment of God’s will found in Scripture;

• Struggle together with perseverance to find God’s will for us even when the way is difficult;

• Love one another even when we disagree, and to commit ourselves to the reconciliation of any broken relationships we have with one another;

• Honor who we are as Presbyterians by respecting the fallible discernment of the body, bearing in mind that individual conscience, held captive to the word of God, cannot be thus bound.

New Moderators Take To The Web

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With most of the General Assemblies now concluded it is interesting to see new Moderators taking to the web in various forms.  Here is a quick run-down of what I have seen so far…

The stand-out, in my opinion, is the Rev. Dr. Herb Gale , Moderator of the 136th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, who has not only taken to blogging quickly, but with gusto as well.  He is writing an official blog where he has already posted 12 entries, ten of them since the General Assembly where he was installed.  Of course, it helps to have something to write about and his last four entries (1, 2, 3, 4 ) detail his experience of attending a reception for the British Monarch on her visit to Canada.  In particular I would recommend the last one in the series where he reflects on the event and makes some theological connections.  He writes in part:

In the monarchical system as it has evolved in Canada, it doesn’t matter what our rank or station – whether we are a parking lot attendant or the Prime Minister of Canada – we are all servants of the Queen, who is herself a servant of the people.  The fact that everyone addresses her as “Your Majesty” is in fact a great leveller of status, simultaneously lifting up the lowest in rank and lowering the highest in rank. Surely this is a reflection of the profound spiritual significance of what we experience as we submit to the sovereign grace of the true King of kings (and queens), Jesus Christ our Lord, who shed his blood that we might all attain true royal status.   And as the lights suddenly came on as we stood in line to greet the Queen, as my own name was called to be introduced to Her Majesty, I thought of the passage from 1st Peter:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people;

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  (1st Peter 2:9-10)

I look forward to reading more from Mr. Gale.

The other notable web presence is from Elder Cynthia Bolbach, Moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the form of an official web page with her monthly column.  I have been keeping an eye on her individual blog, Food for Thought, but she has posted nothing there since before the Assembly.  She is however up to two tweets.   And the Mod Squad Facebook Page has been transitioned to the new moderatorial team.

UPDATE: The Rev. Harry Reeder, the Moderator of the 38th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, has now posted his thoughts on the Assembly on his personal blog InPerspective.

On the other hand, it has been a bit disappointing that two other new Moderators have not yet, as best as I can tell, kept up the blogging that their predecessors began.  It appears that the official Moderator blog of the Church of Scotland has disappeared and that the Rt. Rev. John Christie will not be keeping us updated on his thoughts and activities the way the Very Rev. William Hewitt did. (And it is disappointing that Rev. Hewitt’s entries have not been publicly archived.) Likewise, I am keeping an eye out for blogging activity from the Rev. Norman Hamilton, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, but I have not seen it yet either.

It is worth noting that the Rev. Landon Whitsitt, Vice-Moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the PC(USA), continues his active blogging on his personal blog, Landonville.  It will be interesting to see how much he overlaps his personal musings with official duties in that space.  (But if you want a preview of the book he is writing keep watching his writing blog. Interesting stuff there too. )

Finally, it is worth noting that two of the past moderators have not disappeared from the blogosphere.  The Rev. Stafford Carson, immediate past Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, continues to write his blog as he returns to parish ministry.  Similarly, the Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow has posted his last official blog entry as Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the PC(USA), but anyone that knows Bruce knows that his personal blog will keep going strong.

I hope that in the coming days I’ll find more official blogging out there but this is a start for this crop of Moderators.

Thoughts On Modeling The Future Of The Mainline Churches

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It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.  — Alfred North Whitehead

In a couple of weeks I will be taking my annual vacation and this year I will have to pack light.  No thick volumes on the ecumenical movement or church history this year.  After looking around and thinking about this I decided to take along for reading several of the articles in a collection on the Patheos web site on The Future of Mainline Protestantism.  This is an interesting collection of opinions coming almost completely from progressive authors.  I know several of the authors, have heard several more speak, and have read other works by most of the rest.  And based on the skimming I have done so far, they all see a positive future for the mainline.  So check back at the end of the month when I’ll post my thoughts on what I have read from there.

