Category Archives: polity

The Fog Around nFOG

[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.

Cross-Issue Correlation In PC(USA) Amendment Voting

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OK, I need to get two things onto the table right at the beginning of this post:

Yes, this is an extremely geekish and polity wonkish post, but that’s what interests me and this analysis is the one I have really wanted to do since the 219th General Assembly adjourned last July. I do think there is something important about the PC(USA) in here so if you want to skip the data analysis and jump to the end you will find my discussion there.
I posted a preliminary result on Twitter on Saturday but got the variables confused. Sorry about that. I posted a correction on Twitter and will point out the error when I come to it in this post.

So, the question that has had me on the edge of my seat is the degree to which each of the three high-profile amendments is correlated with the other two. I took an initial pass at this question a couple of weeks back and found a strong correlation. That correlation has weakened a bit but is still present, stronger in some relationships than others. While it still may be a bit premature to make strong conclusions from the data at this point in time, I think I’ve got enough data to do a preliminary analysis.

Now, if you are looking for just the vote results after last Saturday here is the “word on the street.” Belhar is still not getting the 2/3 it needs with 32 yes and 28 no. The New Form of Government continues to have weak support and still trails, currently at 25 to 31. The story of the last week is that support for Amendment 10-A continues at the pace we have seen throughout the month and with three more presbyteries switching their votes a total of 12 presbyteries have shifted to “yes” with only one shifting to “no.” At this point enough presbyteries have shifted (a net of nine was needed) that with all the rest of the presbyteries voting as they did in the last round Amendment 10-A will be approved. At the end of the weekend the vote stood at 55 to 41. No further analysis of that today, I’ll come back to that in another week or two. (Particularly in light of the question about the vote totals that is raised at the end of the next paragraph.)

First, the usual details regarding data: For my data I have aggregated 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. I have also updated my cross-vote spreadsheet through Saturday’s reports. The analysis below is more sensitive to the exact vote count and where the tally sheets sometimes differ a bit I have used either a majority among them, the Twitter reports, or a consistency in total votes to select a preferred number. This is also probably a good place to add that the voting is not finished yet and this analysis is only preliminary based on the current data. And in a very interesting development today as I was finishing this up, the official vote tally from the Office of the General Assembly was posted. It has caught the attention of several of us because it has numbers significantly different than the unofficial sites — nFOG 38 to 25, Belhar 38 to 18, and 10-A 47 to 33. The difference is presumably due to reports by presbytery stated clerks not reflected in the unofficial counts. Hopefully with time the two sets of lists will converge.

So, let’s take the three comparisons from strongest to weakest (and if you want to see the graphs in more detail they are larger in their original form and you can open them individually):

Belhar to nFOG
The strongest relationship between the issues is between the votes on the Belhar Confession and the New Form of Government. (This is the one I should have pointed out in the tweet on Saturday.) So far 33 presbyteries have voted on both of these issues, and 27 of those have recorded vote numbers on both votes. Looking at the numbers you can see the strength in both the cross-tabulation and the linear regression:

n=33	Belhar yes	Belhar no
nFOG yes	10 30%	2 7%
nFOG no	1 3%	20 60%

Bottom line: The strength of a presbytery’s vote on nFOG is going to be very close to the strength of a presbytery’s vote on Belhar. The fit of the linear line is good with an R² = 0.73 (a number very much like correlation that I talked about in a previous post with 1.0 as a good and 0.0 as not correlated, but this number is always positive), and a slope pretty close to 1 (the two vote percentages increase in the same proportion). This is seen in the yes/no comparison where 30 presbyteries have voted the same way on both issues and only 3 (10%) have voted opposite on them.

Belhar to Amendment 10-A
The next strongest relationship between the issues is that between the votes on the Belhar Confession and Amendment 10-A. (This is the one I incorrectly pointed to in the tweet.) So far 35 presbyteries have voted on both of these issues, and 25 of those have recorded vote numbers on both votes. Here is what the numbers look like:

n=35	Belhar yes	Belhar no
10-A yes	17 49%	3 9%
10-A no	3 9%	12 34%

Bottom line: The strength of a presbytery’s vote on Amendment 10-A is going to be related to the strength of a presbytery’s vote on Belhar, but not as strongly as for the last case and not in 1:1 proportion. In this case, the fit of the linear line is not as good, but still moderate, with an R² = 0.62 and a slope 0.51. There is also a significant upward shift in the trend line of almost 20%. What this means is that for presbyteries not strongly in favor of Belhar, on average there is a 20% “base” in favor of Amendment 10-A. On the other end, a presbytery strongly in favor of Belhar has, on average, a 30% “base” opposed to Amendment 10-A. The yes/no comparison also shows that the linkage is not as strong and direct where 29 presbyteries have voted the same way on both issues and six (18%) have voted opposite on them. From these results, the association of these two issues is only partial and the attitudes on one are not driving the other as strongly as might be suspected.

