I know, this ordination standards discussion/debate is getting old.  It seems to keep on going, there are overtures to every GA about it, some congregations seem to ignore or nuance the standards that are in the constitution, and we keep having judicial cases over it.

Well, I could be talking about the mainline and the recent developments there, but today I turn to the ongoing discussion in the Presbyterian Church in America over ordination standards.

For those from any of the Presbyterian branches who just wish that ordination standards debates would go away… don’t hold your breath.  The discussion over ordination standards has been with the American Presbyterians pretty much since its founding three centuries ago and was one of the factors in the Old Side/New Side split of 1741.  The concept remains constant and the particular contested standard shifts.

The discussion in the PCA of course is over women serving as deacons, or more precisely as deaconesses.  Everyone agrees that the PCA Book of Church Order does not allow women to serve in ordained office.  (A fact that seems a little irritating to a few who joined the PCA when the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod, which had female deacons, merged with the PCA back in 1982.)  But there appear to be many ways to nuance this from having men and women as non-ordained deacons sometimes with commissioning, to having a board of deacons but having men and women assistants that are not particularly distinct from the board that leads them.

Within the last couple of days this has become a fresh news topic because of developments on both sides of the issue.

On the side of flexible implementation of the diaconate come copies of the e-mail that Redeemer Presbyterian Church sent out to its members soliciting nominations for church office.  The text of this e-mail is posted on both the BaylyBlog and the PuritanBoard.

Maybe the most amusing part is their terminology.  Since there is a general understanding in the PCA that a deacon is male and a deaconess is female, Redeemer apparently uses the term “deek” as a gender neutral title for a deacon/deaconess.

But it is clear from the email letter and from the Redeemer web site that, at least publically, there is no distinction or acknowledgment of ordained deacons being only men in the PCA.  From both of these sources you would never know that is a standard of the church.

In the email it says:

There are 49 men and women currently serving on the Diaconate and 20 men serving on the Session as ruling elders. These men and women have been elected by the congregation and have gone through theological and practical training to master the skills and the information necessary for these positions.

At least in the email there is implicit recognition of elders being men, a distinction that is not on the church’s Officer Nomination web page:

Qualifications of Officers

The following are requirements for all nominations.

FOR DEACON/DEACONESS NOMINEES: Nominees should be a Christian for at least three years and a member of the Redeemer for at least one year; OR, a Christian for at least three years and a regular Redeemer attendee who has been committed to Redeemer as their primary place of worship for at least two years and a member for at least six months.

FOR ELDER NOMINEES: At the time of nomination, an elder nominee should have been a Christian for at least three years and a Redeemer member for at least one year.

And on the Diaconate page it says:

Who We Are and What We Do

The Diaconate, a group of men and women nominated, elected and appointed by the Redeemer members, exists to contribute to the building of a repentant and rejoicing community through loving, truth-telling relationships where practical, visible needs are being met while hearts are being changed through encounters with Jesus and one another. We express in practical ways Christ’s command to all believers to love our neighbor as ourselves.

As I said, from everything I have seen from the church the PCA requirement that ordained officers are only men is, at a minimum, obscured to the routine observer.

Contrast this with the overture to the 38th General Assembly of the PCA that was passed last week by Central Carolina Presbytery. (Reported by The Aquila Report.)

Amend Book of Church Order 9-7 by adding, “These assistants to the deacons shall not be referred to as deacons or deaconesses, nor are they to be elected by the congregation nor formally commissioned, ordained, or installed as though they were office bearers in the church.”

That seems to directly address the ambiguity present in the material from Redeemer.  If there is any doubt, consider the last three “Whereases” in the resolution:

4. Whereas while some RPCES congregations had women on their diaconates, the RPCES resolved as part of the J&R agreement with the PCA to “Amend the existing doctrinal standards and Form of Government of the Reformed Presbyterian church, Evangelical Synod, by substituting for them the doctrinal standards and Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America” ; and

5. Whereas several churches in the PCA currently elect and commission women to the office of deacon and call them by the title deacon or deaconess and allow them to serve on the diaconate; and

6. Whereas BCO 9-7, which states that women may be selected and appointed by the session of a church to serve as assistants to the deacons, is often cited as pretext for this practice of electing and commissioning female deacons;

In the past few years the GA has usually had overtures that would set up study committees to make recommendations about the situation and constitutional language.  This addresses the constitutional language head-on proposing a clarifying addition.

Finally, there are complaints filed against Metropolitan New York Presbytery for actions taken at their presbytery meeting last March.  (And thanks to the BaylyBlog for their publication of the full text of the actions.)

The presbytery action in March affirmed that the various flexible implementations of deacons, such as commissioning instead of ordaining or women serving as non-ordained deaconesses in the same capacity as ordained men, was not a violation of the BCO. The first complaint, filed in April, argues that the practices permitted by the presbytery are in fact a violation of the BCO.

At the May presbytery meeting the presbytery rescinded it’s March action but took no further
action regarding making a statement that some of the existing practices in the Presbytery were in violation of the BCO.  They did begin considering ways to discuss the issue.  A new complaint was made by two of the original complainants with the Standing Judicial Commission of the GA.  In September the officers of the SJC ruled that the complaint was filed prematurely since the Presbytery had responded by rescinding its action and was still in discussion about the other requested items in the original complaint.

That is where this issue sits at the present time in that Presbyterian branch.  With nine months to go before the 38th General Assembly there will probably be a few more twists and turns before the Assembly convenes.  However, whether it be the PCA or the mainline relative I find it striking the similarities in the two situations and how they keep moving along in such parallel manners.