But in preparation for that I have started going through a series of purely mathematical thought exercises about possible numerical futures for the mainline, and specifically the PC(USA).  For the most part these are intended to be disconnected from theological, institutional or political specifics, although the more detailed model at the end does use some of that.  They are also intended to be general concept models that represent particular cases, not specific predictions of the size of the church in fifty years.  On the one hand, I will be making specific calculations based on the numbers for the PC(USA).  On the other hand, these cases apply to more than one of the mainline churches and can probably be applied to other denominations as well. So here is what I have thought about.

Case 1 – Status quo
At the present time the mainline denominations are all declining in membership at the rate of a few percent per year.  Clearly if this continues into the future each will reach a point where that church will not be viable.

For example, for 2009 the PC(USA) reported a total membership of 2,077,138, a net loss of 63,027 from the year before.  A quick calculation shows that with a constant loss of this many members the denomination would reach zero in 33 years in 2042.

As you can probably figure out this is not realistic for a number of reasons, some of which I’ll talk about in the last, and most complex, model.  A better way to look at the status quo is to consider a constant rate of loss.  In 2008 the rate was 3% and in 2009 it was 2.9% so if we look at three different constant rates – 2.5%, 3.0% and 3.5% – this is what we get for the PC(USA).

PC(USA) Membership for Constant Decline Model

 Year  Constant
Number 		Constant
Rate 		   
   63,027/yr  2.5%/yr 3.0%/yr 3.5%/yr
 2010  2,014,011 2,025,210 2,014,824 2,004,438
 2020  1,383,841 1,572,230 1,485,780 1,403,673
 2030  753,571 1,220,569 1,095,650 982,967
 2040  123,301 947,564 807,959 688,354
 2042  0  900,778 760,208 641,013
 2050   735,622  595,808 482,042
 2060   571,085 439,363 337,566


Case 2 – Renewed Growth
I saw you roll your eyes at this one.  Yes, there is a case to be made that the mainline represents an out-dated model that will not survive but rather decay into oblivion as outlined in Case 1.

But remember that this is only a thought experiment.  Furthermore, while there is a denomination-wide decline in church membership, on a congregation-by-congregation level this is not necessarily so.  Several congregations in my presbytery have shown stable membership over the last ten years (example 1, example 2, example 3 ). (And I will note that this crosses theological lines.)  In addition, every so often a national entity issues a list of growing PC(USA) churches and there is a general document abut the characteristics of the fastest growing churches.  I could not quickly find that list (I’ll update here if I do) but checking three high-profile congregations I found recent (5-10 year) growth rates of 11.0%, 3.5%, and 2.6%.  This is not a scientific sample of growing churches, only a few that I checked.  The point is that the decline is not uniform across all the congregations in the PC(USA) and that is probably true of other mainline churches as well.  In fact, there is a book out there (that I have not read) that looks at 15 growing Presbyterian churches and why they are growing.

Now, without my actually saying what needs to be done to reverse the decline and begin growing, let me present the model for this case that would propose that a mainline church can get itself organized and take steps to help enough congregations reverse their decline and begin growing in the next decade so that beginning in 2020 the denomination as a whole can begin growing at 1% per year.

(The disclaimers: I am not advocating anything specific at this time, and especially not advocating a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all franchise scheme for the mainline denominations that would produce a business plan for homogenous churches that are all the same. And I do know that the PC(USA) has been working on doing this one way or another, with out a reversal of the membership decline, for years now. I am also well aware of some of the other complexities of church growth these days, such as the argument that when churches grow all they are really doing is attracting members that are leaving other churches so church growth in many cases is competition for a limited, and declining, resource.  Remember, this is just a thought experiment.)