nFOG to Amendment 10-A
The weakest relationship is between the votes on the nFOG and Amendment 10-A. So far 36 presbyteries have voted on both of these issues, and 23 of those have recorded vote numbers on both votes. Here is what the numbers look like:

n=36	nFOG yes	nFOG no
10-A yes	12 33%	5 14%
10-A no	5 14%	14 42%

Bottom line: There is a weak, positive relationship between a presbytery’s voting strength on nFOG and the vote strength on 10-A. However, as can be seen in the scatter of the data on the graph, especially at the higher end the relationship is weak. The scatter in the data is evident with R² = 0.39 and the lower slope of 0.46 also suggestive of a weaker linkage. The yes/no comparison supports that the association is not as strong and direct with almost 1/3 of the presbyteries voting opposite ways on the two issues.

Discussion and Conclusions
I must admit that the strength of the Belhar/nFOG association was a bit of a surprise to me. With the on-going discussion of the synergy between Belhar and 10-A I was expecting to that to have the strongest correlation. And the very nearly 1:1 association means that they two issues probably elicit the same response from any given commissioner. One thought that occurred to me is the similar nature of these two issues in regards to their impact on PC(USA) polity. While the impact of each is still being debated and is, to a certain degree, unknown, if approved they each would leave a significant mark on the constitutional documents. There could also be a less tangible factor in the willingness to preserve the status quo — since these two amendments have similar impacts on the established order of things it is reasonable to presume that if a commissioner had a particular comfort level with changing one of them, they would have a similar comfort level changing the other. But whether it is related to those explanations, or other factors, the data appear to show that even if presbytery commissioners don’t necessarily explicitly link them, they still seem to think about them in the same way.

Having said that, and recognizing the vote tally differences from today’s announcement, I need to point out that it appears point twice as many presbyteries have voted against both of them as have approved them. This raises a couple of questions when we look at the voting trends for the issues by themselves since the votes overall are more even. The first thing is that as the double-issue voting catches up the close agreement could go away. But if the close agreement continues, and considering that one currently has a majority and the other does not, we might expect the vote margins to narrow. We also open up the possibility that Belhar might not even receive a majority vote if nFOG continues to not receive a majority. The opposite could also be true – that nFOG will be pulled up by future positive voting on Belhar.

We could also ask the question about the strength of Belhar from the 10-A relationship. Doing a back of the envelope calculation and extrapolating out the 10-A voting based on current proportions a 99 to 75 final vote (56.6% yes vote) would be a reasonable conclusion. If we then mix apples and oranges and ignore whichis the the dependent and which the independent variables, plugging 56.6% yes vote on 10-A into the regression formula gives a 73% yes vote on Belhar. Fun to speculate but I just violated too many mathematical and data rules to really believe that. A more valid approach would be to take the presbytery yes/no vote cross-tabulation as a guide where we see that at the present time the opposite voting categories would off-set each other. This would suggest that for presbyteries (apples to apples) the Belhar final vote could would be very close to the 10-A final count, in which case 56.6% won’t get it approved.

I’m not sure there is much to say about the weak correlation between nFOG and 10-A. This is more of what I was initially expecting since the two issues do not have a lot in common polity-wise. The weak linkage seen could be some polity point I am overlooking or a desire to preserve the status quo. Either way, there is not enough strength in that correlation to risk making any conclusions about one from the outcome of the other.

So that is what I see at this point. I will point out again that this is truly preliminary since at this time for each pairing only around 1/5 of the presbyteries have voted on both amendments. I look forward to seeing how this progresses as the voting continues filling in the missing data. Stay tuned…

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.

New PC(USA) GAPJC Decision — The Southard Decision

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Yesterday the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) released their decision in disciplinary case 220-102:

Southard v. PC(USA) through Presbytery of Boston

If you are looking for a sound-bite length summary of the whole case you will not find one. The Commission has given us a multi-layered decision, but has done us the favor of helping to define the layers.

The facts of the case are agreed by both sides: That on March 1, 2008, the Rev. Jean Southard officiated at a marriage ceremony between two women in Waltham, Massachusetts. The ceremony was characterized by the participants as a “Christian Marriage.” Further details are enumerated in the history section of the opinion to show that this same-sex ceremony was represented as a marriage ceremony.

Two additional legal details are important to keep in mind here:

At the time of this ceremony same-sex civil marriage was legal in the state of Massachusetts.
The decision in disciplinary case 218-12, Spahr v. PC(USA) through Presbytery of Redwoods, was decided on April 28, 2008, about two months after this ceremony was preformed.

