Category Archives: governing bodies

A Brief Update On Cross-Issue Correlation In PC(USA) Amendment Voting

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Not Much Change.

Brief enough for you?  OK, you want a bit more?

As I have commented the past couple of posts on this stuff there was a bit of a question about the data, particularly for the New Form of Government vote, because the official tally from the Office of the General Assembly differed markedly from the unofficial “word on the street” numbers.  Well, in the last week the unofficial lists have caught up and as of today’s release of the official numbers the differences have mostly disappeared.  The official numbers always lag a bit because of the extra time required to report the votes (the Stated Clerk still does not accept reports from those of us who tweet it).  So, at the moment the numbers are: Belhar – Official 44-23, unofficial 46-29; nFOG – Official 50-33, unofficial 50-39; Amendment 10-A – Official 57-37, unofficial 67-47.

For those playing along at home it appears that nFOG and 10-A are on track to be affirmed by the presbyteries but the Belhar Confession is very close and trailing the 2/3 confirmation it needs to join the Book of Confessions.  Of the other 14 amendments being voted upon, 11 have now been affirmed by the presbyteries and the other three are seeing some degree of negative votes, but still on track to be affirmed.

As usual, my data is aggregated
from numbers from Twitter as well as vote counts at the Covenant Network, Yes on 10-A, Reclaim Biblical Teaching and the Layman.
This aggregation is available in my spreadsheet and my cross-vote spreadsheet through yesterday’s
reports.

What appears to have happened is that the Layman and Reclaim Biblical Teaching lists, which are the ones that track the Belhar and the nFOG voting, have gotten a bunch of new data on nFOG.  The good news is that new data is always good and makes my analyses more reliable.  The bad news is that most of these are unrecorded votes meaning that either the vote was taken by voice or a show of hands and not counted out, or the counted data was not available to the reporting groups.  The bottom line is that there is not much new for my strength of voting analysis so I’ll let my previous one stand for the moment and just look at the cross-tabulation of the “yes/no” votes.

So here are the correlations:

 n=52 Belhar
Yes 		Belhar
No
 nFOG yes  25
48%		 3
6%
 nFOG no  4
8%		 20
38%
n=48 Belhar
Yes 		Belhar
No
 10-A yes  27
56%		 3
6%
 10-A no  4
8%		 14
29%
 n=65 nFOG
Yes 		nFOG
No
 10-A yes  28
43%		  6
9%
10-A no 10
15% 		 21
32%

Well, there is a little shift, but the same quantitative pattern holds and the shifts are mostly minor.  The Belhar/nFOG correlation is now tied for the best with 86% of presbyteries voting the same way on both issues (down slightly from 90% last time) and 14% opposite voting.  Yes, now Belhar Yes/nFOG No has one more vote than the other combination while it had one less vote last time — still pretty similar.

The Belhar/10-A correlation is interesting because it has the same number of opposite voting presbyteries as the Belhar/nFOG correlation and within the rounding this gives essentially the same percentages – 14% opposite and 87% same.  The previous analysis had 83% of the presbyteries voting the same so there is a slight increase in the correlation.

Finally, we have the least favorable correlation, the nFOG/10-A voting, and the numbers are very close to the previous analysis, and maybe a bit better correlated.  Previously, within the rounding, 75% of the presbyteries voted the same way on both issues and now we have the same number again.  Last time the opposite votes were the same and now we see a slight tendency for a presbytery that votes no on 10-A to still support a yes vote on nFOG.  In fact, since the previous analysis only one more presbytery has been added to the count that voted yes on 10–A and no on nFOG.

What does it all mean?  Well, for the data crunchers like me it is nice to see that the larger quantity of data supports the preliminary analysis I did before.  We are still only at about 1/3 of the presbyteries in any one of these comparisons so this is still in a preliminary mode, but it is valuable to see that as the data set grows the basic trends remain the same.  It is also suggestive that we can have some confidence in the previous analysis that used the strength of voting.

It also continues to encourage us to ask the question of why these votes are correlated.  I’ve pondered that in the previous posts so won’t repeat it again in print until the data set has filled out substantially more.  Some of you have suggested additional variables to look at with the strength of vote numbers to help clarify that question a bit.  When the strength of vote data has increased some more I’ll revisit it again.

This continued trend does not however allow up to say anything about the time trend of the data.  These data have no associated date information and just because they were added in the last week does not mean that the votes were taken in that time period.  So while they have the same trend we can not say that the voting trend truly “continues” in a temporal sense.

Anyway, a little lunch hour diversion and we will watch the voting continue and await more data.  The rest of this week I have a heavy meeting schedule so I’ll try to catch up on some global Presbyterian issues over the weekend.  Stay tuned…

The Fog Around nFOG

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[No, this is not about the questions arising from the differences in the official vote count on nFOG and the unofficial tallies.  (The official tally for this week is posted and the OGA has the count at 45-32 while the unofficial “word on the street” is 24-35.)]

This post is about my experience the last three days with the discernment process around approving a New Form of Government (nFOG) section of the Book of Order that is currently being voted upon by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) presbyteries.  But it seems that this amendment has left many people conflicted or confused.  And it seems that it is hard to work up any enthusiasm for or against this major change in polity.

As part of the discernment process for my presbytery the group planning the presbytery meeting where the Belhar Confession and the New Form of Government would be voted upon asked two individuals to be resource people for each of these issues.  Each of them had served on the committee (Belhar) or task force (nFOG) for that issue.  Unfortunately, the nFOG specialist was not available yesterday and I guess I got the call as the second choice.  So my job at the presbytery meeting was to give a pre-presbytery presentation on nFOG, a brief intro to the debate, and to answer questions during debate.  In agreeing to the request I did make it clear to the planners that they were not getting an nFOG advocate but a polity junkie who would try to give a fair and balanced presentation.  What I got out of it was a better understanding of nFOG myself, and a fascinating insight into the nFOG discernment in my congregation and presbytery.  So here it is as a story in three scenes.

Scene 1
I have the advantage that I have been following the progress of the New Form of Government since the task force was created over four years ago, so I know the history.  I have read, but not studied in detail, a lot of the material that is out there concerning nFOG.  And I have previously heard presentations at least five times by members of the task force, including the member who was not able to make it yesterday.  But that really only covers the history, charge, and over-arching view of the product — what about the details?

