The upcoming 218^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) just got a little bit less interesting…

Don’t get me wrong, there will still be plenty of interesting things going on, but one of the more “interesting” Overtures has been withdrawn.  While I can’t definitively connect the dots, here are the dots as I understand them.

The Synod of the Southwest overtured the General Assembly to allow the General Assembly Council to invest money in places other than the Presbyterian Foundation as most other entities in the PC(USA) can.  I don’t think I would be exaggerating to say that this was a concern to the Foundation, maybe we could even call it a threat.  Furthermore, the Assembly Committee on the Constitution had an opinion that GAC could interpret donor intent making this a double threat.

Why do I think this was a threat?  Well, the foundation produced and distributed a roughly 45 minute video to all the commissioners and delegates.  My son the YAD got it in the mail yesterday.  The video directly addresses why the proposed change would be a bad idea because it circumvents checks and balances, is chasing increased returns, and ignores the built up talent and knowledge of the Foundation.  The video makes the case well but to be blunt it is a bunch of talking heads and not as “colorful” as some of the other Foundation videos.

Well, the Synod of the Southwest withdrew their Overture so it appears that it is no longer on the docket for Committee 8 – Mission Coordination and Budget.  One of the advantages of the old paper system was that there was a “paper trail.”  You will notice that with the withdrawal of Overture 85, the place holder on PC-biz is still there, but in electronic form it allows the system managers of PC-biz to remove the text so there is nothing substantial for us to look at any more.

However, the Synod of the Southwest issued a substantial press release about this decision.  The first thing that I would note is that apparently the Synod Moderator and Synod Executive/Synod State Clerk were empowered to withdraw that motion since on June 2 the Synod voted to “affirm the decision” by the officers.  (As an officer of the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii I will note that is not an unusual empowerment although for us it would take all five of the officers.)  The press release also makes it clear that the overture addressed only non-permanent funds.  The press release says:

Recent interpretation by the Foundation and others has sought to characterize the overture as addressing funds deposited with the Foundation by donors for specific mission purposes coordinated by the ministry of the General Assembly Council. The overture, however, addressed other funds, not those which are permanently endowed.

The officers gave five reasons for withdrawing the overture:  1)  It had served the purpose of getting the issue before GAC and the Foundation.  They could always bring it back in 2010. 2) Unknown to the Synod there were other issues that have now become public.  3) These and other matters have “subsumed” the issue of the overture and the overture issue has largely become overshadowed.  4) While the concern persists, pressing the issue at this time harms the “peace of the church.” 5) The Foundation will be asked for rate of return information and they are now “on notice” about being transparent with those facts.

The mailing to GA commissioners and delegates was made after this synod decision so there is a letter included with the DVD noting the withdrawal, but still expressing concern for the climate and the fact that the ACC recommendation (that GAC gets to interpret donor intent) remains on the table.

Commentary:  There is clear tension right now between GAC and the Foundation, something that everyone involved seems to acknowledge.  While I am not quite ready to read more into the Synod decision than they state in their press release, with the current climate in some quarters of the PC(USA) the withdrawal could be interpreted differently if you want to find a conspiracy between Louisville and synods.  (Example 1, Example 2, Example 3)  (And sorry if I overstated my position in the title but the reference to the Asimov book was too good to pass up.)

On the one hand, as a reformed Christian I recognize the sinful nature of human beings and having checks and balances in a covenant community is the way we do things.  On the other hand, I have been involved in some dealings with the Foundation and their less-flexible interpretations of donor intent have been way more restrictive than how we have understood it.

So, for GA in a week, I guess that this horse has been put back in the barn, but there is a bunch more that have gotten out and are still roaming and the work of the Foundation will be on the table in several different places.  Stay tuned.

UPDATE 6/17/08:  Michael Kruse, an insider to this discussion by virtue of his membership on GAC, has posted his personal observations and commentary on this controversy.

In my post yesterday I said that I had no word of additional challengers for the position of Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).  Well, this afternoon brings a Presbyterian News Service article that there are four candidates:

The search committee nominee, insider and heir apparent – Rev. Gradye Parsons

The initial challenger – Rev. Edward Koster

Newly announced – Rev. Winfield “Casey” Jones

Newly announced – Rev. William P. Tarbell

You can read about the Rev. Parsons all over the PC(USA) web site, such as his own GA page, as the official nominee, and there is the original Presbyterian News Service article and my initial comments.

