Category Archives: polity

How Much Presbyterianism Can You Handle In One Day?

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How much Presbyterianism can you handle in one day?  While I think I could probably manage consecutive General Assemblies and Synods for a long time, it appears that my limit is two concurrent… the third I’ll have to handle by “tape delay.”

Yes, the last couple of days there have been three meetings of the highest governing bodies of different branches going on at the same time and I did indeed saturate.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland finished up this morning.  I think that the notification of the conclusion of the Assembly on Twitter from @pciassembly – “The Overtures were agreed. The 2010 Assembly is over. Thanks for following.” – probably came none too early as I checked in on the live streaming and saw the numbers in the Assembly Hall steadily dropping as the final session went on.  I won’t speculate if they maintained a quorum and no one seemed ready to ask that question.

The session was prolonged by a significant amount of business held over from previously arrested reports.  In particular, I was curious about three items from the Panel on Ministries ( in the General Board report ) where the GA approved general schemes for part-time ministry, auxiliary ministry and the appointment and training of evangelists.  In one of the more interesting moments of the session the Assembly heard a request from the Presbytery of Monaghan which, after having its boundaries extended, requested to change its name to the Presbytery of Monaghan Plus.  There was a serious question asked “Is that the best you can do?” and the speaker outlined the geographic and theological basis for the presbytery committee’s choice of name.  The motion died for lack of a second so they will ponder anew a name change.

At the same time I was following the Presbyterian Church in Canada General Assembly on Twitter hashtag #ga136 and on their Cover It Live board.  No lack of interesting polity and parliamentary action there either.  Got to love the discussion board comment just now posted by GMRoss saying “book of forms revisions during the duldrums of the heat of the afternoon – Don’s checking them off. are we asleep, complacent, or making real changes?”  Sounds like the complaints about the heat in the Assembly Hall during the Church of Scotland GA a couple of weeks ago.

Like the Irish, there was a parallel discussion in the Assembly in Canada about flexible ministry.  The Assembly agreed to the plan put forward by the Clerks of Assembly to explore the possibility of commissioned ministry that I talked about earlier.  There was significant discussion about the Life and Mission Agency’s recommendation 15 regarding three overtures dealing with Educational Requirements for Candidates from Other Theological Schools.  The committee submitted a recommendation that they report back next year.  When an amendment was proposed that would specify certain requirements the Moderator, correctly in my opinion, ruled that it was a separate motion and therefore what was proposed from the floor was a “notice of a motion” ( see page F-9 in Practice and Procedure ) or as sometimes poetically referred to a “notion of a motion.”  This is part of the standing rules to give commissioners a chance to ponder the action before having to vote on it and requires that notice appear in advance of the debate itself.  The Moderator’s ruling was challenged, but the Assembly upheld the ruling of the Moderator with the result that there will be an extra session this evening to consider the motion.  (N.B. this would not have worked yesterday for there was clear indication on the Twitter feed that there was a more important event yesterday evening. )

Finally, I have not had a chance to keep up with the third meeting, the 206th meeting of the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church finishing up today.  I’ll go back and have a look at that business later but for regular updates I would refer you to Brian Howard, Tim Phillips, and Seth Stark who are all at the meeting.

Yes, GA season is in full swing.  Enjoy it while you can all you G.A. Junkies.

136th General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Canada

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The 136th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada convenes in Sydney, Cape Breton at 7:30 pm this Sunday, 6 June 2010.  (Some preliminary meetings and activities will begin the day before.)  Here is what you need to know to follow along:

Business before the Assembly
As I look through the reports I have not seen anything that strikes me as a high-profile or “lightning rod” issue.  I could easily be wrong because I read it too fast or I am not familiar with the current concerns in the church.  (And I am sure that someone will let us know if I did miss something.)

There are a lot of interesting items coming to the Assembly.  One of those is the recommendation against having biennial assembly meetings.  Some of the committee reports weigh in on the question but one of the most interesting, at least to me, is the response from the Committee on History.  In their extended response they cast it in the historical perspective and legacy of the church and one of their sections says:

2. The legacy of church union has something to teach us about the unique situation of The Presbyterian Church in Canada. As Prof. Keith Clifford says in The Resistance to Church Union, 1904-1939 (p. 142), the Presbyterian Church Association worked around the courts of The pre-Union Presbyterian Church in Canada appealing to the membership directly and suggesting an inbred hostility to the clerical establishment which was regarded by many lay people opposed to Union as having predetermined Church Union. After 1925 there was an inbuilt suspicion of the centralization of authority resulting sometimes in an inchoate democratization (and laicization) of the power base of The Presbyterian Church in Canada. One can only imagine what the Presbyterian Church Association would say today about biennial Assemblies.

Another very interesting item is the revisions to the judicial process.  The judicial process chapter of the Book of Forms was modified in 2006 and will be reviewed in the future after there has been more experience with it.  However, the Clerks of Assembly are recommending (recommendation 17) an immediate addition that would permit an investigating committee to make the determination that insufficient evidence exists and they could unilaterally decide not to proceed with a disciplinary case.  The other interesting recommendation related to judicial process is that the Assembly Council is recommending (recommendation 7) the Clerks of Assembly be instructed to consider recommending to the Assembly appropriate legislation to establish a standing judicial commission.  I was disappointed to see that the Life and Mission: Communications unit is considering closing down the Being Presbyterian blog, but I do personally know the work involved in keeping multiple blogs active and can understand the concern.  And where the PC(USA) has developed a Social Media Policy for its GA, the Life and Mission Agency report contains a proposed (recommendation 4) General Assembly Digital Images Policy.  And in another parallel, I found an interesting response in the Clerks of Assembly report to Overture 14 (recommendation 16) asking for the elimination of synods:

The framers of Overture No. 14, 2010 suggest that the synods of our church have become ineffective, expensive in terms of both time and money, and a source of disenfranchisement for many elders and ministers.

The Clerks of Assembly remind the Assembly that across the country synods function in different ways. Some provide an important source of collegial community for ministers and elders who are serving in remote parts of the country; some provide strong governance oversight; and some play substantial roles in overseeing the work of thriving camping ministries and that of regional staff.

Synods, that would like to reduce the scope of meeting both in terms of the number of individuals attending and costs involved, now have the option of functioning as commissioned synods.

There are two items that particularly jumped out at me.  The first is interesting because of my being a polity wonk and the issue raises an interesting polity question at the intersection with the effort to be more flexible in how the church does things.  In the Clerks report there is a response to an item that began as an overture in 2008 requesting the option to commission lay missionaries to administer communion in hardship situations such as in remote and rural churches.  The Life and Work Agency returned a recommendation concurring with the overture and the 2009 Assembly then sent it on to the clerks to have the polity wording worked out.  The recommendation from the Ministry and Church Vocations unit in 2009 was against this course of action. (And the report notes that some presbyteries, based on the 2009 approval, had begun commissioning missionaries which the clerks quickly let them know that this has to be done decently and in order and it was only approved in concept and the Assembly had yet to approve the details.)

In their report the clerks note that they find themselves in a bit of a polity dilemma — while it was the will of the 2009 Assembly to move forward with this action this was in conflict with previous Assemblies, as recently as 2008, affirming as a theological doctrine of the denomination that only Ministers of Word and Sacraments celebrate the sacraments.  So here is their proposal:

While hearing the need articulated for an alternative method of providing the communion in areas where ministers of Word and Sacraments are not readily available, the Clerks believe it would be highly irregular to reverse this aspect of the church’s doctrine and practice by creating what could be deemed a new order of ministry without the usual theological reflection by the denomination. Normally, a document outlining a new position is sent to the church for study and report. The responses to the study and report are taken into account and the “new position” may be modified according to wisdom received by the process.

Therefore, while the Clerks have proposed legislation as requested, they, together with the Life and Mission Agency: Ministry and Church Vocations, offer a study paper that is designed to encourage the church to contemplate this important issue from a theological perspective. Before guidelines for education or other requirements are proposed, the Clerks would like to hear from the church through responses to this document.

The formal recommendation (recommendation 3) is that the study paper and proposed legislation be sent out to the church for study and comment and the clerks will return in 2011 with their recommendation, revised according to the responses.

The other item that caught my attention was the study paper reported by the Committee on Church Doctrine and posted as a separate document on the web site.  This sixty-page study paper titled “One Covenant of Grace: A Contemporary Theology of Engagement with the Jewish People,” is also being recommended for study and comment by the church in advance of formal adoption by the 137th Assembly in 2011.

It should be no surprise that this caught my attention because of all the publicity that the Report of the Middle East Study Committee to the 219th General Assembly of the PC(USA) is causing.  But, let me be clear that these are two very different documents in scope and purpose.  While the PC(USA) report would be characterized in the peacemaking and social witness focus, the PCC document is focused on doctrine, specifically the issue of supersessionism, that is, how Christians and Jews are related as God’s chosen people.  The PC(USA) report focuses on modern relationships between ethnic groups and biblical implications for the land.  The reports are related to the extent that they each have an extensive discussion of the biblical background of the Jewish nation and how the biblical narrative demonstrates their special relationship with God.  The two discussions provide nice compliments to each other in many ways.

The concluding doctrine statement in the PCC report, which will be studied this year and considered for adoption by the 2011 Assembly reads in part:

In stating our relationship with the Jewish people we reaffirm a central tenet of our Reformed faith expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith, that there is one covenant of grace embracing Jews and Gentiles and therefore, not “two covenants of grace differing in substance, but one and the same under various dispensations” (VII, 6).
Accordingly, we affirm that the Jewish people have a unique role in God’s economy of salvation and healing for our world. Jesus himself taught that “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22) and the Apostle Paul stated: “to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, God who is over all be blessed forever. Amen” (Romans 9:4-5). The Jewish people have a pre-eminent place in God’s covenant, John Calvin, finely said, for they are “the firstborn in God’s family.”

We affirm that God has graciously included Gentile Christians, rightly called “posthumous children of Abraham” (J. Calvin), by engrafting them into the one people of God established by God’s covenant with Abraham. This means that Jews have not been supplanted and replaced by Christians in the one covenant. As Paul teaches, God has not rejected or abandoned them: “I ask, then has God rejected his people? By no means!” (Romans 11:1).

Lots of interesting stuff here.  I look forward to the discussion of these and other topics at the Assembly.  Stay tuned.