I set about to look more closely at the details of nFOG by first visiting the official documents.  The amendment as printed by the Office of the General Assembly runs 46 pages. (The booklet itself also contains an Advisory Handbook bringing the total length to 58 pages.)  There is also an eight page insert that provides some background material and a study guide.  That insert has a list of six additional printed resources and a link to a 21 slide PowerPoint presentation explaining the proposal.  All total, that comes to 352 pages of material.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!  If that is not enough for you there are many additional nFOG resources floating around out there.  The most useful, and what I drew heavily from, is the regular analysis from the Association of Stated Clerks.  There is also a blog by the nFOG task force folks.  Most of the rest of the resources are from advocacy groups promoting one side or the other and most of those promoting a negative vote.  I won’t go into detail, and I have not made any attempt to add up the pages, but if you are interested I’m sure the best list of all these items is over at GAHelp.  And if you want one more, I have a one-sheet, front and back, nFOG Summary I used for my presentation yesterday.

The point of all this is that there is plenty of material out there about nFOG, and arguments for and against, for your reading pleasure.  For me, the challenge was to figure out what to pack into a 45 minute discussion and then a 15 minute presentation.

Scene 2
My pastor, seeing that I was doing the presbytery presentation, invited me to present to our church’s Session on Sunday.  I welcomed the opportunity to not only educate them, but to practice my presentation.  It turned into a bit of a “focus group” experience for me.

I had my prepared materials and went through my presentation and at the end one of the elders commented “this is just as murky as before.”  Message or messenger?

Well we talked about nFOG for a while and in the end it was probably a bit of both that was causing the murkiness.  Specifically, for our elder commissioners to presbytery, I recommended the GAHelp site and they were going to check it out to prepare themselves for the discussion.

Scene 3
With the help of the focus group behind me I threw out my first presentation and handout and started over to try to construct a more helpful one.  It must have been successful because I got good feedback from members of presbytery about it.  But what I also got was a lot of feedback about how people were feeling about nFOG.  I spoke with almost no one who had strong feelings about it but rather they were leaning one way or the other but said they were still uncommitted.  And this was across the demographic spectrum – it included teaching elders and ruling elders of different ages, levels of experience and theological leaning.  In fact, in the debate on the floor of presbytery there was no debate – there was one speaker against who made some claims, another speaker who then asked the question whether what the previous speaker had said was really correct because that was not his understanding, I got called on to answer the question, and debate was over — no one else rose to speak.  In the last three days I have had contact with no one in my church or presbytery who expressed strong feelings either way about nFOG except the one speaker who seems to have been working with incomplete information.  (For the record, I am pretty sure that several commissioners attending my presentation had firm opinions on nFOG but did not express them in that session or later in debate.  Also, again for the record, the lack of debate could also get back to my rule of thumb that a governing body has in it “one good debate per session” and the body had already had that debate on Belhar.)

Some observations
So what do I gather from this little drama in three scenes?  First, that there is too much material out there about nFOG and it results in sensory overload.  OK, let me rephrase that – while it is good and useful to have the 352 pages of official material available for someone thoroughly studying the dynamics and implications of the New Form of Government, how that material gets presented needs to be carefully considered.  One approach would be to have tiers – general information on the first tier, more specific resources on the second, and the comparison charts (all 268 pages) and other very detailed material on the third tier.  As it is now, they are all listed together with no guide for the uninitiated as to what to read first.

But the corollary to this is the fact that when these issues are sent out to the congregations and presbyteries for study, it is my experience that we usually pass up the opportunity.  (Anyone out there studying the Marriage Report I helped write and put so much time, effort and sleepless nights into?)  As faithful teaching and ruling elders we need to be aware of these items the GA wants us to study and encourage each other to do so.  This is especially true when we will have to vote on making them part of the church constitution.

Second, the nFOG in and of itself is too long to be easily considered in one fell swoop.  Yes, it is easier from a polity standpoint to just do a rewrite of the whole thing rather than work with a hybrid document as it is revised in bite-size pieces.  But we did the hybrid thing with current Chapter 14, maybe it would work for the rest of the book.  And based on the “deer in the headlights” looks I saw in my presentation when we started talking about the work of producing the operating manuals, taking those incrementally as well might make the task seem easier.

Finally, there is a great deal of mixed feelings about the nFOG.  Many of the people I have talked with understand the goal of flexibility and concept of returning the Book of Order to a constitutional document by removing the operational details.  But many experienced elders I have talked with in the last three days, both ruling and teaching, know how much our polity hinges on a few words here or a sentence there.  That is the stuff that Authoritative Interpretations and GAPJC decisions are made of.  To lose some of those, particularly the one due process section, raises concern in this experienced cadre.  For both experienced and inexperienced elders I really sensed that they were looking at the “risk/reward” balance and it was pretty even – the rewards did not outweigh the risks by much if anything.  I can also say that I had input from very few that saw this as an ideological issue or that saw it as change for change’s sake.  There was a real and profound sense that everyone was deliberately weighing the pros and cons of the text itself and actively seeking God’s will in this matter.

A couple of additional observations:
1. It might be reasonable to take some of these observations and experiences and look at the Presbyterian Church in America and the defeat of the Administrative Committee’s funding initiative in the same light.  While that change to the Book of Church Order was much shorter, only two specific sections, it struck me that it had the same sort of “sensory overload” as large amounts of official material, including the video, were unloaded on the church to “help” them make a decision.  Similarly, there was a large amount of unofficial chatter about the amendments. Were these resources truly helpful or did they add to the sense of confusion and being overwhelmed?

2. On the nFOG vote the commissioners in my presbytery were not alone in being undecided or looking for strong reasons one way or the other.  Last week there was an interesting exchange when John Shuck in advance of the Holston Presbytery meeting asked on his blog “Should I Vote for the New Form of Government?”  He expressed an undecided position and lack of strong reasons in support of the document,  sentiments that were similar to what I heard from commissioners in my presbytery.  Mr. Shuck admits in the first paragraph “I really don’t see myself having a horse in this race.”  In terms of arguments either way, one of them is “I know the LayMAN and the various true
believers and biblical reclaimers are against it. That would give me
reason to vote in favor, but admittedly not much of a reason.”  After the vote he tweeted “Holston Presbytery approved nFOG. I ended up voting in favor. Time
for a new thing…”  Change for changes sake?

So this was an interesting experience with the New Form of Government.  I don’t know if it will be approved and therefore it will be over and dealt with, or if the presbyteries will not concur and another rewrite may be back for another round in the future.  But whether it is this issue, or another large and complex one, we as a denomination need to think carefully about what will happen to it after it leaves the General Assembly and how it is presented to the presbyteries so they are best positioned to be able deliberate, discuss, debate and discern the issue.

Oh, how did it turn out?  San Gabriel Presbytery did not concur with nFOG by a 47 to 99 vote.  They approved of the Belhar Confession by a 79 to 66 margin.  Each vote had one abstention.

Strong Cross-Issue Correlation In PC(USA) Amendment Voting To Date

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To give you fair warning right at the onset, this will be a fairly geeky post to go with the geeky title.  So let me begin with an executive summary for those that want to avoid the drill-down into the statistics.