So here is what the reversal model looks like:

PC(USA) Membership For The Reversal Model

Year Annual
Growth
Rate		 Membership
 2009    2,077,138
 2010  -3.0%  2,014,824
 2011  -2.6%  1,962,438
 2012  -2.2%  1,919,265
 2013  -1.8%  1,884,718
 2014  -1.4%  1,858,332
 2015  -1.0%  1,839,749
 2016  -0.6%  1,828,710
 2017  -0.2%  1,825,053
 2018  0.2%  1,828,703
 2019  0.6%  1,839,675
 2020  1.0%  1,858,072
 2030  1.0%  2,052,467
 2040  1.0%  2,267,201
 2050  1.0%  2,504,400
 2060  1.0%  2,766,416

Case 3 – Partitioning or Pruning Model
What if, to use the cliche, we are “right-sizing” the mainline.  Consider that the decline in the churches will continue until the target size is reached and then the membership will reach a stable equilibrium.

Well, that is the idea in the abstract but to actually crank out some numbers here I will have to propose certain conditions that I can model.  Taking the conventional wisdom that the mainline is becoming more liberal or progressive, why don’t we set as a target size the number of liberals in the church suggesting that all the conservatives will eventually be departing one way or another.

For the PC(USA) I have previously commented on the changes seen in the Presbyterian Panel surveys. (Sorry with the change in the PC(USA) web site links in that post to some of those data sources are now broken and I am trying to restore them.)  By one measure, in 2008 34% of the PC(USA) considered itself theologically conservative, 41% moderate, and 25% liberal.  Another measure is the question of whether “Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved” where 39% agreed, 25% were not sure, and 36% disagreed.

Now, as a simple first-order model what if we say the evangelicals leave, the progressives say and the moderates split.  There is some symmetry in the survey results so for the sake of argument let’s say that the denomination’s target size is 50% of the 2009 membership and that the total membership loss rate of 3% per year comes completely from the half that is experiencing the departures so we reduce the size of those in the group that remain by 6% per year.  This is then constant rate of decline for part of the church and no decline for the other with the total size slowly approaching the target size.  Numerically this wold look like:

PC(USA) Membership for Partition Model

Year Membership
 2009  2,077,138
 2010  2,014,824
 2020  1,564,395
 2030  1,321,787
 2040  1,191,114
 2050  1,120,732
 2060  1,082,823
 Target  1,038,569

Case 3a – Complex Partitioning or Multiple Effect
OK, as a final model let us leave the realm of first-order models and consider something with two levels of complexity. As those that have looked at membership statistics know, there are many different factors involved in the mainline decline.  For this model let us take the 3% decline of the Partition Model and say that 2.5% of that is theology-based departures and it gets applied fully to the declining group.  Let us also say that there is a 0.5% decrease for other reasons – cultural, political, social – all lumped into that one decline.  This decline is applied uniformly to both groups.  (I arrived at this 0.5% number from looking at general rates of decline of Protestant denominations in the American Religious Identification Survey.)  So now, instead of “right-sizing” the denomination to a fixed target size we have a model where the membership is rapidly declining towards a target size that is declining itself, but at a much slower rate.

PC(USA) Membership for Multiple Effect Model

Year Membership
 2009  2,077,138
 2010  2,014,824
 2020  1,540,278
 2030  1,251,397
 2040  1,068,914
 2050  947,759
 2060  862,294


Putting it all together
Here is a chart showing the five different models for direct comparison.


Closing words and Commentary
As I wrap this up I should probably repeat again that these are mostly first-order models that use constant or smooth variations in the constants.  Other cases could be developed for the rapid departure of particular groups or for the outright division of the church.  And while I have modeled the partitioning into two groups you could also imagine the case where it is best modeled as three groups – conservatives, moderates and liberals each in their own partition, or maybe conservatives, emergents, and everyone else.

Having put all of these forward I will state that my own leaning at the present time is to view the future of the PC(USA), and probably some other mainline churches, as following a hybrid model where the church experiences a partition decline coupled with a general decline model.  But I think at some time, and maybe not in the next 50 years, the church will reach a “right-size” or equilibrium state where membership will hold fairly steady.  But based on these models I will say that the current PC(USA), and similar churches, will not look anything like the present church in size or structure.  Time will tell if this is right and what the church will actually look like.