The 2010 Assemblies Discussing Central Points Of Presbyterian And Reformed Thought

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This past weekend the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held a special session to celebrate and remember the 450th anniversary of the Reformation in Scotland that produced the Presbyterian church.  (You can watch the two hour long session on the Church of Scotland web site.)  And for those who keep track, this past Thursday (when I started writing this) marked the 446th anniversary of John Calvin’s death.  It seems to me the various Assemblies this year in their business have more ties to Calvin and Knox than happens in most years.

As I think back on the Church of Scotland Assembly I’m sure that for many of us who followed the meeting there was an interesting sense of paradox (or irony or outright contradiction even) having to do with the fact that on the one hand the Assembly endorsed the Third Article Declaratory defining the Kirk as a territorial church with a mission to the whole of Scotland, while on the other hand cutting ministerial staffing 10%.  I probably can not state it any better than Davidkhr who says in his blog post about the Assembly:

It’s all very well making potentially visionary statements looking at alternative forms of ministry, but the education process within the membership will be impossible. Let’s face it, and the Committee/commission didn’t, the vast majority of ordinary members expect a form of ministry that may have happened 40 years ago, and the only ‘visit’ from the church that is valid is the dog collar. That is plainly ridiculous in today’s situation. Parishes will get bigger, more vacancies are planned for, more churches needing covered with interim ministries, it’s a recipe for meltdown….

Or have I missed something in all this ?

And this in a Presbyterian branch which has been proactive about considering the church of the future with their Church Without Walls initiative and the various Commissions and Panels on restructuring the church.

I’ll return to this in a moment, but as I consider the Assembly meetings now adjourned and those yet to convene it strikes me that more than most years there will be a lot of discussion, more than usual, around the application and relevance of several points which many of us consider central to what it means to be Reformed and Presbyterian.  Some of these are…

Worship
We are all familiar with the “worship wars” but the echoes this year seem to be very much concerned with the original Reformed understanding of divine worship and the inspiration and value of the Psalter.  At their Assembly, the commissioners of the Free Church of Scotland agreed to a special Plenary Assembly later in the year to discuss the possibility of permitting flexibility in worship and providing for a congregation to include music other than unaccompanied exclusive psalmody.

But I found it meaningful how much unaccompanied Psalm singing there was at the Church of Scotland Assembly, not just at the special session but throughout the week. A significantly larger amount of the music sung that week was unaccompanied Psalms, more than I remember from previous years.

Teaching and Ruling Elders in Joint Ministry
This gets to the heart of many discussions this year and especially part of the solution of the Third Article and the ministry cuts paradox.  The Special Commission on the Third Article Declaratory in their report made it clear that to accomplish that mission would require new ways of being the church.  And as Davidkhr makes clear above it will fail, meltdown in his language, if there are not new ways.

But that is the beauty of the model of shared ministry that we see in the Presbyterian and Reformed system.  Under no circumstances is leadership for the teaching elder alone.  Authority, responsibility, and accountability lie with both the teaching and ruling elders.  And while there are plenty of service roles for others in the church, in times of reduced staffing there is opportunity and responsibility for the ruling elders to live into their role and help leading the church where there is now need.  Yes, there is need for training regarding some areas, but a great opportunity for ruling elders to be part of the joint leadership the Reformed tradition recovered.

And I would say that many Presbyterian branches would benefit from being intentional about the joint ministry of teaching and ruling elders.  This is not necessarily a budgetary argument but an understanding of call.

But in this regard there are a couple of other points where our GA’s are touching on this joint ministry.  One of these is in the balance of teaching elders and ruling elders standing for Moderator and Vice-Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  Five of the six Moderator candidates are teaching elders and all four of the announced Vice-Moderator candidates are teaching elders.  Only one in ten, 10%, is a ruling elder.  Now I actually think this says something about how the PC(USA) structures these position and I will rant about discuss that another time, but at a minimum it does implicitly say something about how the church looks at this joint ministry.

Another branch where this joint ministry has been mentioned as lacking is in the Presbyterian Church in America.  Commentators have pointed out that having teaching and ruling elder parity at GA is a problem with more conflicts and less incentive for ruling elders to attend.  This is one of the “back stories” to the Strategic Plan…

Connectionalism
This leads us into one of the areas that is constantly being worked out in Presbyterian branches, and that is our connectionalism — how each governing body is connected to the others.  I have to think that if we were not a fallen and sinful people this would come naturally, or even be unnecessary, but having our sinful nature it does not come as easily for us to determine what of our authority, power and treasure we are to reserve for one governing body and what portion is properly exercised by higher or lower bodies.  Just as we believe that our human nature is such that authority should not be concentrated in one individual but rather in a body, we also believe authority should not be concentrated in one governing body but shared (not necessarily equally) across higher and lower governing bodies with review and appeal between them.  (And this is just the polity argument and not the role of connectionalism as representative of the Church as the Body of Christ.)

Having said this, the connectional level of Presbyterian polity is one of the most sensitive issues in several branches right now and for the PCA Strategic Plan the several ways that it proposes to improve connectionalism may be the most controversial and contentious points.  One thing the report considers is how the Administrative and Assembly functions of the denomination should be supported and how to assess churches for the financial support of these areas.  There are numerous analyses and a counter proposal being circulated so at the Assembly we will have a significant discussion on the specific implications of connectionalism.

At the upcoming Assembly of the PC(USA) a different situation will be on the floor.  The PCA Strategic Report begins with the position that growth has slowed and started to reverse and asks the question “What do we need to do to start growing again?”  The PC(USA) discussion begins with the fact that the current structure was designed for a church roughly one million members larger and asks the question “How do we need to structure ourselves for our smaller size?”  There are proposals for specific tweaks, like abolishing synods, to requests for creating a committee or commission to study the role of higher governing bodies and suggest, and in the case of the commission implement, changes to the presbytery and synod structure of the denomination.

As a parallel proposal, there is also a PC(USA) overture for a “New Synod,” and flexible presbyteries, that would allow connectionalism along the lines of theological affinity.  But the PC(USA) is not alone here because the Evangelical Presbyterian Church also has a proposal before it for presbyteries to have, in my words, “fuzzy boundaries,” to allow for congregations to align themselves in presbyteries that have a similar stance but on one very specific issue, the ordination of women as teaching elders.

And finally, the Church of Scotland, in several reports including the Panel on Review and Reform, is looking at devolving responsibilities from the General Assembly level to the presbytery level.  We will see more of these specifics as the year unfolds and they are discussed and implemented.

Confessions
I would be remiss if I did not mention one more traditional item and that is our confessional nature as Presbyterians.  The PC(USA) GA will be discussing a recommendation to add the Belhar Confession as a confessional standard.  I will leave it at that for now as I am working on a much more extensive post on the PC(USA) and its confessions.

So that is what I am seeing.  In my memory I can’t remember so many Presbyterian branches dealing with so many of the characteristics that we of the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition consider core to our doctrinal framework.  So hold on — it looks to be an interesting summer.

Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — Recommendations Of The Committee On Ecumenical Relations Regarding The Evangelical Presbyterian Church

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The report from the General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical Relations with their Recommendations Regarding the Evangelical Presbyterian Church has been released and it is “interesting” reading in a number of senses of the word.  This report to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) resulted from a referral from the 218th GA .  The opening paragraph of the report probably does as good a job as I could summarizing how we got here:

This report comes in response to an overture from the Presbytery of Peace River to the 218th General Assembly (2008) of the PC(USA) that would have asked the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) to investigate the role of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) in persuading PC(USA) congregations to disaffiliate from the PC(USA) and be dismissed to the EPC. The assembly referred the overture to the General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical Relations, which appointed a task group to make recommendations.

So it is looking at the “role” of the EPC.  Going back to the original overture it asks of the Assembly:

The Presbytery of Peace River respectfully overtures the 218th General Assembly (2008) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to request the Executive Office of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches to investigate the actions and conduct of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, as described below, and to take appropriate action.

The described “actions and conduct” are:

The Evangelical Presbyterian Church is actively pursuing a strategy to persuade Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) churches to disaffiliate with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and be dismissed to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

The Evangelical Presbyterian Church has created a transitional presbytery to facilitate the process.

So this began not with the “role” of the EPC but with two specific complaints – “a strategy to persuade” and creating “a transitional presbytery.” The report addresses this in the Findings section at paragraph VI.4.l:

l.    There was no evidence that the EPC took the initiative in entering PC(USA) congregations to speak against the PC(USA), for the EPC, or about affiliation with the EPC. However, there was ample evidence that when invited by a session or pastor, EPC representatives went in without consultation with the appropriate judicatory within the PC(USA) and spoke freely.

OK, there is the answer that the presbytery asked for in the overture – The Evangelical Presbyterian Church did not initiate but did not discourage.  So now that we have the answer we can now turn off the lights, lock the door, and go home, right?  “By no means” — we are Presbyterians so there are 15 pages of report to document this and present recommendations to try to patch up relations with the EPC, acknowledge the pain of separation within the PC(USA), and try to find ways to do better in the future.

OK, having gotten my snarky comments about “mission creep” out of the way, let me begin again by saying that I found a lot to like in this report.  It is precise and accurate about many historical and polity points, a feature I appreciate.  That said there are some aspects that bother me but these are mostly in what was left unsaid.

It is worthwhile to begin the detailed analysis with the remainder of the Preface which makes a very important distinction in this:

The task group met with presbyteries in which congregations had departed the PC(USA), with pastors and members of congregations who had departed or were considering departing the PC(USA) including those affiliated with the New Wineskins Association of Churches, and with leadership of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. In listening to people’s stories and in reviewing documents, the task group sought to distinguish between actions of Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and actions of the New Wineskins Association (which consists of PC(USA) pastors and members, as well as former PC(USA) pastors and members who are now affiliated with the EPC).

The distinction is important in that the actions of the New Wineskins members can be considered matters internal to the PC(USA), at least at their root. Actions of the EPC, on the other hand, are matters between churches—churches that are both members of WARC. It is this latter category that is the focus of the original overture. The report that follows presents the findings of the task group regarding activities that are internal and external to the PC(USA), and presents recommendations on how the PC(USA) should move forward in its relations with the EPC.