Coming out of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the summer of 2010 were three high-profile amendments to be voted on by the presbyteries:  addition of the Belhar Confession to the Book of Confessions, a new Form of Government section for the Book of Order, and Amendment 10-A which proposed new language for the “fidelity and chastity” section, G-6.0106b, of the Form of Government.  At the present time between thirty and fifty presbyteries have voted on each and the votes on each side are very evenly matched.  Furthermore, when you consider the relationship between votes on the different issues they are very strongly correlated.

While this is an interesting statistical result there are two practical implications of this.  The first is that if voting continues to follow the current trends and the correlation holds, the final votes on nFOG and 10-A will be very close but we can expect that the Belhar Confession will not be approved by the presbyteries since it requires a 2/3 vote for inclusion.  The second implication is the fact that presbyteries, and by that we really mean their commissioners, might see some sort of strong linkage between these three items.  It is not clear to what extent any particular factor generates a linkage, but potential reasons could be related to maintaining or rejecting the status quo, affinity group promotion of particular votes, and perception of the issues as all being promoted by the centralized institution of the denomination.

Got that?  OK, for the geeks, nerds and other curious readers here is where this comes from…

I am taking the correlations from my own tally sheet of the voting on these issues.  My spreadsheet is not original to me but represents an aggregation of data from posts on Twitter, and other vote sheets from the Layman, Covenant Network, Yes On Amendment A, and Reclaim Biblical Teaching.  It is important to note that only the first and last of those have info on all three issues and the other two are only for 10-A.

As of yesterday morning, the Belhar Confession was at 21 yes and 20 no, the nFOG was tied at 15, and 10-A was at 27 yes and 25 no.  In total, 88 presbyteries – just over half – had voted on one or more of the issues.  Of these 22 have voted on two of the issues — 9 on Belhar and nFOG, 7 on Belhar and 10-A, and 6 on nFOG and 10-A. Seven presbyteries have voted on all three issues, five of those voting no on all three and two voting no on two out of three with one voting yes on 10-A and one on nFOG.

I eventually plan to run correlations on voting ratios for those presbyteries that have recorded votes, but for this analysis I maximized the sample set by just looking at the bimodal yes/no outcome.  I have a master matrix which those familiar with statistics should be careful not to confuse as a joint probability chart since I have mixed the votes together.  (And I’m sorry if the 70’s color scheme annoys you, but it is just my working spreadsheet and not intended for final publication.)

So, here are the charted data:

 n=16  Belhar
Yes 		 Belhar
No
 nFOG Yes  2  1
 nFog No  0  13

 n=14  Belhar
Yes 		 Belhar
No
 10-A Yes  4  1
 10-A No  1  8

 n=12  10-A
Yes 		 10-A
No
 nFOG Yes  4  1
 nFog No  1  6



Statistics of small numbers? Clearly. But I find it striking that so far only one presbytery has voted cross-wise on each combination except that no presbytery has yet voted no on nFOG and yes on Belhar.  I also think it is noteworthy that in each case, and most pronounced in the Belhar/nFOG voting, there are more presbyteries that have voted “no” on both than have voted “yes.”  For Belhar/10-A and 10-A/nFOG this goes away, and even reverses, if you take out the presbyteries that have voted on all three.

Looking at the bigger picture, while the total vote counts don’t provide any definitive correlation data, their very close margins at the present time are completely compatible with the interpretation that the votes are correlated.  In other words, if the votes are correlated very similar vote counts would be expected (which we have).  But this observation is only necessary and not sufficient for the interpretation.  Additionally, when vote counts are recorded there are usually very similar vote distributions for each of these issues, giving additional evidence of their correlation.

Calculating the number is the easy part, figuring out if it is meaningful is more difficult.  With less than 10% of the presbyteries actually represented in any of of these correlation charts at this point I firmly acknowledge that this could all easily change around very quickly.  So, I don’t want to over-interpret the data, but I do think some corresponding observations are in order.

The simplest explanation is that while the voting may be correlated they are not linked.  In this case a commissioner would make up his or her mind separately on each issue independently and without regard for the other two issues.  The result is that most commissioners, after weighing the arguments and reflecting on information, would be guided to vote the same way on each of the issues.  This is a likely conclusion, especially for those presbyteries that schedule the voting at three different meetings.

But even with our best efforts to be thoughtful and treat each issue independently I have observed a few things around the denomination that tend to link these issues together.  In some cases this is fairly prominent and in other cases I suspect the influence may be at a subliminal level.

The first possible effect is that affinity groups, by recommending the same votes on all three issues, are having an effect and providing a linkage, even if only implied.  Resources at Theology Matters and the Reclaim Biblical Teaching site of the Presbyterian Coalition both recommend a no vote on all three issues.  Similarly, the Covenant Network and Presbyterian Voices for Justice are in favor of all three actions — although to be fair, PJV voices are not unanimously in favor of nFOG.  What has been set up, rightly or wrongly, appears to be a “party-line” vote where you vote yes on the slate if you are progressive or liberal or vote no if you are conservative or orthodox.  This linkage of Belhar and 10-A has been floating around for a while.  It is tougher to tell if there are real linkages of these two with nFOG or whether they are not linked but rather appeal to the same theological base, or possibly whether the issue is “guilt by association.”  Maybe another linkage between nFOG and Belhar is not theological but logistical and some of the negative sentiment simply stems from the church not having had the time to discuss and explore them enough yet. Yes, quite possible despite the fact that we were supposed to be doing that with both issues for the last two years between assemblies.

Beyond the third-party recommendations, let me put forward more subtle explanations – inertia & cynicism.  This is somewhat related to the lack of familiarity argument above but more about the seven last words of the church – “We’ve never done it that way before.”  The question I have is how many presbytery commissioners are opposed to all of them because this seems like change for change’s sake?  Or how many are for it because the church needs to change?  Or to put it another way – “if it ain’t broke why are we trying to fix it?”  A similar argument against Belhar and nFOG could be “if it comes from Louisville it must not be good.”  Remember, neither of these finally came as a presbytery overture but as recommendations from GA entities. (The nFOG has been talked about for a while but the recommendation to form the Task Force was the result of a referral to the OGA.  The request to study the Belhar Confession came from the Advocacy Committee on Racial-Ethnic Concerns.)

Now let me be clear before I am set upon in the comments: For each of these amendments there are very good arguments for and against them and as presbytery commissioners we set about weighing these arguments and discerning God’s will together.  I would expect few if any commissioners would vote solely on the idea that “nothing good can come from Louisville.”  What I do expect is that for some individuals the preservation of the status quo and skepticism of proposals that are top-down rather than bottom-up from the presbyteries are important factors, explicitly or implicitly.