But having said what I expect to happen, let me also say that I am praying for the reversal model.  I look to God to find a way for the PC(USA) and other churches to move beyond the current divisions and find a way to bring the Gospel to the world in such a way that people are attracted to the church and the numbers grow again.  It does occur to me that maybe this would require partition in order for the witness to begin again and the churches to grow.  I don’t know what the answer is but I pray we are attentive to God’s leading as we honestly and prayerfully discern together where we are going.

Now on to another general look at this sort of thing from a different angle, coming up in two or three days.

The 219th General Assembly Of The PC(USA) — Not Business As Usual For One Item

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Please allow me to be cynical about the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for a moment as I reflect on my observation that most of the items before the Assembly and how the Assembly dealt with them were pretty much “business as usual.”  There was of course that unique session where both the Final and Minority reports of the Special Committee on Civil Union and Christian Marriage were commended to the whole church. But for the most part I frequently found myself thinking “been there, done that.”

Part of this was because so many high-profile items were really reports back from committees and task forces the last Assembly created.  Some of the deja vu was because these are items that keep coming back to every Assembly, like the ordination standards. And some is because the business contains a lot of routine items  like approving minutes, transferring churches, and creating presbyteries.  That is, until that last one stops being business as usual…

On the morning of Thursday July 8 the Committee on Middle Governing Body Issues late in their report brought a simple request from the Synod of South Atlantic, item 04-08:

The Synod of South Atlantic overtures the 219th General Assembly (2010) to approve the organization of a new non-geographic Korean language presbytery pursuant to its powers under G-13.0103n.

The Synod had passed this overture on a unanimous vote and the Assembly committee had also approved it by a wide margin, 43-2.  Seemed like a slam-dunk but it was not.

A few commissioners, including two young second-generation Asian-American women pastors, rose to speak against forming the non-geographic Korean language presbytery and their pleas were so persuasive that the Assembly disapproved the item 125-514-7. (If you want to watch yourself check out the Video On Demand, Session 5, Part 9, at 1:09 except the video cuts out before the end)  Every Assembly holds a few surprises and for the 219th this was one of the biggest for me.

There were a couple of arguments against the new presbytery – lack of women leadership and challenges for clergy who serve in English ministry in Korean congregations.  The speakers argued that it is difficult to advocate for women clergy and young leadership in language presbyteries that tend to not favor those in their culture.  In addition, for ministers that speak English and serve second-generation ministries in Korean churches but do not speak Korean, or do not speak it well, participating in the life of the presbytery is difficult to impossible.  It makes it challenging to develop new young second-generation leadership speaking English in a language presbytery.

As you may be aware the GA’s relationship with non-geographic language presbyteries is a bit conflicted.  For example, the 218th GA sent a mixed message.  On the one hand they passed a Book of Order amendment which would provide a bit more flexibility in membership in non-geographic presbyteries but in doing so made sure to include a clause that non-geographic presbyteries should have an end date – they are to be transitional and not permanent.  On the other hand, the Assembly, from the same committee, approved another item that granted the continuation of Hanmi Presbytery without term limit.  So what message is being sent here?

Returning to the 219th GA, I should note that later in the day on Thursday there was a report on Twitter, but I have not verified it from a second source, that one of the women who spoke against the motion was physically assaulted for taking that position against the non-geographic presbytery.

Related to this is the rough time the PC(USA) has, and maybe American Presbyterians in general have, with being a racially diverse church.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I was a bit surprised that the Rev. Jin S. Kim, a minister with extensive service to the denomination and high name recognition, would have polled the lowest in the voting for Moderator of the GA.  A friend suggested that maybe this was not in spite of his name recognition, but because of it.  This could be very true — He directly speaks of the lack of racial diversity in the PC(USA) and what that means in terms of the changing demographics of the U.S.  In his candidating speech to the GA I heard him say what he has said before about this.  Here are excerpts from that speech (Video on demand, Session 3, Part 1, 53:40)

Those of you who know me know that I have no shortage of critiques of our denomination.  I quarrel with this church every day… I quarrel with our sense of entitlement to the prestige of a bygone era.
…
I quarrel with a racism that makes us even now a 92% white Eurocentric denomination in the 21st century, unable to embody the sovereignty of God and the priesthood of all believers in our local congregations.
…
The U.S. Census estimates that whites will be a minority by 2042 — are you making the connection? While the liberals blame the close-mindedness and homophobia of conservatives for our decline, and the conservatives blame the lack of commitment to biblical orthodoxy of the liberals, both seem to miss the massive demographic shift that really is the critical reason for our decline… The basic problem in my view is that we remain a Eurocentric, white, middle-class church wedded to a way of doing faith as deeply dependent on enlightenment rationalism.  But since the sixties the U.S. has become a post-modern nation in which the rational is only one of many competing ways of interpreting God.