I very much appreciate the tone throughout this report that this is a very complicated issue and that the EPC as a denomination must be viewed as an independent player despite the fact that it has the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery.  It is also important to remember, and this is one of the points that I think is passed over too lightly in the report, that the New Wineskins Association of Churches is a broad organization with members, individual and congregational, that have a wide range of opinions about departure from the PC(USA).  Any categorization of the NWAC should be done carefully.  The disaffiliation portion of the strategy report must not be viewed as the guidelines for all the members.

Maybe the historical point I most appreciate is the honest appraisal of the origin of our two denominations (V.1):

The histories of the EPC (with its organizing General Assembly in 1981) and the PC(USA) (with its organizing General Assembly in 1983) are deeply woven together, particularly since a large number of the congregations and ministers making up the EPC in its formative years had previously been a part of the PC(USA) or its predecessor bodies. Both the EPC and the PC(USA) lay claim to deep roots within the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions of the larger Christian family tree.

Yes, the EPC and the PC(USA) share the same root stock in American Presbyterianism, we are not some distant cousins but very close siblings.  And yes, the EPC predates the PC(USA).  And the report shares the vision of the EPC from its founding – “From those beginnings, however, the EPC was determined to grow by planting new congregations.” (V.3)

This section goes on to discuss the “trust clause” and I must compliment the Task Group on their historical footnote on the legal basis for it.  (And some of the members of the special committee I was on thought one of mine was long )  The report says of the differing perspective of the two denominations (V.3):

The EPC had developed a denominational understanding of property that is substantively different from the understanding in the PC(USA). The EPC and its leadership see no reason for holding onto congregations, ministers, or real property if those assets will help those persons to be more effective in their mission. In this area, the EPC’s ecclesiology differs significantly from the PC(USA)’s.

And later (VI.5.b) the report says this about the disagreements over the trust clause:

b.  During the task group’s visits, the issue that garnered the most theological—and legal—disagreement was that of the PC(USA)’s property trust provision in Chapter 8 of the Book of Order. What was debated among the NWI/NWAC’s national leadership played out “on the ground” in local congregations regarding property. Those desiring to leave saw this as a violation of their conscience, and their understanding of the nature of the church. The PC(USA) loyalists defended the ownership of property under the trust provision as biblical and held in Presbyterianism long before the explicit Book of Order clause. The different ecclesial understandings of the two denominations led to disagreement not only around ordination standards, property, and theology, but also around the meaning of congregational independence and connectionalism/congregationalism.

As I read this report I kept thinking that the task group, and often the denomination as a whole, seems to miss the tension inherent in the trust clause and only concentrates on the ultimate communal ownership of the property.  Yes, we have the trust clause (G-8.0200)

All property held by or for a particular church, a presbytery, a synod, the General Assembly, or the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)… is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

But the question that I don’t hear asked as loudly, here or anywhere, is why do we have the concept of the trust clause to begin with?  While the language of the trust clause itself was inserted to make the concept explicit following a U.S. Supreme Court Decision (see that historical note ) the report and a PC(USA) OGA Advisory Opinion (#19) are correct in pointing out that it intrinsically flows from our view of the church as a connectional system.  We belong to each other not because we chose to belong but because Christ calls us together.

But this is then viewed in the light of why Christ calls us together and in Chapter 3 of the Book of Order titled “The Church and Its Mission” it says (G-3.0400) “The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond themselves to the new reality in Christ.”  And regarding the list of responsibilities of the presbytery all relate back to the opening statement that (G-11.0103) “The presbytery is responsible for the mission and government of the church throughout its geographical district.”  The tension of holding property is to be good stewards so it does the most good for building the Kingdom and furthering the mission given us by Jesus Christ.  I’m not sure we are as good as we could be about “a time to keep and a time to let go.”  In light of the ultimate call to forward the Kingdom, and acknowledging the theology behind the trust clause, I see no reason that the line from the report could not be rewritten to say “The PC(USA) and its leadership see no reason for holding onto congregations, ministers, or real property if those assets will help those persons to be more effective in their mission.”  In both branches the property is for the purpose of mission, the branches differ as to which governing body has responsibility for discerning the best use of the property in furthering mission.

Following from that the most meaningful part of this report, to me, is the section of the findings that demonstrate how our “keeping” and “letting go” need some work.  Here are excerpts from the report:

j.    In several cases, both New Wineskins representatives now in the EPC as well as PC(USA) representatives said that when presbytery processes were followed, the outcomes were better than if a congregation entered into litigation against the PC(USA) presbytery. In every instance where the civil courts were involved, representatives of both New Wineskins and loyalist PC(USA) leaders said it became extremely painful. (VI.2.j)

b.   The size of the congregation was often a driving factor in the approach to discussions and the process for departure. Smaller congregations with fewer human and real property assets were often more easily resolved. In other cases, especially when the congregation was larger, the presbyteries recognized the need to be immediately engaged, and the situation often led to civil litigation, resulting in very large costs—emotionally and financially—for all involved. (VI.4.b)

c.   In general, those congregations that followed an ecclesiastical process… fared better. Although it depends upon the state, courts generally have sided with the PC(USA)’s understanding of Chapter 8… In some cases, departing congregations relying on a legal strategy alone or in concert with an ecclesiastical one, lost additional money or property, and would have been much better off without civil action. Situations that involved a higher degree of trust and communication usually resulted in a negotiated settlement with which all parties could live and still feel respect for one another. Some of these situations even seemed to result in what was perceived by many as a “grace-filled” process. (VI.4.c, emphasis mine)

Friends, the single most important thing I took away from this report was those two final lines.  We need to remember the “trust clause” is ultimately there for advancing mission and nothing else.

Having said that I want to highlight one more plus and one more negative I see in this report and then get on with the recommendations to the 219th GA.

First, looking beyond the trust clause and discussing Presbyterian connectionalism in general, the report does a good job of developing the concept that congregations must be dismissed to another body.  There is no such thing as an independent Presbyterian church within the Presbyterian understanding of the church.  For those not familiar with the issue at hand, the EPC New Wineskins Presbytery is a transitional presbytery and is simply a place that a congregation can momentarily stop on their journey.  While there may be an intent to join a geographic presbytery there is also the possibility of being released as an independent congregation.  Unless the relationship is fixed and not transitional the PC(USA) understanding of the relationship finds it wanting.  (Now I want to go back and look at how churches transferring into PC(USA) non-geographic presbyteries were handled since those were also intended to be transitional presbyteries with limited life times.)

Second – On the one hand I found the report refreshing in the acknowledgement of the existence and role of what have come to be called the “Louisville Papers.”  These are documents put together by the Stated Clerk’s office to help guide presbyteries in the legal work of property disputes.  It is important to remember that they are legal memos and read as such.  They are strongly worded and have the touch of a lawyer out to win his/her case.  I talked about all this back in August 2006 when they were made public by the Layman.

The report also makes a big deal of a document that in some ways serves a similar role produced by the New Wineskins Association of Churches, New Wineskins Initiative: A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven.  It is a publicly released document that talks about the future of the NWAC and in part acts as a guide for NWAC churches for the disaffiliation process.  Section VI.5 of this task group report says “The task group’s findings in local situations regarding a desire for ‘theological clarity’ mirrored the language of the New Wineskins Initiative’s national spokespersons.”  The report also constantly refers to the various disaffiliation options mentioned in the strategy paper.  What I did not see in the report was the view from the other side — when viewed from the perspective of a church trying to depart the PC(USA) the legal action taken by a particular presbytery followed the advice in the “Louisville Papers.”  Now I agree that the legal documents covered the full range of responses so basically anything the presbytery did could be seen as following that guide, but what the report does not say is that each side saw the other as having their own strategy piece.

Most of the Findings in the report were gathered from visits to presbyteries where members of the task group spoke to the presbytery leaders as well as leaders and members of churches, including disaffiliated churches, in that area.  It is worth noting that the group visited nine presbyteries out of around 40 that one list shows having churches that disaffiliated or considered doing do.

There is a lot more in the report but having covered the major points I got out of it let me turn to the recommendations.

1.   Affirm that

a.   the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is in correspondence with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, by virtue of our common membership in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches;

b.   our common membership in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches is a visible sign of our oneness in Jesus Christ; and

c.   as members of the body of Christ, we are all called to treat one another as followers of Jesus Christ.

2.   Request the World Alliance of Reformed Churches to create guidelines offering basic protocols for interactions and behaviors between its member denominations.

3.   Call the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to

a.   confess to the rich tradition of freedom of conscience that we claim as Reformed, Presbyterian Christians, and

b.   recognize that this same tradition causes us to be prone to separation, demonization of those with whom we disagree, and a captivity to insistence on our own rightness.

4.   Invite the Evangelical Presbyterian Church to enter into such a season of confession with us.

5.   Acknowledge the unique complexity of the relationship between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, given the fact that the ecclesial roots of many churches, members, and ministers now in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church lie in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its antecedent denominations.

6.   Invite the General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church to engage in bilateral dialogue concerning various dimensions of the relationships between the two denominations and its member churches, members, and ministers; and that a report from this dialogue be made to the 222nd General Assembly (2016), with an interim report made to the 221st General Assembly (2014).

7.   Direct the Office of the General Assembly to develop resources to support presbyteries with congregations and/or ministers engaged in a process of discernment or undergoing the process of dismissal, in light of denominational learnings in the recent past.

8.   Acknowledge the deep pain caused by the experiences of congregations departing or going through schism and of ministers departing, and call upon synods to consider developing care teams to listen to people’s stories, thereby enabling healing, with presbyteries also urged to extend extra care during such vulnerable times of congregational and presbytery life.

9.   Encourage presbyteries, congregations, and individual families who experience the pain of separation to recognize that there is more than one way to understand the same event and to pray for one another through our shared faith in Jesus Christ.

I will not analyze these recommendations on a point-by-point basis but take an overview of them generally.  It is important to note that they all reflect a sense of restorative and not punitive church discipline.

Having said that, I have to admit that after reading the report I am very surprised at the nature of the recommendations.  The first six recommendations, some with sub-points, of the nine total (two-thirds of them) in one way or another touch on the PC(USA)’s relationship with the EPC.  While the report discusses the NWAC very heavily there is only a light treatment of the EPC role in the text as a whole and the findings in particular.  The process says there was a meeting with four representative of the EPC but I did not see any discussion of how that meeting went, specifics of the discussion, or any formal or informal agreements mentioned in the text and therefore don’t see from where these recommendations derive.  After having had bi-lateral contact why do the recommendations have such a unilateral nature to them?  While I don’t expect a specific agreement with the EPC in the recommendations, I was searching the text for some indication of how these invitations would be received.  Yes, at present the PC(USA) GA action would be an invitation from us, but the body of the report characterizes the current situation only from the perspective of the one side.  Can it give us an indication of how the EPC would take the invitation “to enter into such a season of confession with us”?