Well, I am afraid that I have gotten too close to the great quote from Mark Twain – “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”  Considering we are still in the early stages of the voting I may indeed be guilty of over interpreting the data.  So rather than provide more conjecture, let me ask a question that may be hinted at but not answerable by these data or even the final data set:  Are we doing our deliberations and voting a disservice by having so many high-profile votes in a single year?  To put it another way – Is our explicit or implicit linkages of issues, valid or not, unfairly influencing the votes?  Something to think about and keep probing the data for answers.

So, until next time, happy data crunching.

An Interesting Invitation And Some Of My Preliminary Reactions

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I got an interesting invitation in my e-mail today, and I’d bet that at least a few of my regular readers got it as well.  As I read it over I had some pretty quick reactions to some of the items, both positive and negative, and thought I would spend my lunch hour reflecting on these a bit.  For me, this can be dangerous because my first reaction often is sarcastic and snarky.  So either move along to other reading or enable your snark filters before going any further if that might be a problem for you.

The invitation came in the form of a letter from “A Fellowship of Presbyterian Pastors” inviting me to a gathering next summer.  (If you don’t have a copy of the letter you can download one.) Those of you who know me realize that this in itself throws up a red flag in my mind.  Not the gathering but that it is coming from a group that contains exclusively teaching elders — no ruling elders.  Now to be clear, the invite is to ruling elders as well as teaching elders, so this is not another case of receiving mail incorrectly addressed to “Dear Rev. Salyards.”  But I must admit that as I looked through the letter and read through the signatories the first thing I thought of was RE Beau Weston’s thought piece Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment.  More on the signatories in a moment, but on to the content.

The letter begins

To say the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is deathly ill is not
editorializing but acknowledging reality.

Interesting.  We are “deathly ill?”  OK, read on and I’ll address that in a moment…

Over the past year, a group of PC(USA) pastors has become convinced that
to remain locked in unending controversy will only continue a slow
demise, dishonor our calling, and offer a poor legacy to those we hope
will follow us.

I tend to think that it is not the presence of controversy itself, but the process by which we wrestle with the controversy. (And there’s that thing about this coming only from teaching elders again.)

Skipping down to the next paragraph

Our denomination has been in steady decline for 45 years, now literally
half the size of a generation ago.

It then goes on to further detail the decline.

Holding here for a moment let me first compliment them on using the acronym PC(USA) instead of PCUSA.  The latter (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America) was of course a predecessor denomination that ceased to exist with a merger in 1958 when the UPCUSA was formed. But that brings me to asking the question about who is in decline?  The PC(USA) has only been in existence for 28 years so going back 45 years means that we have to consider all the predecessor denominations and their children if we want to be faithful to the lineage.  That would be the UPCUSA and the PCUS (northern and southern in the vernacular) and out of them in the last 45 years has come the PCA, PC(USA), and EPC.

Am I just being picky?  Maybe.  But let’s skip over the next paragraph and the following begins…

Homosexual ordination has been the flashpoint of controversy for the
last 35 years.  Yet, that issue – with endless, contentious “yes” and
“no” votes – masks deeper, more important divisions within the PC(USA). 
Our divisions revolve around differing understandings of Scripture,
authority, Christology, the extent of salvation amidst creeping
universalism, and a broader set of moral issues.

While I don’t argue with what is said here, so far in the letter two things stand out to me as being a bit, shall I say, short-sighted.  First, Presbyterians – be it American, Scottish, or others – have always argued.  Does the Adopting Act and the New Side/Old Side debate ring a bell?  American Presbyterianism was imported in three or four separate streams and over 300 plus years we have recombined and realigned numerous times to double or triple that number, depending on how you count.  And many of the topics mentioned – understandings of Scripture, authority, Christology – have been part of these arguments the whole time.  Presbyterians seem prone to disagree by our very nature.  Our problem is not that we have disagreements but how we work through them.

My second point here is that all mainstream, or oldstream, denominations are in decline.  The reasons are complex and I think to simplify it to our divisions does not recognize the full nature of it and the changes in society that are also a part of the formula.

In light of this, are we “deathly ill?”  While we will continue to decline to an unsustainable level if current trends continue we must also recognize that many of the individual churches represented in the list of signatories, as well as others, are doing well individually and there are strong ministries within the PC(USA).  The question is more about how we get things done and what course we chart for the future.

So speaking of what the future course will be, the letter goes on to state five “new things” the PC(USA) needs and the four values that this group of pastors is proposing.  The first of the new things is really not new — A clear concise theological core was what the Adopting Act of 1729 was trying to attain.  The other four things are a commitment to nurture leadership, a passion to share in the larger mission of the people of God, a dream of multiplying healthy missional communities, and a pattern of fellowship.  I can get behind each of these characteristics.  Moving on to their four stated values, members across the spectrum of the PC(USA) will find these a bit more problematic.

The letter concludes with a discussion of what these pastors are looking at implementing — A Fellowship, New Synod/Presbyteries, Possible New Reformed Body and/or Reconfiguring the PC(USA).  To some degree, in fact in my mind to a large degree, this sounds like the New Wineskins Association of Churches so I would be interested to hear how this proposed fellowship would be different.

Maybe one way that it would be different would be the size of the churches.  NWAC contained some fairly large churches.  The signatories to this letter, while clearly stating they represent only themselves, do have connections to eight of the fifteen largest churches in the PC(USA) with several more recognizable congregation names in the bunch.  The significance and implications of this are left as an exercise for the reader.

In addition to the letter this group, Fellowship PC(USA), has a temporary web page as well as a four page white paper titled Time For Something New.  (Although I find it interesting that the current name of this file itself is “PCUSA Problem Internal 3 5b.pdf.”)  A few mentions have popped up on Twitter, there is a web copy of the letter over at the Layman, and John Shuck has given us his opinion.

Those are my initial thoughts, but I want to digest the letter and white paper some more.  Maybe I’ll have more to say later.  The meeting is August 25-27 in Minneapolis (nicely outside GA season).  I am curious to find out more of what is behind this and curious enough to mark the date on the calendar, but not so enticed yet to make my airline reservations.

It will be interesting to see where this goes.  As the polity wonks will quickly recognize, a couple of the proposals are ideas that have been brought to GA but have not gone any further.  Recognizing that holding the PC(USA) together as an organization of something even near its current size will require restructuring and compromise on both sides, this, like the Middle Governing Bodies Commission, may be a valid forum for exploring the way forward.

I’m interested to see what other reaction there is to this initiative both within and outside the denomination.