This is his concern for the church and the starting point for where he sees that the denomination needs to go.  You will see similar themes in the news article about his sermon to the 218th GA.

And finally, American Presbyterianism has a segregationist past as well.  While there are a number of resources related to this, let me just mention that a bit of a fuss has recently arisen over a new book that looks at some of this history.  Yes, the focus is on institutions that are now affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America, but the history is longer than either the PCA or the PC(USA) and extends back to our common ancestor, the Presbyterian Church in the United States.  In the extensive comments on the post I would point you to one in particular by TE Ligon Duncan, the current pastor of one of the churches prominant in the book talking about how the church has moved on.

So somewhere between our past history and being the Body of Jesus Christ in the future where there is no majority ethnic group in the U.S., the church finds itself today.  What can we learn from the past to help us move into the future?  Are non-geographic presbyteries a useful tool for transition or a structure that allows congregations to isolate themselves – a form of modern segregation – that is holding us back?  While I don’t know if this GA made the right decision, it was refreshing to hear the arguments and see them faithfully wrestling with the question.  Prayers that they did faithfully discern the will of God.

UPDATE: The Rev. Theresa Cho, the first commissioner to speak against the new presbytery, has posted on her blog about this item and her perspective on it.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — Summaries Of The Assembly

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With the conclusion of the meeting of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) earlier today the reports of what the Assembly did are beginning to appear.

For many years I have produced a summary sheet for my congregation and the last few years I have had requests from others asking if they can to use it.  So here is my Brief Summary. Feel free to use it if you find it helpful.

There are already a series of official responses from the PC(USA) including:

In addition Robert Austell has put up on his GAhelp.net site a collection of Post-GA information including an index of the business, Post-GA commentaries, and the News/Opinion feed.

While it is tempting to start commenting on the inaccuricies in the reporting of the popular media I will leave that for another day.  However, one of my favorite blogs, GetReligion, has posted their first piece.

So, the 219th is in the books. Lots for the presbyteries to vote on.  I’m still working on my summary thoughts, but for the moment we are on to the General Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church in a couple of weeks.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — The Clock Is Ticking

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While I am working on a longer post about some of the racial-ethnic issues that have surfaced in the PC(USA) and the wider Presbyterian family in the last few days I wanted to break away for a moment to make a brief comment about what happened in the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Thursday night and Friday morning.

To summarize the actions: Thursday night the Assembly took the recommendation of the Commissioner Committee on Civil Union and Marriage Issues and amended their recommendation commending the Final Report of the Special Committee so that it now commends both the Final Report and the Minority Report from the Special Committee to the denomination.  Only a short while later the Assembly voted 348 to 324 to have the rest of the items from the Assembly Committee answered by the action on the Special Committee’s reports.  This effectively said that changes to the definition of marriage in the Book of Order, which was outside the charge to the Special Committee, would not be considered this year.  Friday morning, as probably anticipated by every polity wonk tracking this, the motion was made to reconsider the previous night’s action and after some debate the Assembly voted 275 to 407 not to reconsider.  I am guessing that result was also anticipated by most polity wonks, although I must admit I was surprised by the large margin of the vote.

