The Presbyterian Church (USA) News Service has issued a clarification article to an earlier article about the proposed Book of Order revisions from the Form of Government Task Force that I commented on about a month ago.  It turns out that the April 12-14 Task Force meeting was not fully covered by the News Service because of agenda changes and scheduling conflicts.  The News Service does not expand on that but a GA Junkie wonders what could be more important than a Task Force that wants to change the Book of Order?

So what was not complete?  It turns out that the next stop for the drafts of the new sections of the Book of Order is not the 218th General Assembly but the Advisory Committee on the Constitution (ACC) meeting in about a month.  They will be given the opportunity to comment on separating the first four chapters into a brand new Foundations section.  The News Service reports that the Task Force has gotten significant negative comments about splitting off the four chapters and that led them to the possibility of giving the General Assembly the choice of how to precede.  Based on the ACC comments the Task Force will decide whether to float both options or only one.

We will see what is reported after the August meeting of the Task Force.  Hopefully it will be complete on the first go-round.

There are two current items of interest regarding revision and rewriting of the PC(USA) Book of Order.

The first is the status of Book of Order amendments from the last General Assembly.  The vote tallies were last updated on April 16 and most of the amendments have been approved.  While all of these affect the Book of Order, of particular interest are amendments 06-A and 06-B.1.  Amendment 06-A is a major revision of Chapter G-XIV, the longest chapter in the Form of Government section.  The amendment also includes some related “housekeeping” changes to other sections to match the new sections and words in Chapter XIV.  Amendment 06-B.1 moves the ordination questions and service from Form of Government to Directory for Worship.  The former is currently being approved by a narrow margin and the latter has received enough affirmative votes to assure passage.  The only other amendment whose outcome has not been decided yet is 06-B.2 “Adding Licensure of Candidates–On Amending G-14.0309” which is currently failing by the narrow margin of 60 to 63.  All other amendments have been approved by enough presbyteries.

In the other news, at it’s April 12-14 meeting the Form of Government Task Force, charged with rewriting the whole Form of Government section of the Book of Order, decided not to decide but to leave a structural question up to the 218th General Assembly.  The Form of Government web page has not been updated with the report of this meeting yet, but the PC(USA) news service issued a press release on April 16 reporting on the meeting.  Specifically, the task force had been working on a new version of the “G” section which moved the first four chapters into a new preceding section which would contain the “foundational principles” found in those chapters.  At the meeting last week the task force voted 6-3 to provide two versions to the next GA: One with the new fourth section and one that left the foundational principles in the Form of Government section.

The news article also talks about the underlying theology of the rewrite and how it is built upon “missional polity.”  This is the concept that the church does not have a mission, but rather that mission is its only reason for existence. The news story quotes a supporting document:  “Mission lies at the heart of the Church’s identity. The Church is called into being and is an expression of the mission dei, God’s ongoing engagement with the world to reconcile, transform, and finally fulfill the divine creative intent in it.”  (I thought I saw this document on-line at one time but can not find it again.)

The task force next meets August 16-18.

Brief Comment:  In the PC(USA) news service article four members of the task force and two PC(USA) staff members to the task force were quoted.  All but one staff member (Doska Ross) are identified as clergy!  Are elders involved in this process?  You would not know it from the news story.  The membership list shows that the task force is composed of six clergy and three elders.

One of the actions of the 217th General Assembly of the PC(USA) was the formation of a task force to rewrite the Form of Government section of the Book of Order.  This was attempted a few years back when Chapter 14, the longest section of the current Form of Government covering Ordination, Certification, and Commissioning, was rewritten, simplified and sent by the General Assembly to the presbyteries for approval.  It was rejected.  (Personal note: one item that bothered me was that the ordination questions for ministers were changed so that the first eight questions were not the same as for the other officers.  This is a feature that I always point out when I ask ordination questions.)

So, with that rejection behind them, the plan is to now completely rewrite and simplify the section.  The Task Force has now met twice and has started to release documents.  Maybe the most interesting change is that their draft proposal includes creating a fourth section of the Book of Order titled “The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity.”  Their draft for this brief section contains a simplified form of the current chapters I to IV.  A quick reading shows that most of the key phrases are there:  “Jesus Christ is the head of the church” (but this is no longer the opening words), The Great Ends of the Church, “God alone is Lord of the conscience”  and “the Church is further called to undertake its mission even at the risk of its own life.”  (Although this last phrase is now buried a bit and tougher to find.)

The Task Force has also released an outline of a new Form of Government as well as a draft of a new Chapter I.  The PCUSA news service has also issued a news item.