Stay tuned…

A Very Preliminary Look At Amendment Voting In The PC(USA)

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The holidays are now behind us and traditionally this is the time when voting on amendments to the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) kicks into high gear.  So I thought that I would take the first, preliminary look at possible trends in the voting.  But first some preliminaries…

Let me first make a couple of comments about the question “why bother?”  Well, beyond the fact that crunching data is the sort of thing that I enjoy doing I also think that it gives one of the best windows into what is going on in the denomination at this time.  It is a widely accepted generalization that the decisions of the General Assembly do not necessarily reflect the thinking of the “people in the pews.”  The usual evidence that is pointed to is the fact that three times previously the GA has sent an amendment to remove or rewrite G-6.0106b in the Book of Order, and three times it has been rejected by the presbyteries.  Another example of a disconnect is the negative reaction from many churches to the GA decision to boycott companies who supply items linked to the Israel-Palestine conflict.  So, while Research Services gives us statistics based on opinion poles of sampled members, the vote counts, both the absolute and relative numbers, give us an insight into how ruling and teaching elders react to the issues the Assembly sends down to them.  In short, I think the vote numbers can give us an insight into how the PC(USA) is changing.

So what is different this year about the vote?  I think there are four things that need to be taken into account.

1) Each year the Assembly sends an amendment with a bit different wording and that might make a difference.  This year the proposed language speaks more about the examination, that the governing body is responsible for it, and that they are to be guided by the Scriptures and the confessions.   One of the more interesting lines is “The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003).” So while the confessions and the Scriptures are to guide the governing body, the candidate’s qualifications seem to be focused on the constitutional questions.  So, how will any individual commissioner view the proposed wording this time around?

2) This vote is coming right after another vote two years ago while the previous interval was seven years from 2001 to 2008.  There are a number of ways that this could manifest itself with two possibilities being the reduced turnout due to a “fatigue factor” and/or little change in the numbers due to less time for the church to evolve.

3) I will not develop this point here, but will just say that in looking at the numbers for the last four votes (96-B, 97-A, 01-A, 08-B ) I consider the vote on amendment 01-A to be a unique case with a turnout of conservative voters in proportions not seen in the other three votes.  I will say that so far for 10-A this observation seems to still hold with the current numbers looking a lot like the last round of voting.

4) Overall, the voting is not just about “fidelity and chastity” this year but there is also the addition of the Belhar Confession to the Book of Confessions and a whole new revision to the Form of Government.  The voting could have different dynamics this year due to this expanded slate and the dynamics of the timing of scheduling the votes.

OK, now the data.  While the official count is always kept by the Office of the General Assembly , it only gives the totals.  For the Amendment A vote I have been comparing the breakdown by presbytery from several sources: the Yes On Amendment A site, Covenant Network, Reclaim Biblical Teaching, and the Layman.  Voting on the Belhar and nFOG are covered by both the Layman and the Reclaim Biblical Teaching site.  Then for breaking news there is always Twitter.  I’ve got my own tally sheet shared online, but I don’t claim to have it updated as quickly as the others.  And if you want a detailed list of resources related to these votes you should start with Robert Austell’s GA Help web site.

So, at the present time the Belhar Confession trails by 17-12 (remember it needs 2/3 for a confession to be approved), nFog is passing 10-7, and after a flurry of voting yesterday Amendment A is currently failing 15-20.  In total, 67 of the 173 presbyteries have voted on at least one of these items, eight have voted on two and three have voted on all three.  You can see that so far the presbyteries are taking the votes deliberately and not usually taking more than one at a time.

Of the four that have voted on both the Belhar and 10-A the votes have been very similar: Alaska – 24% yes Belhar and 31% yes 10-A, Lackawanna – 45% yes Belhar and 40% yes 10-A, New Castle – 72% yes Belhar and 70% yes 10-A, Santa Barbara – 23% yes Belhar and 27% yes 10-A.  While this is not proof that commissioners view Belhar and 10-A as being closely linked, it is suggestive that many may view both of them through a common filter.

Correlations for nFOG with the other two are not as close.  Sometimes there is a similar proportion, like Alaska that had identical 7-22 votes on each, or Des Moines which had 64% yes on Belhar and 70% yes on nFOG. Sometimes it is not as close, such as Eastern Oklahoma that barely passed 10-A but passed nFOG on voice vote, or Northumberland which was 36% yes on Belhar but only 13% yes on nFOG.

But these are early trends of just a small number of votes so we will see what develops over the next six months.

I want to finish by taking a quick look at the repeat voting on G-6.0106b comparing Amendment 10-A to 08-B.  We have reports on 35 presbyteries having held their votes and so far two have moved from “no” to “yes” (Eastern Oklahoma, Eastern Virginia) and one has moved the other way (Lake Huron).  So the net change at this point is one to the yes column.

Looking at the total yes and no votes, we find that there are 6% fewer total votes (3848 versus 4101) for these 33 presbyteries.  It is interesting to note that this 6% decline in commissioners voting exactly matches the overall decline in membership in the PC(USA) over the last two years (3.1% plus 2.9%).  Taken as a whole, the
number of commissioners voting yes is up 5% (1875 this vote versus 1786
in the last vote) while those voting no have declined 15% (1973 down
from 2315).  If the decline in total votes were proportionally represented in the yes and no votes we would expect 88 fewer yes votes and 199 more no votes.  So the decrease in no votes can not be explained only by the increase in yes votes but there must also be a decline in the number of commissioners who favor “fidelity and chastity” who are voting.

For the 33 presbyteries with reported numbers (Northern NY and Cayuga-Syracuse had hand or voice votes without recorded numbers), 23 had a decrease in the number of votes, 9 had an increase and one was exactly the same.  Now, some normal fluctuation in the number of commissioners attending the meeting is to be expected and I have usually placed this at +4%.  Taking this into account,  eight lower totals and five higher totals for a total of 13 more are added to the unchanged category.  This total of 14 is just a bit less than half of all the presbyteries voting so far.  The greatest decline is from Elizabeth Presbytery which had only 76% of the commissioners present as they had for the last vote.  This could easily be attributed to the inclement weather in the northeast this weekend. However, Genesee Valley, which voted at the same time, had only a slight decrease of 3%.  The largest increase was in Newton Presbytery which had 1.14 times the number of commissioners as the last vote.  Of the four increases that I consider significant (in a statistical but only quasi-rigorous sense), there are three presbyteries that voted no and one voted yes.  Tempting but dubious to draw conclusions from such a small sample.

If we look at yes and no votes broken down by presbytery, on average there are 19% more yes voters and 13% less no voters.  For the presbyteries that voted yes there was only a 1% increase in the number of yes voters and 16% decrease in no voters.  For the presbyteries that voted no, the increase in yes voters was 31% while the no voters decreased by 11%.  That increase in no votes was pulled by a couple of large increases, but it suggests that the Yes on A get out the vote campaign is having an effect while the similar effort for No on A is not as effective.