OK – impartial observer mode off and commentary mode on.  Beware of snark…

1) As a member of the Special Committee on Civil Unions and Christian Marriage I would like to personally thank the Assembly for the confidence you placed in our report to make it, the whole thing with Final and Minority combined, the final word on marriage from this Assembly and for the PC(USA) for the next two years.  I truly appreciate the word to the church to have them study what we wrote — I know that I learned a lot about the topic from researching the report.  But aside from the definition of Christian marriage, the church finds itself in an interesting situation right now where we have in W-4.9001 an inaccurate definition for civil marriage in certain jurisdictions, still saying civil marriage is between a man and woman while some states have moved away from that.  Hopefully the church will use this time the Assembly has given it to contemplate how to better define Christian marriage while acknowledging that the definition of civil marriage is changing in some places.

2) While acknowledging that a lot of people are frustrated, to say the least, by the Assembly deferring the issue all together, this whole sequence points to a much larger issue related to the Assembly — the Assembly has far too little time to do way too much business.  Both the move to quickly answer all the other business with the report as well as the strong response not to reconsider it today are, in my observation, an indication that the commissioners are setting priorities for what items they are willing to engage in lengthy debates about and they essentially said that this was not one of them.  Back at the 209th GA when I was a commissioner we reached 1 AM on Friday night (i.e. Saturday morning) and just started referring business to the 210th GA to finish off the docket.

Please be clear that I am not saying that the commissioners were looking to ignore the issue, wanted a quick fix, or needed an easy out, especially because of the late hour.  What I am saying is that in the multitude of factors that the commissioners were weighing, consciously and subconsciously, the fact that they had a limited amount of time to deal with an overwhelming amount of work was a factor that influenced some and, I believe, the original resolution passed at that hour when it probably would not have passed at an earlier hour of the day.

After tracking GA’s for a number of years I have come to understand that an Assembly has one good debate per day in them.  It appears that Thursday’s debate was on the issue of ordination standards.  The commissioners saved their energy for that and when finished they then had enough of hot topics for the day.  Again, this is not a reflection on the inherent importance of the topic itself, only the tendency of the Assembly to prioritize the use of their time and energy.

If you are wondering about the energy level of the Assembly, it was clear from the commissioners at the microphone that by Friday morning the energy was starting to fade — There was one commissioner that had lost track of which day it was and another that had lost track of which vote they were taking.

Now, my comments here are not a conservative’s plea of “Let not deal with it and keep the status quo.” This is a realist’s plea to say “Let’s find a better way to deal with it.”  That is also part of the message of our Special Committee report.  The Assembly has a limited amount of time to deal with a whole lot of business.  For the most part the commissioner committee process is successful and the full Assembly tends to trust the intense discernment and study each committee puts in on the topic.  But there are still enough major issues to eat up more time than the GA has to faithfully deal with them.

So, can we step back for a moment and ask if the PC(USA) is trying to do too much business with too little time?  Are we giving ourselves space to be the body of Christ together in real discernment listening to each other.  That is what the Special Committee did and our conclusion was that we were brothers and sisters in Christ around that table and while we could not come to agreement on that topic, we were still around the table together.

I don’t know the answer.  I ask myself if we need to limit the business to an Assembly.  Do we need to restructure the way business gets done.  Do we need more Assemblies, each more specifically focused.  I’m still thinking and have not decided yet.  But it is my conclusion that at the present time the General Assembly feels the constraint of the clock too much with too much to do in too little time to properly work through it.

My thoughts for today — your milage may vary.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — But Will The Presbyteries Concur?

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Yesterday at the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) two high-profile business items were approved that will now require the concurrence of the presbyteries.  As a change to the Book of Order, or maybe better expressed as a revision of a major portion of the Book of Order, the new revised Form of Government and new Foundations of Presbyterian Polity sections will require a majority vote of the presbyteries to be adopted.  On the other hand, the Belhar Confession will require two-thirds of the presbyteries to agree to be included in the Book of Confessions.  After these were approved by the Assembly plenary I was musing on my commute home from work on the basic question – “Will the presbyteries concur?”

Well, if I ponder something long enough I usually head in an analytical direction and this was no different.  So in the spirit of the alternate hashtag for GA – #presbynerdfest10 – this post is about to get really geeky really fast.