So I don’t see the same proportionality of rational in the text as I see in the recommendations and from the information in the body of the report I have having trouble “connecting the dots” to arrive at what is asked in the recommendations.

I really like recommendation #2 that would have WARC create the “guidelines offering basic protocols for interactions and behaviors between its member denominations.”  As the history of this situation shows the PC(USA) and the EPC have been operating with different expectations and procedures for the exchange process and to somehow come to a standard understanding would be helpful for all involved and may help relieve pain and confusion that result when different bodies have different expectations.  The report says (VI.3.a)  “In various conversations with PC(USA) presbytery representatives, their expectation that normal, standard ecumenical courtesy would be extended by local or national EPC judicatory leaders was repeatedly frustrated.”  Is “normal, standard ecumenical courtesy” something that is codified somewhere (Miss. Manners for the Ecclesiastical?) or an unwritten set of expectations that can vary from denomination to denomination even in the Reformed stream?  It appears to be the latter if WARC is being asked to develop these.

Similarly, I appreciate #7 which would have the church develop resources that are pastoral rather than legal.

Finally, I think the task group did a good job with recommendations 8 and 9 that acknowledge the pain involved in these events and encourage everyone to recognize that “there is more than one way to understand the same event” and to deal with this in a pastoral manner.

UPDATE: The EPC has now issued a press release saying it is “grateful” that the task group find the accusation unsubstantiated.  It with holds additional comments until after the GA acts on the report.

So this report took 15 pages to not only answer the original question but to look at the whole mess, and yes it did get messy, and to provide us with a perspective and lessons from what has happened and recommendations to help heal the pain and move on with being the Church.  With that in mind let me return to, and close with, one of those quotes that made the report for me.  Remember, the 218th GA also called us to a “Gracious Separation” and it is not just what we do but how we do it that is a witness to the world.  This report has much to support that Gracious Separation —  And the world is watching .  From section VI.4.d:

In those situations where matters went to civil court… the time, energy, and money expended on both sides was enormous. Some New Wineskins leaders who sought membership in the EPC expressed that if they had it to do again, they would likely follow an ecclesiastical process with the presbytery. Likewise, the presbyteries that had to respond to civil action, or that chose to initiate it, regretted the court costs and intervention into the life and work of the presbytery. Court proceedings were universally perceived as draining of the financial and other resources of the presbytery. Also, what trust might have been present prior to legal proceedings was often ruptured once those proceedings began.

Approaching The General Assembly Of The Church Of Scotland

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While not the first General Assembly meeting of the GA season, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is pretty close, convening in Edinburgh one month from today on May 20, 2010.  In the last few days various news items, some only tangential to the GA meeting, have been circulating in the Scottish press.  Here is a quick run-down:

Probably the most significant from a polity viewpoint is the debate on ordination standards, specifically as to what the place in the ordained ministry is for same-gender partnered individuals.  While the discussion and debate of the place of same-gender relationships in the Kirk has been circulating for a while now, the relationship to ordination standards came to the fore last year with the Assembly creating the Special Commission on Same-sex Relationships and the Ministry. This commission is not scheduled to report back until next year but it has the charge to consult with every presbytery and has developed a consultation paper for the session and presbytery discussions.  This paper sets forth the background and process for governing bodies to enter into this discussion.  There are four questions for discussion, #1 dealing with the Biblical witness, #2 talking about Approaches to Same-sex Relationships, #3 about ordination/leadership in the church, and #4 the Unity of the Church of Scotland.  The document provides a discussion of each of these to form the basis for group discussion.  The process then asks the body to vote on questions 2, 3, and 4 by secret ballot.  According to the Commission’s time-table this consultation process is almost over, intending to have it wrapped up by the end of May.  And being part of the official process it is not subject to the Kirk’s moratorium on public discussion .

This process has hit the news in the past few days for two reasons.  The first is that the special meeting of Greenock and Paisley Presbytery to debate the questions in the consultation is taking place today (probably as I am writing this in fact) and has been picked up by local press outlets — Inverclyde Now and Herald Scotland.  A couple of interesting quotes from the media reports.  Inverclyde Now says:

This level of consultation is almost unprecedented in the Church of Scotland and could involve the Special Commission in collating tens of thousands of responses.  The results will form part of their report to the General Assembly of 2011 at which the Kirk’s understanding of same-sex relationships in the ministry will be decided.

And Herald Scotland gives the historical perspective:

The issue of gay ordination threatens the greatest schism in the Church since 1843, when one-third of its body left to form the Free Kirk.

In a slightly amusing story from yesterday the Herald Scotland says:

The Herald has obtained a copy of a crucial consultation document that outlines for the first time the route the Kirk has taken to help members decide on the issue.

As best as I can tell this is the same consultation report available on the web site .  I have not been checking but I don’t think it just appeared today since the Commission has been using it for all of the consultations.  But maybe the Herald Scotland did get the scoop and it was only just posted.  I don’t know.  They do comment that the document seems reasonably broad, even if some of the descriptions are “not great.”

As I mentioned before, this Commission report is not due to GA for another year so I am not sure what if any related business will be on the docket — The agenda and reports are not posted yet.  However, it is certain that this will be on many commissioners’ minds next month and may raise its head in interesting places.

The other item of GA business that got some press coverage last week was the Church and Society Council‘s involvement in suicide prevention, especially teen suicides, as part of a national government campaign.  Maybe I am reading too much into this, but I think that I hear echoes of the National Youth Assembly 2008 deliverance on Healthy Relationships in here.  The key item in this program is to make available to everyone basic training in skills of recognizing a potential problem and working with a person to get help.

OK, there you have a couple of the high-profile business items which may or may not be in play at the Assembly.  In other Assembly news… The Garden Party is no more (at least not this year).  Traditionally The Lord High Commissioner hosts a Saturday afternoon Garden Party at Holyroodhouse that has been a fixture of the Assembly as long as anyone can remember. (Brief YouTube Video )  Well this year the event will not be held for cost savings reasons and other social functions will be scaled back as well.  The Scotsman reports :

The Queen’s representative to the General Assembly, the Lord High Commissioner, normally hosts the event for ministers, Kirk elders and other invited guests from across Scotland.

But after a cut in the commissioner’s budget for assembly week from the Scottish Government, the party has been axed as part of a savings drive that has also resulted in a scaling back of official dinners held at Holyroodhouse.

The Saturday afternoon garden party, thought to cost about £20,000 to stage, was widely regarded as one of the highlights of the Kirk’s social calendar.

However, reader’s comments posted by the Edinburgh Evening News seem favorable to the cutback considering current circumstances.

Finally, there is another news story that is more tangential to the Assembly and probably only hit the press because of the celebrity of the individual involved and possibly his sexual orientation.  There are stories circulating, I’ll point to the one from Pink News , about actor and gay rights campaigner Alan Cumming being asked to leave the Church of Scotland.  The story quotes Cumming as saying:

Writing in an online question and answer session with fans, he said: “It was more about tradition, habit, the thing to do. Then I began to realise that my being a part of it was only condoning and validating lots of things I disapprove of: oppression, guilt, shame etc.

“I began to talk about my lack of belief in the press, because, just like gay rights, I think more people need to speak out to highlight hypocrisy and fear.

“The Church of Scotland wrote to my mum and said they had read something about me being an atheist and would I like to leave the church, and I did. So I was excommunicated.”

The story also says:

A Church of Scotland spokesman told the Herald: “We have no knowledge of this. Such a decision could be made at the discretion of an individual congregation’s Kirk session.”

As I read this the information is slim but it just sounds like good Presbyterian polity to me — the session that had responsibility for him had questions about his Christian faith and appear to have made the inquiry of that faith and suggestion that if he did not agree with the Kirk’s doctrine he might consider removing himself.  There is no mention at all of any ecclesiastical judicial action which I would take to be a formal excommunication.  That appears to be the term he uses, not the term used by the Kirk.

UPDATE: As I was writing this Queerty posted a story titled “Is Alan Cumming Exaggerating About Being Excommunicated From Church of Scotland?” with one comment so far supportive of the exaggeration view.

Anyway, we are getting close to GA.  The Twitter hashtag #ga2010 is in use and there may be others.  I am watching for the agenda, reports and blue book to get posted and I’ll let you know as soon as I see that they have been.

EPC Report Of The Interim Committee On Women Teaching Elders

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The Evangelical Presbyterian Church has released the Report of the Interim Committee on Women Teaching Elders1 and it is a document that polity wonks will want to have a look at.  It lays out a rational for the EPC to structure itself in light of its motto “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things charity”2 to accommodate the ordination of women in some congregations and presbyteries. Now you may not agree with the committee’s analysis and recommendations, and in fact the report acknowledges that some people won’t when it says:

The interim committee does not advocate running from this potential conflict but heading into it with humility and a conviction that we will honor God by treating one another respectfully. The unique ethos of the EPC on women’s ordination intrinsically implies that not all Presbyterians will be comfortable with our ecclesiastical arrangement.

The report begins with a review of the situation in the EPC.  The first line says “A guiding principle of the EPC from its beginning has been our declared intent to allow liberty on the women’s ordination question.”  The second paragraph sets out the polity basis for this stance:

At the beginning, we must acknowledge the fundamental principles that inform the EPC’s liberty on women’s ordination. The Biblical Principle: The Holy Scriptures are the inspired Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. This authoritative Word is true in all that it teaches. The Ecclesiastical Principle: Women’s ordination is a non-essential issue about which faithful believers may have honest differences of biblical interpretation and practice. One’s view of women’s ordination is not an essential element to the catholic faith, Evangelical Protestantism, or the Reformed Tradition. The EPC has always affirmed that women’s ordination is a matter of biblical interpretation, not biblical authority.

So the committee sets forth at least two important Presbyterian principles here — The primacy of Holy Scripture and the freedom of conscience in the matters of non-essentials.  (Whether this issue falls into the category of essential or non-essential we will return to later.)