In the Presbytery Permanent Judicial Commission trial the Commission acquitted the Rev. Southard saying in part:

The Prosecuting Committee has not proven beyond reasonable doubt that W-4.9000 contains mandatory language that would prohibit a Minister of Word and Sacrament from performing a same-gender marriage.
Since the Preface to the Directory of Worship (clause b) states that the Directory uses language that is “simply descriptive”, this Commission takes this to mean that the definition of Christian marriage in W-4.9001 is merely descriptive; there is no mandatory language in this article.

This was overturned on appeal by the Presbytery to the PJC of the Synod of the Northeast. The Rev. Southard appealed that decision to the GAPJC.

First layer: The specific actions of Rev. Southard
The GAPJC wrote this regarding the charges related to the ceremony preformed by Rev. Southard:

This Commission concluded in Spahr that prior authoritative interpretations lacked mandatory language. Southard conducted this ceremony two months prior to Spahr. Sensitive to the authoritative interpretation in Spahr, this Commission agrees with the SPJC that Spahr cannot be applied retroactively to the facts of this case. Therefore, Southard did not violate the Book of Order or her ordination vows by erring in her constitutional interpretation. She did not commit an offense because the applicable authoritative interpretation (Spahr) had not yet been promulgated.

So, a definite line has been drawn in PC(USA) polity at April 28, 2008, when the GAPJC decision in the Spahr case provided an authoritative interpretation that the language in the Directory for Worship is mandatory.

Based on this conclusion the charges against the Rev. Southard are not valid and she is acquitted of violating the constitutional requirements of the PC(USA). The first two specifications of error in the appeal, the ones dealing with the specific charges, are sustained.

Second layer: Constitutional Interpretation
Here is the “but” that the GAPJC seems to be putting in the decision. The third specification of error deals not with the specifics of the ceremony preformed by with more general constitutional interpretation:

The SPJC erred in constitutional interpretation by determining that a minister of the Word and Sacrament who performs (participating in and directing) a same-gender marriage as a Christian marriage commits an offense prohibited by the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Authoritative Interpretations and violates his or her ordination vows.

This specification of error was not sustained. The decision essentially says that the status quo, the current prohibition made mandatory in the Spahr decision, is in effect. The new polity twist in this case was the fact that same-sex marriage is legal in some states, but the GAPJC says that when it comes to Christian Marriage in the PC(USA) that does not matter:

The question before this Commission, then, is whether the Massachusetts law defining this relationship as a legal marriage changes the impact of the definitions in W-4.9001. This Commission holds that it does not. While the PCUSA is free to amend its definition of marriage, a change in state law does not amend the Book of Order. It is the responsibility of the church, following the processes provided in the Constitution for amendment, to define what the PCUSA recognizes as a “Christian marriage.” Consequently, Spahr’s holding, “By the definition in W-4.9001, a same sex ceremony can never be a marriage,” remains in effect.

This Commission further held in Spahr, for prospective application, “that the liturgy should be kept distinct for the two types of services.” In light of the change in the laws of some states, this Commission reiterates that officers of the PCUSA who are authorized to perform marriages, when performing a ceremony for a same-gender couple, shall not state, imply, or represent that the same-gender ceremony is an ecclesiastical marriage ceremony as defined by PCUSA polity, whether or not the civil jurisdiction allows same-gender civil marriages.

So, it was not an offense back in March of 2008, and it might not be prohibited at some future point, but the Commission reasserts that it is prohibited now in the church, even if civil same-sex marriage is permitted by the state. This also seems to imply that while the officiating pastor may not be guilty of an offense, if the Spahr decision is extended to this one, no marriage ceremony was actually preformed since “a same sex ceremony can never be a marriage.”

Technical details
There are four more specifications of error which were decided on procedural grounds. In the case of specifications 4 and 5 they were not sustained because they “do not accurately reflect the holding of the SPJC as to the matters involved.” In the case of specifications 6 and 7, the errors were sustained. These dealt with the decision of the SPJC which reversed the PPJC’s decision when it should have remanded the case back to the PPJC for a new trial and in doing so did not provide specificity on one of the charges. With the dismissal of the charges these are rendered moot.

Concurring Opinions
There are three concurring opinions attached to this decision.

1) This opinion, signed by five commissioners, expresses the sentiment that this is at its core a human rights issue and in light of that urges the PC(USA) to “amend the constitution to allow for the marriage of same sex couples in the PCUSA, and otherwise welcome gay, lesbian, and bisexual people into the full fellowship of the church.”