Let me warp up this discussion with the general observation that I am seeing the whole range of behaviors in different presbyteries.  The three presbyteries that switched all had significant increases on the prevailing side with 12%, 21% and 22% increases.  On the other side were varying decreases from 5%, to 14% to 23%.  The switch in position was a two-way street apparently caused by both gains and losses.  There were a couple of presbyteries with uniform change, such as Great Rivers which had a 3% increase in both the number of yes and no votes, or Newton which had a uniform 19% increase in both columns.  There are also presbyteries, like Central Florida and Stockton, where the total number of votes was very constant and the votes shifted columns.  It was into the yes column for Central Florida and towards no for Stockton.  There is only one presbytery, Mississippi, where the no votes were stable (47 versus 49) but the yes votes increased (up to 11 from 2).  And there are two presbyteries, Boston and New Castle, where the yes votes remained constant but the no votes declined significantly.  And then there are the rest of the presbyteries which exhibit more complex changes that can not be explained solely with these simple end-member models.

So, that is what I am seeing so far.  As I said, this is preliminary because with only around 30-40 presbyteries having voted on each amendment drawing statistical conclusions would be a bit early.  However, there are interesting trends developing and we will see how those play out.  Stay tuned… I’ll get out the white board and draw geeky charts and graphs next time.

Tensions In Nigeria Lead To New Presbyterian Branch

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As of a couple of days ago the universe of Presbyterian denominations got a little bit larger with the formation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Nigeria.  This branch was formed when the Mid East Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria disagreed with their General Assembly over the rotation of leadership and so declared themselves autonomous.  How did we get here?

From a polity standpoint this seems to be about an agreement, possibly stipulated in their polity documents, that the position of Moderator of the General Assembly is to be rotated around the nine synods.  (I have looked and have not yet found The Practice and Procedure online so I can’t confirm the exact wording of the policy.)  Mid East Synod believed that the rotation should fall to them at the August 2010 Assembly but when a Moderator from another synod was elected and later installed they first filed a protest and then broke off on their own.

As I said, this started at the meeting of the General Assembly this past summer when The Rt. Rev. Prof. Emele Mba Uka was elected as the new Moderator.  With thanks to the Presbyterian Church in Canada for a story on the election , we know that not only was he elected by a unanimous vote but that a hard rain falling on the training institute the Assembly was meeting at, and only on the training institute, was taken as a divine sign.  Another article from the Daily Sun gives more of the back story and how two original candidates did not have their names placed in nomination and instead Rev. Uka’s name came into the picture at the last minute and he became the sole nominee.  The Rt. Rev. Uka is, as the professor title implies, a senior academic with numerous earned academic degrees, including a Ph.D. from Drew University.

The interesting thing is that nowhere in the reporting I have seen from the time of the election is there mention of any protest or dissent.  The election was unanimous after all.  Having looked over several news articles about the General Assembly and the election from the August and September time-frame there is not a hint of a problem.  In fact, the first mention of the dissent that I saw in on-line sources was from allAfrica.com at the beginning of December.

At that time the article reports that elders from Mid East Synod had presented a petition to the denomination’s trustees opposing the selection of the Rt. Rev. Uka and asking to halt his inauguration, which was later that week.  The article also mentions that there was an earlier protest registered with the trustees but the date is not given.  Specifically, the petition is quoted to state of the actions the “grossly unfair and unconscionable way our Synod was denied our
inalienable right to produce the next General Assembly Moderator.”

Well, the inauguration went ahead on December 7, to which the PCN press release and pictures on the home page testify.

The next chapter in the story appears to be ecclesiastical discipline as the General Assembly Executive Committee issued an order that a number of members of the Mid East Synod are “suspended indefinitely… for acts of insubordination and lawlessness capable
of destabilizing the Church and causing a breach of public peace.”  This according to the PCN’s own press release. Those suspended included not only ministers but public officials including the deputy governor and the commissioner for works in Ebonyi State.  The officials are accused of “using State apparatus as Deputy Governor and Commissioner
for Works in the Ebonyi State Government to sponsor some rebellious members of
the Church in actions designed to destabilize the Church and cause
socio-political disharmony.”  (Clearly this church discipline is not just in the ecclesiastical sphere but related to civil consequences as well.)  The other ordained officials are accused of ecclesiastical infractions that violate the church’s policies.  The press release is long on accusations but there is not much information about disciplinary process or judicial proceedings — it is just stated as a decision of the Executive Committee.

The immediate media coverage seems to echo the December 28 decision of the church, as an article from Vanguard shows.  However, Vanguard was out the next day with the response from Mid East Synod that said “the decision was contrary to the norms and proceedings governing operations of the Church of Christ.”  While the quotes from the Steering Committee of the Synod include a lot of counter accusations and rhetoric, it does include the very Presbyterian statement that “for the avoidance of doubt, no other body or organ has the right to
suspend any member of the church except the session where he or she
worships.”  They also cite the lack of due process.

Now, a couple of days ago, the Synod called a press conference and, among other things, told the reporters (as quoted by allAfrica.com )

“Whereas the Mid East Synod has the ecclesiastical right of self
determination in order to free herself from persisting enslavement,
perpetuation, and bondage; whereas members of the Mid East Synod being a
peace loving people not given to gangsterism and thuggery and violence
in the Church of Jesus wish to declare that in view of the foregoing we
are now Autonomous to be known and addressed as the Reformed
Presbyterian Church Of Nigeria with headquarters at Macgregor College
Afikpo and branches all over the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

(Synod spokesperson) Rev. Nwonu explained that their former church, Presbyterian Church of
Nigeria as presently constituted was being administered not by the
graded and constituted courts of the Church, rather, it was being
administered by the powerful interest groups who arrogate to themselves
the power to set aside the Church’s constitution, laws, policies and
procedures which have been guiding the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria
for over 164 years.

Where will this go next?  I don’t know and I’m not going to predict.  It is important to remember that the PCN is involved in conflicts in the north between different ethnic/social groups that also happen to be divided along Muslim/Christian lines. (My previous comments on the situation)  As recently as yesterday there were additional attacks in the area of Jos.  Regarding the church itself one possibility where this could end up is like the synods of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian in Malawi where the three synods are growing more autonomous and the General Assembly level has less authority and ability to coordinate and negotiate between the synods.  So, for the moment we now have the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Nigeria.

More Updates Regarding Blantyre Synod, CCAP

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Well, things are not happening as quickly as they were a few weeks back, but since my last update there have been a couple of important developments in this story.

For those who need to have the details on the background, there is my original post on the story as well as one follow-up.  The short version is that the Moderator of Blantyre Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian spoke out against a pastoral letter by the Roman Catholic bishops and it soon became clear that while he claimed to speak for the Synod the members of the Synod let it be known that they did not agree.  In the aftermath the Synod removed Rev. Mangisa from his position as Moderator and Rev. Chimenya, the deputy general secretary who appeared with the moderator at the press conference, was removed as well.  The Synod also decided that there were problems with the management style of the general secretary, the Rev. Kadawati, and while not removed from office he was informed that he could not request another term.