While Rev. Parsons is currently featured on the Stated Clerk search web page, to be fair the page currently reprints part of today’s article and will soon have info on all the candidates now that the declaration deadline has passed.

I talked about the Rev. Koster when he first announced and he had a News Service article written about him as well.

The article says that both Rev. Jones and Rev. Tarbell filed their declarations at the deadline on Wednesday.  Also, both of these pastors challenged the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick for the job back in 2000. 

Rev. Jones is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Pearland, Texas, and the article says that his experience includes serving as a pastor in Texas in several congregations since 1979 and serving on Presbytery committees.

Rev. Tarbell has similar experience but his parish service has been much more traveled including South Dakota, Wyoming, Oregon, Missouri, and currently South Carolina serving as pastor of Saluda Presbyterian Church.

Now that all the candidates are know there will be a book with more information on each one published shortly.

Today, May 8, is an exciting day.  General Assembly is getting closer and I, an unrepentant GA Junkie, can hardly wait.  With only a week to go…  Only a week to go?  Yes folks, the General Assembly season begins one week from today in Edinburgh, Scotland, with the convening of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.  Did I say I can hardly wait?  (Yeah, I’m pretty hard core about Presbyterian General Assemblies.  But if you have not figured that out from this blog I’m not doing my job.)

I’ll do a preview of that GA in the next day or two, but first this is also an important day for the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly.

Yesterday marked the 45 day deadline before the convening of GA and according to the Standing Rules there is lots of stuff that has to happen by that day.  First, while the usual cut-off for submitted business is 60 days before the start, under rule A.1.b the Stated Clerk has the discretion to include business submitted up to the 45 day point.  (Note, this is the postmark date so there could be business to still arrive in the next few days.)  Forty-five days is also the cut-off for overtures [A.3.c.(3)], but the deadlines for constitutional changes and those with financial implications has already passed.  In addition, nominees for Vice-moderator must be announced [H.1.c.(1)] and challengers for the Stated Clerk election must declare [H.2.b.(3).(k)].  And in general, most papers, communications, commissioner committee assignments, and a lot of other routine items needed to by done by yesterday.

Let me move on to the business.  Taking the easy one first, I have heard of no other applicants besides Edward Koster who have declared that they are challenging the nominating committee’s selection Gradye Parsons for the position of Stated Clerk.

As for the Vice-moderator nominees, thanks to Moderator candidate Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow we now know that the Rev. Diane Givens Moffett, pastor of St. James Presbyterian Church of Greensboro, NC, has been selected by the Rev. Carl Mazza as his Vice-moderator nominee.  I don’t see this announcement on his Moderator candidacy web site yet.  Rev. Moffett, according to the bio on her church web site, is a native of Oakland, CA, and her education was in the Bay Area as well with a degree from Berkeley and an MDiv and DMin from SFTS North.  She has been recognized for her preaching and if you Google her there are a lot of hits returned for her.  This rounds out the field of eight with seven clergy and one elder (way to go Roger!).  Now we wait for the election.

The committee leadership was formally announced earlier this week, but if you surfed around PC-biz, that has actually been posted there since my last update.  The committee leadership is very important, maybe the most important business aspect of GA.  Since all business is dealt with in committee first, and generally shaped there, how the committee functions is crucial.  In most cases the full assembly has neither the time nor the interest in doing anything more than fine-tuning a committee report.  In general, the committee report is adopted almost exactly as the committee presents it.  Pray for these people in leadership.

Well, that brings us to the business itself.  The total number of items in PC-biz is 283 and with 99 overtures last time the count now appears to be up to 109.  With numbers like that you can see why the Assembly must trust the committees.

I have been a bit connected to overtures 100, 101, and 102 which were submitted by my Synod and concern Hanmi Presbytery, a non-geographic Korean-language presbytery, and its churches.  Beginning with 102, which was assigned to Committee 3 – General Assembly Procedures, this overture asks for the continuation of Hanmi Presbytery on an indefinite basis.  The rational is interesting reading because it not only lays out the trials and tribulations Hanmi has been through, but it also describes the history of non-geographic presbyteries in the PC(USA).  Authorized in 1983 and established in 1984 Hanmi was to be a transitional presbytery (yes, the PC(USA) had transitional presbyteries, but that is another issue) with a ten year life time.  The status as a transitional presbytery was renewed for another 15 years, to expire in January 2009.  That was to be the last extension and instructions were given to develop a plan to transfer churches out.  In the mean time, non-geographic presbyteries were enshrined in the Book of Order by the church in 2001 by adding them to G-12.0102k so as to meet “mission needs.”  Now that non-geographic presbyteries are no longer a transitional structure, the request is for Hanmi to continue indefinitely.  But this is with the note that overtures 100 and 101 are requests to transfer churches out of Hanmi into Riverside and Pacific Presbyteries respectively.