Another Presbyterian principle the committee bases their recommendations on is the right and responsibility for electing officers:

“The particular church has the right to elect its own officers” (§BOG 7-2). This right is guaranteed in perpetuity to all churches in the EPC. Similarly, the authority of presbyteries to determine their membership is granted in the constitution.

So given these principles as the doctrinal basis the committee makes three recommendations:
 
1) Reaffirmation of the EPC Position on Women’s Ordination
The committee recommends making the denomination’s stance as set forth in the Position Paper explicit in the constitution :

Recommendation: That BOG §2-2 be amended by adding an excerpt from the EPC Position Paper on the Ordination of Women to the existing statement. The amended BOG §2-2 would read:

The Officers of the Church as set forth in Scripture are: Teaching Elders (designated by many titles in Scripture, including Ministers and Pastors), Ruling Elders, and Deacons. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church does not believe that the issue of the ordination of women is an essential of the faith. Since people of good faith who equally love the Lord and hold to the infallibility of Scripture differ on this issue, and since uniformity of view and practice is not essential to the existence of the visible church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church has chosen to leave this decision to the Spirit-guided consciences of particular congregations concerning the ordination of women as Elders and Deacons, and to the presbyteries concerning the ordination of women as Ministers.

The rational argues that while the Position Paper has functioned as justification of BOG §7-2 “it would be appropriate to insert these succinct excerpts from the Position Paper into the constitution.”  They also point out that there is precedent for doing something like this from when the document Essentials of Our Faith was incorporated into the constitution.

2) Transfer of Congregations to Adjacent Presbyteries for Reasons Regarding Women as Teaching Elders

The interim committee recognizes the tension inherent in our polity regarding the ordination/election of women as Teaching Elders. Basic polity rights can actually compete with one another in presbyteries on this issue. The right of the congregation to elect its officers and the authority of the presbytery to examine persons for a position as Teaching Elder can create conflict. A congregation may elect a woman as a Teaching Elder while a presbytery may decline that call due to the majority interpretation of Scripture on this issue. This creates an obvious tension that we would like to resolve.

The committee goes on to recognize the situation of a congregation transferring into the EPC through the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery with a female TE in place.  So how does the denomination provide this liberty within the structure of the geographic presbyteries?  The committee writes “We desire to provide freedom for these congregations without compromising the constitutional authority exercised by presbyteries.”

In this section the committee provides only general guidance for changing the BOG not specific wording like Recommendation 1.  For this recommendation part A suggests “In specific cases, for reasons related to the prohibition of the ordination or reception of women as Teaching Elders, a church may petition a geographically adjacent presbytery for membership.”  This would require all the usual approvals that we Presbyterians are familiar with for transferring presbyteries — request by the session with explicit reasons regarding this ordination issue, approval by the receiving presbytery and approval by the dismissing presbytery, both by majority vote.  And the wording of the recommendation is clear that congregations with positions on either side of the issue could request to transfer.

The second part of this recommendation addresses churches entering the denomination through either transitional presbyteries or directly.  The proposal is that the BOG would provide for the church to first consult with the geographic presbytery they would be within and “If, after such consultation, the presbytery discerns the need for relief for the entering congregation on this issue, then it will contact the adjacent geographic presbytery and recommend admission of the church”

3) Immediate Relief for a Presbytery in Conflict
Finally, this committee arose from a specific overture at the last General Assembly by Mid-America Presbytery to permit the Presbytery to act as two parallel presbyteries in the same geographic area.  The committee recommends dividing the Presbytery into two geographic presbyteries roughly along the Mississippi River with the expectation that one would permit ordaining/electing women Teaching Elders.

Discussion:
If you are tracking the debates in the PC(USA) and the PCA over ordination standards you have probably already read this document with one or the other or both of those branches in mind.  Here are my thoughts…

The issue of presbytery membership is the easier one to discuss and for the EPC with their tradition of “local option” the recommended relief seems to make a lot of sense.  I have not analyzed the pattern of presbyteries to see how far a church would have to “reach” to find a compatible presbytery, but one could envision the membership patterns becoming a checker board with fuzzy boundaries between the “yes” and “no” presbyteries.  If this recommendation is adopted it will be interesting to see how much this becomes a point of consideration in the future in forming new presbyteries like it is part of the thinking in Recommendation 3.  In other words, will there be consideration of whether a “permissive” or “restrictive” presbytery is needed in a particular geographic area.

It is interesting to compare this with the proposals coming to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that call for flexible presbytery membership and an alternate synod structure.  It strikes me that this EPC proposal tries to preserve the geographic nature of presbyteries to the maximum extent possible, something not a prominent in the PC(USA) proposals.

The other issue in this proposal is what is essential, or how ordination standards are “Biblical Principles” and not subject to “honest differences of biblical interpretation.”  The Presbyterian Church in America is clear that the ordained offices of elder and deacon are open only to men based upon the witness of Scripture.  The discussion that is ongoing in that branch is about interpretations and practices that are nibbling around the edges of that doctrine regarding the participation of women as commissioned helpers of deacons.

The situation in the PC(USA) is the opposite and they have inherited a stance from the former United Presbyterian Church that the ordination of women is an essential.  Knowing that this post was in the works, at the very end of my last post I made a cryptic, and probably snarky, comment that referred back to the 1975 General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission decision in the case of Maxwell v. Presbytery of Pittsburgh, now universally known as the Kenyon Decision.  In that case Mr. Walter Wynn Kenyon was denied ordination as a Teaching Elder because he disagreed with the ordination of women.  He was clear about his declared exception and the fact that he would not participate in the ordination of a woman, but he also said he would not hinder someone else doing it.  Pittsburgh Presbytery approved his exception and cleared him for ordination but the Presbytery decision was challenged.   In the end the GAPJC decided:

The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and guided by its confessions, has now developed its understanding of the equality of all people (both male and female) before God. It has expressed this understanding in the Book of Order with such clarity as to make the candidate’s stated position a rejection of its government and discipline.

In the PC(USA) accepting the ordination of women is an essential according to the GAPJC decision.

So what if you read this report and try to imagine it as applying to the PC(USA) and its current controversy which has been cast to be about biblical interpretation of non-essentials and the presbytery’s authority to decide who can be ordained? An ordination standard currently in the Book of Order (G-6.0106b), seen as a “clear mandate” by some , is included in a General Assembly Authoritative Interpretation as something that can be declared by a presbytery as a non-essential.  The overlap and parallel nature of these discussions is striking.

But this discussion in the PC(USA) is not an independent one because it has the shadow of the Kenyon decision cast across it — how is a 1975 decision about what the Book of Order says is essential applicable to the denomination today?  I am not the first to consider this juxtaposition and the Kenyon decision has been cited as one of the reasons for churches leaving the PC(USA) for the PCA and EPC in the 70’s and 80’s over the disagreement of not just the essential itself but over the GA, and not the presbytery, being able to specify that as essential.

On the other hand this new report points to the principle advocated by the recent PC(USA) AI that presbyteries have the right and responsibility for deciding on the suitability of candidates for ordination or election.  Essentially all leadership decisions are to be done under “local option.”  (And again it is noted by some that the Kenyon decision and G-6.0106b properly or improperly raised certain ordination standards to the level of denomination-wide essentials.)

So as I said at the beginning this report crafts a resolution suitable for the “ethos of the EPC,” but a resolution that will not have the concurrence of all Presbyterian polity wonks.  I believe that the committee has done a good job of crafting a solution that fits the circumstances and polity of the EPC.  How the overtures in the PCA and PC(USA) that includes facets of the EPC report recommendations will fare will be interesting to see.  At the present time the EPC model does not fit the polity of these other branches which have some significant internal challenges.  Going forward it will be interesting to see how essentials and non-essentials and unity and liberty are balanced in each of these.  And of course, “In All Things, Charity.”

Footnotes
[1] This link is to a PDF format version I created for easier download. The original is a Word document file available from the EPC web site .
[2] An interesting discussion on the origin of this phrase can be found at http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/augustine/quote.html

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

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It is beginning to look like G-13.0103r is going to be a big deal at the PC(USA) GA this year…

This short item in the Book of Order currently says that the General Assembly has the responsibility and power:

to provide authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order which shall be binding on the governing bodies of the church when rendered  in accord with G-13.0112 or through a decision of the Permanent Judicial Commission in a remedial or disciplinary case.  The most recent interpretation of a provision of the Book of Order shall be binding;

Now, I am about to launch into a very polity wonkish review of this section and the role and nature of the Permanent Judicial Commission.  If you are just looking for the bottom line you can skip on down to the discussion of the individual overtures.

Probably the place to begin is considering the judicial process and judicial implications in Presbyterian government.  I am not a specialist on the history of judicial process but a bit of what I have found out is helpful to pass on here.

First, it should be kept in mind that most Presbyterian branches do not have Standing or Permanent Judicial Commissions.  As we saw last spring the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was presented a complaint and protest from members of a presbytery.  To consider the appeal in a timely manner the Commission of Assembly, not a judicial commission, reviewed it and while they had the power to hear the case and render a decision they decided by a close vote to have the appeal heard by the next General Assembly.  That full Assembly then took an evening and sat as the appellate court for the Kirk.  Likewise, the General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church has a time on their docket when they sit as the highest judicial court in their church.  This is the norm for Presbyterian branches.  Back in 2001 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia (the other PCA) changed their procedures to not have a judicial commission and now the full Assembly hears the appeals, dissents and complaints. (Thanks to The Rev. Dr. Paul Logan, Clerk of Assembly, for helping me straighten that history out.)

How the Judicial Commission developed in American Presbyterianism I would be very interested in knowing more about.  I give you a few parts to the story that I am aware of which will be useful as we consider the current news.  First, we know from Charles Hodge’s Constitutional History of the United States of America Volume II that while the highest governing body was the Synod, up to 1786, that body heard the judicial cases from the presbyteries.  However, in 1869, shortly after the north/south split in 1861, the constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. described synod and the General Assembly being able to refer judicial cases to a commission whose purpose it was to hear the case.  The suggestion of the wording is that these were not permanent or standing but I don’t know what happened in practice.  (As an interesting note, the 1867 wording said that “the cases of ministers on trial for error or heresy” could not be referred to a commission meaning that they had to be tried by the full Assembly.)