2) This is the longest concurring opinion, running a full page in narrative, signed by six commissioners. Four of these six also signed the first concurring opinion. As the authors say, “[Our] concern is whether W-4.9001 provides an effective and unambiguous definition of Christian marriage.” To the point they write later on:

To claim that this paragraph is primarily and intentionally legal in nature places a strain upon its obvious narrative purpose. As a fourfold theological outline of Christian marriage in narrative form, it is arguable that it propose
s either regulatory imperative or legal intention. Certainly, it does not have the kind of language or format that the church has come to expect in definitional statements, for the language in this paragraph is not obviously legislative, in the sense of providing regulatory lines that define boundaries or proscribe behavior.

and

Thus, W-4.9001 has become contested regarding whether it can bear the interpretive weight that judicial process and decision has put upon it. The church needs a sharper degree of clarification and guidance that precisely defines how it understands marriage, especially in light of the high financial and personal burden involved.

For all the polity wonks out there, I recommend having a look at this concurring opinion — you may or may not agree with it, but they have done a good job of clearly stating where there might be problems when theological narrative is applied as polity for judicial process. (And now I am going to have a look at nFOG and see how it would stand up to this test.)

3) I will let the opening paragraph of the third concurring opinion, signed by three commissioners, speak for itself:

We concur with the Decision of the Commission, and with the holding that Spahr is not applicable as precedent because the actions taken by Southard took place before the Spahr Decision was rendered. However, it is disingenuous of Southard to claim that no guidance was available from the larger church on the advisability of performing a same-gender marriage.

Their point is that the Spahr Decision is not the first one and enough guidance is present in the 1991 Authoritative Interpretation and the 2000 Benton Decision to have discouraged this ceremony from happening. The opinion concludes “While Southard may be commended for her desire to provide compassionate pastoral care, a failure to seek out the guidance of the larger Church would raise a concern about Southard’s willingness to ‘be governed by our church’s polity, and to abide its discipline.'”

Personal Comments
Having served on the PC(USA) Special Committee on Civil Union and Christian Marriage I want to add just a brief comment about the polity situation the PC(USA) now finds itself in.

As the second concurring opinion points out so clearly, section W-4.9001 of the Book of Order provides a theological definition of marriage where even the civil dimension is part of God’s order. Our committee was painfully aware that there are on-going changes in the civil realm that those of us of faith can speak to, but the church as an institution can not control. This means that the second point of the four-fold definition of marriage is something we as a church can not specify and yet we have it in our constitution. While some of us would have liked to have seen something done, with the theological diversity on the committee the exact nature of the adjustment was not immediately clear. The discussion was however moot since our charge from the General Assembly was to make our report a social witness document and the charge excluded from our purview constitutional changes. As you are probably aware, the 219th General Assembly accepted our report for study and took no further action on constitutional changes.

Looking Forward
If you are following these issues in the PC(USA) then you are no doubt aware that another, similar case is working its way through the judicial process. Back in August there was a new trial for the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr where she was charged with, and found guilty of, conducting same-sex marriages. The circumstances are similar because such marriages were permitted under California law at the time they were preformed. She has filed an appeal to the Synod PJC and there is every expectation that whatever the decision is there an appeal to the GA PJC will be heard at some point in the next year or so.

As you might expect this case comes with an additional twist of its own. The presbytery sustained the charge that Rev. Spahr had “persisted in a pattern or practice of
disobedience concerning the aforementioned authoritative interpretation
of the Book of Order.”

At first glance, it appears that the GAPJC has now clearly set the legal tests for hearing this case. The PPJC seems to have thought so in finding her guilty but expressing their personal disagreement with the outcome. But as we know, there is still the appeal to be heard by the Synod PJC and there may be other procedural issues that arise. We will see how the process plays out.

Well, I think you see why I described this decision as defying simple sound bites. On the one hand, this case is over and the defendant has been found not guilty. On the other hand, the PC(USA) constitutional standard – as currently understood by judicial commission interpretation – has been reiterated, including the understanding that earlier same-sex marriage ceremonies could not, by definition, actually be marriage ceremonies in the PC(USA). Stay tuned to see where this legal standard takes us in the future…

Further Thoughts On The Fellowship PC(USA)

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Well, I have had a couple of days to reflect on the Fellowship PC(USA) letter, announcement, and white paper. I have also had a bit of time to reflect on my own reaction and ask if I jumped too quickly. The answer to that is maybe yes and maybe no. More on that at the end. But first, some comments on the white paper and the developments so far.

Time For Something New – A Fellowship PC(USA) white paper

I have now read the white paper referenced in the original letter and for those who have not read it, it is essentially an extended discussion of the same material as the letter. In fact, the letter is pretty much a condensed version of the white paper with the meeting announcement and the signatures added.

On the side that maybe I did respond too quickly, I was interested to see that the extended discussion in the white paper addresses a couple of the issues I had with the letter. On the topic of the conflict and decline in the PC(USA) being about more than the homosexuality issue, the white paper contains this paragraph which the letter does not:

Certainly none of these issues are unique to the PCUSA, [sic] but are all part of larger cultural forces. But what is the way forward? Is there a future beyond the decline as yet unseen? Is there a way to avoid endless fights, to regain consensus on the essence of the Christian faith? We see no plan coming from any quarter, leaving a continued drift into obsolescence.