It is interesting to note that the 217th GA in 2006 referred to the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly a request to study the feasibility of non-geographic synods, particularly Korean-American ones.  That referral is coming back as item 03-07 and recommends that when there are not enough congregations within the bounds of a synod for a non-geographic presbytery that congregations may join, with the permission of everyone in sight, a non-geographic presbytery in another synod.

Now, without financial implications or constitutional changes what is left?  Social witness policy of course.  Overture 103, from Pittsburgh Presbytery, is supporting single-payer universal health care.  Overture 105, from Santa Barbara Presbytery, asks that the PC(USA) becomes a non-partisan advocate for peace and would direct that the denominational offices not take sides.  And 106, also from Santa Barbara Presbytery, would have the 218th GA answer all overtures concerning Israel and Palestine with a single statement.  That statement says that the issues are complex and the PC(USA) will not take a position that favors one side or the other.  Furthermore, it calls on the church to pray for peace, render humanitarian aid, condemn terrorism, and advocate for a negotiated solution.

It is interesting that another group of overtures deal with disaster assistance in various ways.  Overture 104 from South Louisiana Presbytery asks the denomination to look into group wind and hail insurance policies.  Overture 107, from the Synod of the Sun, would thank Presbyterians throughout the country, and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, for their help rebuilding the Gulf Coast communities.  And 108 addresses a current issue in the denomination, the incorporation of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.  This overture, from Peace River Presbytery, instructs General Assembly Council to continue to move forward with the process of incorporating PDA.  At its meeting at the end of April the GAC voted unanimously not to incorporate PDA because they decided that things were good now and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  They did keep the task force in place until September 2009.  It is not evident if this overture pre-dates or post-dates that vote.

Finally, overture 109, from Heartland Presbytery, asks the Stated Clerk to gather resources and examples of ordination examination procedures and materials for use across the church.  This is of course related to the PUP report and we will see if it is affected by other action the GA may take on PUP issues.

That is it for now.  I’ll be focusing on the Church of Scotland GA for the next couple of weeks but will try to also update the PC(USA) business if anything arises.

Over the last week there has been some local activity for the four candidates standing for Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The series of events began with the attendance of the candidates at the regular meeting of the General Assembly Council in Louisville.  This seems to not so much be a “moderator” event as it is a “reality check.”  It gives the candidates an opportunity to see the state of the denomination one last time before GA, and it lets the “inner circle” of the denomination check out the candidates.  From these two days Bruce Reyes-Chow has posted some of his reflections.

After Louisville, all four traveled to New Jersey for two “meet-and-greet” events, one in the afternoon at Bloomfield College and one that evening at First Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville.  The evening one is well covered, complete with pictures, by lead organizer Mark Smith in his blog Mark Time.  For full details and impressions check it out, but it had a great format with time for candidate’s remarks to the whole group, breaking up into four groups, one with each candidate and then rotate candidates, and finally an informal time to mingle.  In addition to Mark, candidate Carl Mazza has his own comments on his blog.

Finally, Bruce Reyes-Chow and Bill Teng were able to continue the “whistle-stop tour” with an event the next day at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, in Washington, D.C.  You can find reflections on this event by Carol Howard Merritt on her blog Tribal Church.

All the comments are positive about these events and it sounds like a useful exercise to get the candidates together out in the “real world.”  So often we hear about the election at GA, those that did not get elected fade from view, and the Moderator is now someone out traveling the world on our behalf that we may read about, but usually don’t meet and who also has pretty much faded from view when the next GA rolls around.  Now I realize that even with the new two year terms of moderators, for them to visit every presbytery would require visiting an average of close to two presbyteries per week.  So getting face time with each of the two-million-ish members is not realistic.  But we in the particular church need to be attentive to our connectionalism more than the one week every-other year that GA is in session.

