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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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