While it does not seem to consider the broad range of issues the mainline/oldline faces, at least it acknowledges the “larger cultural forces” that are in play here.

Likewise, a couple of my other concerns are moderated in the white paper. Regarding the diversity and inclusively, they say that they are speaking as a group of pastors but explicitly say “We call others of a like mind to envision a new future…” Regarding the reference to the PC(USA) as “deathly ill” that was a lightning rod in the letter, the phrase is not used in the white paper but instead they say “The PCUSA [sic] is in trouble on many fronts.” (And as you can see the white paper uses my less-preferred acronym PCUSA instead of the PC(USA) used in the letter.) And finally, there is more acknowledgement of similar predecessor organizations and explanation of why a new one:

We recognize that there are still islands of hope across the church, but they do not seem to represent a movement. Many faithful groups and organizations have been devoted to the renewal of the PCUSA, and they have offered valuable ministry for many years. Yet it appears they have simply helped slow down a larger story of decline. Is it time to acknowledge that something in the PCUSA system is dying?

and

In many ways this [new] association may resemble some of the voluntary organizations of the past (PGF, PFR, etc.) but it is only a way station to something else. It is an intermediate tool to begin to bring together like minded congregations and pastors to begin the work of another future, different than the current PCUSA.

So some of these ideas are more developed in the 3 1/2 page white paper than they are in the 2 page letter.

Response

It was interesting to see how quickly word spread about the original letter on Twitter and the concerns that many people expressed. This seems to have led to two rapid responses.

The Fellowship PC(USA) saw a need to respond quickly and the day following the distribution of the letter they put out a one-page FAQ addressing some of the concerns I and others had. Specifically, they address the narrow demographic of the original group (white, male, pastors mostly of larger “tall-steeple” churches). The response is that this letter was only the beginning of a conversation that they want to broadly include all aspects of the church. Of course, they get another negative comment from me because in an apparent effort to say that the conversation should include more than clergy they use the phrase “clergy/non-ordained as equal partners.” (Ouch! That hurt this ruling elder.) This has now been changed to “clergy/laity.” Sorry, no better. At best this comes off as a technical glitch that in either wording does not include ruling elders as ordained partners in governance with teaching elders (clergy). At worst, while probably not intended to be so, it strikes me as a Freudian slip or condescending comment that teaching elders are somehow superior to ruling elders in all this. OK, soapbox mode off. (And yes, if you think I am being super-sensitive about this one little detail, this GA Junkie is by nature super-sensitive to that one little detail. Sorry if that bothers you.)

The FAQ also addresses the relationship to the New Wineskins Association of Churches, other renewal groups, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and why their plan is better, different, reasonable, or something like that.

The Fellowship has also updated the letter (the old link is broken) with a revised one that appears to be the same text but has a longer list of signatories that now includes ruling elders and women. The original seven names are there for the steering committee, but the 28 names for concurring pastors has grown to 95 (including a couple of women) and there is now a category for Concurring Elders, Lay Leaders and Parachurch Leaders with 15 names. (And I suspect that this will be a dynamic document that will be updated as more individuals sign on.)

The Fellowship letter and viral response, possibly influenced by the concurrent meeting of the Middle Governing Bodies Commission, elicited a response from the PC(USA) leadership with a letter on Friday from Moderator Cynthia Bolbach, Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons, and GAMC Executive Director Linda Valentine. This message, titled Future of the church: GA leaders invite all Presbyterians to join in conversation, cites not just the letter but several more conversations going on in the PC(USA) through the MGB Commission, and other task forces. One of their concluding lines is “We ask that those who would challenge us also join with all of us across the church as we work together to make that happen.” I also applaud their openness to the whole of the Presbyterian family as they address the letter to “All Presbyterians” and part-way through the letter say “Presbyterians everywhere long for vibrant congregations and communities
of faith, and relationships built upon trust and our common faith in
Jesus Christ.”

I mention this broad-mindedness since these developments have caught the attention of the wider Presbyterian family in the blogosphere and there are comments about it by David Fischler at Reformed Pastor and Benjamin Glaser at Mountains and Magnolias. Within the PC(USA) ranks there is a nice analysis by Katie Mulligan who has a summary of the demographics of the churches represented by the original signatories. (Thanks Katie. It was something I started to do, but as the signatory list became a moving target I reorganized my thoughts and it will appear as a slightly different statistical analysis in the future.)

There is also an unofficial response
from the affinity group Voices for Justice. They reject the viewpoint
the Fellowship letter has of the PC(USA) and urge working together as
one denomination.