I am not aware of a resource to research on-line the constitutional history of the United Presbyterian Church USA/NA so I’ll have to go to the oldest resource I have close at hand and that is the 1970 Book of Order of the UPCUSA.  That Book makes clear reference to a Permanent Judicial Commission but the PJC could only render preliminary decisions and the decision did not become permanent until affirmed by a vote at the next Assembly.  It is interesting that the Presbyterian Church in America , which traces its polity to the Presbyterian Church in the United States, has the provision that its Standing Judicial Commission can file a final decision unless a large enough minority of the members of the Commission file a minority report and then it goes to the full Assembly for their consideration and final ruling.

What we can probably safely draw from this is that judicial commissions developed as a feature of American Presbyterianism between 1786 and 1867 and in the merger of 1983 that formed the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) they ended up with the power to render their own decisions in that branch.

Now if the polity wonks will excuse me let me also mention that a “commission” has a very specific usage in Presbyterian polity.  A commission is not a fancy name for a committee, or is that a name for a fancy committee, but rather is an entity created by a governing body to act with the full authority of that governing body to the extent that the governing body authorizes it.  That is why the PC(USA) GAPJC can interpret the constitution, because it is given that power by the General Assembly to do so on its behalf.  And in the UPCUSA that power was not unilaterally given to the PJC but rather all decisions needed to be reviewed and affirmed by the full Assembly.

Now, let me get very specific to the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  Checking section G-13.0103r in the Annotated Book of Order we learn a few interesting and relevant things about its history:

First, this section has more annotations than any other of the paragraphs in the responsibilities of the General Assembly section (G-13.0103) indicating that it has been regularly involved in Assembly discussion and GAPJC decisions.  We also find that this paragraph was added in 1987 to clarify the intent of G-13.0112, which this section references.  The other proposed modifications to this section run the spectrum from limiting PJC interpretation authority (1996 ) to making the GAPJC the only body to provide interpretation (1997 ).  That latter one seems to me to deny the inherent connection between the GAPJC and the full Assembly.  And there was a 1993 amendment rejected which would have returned to the UPCUSA system of the Assembly reviewing and affirming GAPJC decisions as well as rejected requests in 1992 and 2006 for GA interpretations to be ratified by the Presbyteries.  Bottom line as we look at this year’s overtures — We have been here before.

It is also important to keep in mind the recent history of back-and-forth interpretations from GA and the GAPJC.  In 2006 the 217th GA adopted the report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the the Church .  That action included an authoritative interpretation that presbyteries needed to consider candidates’ declared departures from the standards of the church.  Some presbyteries developed their local standards and procedures and when challenged the GAPJC ruled that while each candidate must be considered on a case-by-case basis candidates were free to declare exceptions in belief but not practice.  The 218th GA clarified this AI in 2008 explicitly saying that candidates could declare exceptions in both belief and practice.  Since that GA there have been a couple more GAPJC cases that have clarified the procedures in these cases.  I have often referred to this as a game of ecclesiastical ping-pong.

Having outlined the background detail of this section let us turn now to what is on the docket for the 219th General Assembly of the PC(USA)?

As a reminder paragraph G-13.0103r now reads:

r. to provide authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order which shall be binding on the governing bodies of the church when rendered in accord with G-13.0112 or through a decision of the Permanent Judicial Commission in a remedial or disciplinary case. The most recent interpretation of a provision of the Book of Order shall be binding.

Overture 6 from Mid-South Presbytery would add to this a new last line that says “No authoritative interpretation shall be issued by a General Assembly which amends or alters a clear mandate contained in any provision of the Book of Order.” Their rational for this is brief (one sentence) and states that the intent is to be sure the Assembly has “proper limits to the use of authoritative interpretations.”  The implication in here is that G-6.0106b is a “clear mandate” and Assemblies should not be using a non-amending method to get around it.

On the other hand we have Overture 16 from Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area titled “On Amending G-13.0103r to Reduce Vexatious and Improper Litigation in the Church.”  With a title like that you could probably guess that this amendment asks to eliminate the GAPJC ability to interpret the Book of Order by striking the phrase “or through a decision of the Permanent Judicial Commission in a remedial or disciplinary case.”  Part of the rational for this overture says:

Judicial cases are extremely burdensome and costly to governing bodies of the church. When brought improvidently, they violate our biblical obligation to avoid vexatious or unnecessary litigation (D-1.0103) and are inconsistent with our fundamental theological conviction that we are most likely to discern the true movement of the Holy Spirit when we gather together in General Assembly (G-1.0400). Moreover, the GAPJC is woefully unprepared to do the work of the General Assembly, since it hears only from the parties to the case; does not have the wider perspective afforded by all of the persons and resources that inform deliberations by the General Assembly; and must prepare its decisions within very tight time constraints (a number of cases usually must be decided, immediately after hearings, in only one or two days).

The proposed amendment would affirm our historic polity of collective discernment under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and put an end to the “culture of litigation” that is growing in the church. It would do so by removing the incentive to pursue fundamental changes in church law through individual court cases. The judicial commissions of the church still could decide particular cases brought before them, as they do now. However, the authority to interpret the Constitution so as to bind the whole church would rest exclusively with the General Assembly.

I could write a whole polity discourse on these two paragraphs (and that might have something to do with why the Bills and Overtures Committee of the Presbytery recommended its disapproval ) but let me note one point here and some more later.  Yes, the litigation is costly not just to the governing bodies but to both sides in the judicial process.  At the present time governing bodies are on both the complainant and respondent (or prosecution and defendant) sides of high profile cases.  I could not agree more that it would be good to minimize costs — but if you want to reduce the cost work on the judicial process in the Rules of Discipline.  At the present time our polity permits, and always has, those that dissent on conscience to have their complaint heard.

Overture 77 from the Presbytery of Arkansas seeks to return the GAPJC interpretations to the process of the UPCUSA polity.  There are multiple changes so permit me to reproduce the proposed language in its entirety (proposed new language in italics):

r.  to provide authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order which shall be binding on the governing bodies of the church when rendered in accord with G-13.0112 or through a decision of the Permanent Judicial Commission in a remedial or disciplinary case,which is approved as an authoritative interpretation by the next plenary session of the General Assembly. The most recent interpretation of a provision of the Book of Order approved by a plenary session of the General Assembly shall be binding; …


Overture 55 from the Presbytery of San Diego does not deal directly with G-13.0103r but is related in a couple of ways.  It seeks to have the General Assembly get out of the business of dealing with controversy by striking G-13.0103q which says that one of the responsibilities of the General Assembly is:

q. to decide controversies brought before it and to give advice and instruction in cases submitted to it, in conformity with the Constitution.

Let me say this… Nice idea – I think many of us would appreciate it if the Assembly did not have to deal with controversy.  However, as the highest governing body in the Presbyterian church the Assembly has been dealing with controversies, with varying degrees of success, for practically the whole 300 year history of American Presbyterianism.  If the GA did not handle the various controversies the issues won’t go away.  We will either become frustrated in trying to deal with them at lower levels or connectionalism would break down and the controversies would have to be dealt with by middle governing bodies.  As much as everyone finds the time spent on these frustrating, our Reformed background says that controversies will arise because of our sinful human nature and it is the historic role of the highest governing body to collectively decide these through discernment of the community.

This overture is also relevant because if successful in the Assembly and the presbyteries concur the sections following will be re-lettered and paragraph r will become q.

Now having laid out the overtures let me make a few comments about the current situation in the PC(USA).  I have to agree that we, as a denomination, have a lot of ecclesiastical judicial cases to be reviewed.  Most Presbyterian branches have two to four a year that have to be heard by the highest governing body and these can be handled by the governing body.  Since the last meeting of the General Assembly the GAPJC has issued decisions in 13 cases.  So the first question is whether a full Assembly could handle that case load and further whether some of those cases could wait the two years between assemblies.

I realize that none of these overtures ask for the elimination of the GAPJC but two of them would modify its authority.  I must admit that taking all interpretation authority away from the GAPJC does not make sense to me.  In rendering some decisions it must interpret the Book of Order, especially if the new Form of Government is adopted and the “operations manual” elements are removed.  Judicial boards, be they civil or ecclesiastical, have the responsibility to “fill in the blanks” when the general nature of legislation must be made specific.  If the Assembly finds it desirable to have better congruence between the PJC and the full Assembly then Overture 77 is the way to go.

On the other hand, just as the PJC, as an extension of the Assembly, must be able to interpret so must the Assembly itself.  It is there to, among other things, resolve controversies so it needs interpretation authority too.  Overture 6 does not take away that power but there could be questions about what is a “clear mandate.”  At face value I have to agree with Overture 6 but have to ask if this needs to be specified and if the idea of a “clear mandate” is clear itself.  The important thing here is that the Assembly must only interpret and not use the power of interpretation as a substitute for the process of seeking presbytery concurrence in matters of faith and doctrine.

But there is a bigger picture here:  In looking at this issue we must not fall into the trap of viewing these entities as independent branches of Presbyterian government as there are sperate branches of civil government.  While the U.S. Government finds its system of checks and balances in three co-equal branches with individual responsibilities a Presbyterian government finds its accountability in its connectional nature as “…presbyters shall come together in governing bodies… in regular gradation” (G-4.0300c)  The horizontal structure of the church is to equip it for mission and it must be remembered that the OGA, GAMC, PJC, and standing committees are nothing more than parts of the General Assembly itself that the Assembly has seen fit to create to help it do its work.  Our accountability is of a vertical nature, as it should be with Jesus Christ as Head of the Church at the top.  And while Jesus is the Head the Book of Order tells us (G-9.0103) that the foundation is the presbyteries – “The jurisdiction of each governing body is limited by the express provisions of the Constitution, with powers not mentioned being reserved to the presbyteries, and with the acts of each subject to review by the next higher governing body.”

The bottom line here is that we should not view the GA/GAPJC relationship as adversarial for the GAPJC is merely a commission of the GA to help it do its work.  Likewise, the GA/Presbytery relationship is one of mutual support in our connectional system and just as the rational for Overture 16 suggests that GA is a larger body and there are greater numbers to discern the will of God than the smaller GAPJC, the same can be said of the GA sending items to the presbyteries for concurrence, not because we are democratic but because it provides an even greater group of elders, ruling and teaching, to discern together what God would have us do.