The first thing that has happened since my last discussion was that the dispute has moved from the ecclesiastical realm to the civil courts with The Nation reporting that Revs. Mangisa and Chimenya have gotten a High Court injunction against the Synod halting their removal from office.  Not much on details supporting the request for an injunction and not much has been mentioned about it in the last two weeks.  The Nyasa Times reports that a group has met to plan a response to the injunction and civil action.  We will have to see where this goes.

It is interesting tracking the arguments at this point.  The original problem was that Rev. Mangisa spoke out unilaterally claiming to represent the Synod.  What he spoke out against was how the Roman Catholic bishops had very publicly inserted themselves in a political debate.  This was actually the 20th time the bishops had done something like this and I’m pretty sure my readers are aware that denominations all over the world do this all the time.  In fact, the Human Rights Consultative Committee of Malawi has issued a report supporting the bishops’ letter.  But this has started at least some discussion in Malawi about the place of religion in the political sphere.  Now with the injunction, the secular has become involved in the ecclesiastical.

The second development is related to the administrative issue, but with an interesting twist.  Coming up next week is a special service and ceremony to unveil and dedicate a mausoleum honoring a former first lady of Malawi, Ethel Mutharika.  The Rev. McDonald Kadawati, the embattled general secretary of the Synod, was to have been the lead minister and master of ceremonies.  Now the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) has asked him to step aside and replaced him with… wait for it… Rev. Mangisa.  The article about this in The Nation has a bit of analysis, but I won’t even attempt any kremlinology or reading the tea leaves on this one.  Probably best to accept the easy explanation that the Mutharika family was no longer comfortable with the Rev. Kadawati.

So the story continues in the Blantyre CCAP Synod.  We will see how it progresses and what additional items of polity is touches on for us to discuss.  Stay tuned…

Update On Issues In Blantyre Synod, CCAP

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Speaking of Moderators…

In the Blantyre Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian there has been a developing situation where the Moderator of the Synod, with the deputy general secretary, held a press conference where they spoke out against a pastoral letter by the local Catholic bishops.  They claimed to be speaking for the church but an emergency special Synod meeting resulted in 1) a statement agreeing with the bishop’s letter, 2) an apology to the bishops, and 3) a committee to conduct an investigation.  Check out my previous post on the subject for a more detailed version.

The investigating committee has now reported and the giant headline on the front of the print edition of the newspaper The Nation says “SHAKE-UP AT BT CCAP SYNOD.”  The headline for the on-line story is slightly more descriptive with “Heads Roll At BT CCAP Synod.”  The lede has the details:

Heads have rolled at the Blantyre CCAP Synod where moderator Reverend
Reynold Mangisa and deputy general secretary Reverend Austin Chimenya
have been forced to step down.

Yesterday’s Synod meeting, where the committee reported, was closed so only commissioners were present. There is no report yet of a statement from the Synod office. The newspaper had a source at the meeting who added a few details.  The General Secretary, Rev. MacDonald Kadawati was also under investigation and was asked not to run for a new term when his current term concludes in August 2011.  This was apparently not related to this matter but a generally poor working relationship with his colleagues.  The source made no mention of any action regarding the fourth officer, deputy moderator Rev. Mercy Chilapula, who has never been included in any of the reporting of this issue.

The paper contacted Rev. Mangisa last night and he confirmed that he had stepped down and stated he did not regret making the initial statement.  (I would note that this appears to differs from his stance following the first emergency meeting where he signed the apology statement.)  The article also quotes him to say that the decision of the investigating committee was a foregone conclusion because “The composition of the committee and the method used were not right.
It’s like an opinion had already been formed.”  He did say that he appreciated that the committee cleared up some misconceptions.

Getting to the polity matter of who speaks for the Synod, the article says “The insider said the probe faulted the two for speaking without
authority and for claiming they never called for the press conference in
question.”

I will leave it at that for now.  We will see what other details come out about the meeting and if an official statement is released by the Synod.

Mixing Politics and Religion In The CCAP – Or – Who Speaks For The Church

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In Presbyterian polity it is usually the understanding that when a leader (moderator or clerk) of a governing body makes a statement they speak for themselves unless that governing body has taken an on the record position and then the leader can officially convey the position of the body.

At the present time in the Blantyre Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian there is a complicated situation that not only raises the question of a leader speaking for a body when the body is not on the record, but also possibility taking action in consultation with the civil government.  Hold onto your hats as I unwind this, and hopefully I have a good enough handle on this to get it right and do it justice.

Just as background, the last time I looked at church and state in the CCAP it was with one of the other three Malawi synods, the Livingstonia Synod in the northern part of the country. This new controversy is with the synod in the southern part of the country.

This current controversy began at the very end of October when all eight of the Roman Catholic bishops and bishop elect from the Karonga diocese signed an open pastoral letter directed to Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika and his government.  There are eight specific issues dealing with the workings of the government and the President’s party and they caution the President that he is heading towards becoming a dictator.  The article also notes that another pastoral letter from the bishops played an important role in moving the country from one-party rule to a multi-party system in 1992.

From a polity stand point it is helpful to note that this letter is coming from a unanimous group of bishops in an episcopal system to a political leader who an adherent with their church.  It is also worthwhile to know that this is the twentieth such pastoral letter the bishops have issued over a period of several years.

A bit over a week later, on November 11, the Moderator of the Blantyre Synod, the Rev. Reynold Mangisa, and the deputy general secretary of the Synod, the Rev. Austin Chimenya held a press conference where they criticized the bishops’ actions because “it did not follow protocol.”

Now, while I refer to the two leaders at the press conference, based on the reporting on the conference by The Nation, it would appear that Mr. Mangisa did most, if not all, the talking.  In one quote he does begin by saying “As officials of Blantyre Synod, we believe…”  But this article is very good from the perspective that it attributes the position to these officials only and, as I will discuss in a moment, it has a number of contrary quotes from other Presbyterian leaders, both in the Synod and around the country.  On the other hand, an article in Malawi Voice not only begins with the headline that says in part “CCAP attacks Catholic Bishops” but continues the point in the lede to the article where they say:

The Blantyre Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP)
has attacked the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) of the Catholic
Church over its last month’s pastoral letter to President Bingu wa
Mutharika.

In this article the remarks are clearly reported as coming from the church, and not just the synod but the whole church, if you only read the headline.  And if you want another variation, an article from ENInews says in the headline that the criticism came from the leader, but the lede says it comes from the Synod.