A Case Study in Social Media

Probably what interests me the most in all of this is how it played out. As best as I can tell, this went viral, or as viral as something can go within the denomination, within about five or six hours. The letter and the Fellowship group itself seem like somewhere we have been before and we will see if it plays out any differently. How this played on Twitter is something else altogether and I’m not sure anything like this has spread through the PC(USA) Twitter community in the same way.

So here is the timeline from my perspective (all time PST)(note: items marked * have been added or updated):

Feb. 2, 10:46 AM – Fellowship letter hits my email box
Feb. 2, 11:32 AM – Tweet from @preslayman announcing their posting of the letter – The first tweet I can find.
Feb. 2, 12:32 PM – John Shuck posted his first blog entry, tweeted announcement at 1:25 PM
Feb. 2, 3:00 PM – Tweet from @ktday that asks “what do you think of this” – quickly and heavily retweeted; beginning of the flood of tweets
Feb. 2, 3:17 PM – @lscanlon of the Outlook puts out a series of tweets reporting the letter
Feb. 2, 3:32 PM – My first blog post, I tweeted announcement of it at same time
Feb. 2, 7:12 PM – Time stamp on the Outlook article.*
Feb. 3, 2:31 PM – First tweet I saw about the Fellowship FAQ, from @CharlotteElia
Feb. 4, 8:56 AM – @leahjohnson posts first tweet I found about the PC(USA) leadership response*
Feb. 4, 9:01 AM – @Presbyterian official announcement by tweet of the denomination leadership response
Feb. 4, 10:10 AM – Katie Mulligan posted her blog article
Feb. 4, 11:07 AM – @shuckandjive announces the Voices for Justice response

Now that is what I saw. Please let me know if you have other important events in this history that should be on the time line. And I am going to keep researching it myself and it may grow.

So, I have to give credit to the Fellowship leadership, or at least their response team, for being able to turn around a response FAQ in 27 hours. Nice job also by the denominational leadership for having a comment out in less than 48 hours.

In the realm of social media this is a very interesting development – that in the course of a day or two a topic could gather so much attention that the major parties each feel the need, or pressure, to weigh in on the subject. And that the originating organization received enough criticism and critique that they so quickly issued a clarification and updated list of names. In case you don’t think the world of communications has changed you need to take a serious look at how a topic, admittedly a hot one but one of limited interest outside our circle of tech-savvy and enthusiastic participants, has played out in just 48 hours.

And I would note that the PC(USA) is not alone in this. In my observation of the PCA voting on their Book of Church Order amendments this year, and the ultimate non-concurrence by the presbyteries, social media, especially the blogosphere, played a major role.

So here I am commenting on it 72 hours after it broke. Was my first response reasonable? As I comment above, it was on only one piece of the evidence and it took me a couple more days to find time to read the white paper. But then again, maybe it was. The situation developed rapidly and having my own rapid response to the letter meant that the initial concerns I raised were among those addressed in the clarification the next day.

Now the big question – is all of this a good thing? I will leave the ultimate answer up to each of you. I have, in a bit of a play within a play, personally demonstrated what I see as both the negatives and the positives — my initial response was not as well developed as it could have been but in the reality of the new social media world it helped (I would hope) to propel the conversation forward. Don’t we live in interesting times…

So where from here? It will be very interesting to see what further role social media plays in this going forward. Will this discussion become a topic for more narrowly focused groups who continue their work off-line, or will the new realities force or require this topic to remain viable in the extended social media community of the PC(USA). It will be interesting to see, and I would expect that if this Fellowship initiative is to really propel discussion of the future of the PC(USA) they will need to embrace the reality of the connected church. I think we need a hashtag.

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…

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.

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.

Officers Of The Church — Prepetual Or Three-And-Out?

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In my recent reading I found a convergence of ideas that I want to spend some time musing about. The basic theme of this is the nature of the ordained offices of Ruling Elder and Deacon in branches where the office is perpetual but the service on the local board is not. I have not done a comprehensive survey of this point of Presbyterian polity but in my experience the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is the only branch I am aware of that has terms with limits as the only option, in their case six years, then requiring an individual to go off the board (session for elders, board of deacons for a deacon) for one year before serving again on that board. For many branches, and historically for mainline American Presbyterians, once your are called as a Ruling Elder of the church you continue serving on the session without limit. You can voluntarily step down due to personal circumstances, and if you move churches you remain an elder but you do not automatically go on to the new church’s session. And usually there is a process to remove you from the session should circumstances warrant. But it is not the case that you leave because “your time is up.” (The exception there would be in the sense of joining the Church Triumphant. )

Personally, my service as an elder on session lasted five years (I was first elected to fill a vacant partial term) and in the 12 years since I have not been invited back onto my church’s session. I state this only as fact and not as complaint because in those 12 years I have never ceased serving the church in the capacity of a ruling elder in other governing bodies of the church.