Post Script:
In this first footnote let me return to the probable cause of these overtures, the on-going ecclesiastical ping-pong game:
1) In the back and forth over Authoritative Interpretations and declared exceptions to the standards and belief and practice it is important to note that the GAPJC has not ruled on exceptions declared by any specific individual.  All of the legal decisions have so far dealt with procedures and timing in the ordination process, not with any candidate’s specific scruple.

2) If the GAPJC were to be denied the ability to provide interpretation, what about previous interpretations?  I presume they would be explicitly adopted or somehow grandfathered in.  But if previous interpretations are no longer binding does this mean that an officer can object to and not participate in, but not hinder, the ordination of women?

Indiana Court Awards Property To Particular Church And Not PC(USA) Presbytery And Synod

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This past week Judge Carl Heldt of the Vanderburgh Circuit Court, Indiana, issued his ruling in the case of Presbytery of Ohio Valley and Synod of Lincoln Trails, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) v. Olivet Presbyterian Church.  This lawsuit was regarding the Olivet property which the higher governing bodies argued Olivet could not take with it as it disaffiliated from the PC(USA) and realigned with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  The court ruled that after examining all the incorporation and real estate documents there was no evidence of a higher governing body ever having a legal interest in the property and so the congregation held clear title to it.  Along with this the court ruled that under “neutral principles” the PC(USA) can not have an “implied trust” on the property since the ownership of the property is to be judged only by the documents applicable under civil law and not the Book of Order or other documents related to ecclesiastical law.

Thanks to The Layman you can read a scanned copy of the court decision.  There is also reaction from The Layman.

Now, I would not normally devote so much time to reading and analyzing a trial court decision — I expect this decision to be appealed and I would rather devote the time to looking at the legal reasoning after it has had “peer review.”  However, two things caught my attention in this decision…

First, after following the California Episcopal Churches case very closely a couple of years ago I found it interesting how essentially the same arguments played differently in the two courts.  Now I do realize that the California cases hinged on a point of California corporate law that permits hierarchical churches to place an implied trust on property, and that getting to the California Supreme Court different lower courts and trial courts ruled in opposite ways on the issue.

But in this case the judge goes to great lengths to set the foundation for his ruling based on neutral principles.  The decision is 29 pages long of which the Finding of Fact is roughly half at 13 pages.  The Conclusions of Law takes up almost 14 pages (the balance is the preferatory material and the judgment order) and of those pages five and a half are a detailed analysis of case law and precedent, both in Indiana State Courts and U.S. Federal Courts, to set the foundation for his decision based on neutral principles.  The bottom line here is that if the larger church has no presence in the civil documents (incorporation and real estate) the ecclesiastical documents are irrelevant.  This decision quotes a U.S. Appeals court decision (Merryman v. Price, 1971) that relied on a U.S. Supreme Court Decision (PCUS v. Blue Hull, 1969) where it says:

It is clear that the civil courts can not rely upon ecclesiastical law of the church to impose an implied trust upon real estate.

and, regarding neutral principles, goes on to say:

This approach has the advantage of almost never involving a civil court with the vexing problem of whether preferred evidence is admissible under the First Amendment.  Further adjudicating church property disputes by relying on formal title will ensure an almost evenhanded administration of justice since the necessary evidence will almost always be admissible.  The formal title approach will seldom involve a civil court in deciding what the polity of a given church is, a determination which will almost inevitably involve ecclesiastical considerations.  One final advantage inherent in this approach is that it invites and encourages religious organizations to title their property as clearly and unambiguously as possible.

I would add that in considering the formal title to the property this congregation has taken a slightly different path than many to their current affiliation.  As the facts of the case detail, this was a mission plant of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1891 but became part of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in the partial merger of 1906.  It has now realigned from the PC(USA) to the EPC.

The second thing that caught my attention was the court’s attention to the polity of the PC(USA) as expressed in the Book of Order.  Or maybe it is better to say the conflicts in the polity that make sorting out ecclesiastical disputes in civil courts difficult.

In point 8 of the Findings of Fact the decision says “Even the PC(USA) Constitution and Book of Order permits and acknowledges the possibility of movement away from its denomination.”

In point 18 of the Findings of Fact, “[T]here are no specific set of By-laws prescribed by the Book of Order or other authority of Plaintiffs.” (And I would add that the flexibility of nFOG will enhance this point.)

Point 20 presents the PC(USA) argument that as a congregation of the PC(USA) they recognize church governance while they voluntarily chose to be affiliated with the denomination.  The church counters with the facts above, that there is provision for disaffiliating and that there is no set By-laws.

In the Conclusions of Law the court writes in point 7 “The Book of Order is cited by both parties and contains contradictory terms as it relates to property disputes.”  It then goes on to cite G-9.0102 about church courts having only ecclesiastical jurisdiction and not civil authority.

And point 20 notes the discrepancy between the PC(USA) argument that this is a “dissolution” of the congregation while at the same time a paragraph in the stipulated facts that both parties are in agreement on states that “The Olivet congregation has consistently made it clear its intention to continue it affiliation and worship under the EPC…” and never expressed plans or interest in abandoning its property.

But the major piece of analysis of PC(USA) polity is point 19 which covers more than one page double-spaced (I figure my interested readers can figure out the Book of Order references so I have edited those for length):

19. Both parties cite various portions of the PC(USA) Book of Order in support of their respective positions.

Plaintiffs’ case significantly relies upon G-8.0201, added to the Book of Order in 1981, which states:

All property…is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Plaintiffs rely heavily on this and other provisions of Chapter 8 in the Book of Order in asserting its trust interests.

The Olivet Defendants reply asserting the Book of Order is an ecclesiastical document which by its very terms is not supposed to have civil law jurisdiction citing G-9.0102 stating:

Governing bodies of the church are distinct from the government of the state…

Both parties assert many other provisions of the Book of Order all of which are part of the record. Olivet also cites the Affidavits Alex Merwin and William Rasch.  Irrespective of the affidavits, the court concludes that wading into various provisions of the Book of Order which may or may not be conflicting requires this Court to determine ecclesiastical questions in the process of resolving property disputes which is prohibited by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. [cite removed] Plaintiffs ask this court to hold that pursuant to
G-8.0201, the Olivet property is held in trust for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and yet Defendants assert that G-8.0201 is not a settlor’s declaration but an assertion by an entity that does not hold title to any of the property at issue in the instant case and which never held property at issue in the present case.  Plaintiffs assert the actions of its Presbytery consisting of voting members of various churches must be upheld while Defendants cite Chapter G-9.0102, stating governing bodies of the church (i.e., a Presbytery) have only ecclesiastical jurisdiction.  As further example, G-1.0307 of the Book of Order states: “That all church power, whether exercised by the body in general or in the way of representation by delegated authority is only ministerial and declarative…”  At G-1.0308 it states “Any ecclesiastical discipline must be purely moral or spiritual in its object and not intended with any civil effects…”  This conflict and the other potentially conflicting provisions in the Book of Order appear to this Court to force an evaluation or determination or ecclesiastical questions or interpretations in the process of resolving this property dispute.  This Court declines to do so, based upon the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Indiana State Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court precedent and state court precedent.  “Civil courts will be bound to give effect to the result indicated by the parties, provided it is embodied in some legally cognizable form.” Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 606 (1979)

In other words: The Court leaves the sorting out of the Book of Order to church judicatories and polity wonks — it is not their business.  (I wonder if the nFOG would help or hurt the case?)

As I stated before, this could have a long way to go through the appeal process.  And it is clear that state law and precedent have significant implications in all of these property cases.  While there is some hope that one day the U.S. Supreme Court will take one of these cases and use it to set clear legal tests for when neutral principles versus church government theories apply, so far this term the high court has declined to hear two cases that have asked for a hearing so this situation still relies on state law and so varies between the states.

We will see where this particular case may lead us.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — Re-envisioning The Process

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As I continue my exploration and commentary on the overtures being sent up to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I want to focus today on three that deal with the operations of the Assembly.

But before I get down to the nitty-gritty of the overtures let me make some observations about the business and operations of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

If ask anyone who has been a commissioner to the General Assembly about the experience they will probably tell you that it was generally good and interesting but also an intense and tiring experience.  You begin on Saturday with some preliminaries and the election of the Moderator. You worship Sunday morning, socialize (or network) Sunday afternoon.  There might be a brief plenary business meeting and then the committees begin meeting.  The committee work begins in earnest on Monday morning and goes until whatever hour on Tuesday the committee gets it done — it might be at noon, it might be the wee hours of Wednesday morning.  The first part of Wednesday is devoted to reading committee reports, and then the marathon begins as the full Assembly starts working through the 15 or so committee reports.  On Friday night the Assembly goes until it is done because on Saturday everyone just shows up to formally adopt the budgets that resulted from their work over the last week, gets a pep talk about what a nice place the next Assembly will be held at, and then they are dismissed with a prayer.  They then get on their planes and collapse in exhaustion and it really doesn’t matter where the next Assembly will be held because the commissioners seldom see the light of day for that week.

Well, maybe I exaggerate a little bit because there is sunlight when you walk between the hotel and the convention center in the morning and again out to the restaurants for lunch.  Sunday usually provides an opportunity to see some of the neighborhood. And of course the YADs (now YAADs) need a nice place for their mid-week get-together.

But if you think I am being too sarcastic here I would argue that I am not.  If you have been a commissioner, or have had a long talk with someone who was, you will probably think or hear something like “Is this any way to run a church?”  When it gets to plenary there are just over two days to deal with the business from 15 committees, some of these items having great significance.  “Back in the day” when the material was all printed the business easily filled two three-inch binders.  And the reports you got before the Assembly convened were all in small print.  Any wonder the full Assembly usually trusts the work of the business committees.

Let me finish my commentary, more like a rant, with some hard numbers:  For the 218th GA of the PC(USA) there were 109 overtures from presbyteries and synods, not counting concurring overtures that got folded in, that the Assembly had to deal with.  On top of that there was business from the committees and entities of the national office.  For comparison, last year the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which also meets for one week, had two overtures and one ascending complaint.  The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, again a one week meeting, last year had nine overtures.  The Bible Presbyterian Church had seven overtures and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church last year had four.  The Presbyterian branch with the next closest number of overtures that I am aware of, and please let me know if you know of another with more, is the Presbyterian Church in America with 22 overtures, and eight of those were related to creating new presbyteries and redrawing presbytery borders — the remaining 14 dealt with polity, doctrine and discipline.  This is not to say that other GA’s have no controversy — far from it.  But from what I have seen most GA’s have no more than one or two spirited debates in the course of the whole GA.  The PC(USA) seems to have one or two per day.

