It is widely acknowledged that one of the details that is a point of complexity with churches leaving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and going to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church is the ordination of women.  In the EPC this is a point of local option — Teaching elders (ministers) for the presbytery and ruling elders and deacons for the session with presbytery concurrence.  (For more on this you can check out a previous post from last August and the EPC Position Paper on the Ordination of Women.)  Back in November a special announcement from the EPC outlined the current status, or box score:

In the EPC, we currently have two presbyteries that
prohibit women teaching elders, two that will not use gender as a
consideration in approving ministers and candidates, two others who
have a procedure in place that allows consideration of women ministers
and candidates without violating conscience, and two that are still
working on the issue and will have come to a conclusion by the second
week of February 2009. One of these, Mid-America Presbytery, will
consider an overture asking the 2009 General Assembly to approve an
affinity presbytery within its boundaries as a response to women
teaching elders.

This special announcement was about a proposal that would be coming to the General Assembly from the New Wineskins/EPC Transitional Presbytery Commission.  This proposal would create a permanent non-geographic presbytery that would have accepted the ordination of women, a presbytery that would have helped PC(USA) churches that realigned with the EPC.

Well it has now been announced in the last couple of weeks that the NW/EPC Transitional Presbytery Commission has withdrawn this proposal.  The announcement lacks specific details, only that it has been discussed at regular meetings over the last couple of months and “At the conclusion of those discussions the Commission decided to withdraw the proposal.”

The announcement from November says that Mid-America Presbytery is considering an overture for an affinity presbytery within it’s bounds, and there is word that this passed at the presbytery meeting last week.  However, there is as yet no overture information on the EPC GA web site, we are waiting for the next edition of the EP News, and I have not yet gotten responses to a couple of inquiries I have made.  So, we will have to wait a bit longer for official confirmation and the details.

Also in the last couple of weeks we have the news reported by Backwoods Presbyterian (Benjamin Glaser) on PuritanBoard and the Rev. David Fischler at The Reformed Pastor that the Presbytery of the East has approved a policy and guidelines for the ordination of women.  The text of the policy:

1. The Presbytery of the East of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church
(EPC) will honor the Christian liberty of individual congregations to
call their ministers and, therefore, will not prohibit candidates for
ordination as Teaching Elders from being processed and presented to
Presbytery due to their gender.

2. All candidates will be
processed as set forth in the Book of Order of the EPC, the EPC
Procedural Manual for Ministerial and Candidates Committees, and the
Presbytery of the East By-Laws.

3. All candidates will be examined in accordance with the EPC’s
specific criteria for ordination and ministerial preparation and must
agree with the Essentials of Our Faith and subscribe to the Westminster
Confession of Faith;

4. Once presented on the floor of Presbytery, candidates will be questioned as set forth in the Book of Order of the EPC.

5. Members of Presbytery will be allowed to vote their consciences in
regards to their Biblical convictions concerning an individual’s
ordination.

6. All members will be treated during the entire process with charity,
grace and the respect due to one who seeks to submit themselves to
Scripture and the calling of the Holy Spirit.

There was some discussion about this on the PuritanBoard and how the influx of PC(USA) churches will put pressure on the EPC regarding complimentarian versus egalitarian views of ordination.

So, I  will keep watching the news and welcome further details or insights on any of these presbytery developments.  And I anticipate an interesting discussion at GA.