But my experience, vis a vis the congregation, is not unique based upon the numbers in the Presbyterian Panel background summary. PC(USA) Research Services, in what I consider a misleading and inaccurate division, categorizes their sample population into “elders” and “members.” If you dive into the data you find that when they refer to elders they mean elders currently serving on session. Furthermore, they report that of what they classify as members, more than one-third (38%), are ordained Ruling Elders. If you take all the individuals that have been ordained as Ruling Elders or Deacons (or both) it turns out to be more than half of the “members.” There is a very large population within the PC(USA) that have been ordained to church office. As we will see in a minute this is such a large group that within a congregation it is difficult to effectively use them to serve on the session. The Panel survey is silent on other ways that this large pool of ordained officers live out their call in the life of the church if they are not serving on session.

Now consider how the survey question is worded:

Have you ever been ordained an elder in a Presbyterian church?
Have you ever been ordained a deacon in a Presbyterian church?

I’m not sure if they are trying to capture those who have demitted and are no longer ordained officers, but in my experience that is a pretty small number, probably so small it would not be statistically significant. I would think that they could better reinforce the perpetual nature of the ordained office by asking “Are you an ordained elder (or deacon) in a Presbyterian church?” Or maybe they are recognizing that individuals may not realize the office is perpetual and phrase the question so that it still captures the respondents correctly. In that case we need to do a better job of educating our ordained officers. But either way, the nature of the survey questions do nothing to reinforce the perpetual nature of the office.

OK, that is a particular point in the ethos in the PC(USA) that really rubs me the wrong way (in case you couldn’t tell) and that I have ranted about before. But it is not just me… In the resource piece by the Rev. Joseph Small that was posted for the Special Commission on Middle Governing Bodies I found this (as part of a longer section beginning on page 4 that is well worth the read)(my emphasis added):

What led to the bureaucratization of sessions and presbyteries? At root, it was the bureaucratization of American society, and the church’s endemic eagerness to follow culture’s lead. But there are proximate symptoms and causes. In the 1950’s, Presbyterian polity was changed at several points for the very best of reasons, but with unintended, unfortunate consequences.

First, the understanding of “elder” as a called ministry within the congregation was weakened by the introduction of a regulation stipulating that elders could serve no more than two consecutive three-year terms on the session. This mandatory rotation of elders was instituted for one very good reason and one of questionable intention. The ordination of women as ruling elders had been part of (northern) Presbyterian polity since 1930, but most sessions had few if any women serving. Limiting terms of service on sessions was one way of opening the eldership to new persons, notably women. The regulation had its desired result, but this appropriate motive was joined by another, less noble one. It was thought that mandatory rotation would break the hold of “bull elders” on the life of the church, reducing the capacity of sessions to thwart pastors in their attempts to modernize and renew congregational life.

The unintended result of mandatory rotation was the loss of an understanding of elders as persons called to one of the ordered ministries of the church. Term limits for service on the church session produced brief tenure by an ever expanding circle of members. In many congregations, one three-year term became the norm, and the understanding of the eldership was transformed from a called ministry to merely taking one’s turn on the board. Short-term, inexperienced elders also increased the influence of pastors by diminishing the ministry of called, knowledgeable elders. This imbalance, evident in sessions, became especially pronounced in presbyteries where well-informed pastors were accompanied by revolving elders who knew less and less about matters before the assembly.

My thanks to Rev. Small for including the historical context along with his concurrence on the effect that I have seen of rotating elders. I’m glad to know that this is a recognized issue and not something I’m just reading into the polity.

What are the positives? As Rev. Small points out it encourages (forces?) diversity and additional voices on the session. What are the negatives? Personally, I am especially concerned about the loss of the understanding of the roll of elders and on this I believe the other problems hinge. And, in addition to the lack of experience and the loss, in some cases, of the joint governance, I have seen another issue where nominating committees have to find someone to “fill the position” and it becomes more of an issue of who will say yes as opposed to who has a sense of call. I, and others I have met who are in congregations with similar happenings, would rather see the position left vacant until it can be filled by someone who does have the sense of call. In some times and places the position of ruling elder has become just another position for someone to help out with.