Let me begin with the data:  The nFOG passed the plenary by a vote of 468 yes to 204 no, a 69.6% yes vote.  The Belhar Confession was endorsed by the plenary with a 525 to 150 vote, a 77.8% yes vote.  Clearly, if the presbyteries mirror the Assembly in their voting than both will be approved.  However, we know from past experience that this is not the case.  In the most recent example the 218th General Assembly approved the change to G-6.0106b by a 380 to 325 margin, a 53.9% yes vote but the presbyteries voted 78 to 94 on 08-B with only a 45.3% yes vote.  The ratio of presbytery “yes” to assembly “yes” is 0.840.  If we apply that to the nFOG vote we get 58.5% yes in the presbyteries and for Belhar 65.4%.  nFOG passes and Belhar is very close.

Why is there a difference between Assembly and presbytery votes?  As polity wonks know, this is really a comparison of apples to oranges.  In the presbytery voting each presbytery has equal weight regardless of their size.  The smallest presbyteries’ votes count just the same as the largest and as a general rule the smaller presbyteries tend to be more conservative.  The other element in play here is that past voting patterns have shown that commissioners to the General Assembly are, on balance, more progressive than the average elder back home — or at least the elders back home are more resistant to change.  Finally, there is more time before the presbytery votes allowing for more organizing and educating of commissioners that can influence the final vote.

While I won’t go into the details, mathematicians will quickly realize that the ratio is not the only, and probably not the best, way to go in this case and rather we would be better served by having more data.  Much to my surprise, there is none from the 218th GA — Until I went searching I did not realize that every other item from that Assembly that went to the presbyteries for concurrence was approved by the plenary on voice or other non-recorded vote.  (There is something interesting in that alone but I need to do some more thinking about that.)

So, as another measure of the Assembly’s strength of opinion let me turn to the vote in the committee for each item since that is required to be a recorded vote.  Here is what happened in the Assembly committee and the presbyteries.  The link for each item takes you to the PC-Biz page for that item.

Item  Comm. % Yes Presby. % Yes
 08-A  96.1%  64.3%
 08-B  78.8%  45.3%
 08-C  94.7%  88.9%
 08-D  98.3%  93.6%
 08-E  100%  89.5%
 08-F  100%  65.3%
 08-G  100%  88.3%
 08-H  100%  89.1%
 08-I  79.3%  57.6%
 08-J  100%  95.9%
 08-K  100%  98.8%
 08-L  100%  93.6%
 08-M  100%  99.4%
 08-N  100%  98.2%

So looking at 08-B, the only one with counted votes in all three arenas, we have 78.8% yes in committee, 53.9% yes in full Assembly, and 45.3% yes in the presbyteries.

Taking this data and graphing it gives the chart below. It is a bit busy but the primary data are the blue squares.  I’ve included the full Assembly vote on  08-B as a red square for reference.  Statisticians will quickly see that while the left-hand blue data points are nicely clustered together, they are away from the other points and do leverage the best-fit line in blue.  I’ve put on the bounding lines in black.  The two thresholds, 50% and 66.7% are marked in purple.


Now, using this as a predictor, we see that a Book of Order change should get greater than 78% in committee and for Confessions above 87%.  nFOG was 37-5, 88% so probable passage.  Belhar was 43-11, 79.6% so it would fail on the main trend and closer on the upper bound.  Revisions to ordination standards was 69.2% so also a predicted failure by presbyteries to approve.

But is this valid?  This was the correlation for the PC(USA) after the 218th GA, does this correlation still hold for the church today?  I don’t know but we will see what happens in the next year.

Anyway, some speculative geekiness.  I will say that I do think the church has changed enough that the correlation probably won’t hold.  We will see how close it is.  Stay tuned.  Now, out of geek mode and back to polity wonk — next topic: the defeat of a non-geographic presbytery today.

Update:  Between the time I wrote this and when I proofed and posted it the 219th GA voted on item 06-09 to propose a change to G-6.0106b.  As I said above the committee vote would predict not enough presbyteries concurring based on past trends.  With full Assembly approval by 373 to 323, a 53.6% yes vote.  This is almost identical to the vote on the corresponding item for the 218th General Assembly and may suggest little shift in the church since then.  If the ratio from the last Assembly holds this Book of Order change would again fail. Time will tell.