All this to say that as I observe other GA’s around the globe and see how they operate it strikes me that something is significantly different about the way the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) operates.  And based on some of the overtures that are being submitted to the 219th General Assembly I am apparently not the only one who thinks so.

Let me begin with Overture 9 from Foothills Presbytery which proposes that the church get together annually in a convocation but only do business at the meeting every sixth year.  (Had to smile at the thought that this is almost a “reversed sabbatical year” – rest for six and work for one.)  With this overture they provide an extensive rational which includes:

  1. We believe the following:
    • The vast majority of Presbyterians are happy with their congregations, their presbyteries, their synods, and the ongoing work of General Assembly staff to ensure the smooth day-by-day running of the mission of the denomination.
    • On the other hand, we believe that Presbyterians of all theological perspectives find themselves frustrated with the manner in which discussions occur and decisions are made by the General Assembly, and that General Assembly in its present functioning, presents a significant threat in our beloved church and to its peace, unity, and purity.
  2. Further, based on our experience, and reports of General Assembly commissioners, we believe that
    • the volume of information presented to commissioners at the assembly, including, but not limited to annual reports, denominational positions on particular issues, repeated actions to amend the constitution, etc.,
    • the committee structure and process employed to introduce business to the floor of the assembly,
    • the lack of relationships between commissioners,
    • the lack of time to process issues that are often enormously complicated and multifaceted,
    • the consequent pressure to give in to the emotion of the moment,
    • the disparity of knowledge about specific subjects between commissioners, General Assembly staff, special interest groups;
  3. all often
    • lead to confrontation without reconciliation, (2 Cor. 5:18–19),
    • contribute to a heightened emphasis on winners and losers, rather than winners and winners (see 1 Cor. 6:7–8),
    • lead to a tendency for our national body to act legislatively rather than pastorally (see Paul’s approach to meat offered to idols in 1 Cor. 10:23–33),
    • promote stagnation rather than growth in our common life together (Eph. 4:15–16),
    • lead to the predominance of single-issue thinking (party-spirit, see Gal. 5:20)
    • reinforce a growing sense of anxiety in a significant number of our congregations every time assembly meets, (see John 14:27)
    • and erode denominational pride, loyalty, and commitment.

So the basic intent is to be relational and missional five years and based on that common foundation to address the detailed work of the denomination in the sixth year.  I have to commend them for identifying issues and providing a possible restructuring.  The overture does not give specific recommendations f
or the restructuring — Clearly a system such as they propose would shift a lot more authority and responsibility for operational details like budget and ministry to the GAMC and the OGA.  It would also be interesting to know if the Big Tent event this past summer would be a possible model for the convocations or if they are thinking about a more focused meeting.  This overture will definitely give this year’s commissioners something to think about and discuss.

The other operational overtures to date are not nearly as sweeping and only address specific operational points.

Overture 7 from New Harmony Presbytery asks for a specific change to the Standing Rules of the Assembly, a change that does not need presbytery approval but could be undone or suspended by a subsequent Assembly.  The proposal is to reduce the recurrence of similar Book of Order changes being sent to the presbyteries for vote by adding operational language that says:

b. Should an overture require an amendment to the Constitution that proposes substantially the same action as that which was approved by one of the two previous sessions of the General Assembly and subsequently failed to receive the necessary number of affirmative votes for enactment when transmitted to the presbyteries, it shall not be considered as an item of business unless and until 75 percent of the commissioners present and voting vote to do so,

The parliamentary point on this is that under the standing rules amending or suspending the rules (Section L) requires only a two-thirds vote, so if this is adopted it would be easier to suspend this rule than affirm a constitutional amendment under it.  In terms of how business would be dealt with under this rule, would an overture subject to this rule be automatically sent to the business committee for recommendation and then come back at the end of the week for the full Assembly vote to proceed, or would the rule be taken up at the beginning of the week so if the request is denied the business committee has one less item to deal with?  Probably just put on the consent agenda of the first Bills and Overtures Committee report.

It is worth noting however that this overture does address a comment/complaint that is regularly heard in some presbyteries about the fact that similar amendments keep getting sent down from the Assembly and keep getting defeated by the presbyteries.

(And a very picky polity wonk comment on the wording:  It speaks of the previous “sessions of the General Assembly.”  In Presbyterian polity the General Assembly is both a meeting and a group of people forming a governing body.  A given General Assembly, such as the 218th, has a stated meeting and may have called meetings. (I won’t go near that at this time.) Technically, the 218th General Assembly is still in existence but simply in adjournment and then will dissolve upon convening the 219th GA.  So more appropriate wording would be “one of the two previous General Assemblies.”  As I said, picky, wonkish, and I even catch myself not being strict using these terms.  But this is a difference with Reformed Church polity where their higher governing bodies, such as the class (=presbytery), do not “exist” between meetings.)

Finally, Overture 6 from Mid-South Presbytery sort of falls into this general theme of overtures because it would amend the Book of Order regarding the Assembly’s ability to make Authoritative Interpretations.  The overture asks that the Assembly send to the presbyteries a constitutional amendment that would add to the end of G-13.0103r the line:

No authoritative interpretation shall be issued by a General Assembly which amends or alters a clear mandate contained in any provision of the Book of Order.

While this seems pretty straight-forward, as we have seen in the Southard Decision from the Boston Presbytery PJC even the majority and dissenting members of the PJC differed on what the minority would consider “a clear mandate” in the Directory for Worship.

Well, that takes care of these three overtures.  At the present time there are 13 overtures posted on PC-Biz and I have now commented on eight of them.  It looks like the next batch to talk about are related to peacemaking and social witness polity.  For reference, looking back at my notes from two years ago there were 23 overtures posted by this time so if business processing by the OGA is running at the same pace there appears to be noticeably fewer overtures submitted so far.  (As a technical note, overture processing has gone from a dedicated web page to the PC-Biz system and so I could imagine that the efficiency of processing could be either higher or lower than last time depending on the complexity of the back-end technology involved.)  The number posted could also be lower because of the staff reductions we have seen or because the 120 day deadline is later this year.  We will just wait and see what the total comes to. Stay tuned.

The New Presbyterian Panel Survey From The PC(USA) — An Interesting Editorial Addition

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Thanks to Michael Kruse we know that the new Presbyterian Panel survey of the Religious and Demographic Profile of Presbyterians, 2008, has been released.  (And of course, technically their sample set is not all Presbyterians but only the largest American Presbyterian body, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).) If you don’t want to wade through all 54 pages of the full report a three page “Snapshot” is available.

Now at the moment I am swamped with research and writing on a couple of other projects, and as we ramp up to GA season crunching these numbers is not the first place I want to spend my time. So, what I will do over the next few weeks is look at parts of this report in smaller, bite-size pieces.  (I heard that collective sigh that I won’t be inundating all of you with a massive statistical dissection and reanalysis.)

But in the first paragraph of the text an item of polity, not population or probability, caught my attention that I would like to comment on first.

The first section of the text, titled “Overview” is mostly boiler plate that describes the report and methodology and shows only minor changes from one report to the next.  You can compare it to the 2005 report if you want.  In this report the second sentence reads:

Using scientific sampling, small but representative numbers of elders (lay leaders) currently serving on session, other members, and ordained ministers were contacted by mail and asked to respond to a set of questions about themselves and their congregations.

For comparison the 2005 report read:

Using scientific sampling, small but representative numbers of members, elders, and ordained ministers were contacted by mail and asked to answer a set of questions about themselves and their congregations.

You probably guessed that what caught my attention was the added parenthetical comment describing elders as “lay leaders.”

This raises the question of whether Presbyterian ruling elders are properly described as laity.  There is usage in the Book of Order, such as the term Commissioned Lay Pastor, that does suggest the most traditional and strictest usage of “laity” as other members of the church besides the clergy.  There are however definitions floating around the web that seem to be more appropriate to Presbyterian government such as one that describes the laity as “not members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.”  And of course we have an organization called the “Presbyterian Lay Committee” whose Objectives and Mission regularly talks about how they “inform and equip congregations and leaders,” implying that ruling elders are included in the lay members.

In my experience and research there is no clear consensus in the use of the term, but I do have a couple of friends who are more than ready at presbytery meetings when someone says “I am only a layman/laywoman/layperson” to let them know that “no, you are an elder, an ordained officer of the church and you help govern in parity and equality with the clergy.”

I personally do not consider an elder a member of the laity for two reasons.  First, we talk about the shared leadership of the church between teaching elders and ruling elders, each holding equal weight in higher governing bodies.  To distinguish between the different elders as “clergy” and “lay” in the governance of the church strikes me as setting up a false dichotomy.

The second reason gets back to the usage of the original Greek in the Bible and the distinction between elder, presbyteros, and people, laos.  I am not aware of an instance of their use in close proximity in the text regarding the early church, but in one of my favorite passages about ecclesiastical leadership, Acts 20:17-38, the text tells us that Paul is talking to the elders, presbyteros, of Ephesus.  In this conversation he refers to them as “overseers” of the “flock.”  No, Paul does not say that the elders take care of the people, laos, but rather they oversee the flock, poimnion.  If “people” and “flock” are interchangeable here, than the elders are distinct from the laity and therefore if the teaching elders, that is the clergy, are not laity then ruling elders are not either.  (Now, I’m sure someone would have problems with my exegesis here, but I’ve got some other, parallel examples I can point to as well.  As a counter example I am aware that in reference to the Jewish authorities the Gospel of Matthew uses the term “elders of the people” which can be read that the elders are part of the laos while still being their leaders.  But is that as much a secular leadership as a religious leadership in a theocracy?)

Anyway, as I said earlier, there are opinions about usage on both sides here so this is not a settled issue.  There is the usage of laity as an ecclesiastical term that may not fit the Presbyterian model too well but is understood to have a specific meaning in other traditions.  Welcome to the complexities of language.

I’ve got more in the works on elders but that will have to wait a couple of weeks.  I may have a chance to crunch a few numbers on elders this weekend and have something to say about the numbers in the new report then. And as for the usage in this sentence from the report that only distinguishes ministers as “ordained,” I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to ponder the why and wherefore of that one.