As I said, the article in The Nation is good because, with out explicitly saying so, they make it very clear the opinions expressed come from those leaders, even if the leaders though they were representing the church.  Among the contrary voices in that article is that of the General Secretary of the Synod, the Rev. McDonald Kadawati, who is also the acting chair of the ecumenical Public Affairs Committee (PAC).  In fact, the PAC came out in support of the bishops’ letter.  When asked for comment he indicates that he is not aware of the new synod statement and is quoted as saying “I don’t think what you are
saying is true about my officers. They can’t say that.”

Well, “They can’t say that” pretty much sums up where it went from there.  The next step was a emergency special meeting of Synod.  In the Malawi Voice article about calling the meeting General Secretary Katawadi chooses his words carefully.  The article indicates he said that he was not around when Mr. Mangisa made his comments so he does not know if the rest of the Synod was behind them as well.  He is quoted as saying “It is not tension per say, [sic] but we are meeting this evening to hear from
our moderator first before we come out with a stand as Synod.”

The meeting was held on Monday and Tuesday of last week, November 15 and 16.  The first thing to come out of the meeting was an official apology to the Roman Catholic Bishops for the Moderator’s comments.  According to The Nation, the official statement from the meeting reads in part:

We withdraw the statement made on our behalf by the synod moderator, the
Reverend Reynold Mangisa. We apologise for the divisions and hatred
that may have been caused to both our Catholic brothers and sisters as
well as within our synod, other CCAP sister synods, the public at large
and development partners.

And it is reported that the statement includes support for the Bishops’ statement, that it was overwhelmingly approved and that Mr. Mangisa’s signature is found with the others on the document.  He is not responding to media questions other than to confirm that they see his signature on the statement.  However, in an article about the apology from Afrique en ligne, former General Secretary and designated spokesperson, the Very Rev. Silas Mcozana, says of the meeting and Mr. Mangisa “at first, there were differences but later Rev. Mangisa saw the point.” In addition, the article informs us that a five-member team was appointed to handle the apology and the statement and that the team, or some of its members, had met with the Roman Catholic Archbishop to personally apologize for the comments.

The second item to come from the meeting is an investigation into this whole incident.  A story from The Nation indicates that all four top officials of the Synod – Kadawati, Chimenya, Mangisa, and Vice-Moderator Rev. Mercy Chilapula – will be subject to this investigation.  But the twist in this matter came from a series of articles by the Nyasa Times that allege the involvement by the Presidential Adviser on Religious Affairs Rev. Billy Gama in the original statement.  The first article talks about how Gama and two other government officials tried to talk the bishops into recalling the letter and not reading it in the congregations.  A second article alleges that Gama had Mangisa call the press conference and Gama funded it.  A third article talks about how Gama is not a subject of the investigation by the Synod but a following article says other sources in the Synod claim that he is.  The most recent article from yesterday says that the paper has a source that says the Office of the President and Cabinet was directly involved and the Rev. Gama was the intermediary.  The problem, of course, is that there is as yet no corroboration or named sources so verification of the allegations is difficult.  We will see what, if any, of this is part of the Synod report next week.

But getting back to Presbyterian polity and Biblical instructions, an article from the Nyasa Times today is particularly interesting.  This article says that the Rev. Mangisa had substantial support in the Synod meeting.  His supporters are reported as saying that he was right to criticize the bishops for their openly criticizing one of their own rather than first rebuking the President privately.  Also, his supporters say that he does have the authority to speak, without prior instructions, for the Synod.  The article says “Those backing the Spiritual Father said as a sitting moderator, Rev
Mangisa is the official mouth piece of the Blantyre Synod and does not
need permission to speak.”  The article also claims that Rev. Mangisa agreed to the apology under pressure.

As I said, the next installment of this drama is scheduled to play out in a week when the six unnamed members of the investigating committee report.  That is, unless the Nyasa Times or someone else doesn’t come out with new claims or evidence before than.

But as I highlight throughout this post, aside from the charges of government influence, this episode raises questions of what a Presbyterian official can do apart from the governing body they have leadership in.  The General Secretary seems to think that speaking for the Synod requires the explicit backing of the Synod.  Some of the members of the Synod are reported to fell that having been selected by the body to be the moderator then endows him with the authority to speak for the church.  We will see how this develops within that branch.

Constitutional Voting In The PC(USA)

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It will be a busy seven months for the presbyteries in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  The 219th General Assembly sent three high-profile constitutional changes down to the presbyteries for their concurrence and then there are all the rest of the amendments.

My first reaction was to take these as four different packages, each at a different presbytery meeting.  The problem of course is that while my presbytery has the meetings to do that most others do not.  So it looks like they will be doubling up on some of these debates.

It is still early in the voting on all the amendments so I’m not really ready to start drilling down into the data just yet.  But I will make some observations about the process so far.

First, where am I getting my data?  Well, with the proliferation of Twitter I think many of us are getting our own real-time updates on presbytery meetings.  But in terms of compiling the data for later reference, I know of two sources:  1) The Layman is publishing charts of voting on all three high-profile amendments:  Amendment 10-A, new Form of Government, and the Belhar Confession. 2) More Light Presbyterians is maintaining their own chart of presbytery voting at their Yes on Amendment A blog, but as the name suggests that is specific to that issue.  From these various sources I am compiling and posting my own spreadsheet for analysis with the emphasis on my preferred focus of correlations between the different issues and with no promise that the chart will be updated in a timely manner.  Finally, we can not forget the official voting report which does not have a break down by presbytery but which has been updated today to reflect that the Belhar Confession needs a 2/3 vote to pass.  (It was originally listed as simple majority.)

At this juncture it is interesting to note that with almost two months of voting behind us six presbyteries have voted on nFOG (4 yes, 2 no), fifteen have voted on 10-A (4 yes, 11 no), and nineteen have voted on Belhar (13 yes, 6 no).  While it is far too early to predict outcomes it is interesting to note that on 10-A no presbytery has switched votes yet from the last “fidelity and chastity” vote but for some presbyteries voting “no” the votes have been closer.  (Presbytery of the James had a 153-153 tie.)  It is also interesting to see that the Belhar is just barely making the 2/3 ratio it needs to pass.

In my mind it is easy to see why the nFOG has been tackled by the fewest presbyteries — It is the most complex and the longest and probably has the greatest long-term implications.  Extended time for study and discussion is warranted.  The Belhar being the furthest along?  I have to think that it is viewed as the last controversial of the three and a good one to begin with.  In a couple of presbyteries it has passed by an overwhelming margin, unanimously in Cimarron Presbytery .

It is also interesting to observe that two presbyteries, Alaska and Santa Barbara, each knocked out all three in one meeting and in both cases did not concur with all three.  No other presbytery has taken on more than one of these yet.

But with this many items in a time period in which we usually just track one high-profile amendment it will become very busy soon, probably just into the new year.  Stay tuned.