In his 1897 book The Ruling Elder at Work, the Rev. J. Aspinwall Hodge captures the weight of the office and the nature of it as he writes as a fictionalized elder nominee in the opening paragraphs:

The Pastor of our church has just informed me, that the Session has decided
that the number of Elders should be increased. This has long been
regarded necessary. A meeting of the church will soon be called for that
purpose. I am troubled, because the Session desire to nominate me as
one of the new Elders. I wanted to decline at once, but the Pastor
informs me that I should with care and prayer consider what may be my
duty. He urges that, while the communicants have the privilege to
nominate and elect their own representatives, they have the right to
expect the advice of the Session, as its members are in a position to
consider the questions involved more fully than the communicants can.
They are required constantly to observe the christian character and
efficiency of the members of the church, and are thus prepared to judge
of the personal qualifications of those to be nominated. From their
intimate knowledge of the people, they should be able to propose those
who would be most acceptable to the various classes in the congregation, and
who can best represent them. And being well acquainted with the
peculiarities of themselves and of the Pastor, they can best select
those who are qualified to cooperate with them in maintaining the unity
of the church and the spirituality of the members. On the other hand,
the Session ought not to be a self-perpetuating body. It should impart
the information which it possesses, and give advice, but the
communicants can nominate and elect whom they please. Our Session,
feeling the responsibility, had, after long and serious consideration,
by a unanimous vote, determined to nominate me as one of the new Elders.

The question is, therefore, distinctly before me,
and I must consider it. The deliberate judgment of the officers of the
church demands respect, and my Pastor adds that he knows that the desire
is general in the congregation to have me an Elder.

I recently found out about a training program for ruling elders at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. This program, designed to be completed in two years of full-time study, leads to a Master of Ministry for the Ruling Elder degree. The program is described to “help the
Ruling Elder function on the Session, Presbytery, and General Assembly levels in a biblical fashion.” But they do add the qualifier that “the fact that Greenville Seminary offers these programs for the training and/or continuing education of Ruling Elders in no way implies that a seminary education is needed for the Ruling Elder to function properly in his office.” I wonder if SFTS or Fuller will every bring a program like this to the Left Coast? (Or if there are enough other interested ruling elders to make that worthwhile?)

Before I finish this post let me present a thought exercise: Consider a congregation of 240 members. If we use the Panel information and figure that one-third of the members are ordained elders that would mean that there are 80 elders in the congregation. I modeled this exercise on a congregation roughly the size of my own and my first reaction was that 80 was way too high. However, after thinking about it some more I am now inclined to think that it is high, but not by too much. For this thought exercise I will continue to use it. (And you will probably figure out that while the numbers are pretty close to my church, for this exercise I have selected numbers that give round numbers for us to talk about.)

Now consider a session of 12 members. This is a reasonable number for this size congregation. It represents 5% of the members and would be organized into three classes of four. If we have a situation where every elder serves only one term so four elders from our pool of 80 go onto the session each year then each elder in the pool would wait 20 years between their terms on the session. (So I have another eight years to wait.)

Of course, the situation is not that simple. In the case where each year two of the four were eligible to serve a second term and agree to do so, only two elders would need to be drawn from the pool so the rotation would be 40 years between terms. To add one more level of complexity what if we say that of the two “open” spots each year, one is filled from the pool but one is filled by a new elder, someone who is ordained to the office that year, then it would be 80 years between terms for those in the pool and the pool would grow by one new elder each year.

Now, this model does not take into account those that leave the pool by death or transfer, and of course it does not include elders joining the pool by transfer into the church. In addition, it does not include those who due to age, health, or other circumstance are in the pool but not up to the responsibilities of serving the church any more. (And I know several very faithful and dedicated elders who have inspired me who are now in this category.)

The bottom line though is that, if the Panel data is correct, each congregation has an abundance of called and ordained individuals, ruling elders and deacons, sitting out there in the pews every week. How does the congregation continue to give them opportunities to live out their call? How do we reinforce to them, and the church as a whole, that the office is perpetual? If we are going to limit service on the session, how do we intentionally find ways to uses elders in other appropriate roles? Should the denomination’s polity include provisions for limiting the number of elders so such a large back-log does not build up and individuals are able to serve on the session, and thus more often use the spiritual gifts that were recognized in them when they were originally called to serve on the session?

I want to leave you with one last image: In about a month-and-a-half at least a couple of the elders in my church who are going off of the session will have to give up their name tags that also identify them as “Elder.” What message does this send to them and other ordained officers not serving on boards about the perpetual nature of the office? What message does this send to the congregation about the nature of the ordained office? Just because they are not on the session and have stopped wearing the name tag do they stop functioning as elders or stop thinking of themselves as such? What does this mean for the PC(USA) as a whole?

The GA Junkie

The Politics of Presbyterianism

Category Archives: polity

The Fog Around nFOG

Cross-Issue Correlation In PC(USA) Amendment Voting

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

New PC(USA) GAPJC Decision — The Southard Decision

An Interesting Invitation And Some Of My Preliminary Reactions

Tensions In Nigeria Lead To New Presbyterian Branch

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

Constitutional Voting In The PC(USA)

Officers Of The Church — Prepetual Or Three-And-Out?