There have been enough events happening this week that I thought it worthwhile updating the preparations for the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Probably the biggest single news item, one worthy of a Presbyterian News Service article, is that at least one individual, the Rev. Edward Koster, Stated Clerk of Detroit Presbytery, will challenge the search committee nominee, Rev. Gradye Parsons, for the job of Stated Clerk of the General Assembly.  Rev. Koster has served 13 years as a Presbytery stated clerk and in addition to his theological training he is also a lawyer.  The News Service article quotes Rev. Koster from a prepared statement as saying “I believe that while our leadership has been faithful and competent, it
has increasingly strayed from the core of the church. If I am called to
serve, I believe I can make a difference.”

The blogosphere has had some response to this challenge.  In particular the Rev. Bob Davis of San Diego Presbytery has an analysis of the process from his perspective and concludes that the process as it currently stands limits the commissioners’ exposure to the challengers and favors the committee nominee.  The Rev. Davis has some experience with this, having been one of the challengers to Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick when he was last re-elected by the 216th General Assembly in 2004.  In a follow-up post today Rev. Davis suggests some changes to the Standing Rules to improve the process.  Specifically, he wants more time for conversation between the candidates and the commissioners and delegates and so suggests establishing a commissioner committee to interview the candidates.  While I don’t have my materials in front of me, it is my memory that was the process at the preceding election at the 212th General Assembly (2000).  I would also note that the Rev. Davis appears to be a commissioner to General Assembly from San Diego presbytery so he may be in a position to do something about his suggestion.

There are some additional reactions on blogs to the Stated Clerk election, including Quotidian Grace and Spoiled Dinner Party that express concern about the choice of an insider as the committee nominee at this point in time and they welcome the challengers.  The other 12 applicants who were not selected by the nominating committee have until May 7 to declare if they also wish to challenge.

Another place there has been activity is on the business system PC-biz.  The big news is that overnight the members of the committees were added to the system.  In scanning through the lists I recognize a bunch of names, like the Rev. Davis who will be on Committee 8, Mission Coordination and Budgets.  For the candidates for Moderator and Vice-Moderator, Rev. Carl Mazza is on Committee 4, Church Polity; Rev. Byron Wade is on Committee 5, Church Orders and Ministry; Rev. Tamara Letts, Committee 13, Theological Issues and Institutions; Rev. Peter deVries, Committee 14, Review of GA Permanent Committees; Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow and Rev. William Teng, Committee 16, Worship and Spiritual Renewal (note: these are supposed to be random assignments so someone from Presbyterians for Renewal on the Spiritual Renewal Committee is coincidence); and Elder Roger Shoemaker on Committee 17, Youth.  Those that are elected Moderator and Vice-moderator will not serve on their committee so they may moderate the committee report impartially.

As far as the business is concerned, almost all overtures and recommendations have been assigned to committees at this point.  There is one new overture, 99, also known as business item 11-23, from the Presbytery of San Francisco.  The title is “On Divestment from Caterpillar, Inc., and Motorola, Inc., for Profiting from the Israeli Military Occupation of Palestine Territories” which pretty much says it all.  It is also interesting to note that two more overtures have been withdrawn:  Overture 4 on clarifying the Rules of Discipline about pronouncing censure and Overture 75 on temporary suspension of military aid to the State of Israel.  No reasons for withdrawal given.

In other news related to the Moderator election, the Candidates Forum at First Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, NJ, is tomorrow night and I look forward to comments and impressions from any of the candidates, from Mark Smith on his blog Mark Time. or from any other blogger who makes it to the event.  And thanks to Mark for putting this event together.  Being on the left coast I don’t think I’ll be making it myself.  Also, I continue to watch but have not seen word yet on Rev. Mazza’s nominee for Vice-Moderator.

Finally, the denomination has announced the prayer emphasis for the week before GA highlighted by a road trip by Tammy Wiens-Sorge, Associate for Spiritual Formation and Stephany Jackson, Coordinator for Congregational Leadership, traveling from Louisville to San Jose.  For six months now I have been steeling myself for all the upcoming references to that old song about San Jose and the title of this effort, Praying Our Way To San Jose, comes pretty close to the first authentic reference I have heard.  But I have to agree with Joan Gray, Moderator of the 217th General Assembly, when she says in her message on the web page “If you haven’t already, start praying now!”  I could not agree more.