My thanks to the Rev. Carolyn Poteet and The Layman Online for a good description of the process and deliberations regarding Amendment 08-B in Saturday’s meeting of the Presbytery of Western North Carolina.  The presbytery voted 144 to 108 in favor of the amendment becoming the first presbytery to change their general stance from the vote in 2001-2002.

What does Rev. Poteet identify as a critical or central point?  Here she says:

The
pro side consisted of those wanting to remove the current G-6.0106b and
its fidelity and chastity clause, and put in its place new language
approved by the General Assembly last June. The single most effective
point they made was this: the new language called for obedience to
Jesus Christ first and foremost, while the old language doesn’t mention
Jesus at all. They have a point.

She describes the process the presbytery followed:

I
do want to applaud the way the debate was handled. Two ministers, one
from each side, were allowed seven minutes each to present their cases.
This was followed by a time of silent prayer.



The debate that followed was to be an hour long, with two minutes per
speaker, alternating between pro and con sides. All was decently and in
order. Both sides had excellent moments and awkward moments.



Following the debate, we had another silent prayer and then we voted by
secret ballot. They asked that no one applaud when the results were
announced. We continued on to the rest of our docket, interrupted
briefly by the moment when the counters returned with the news, then
back to our regularly scheduled meeting reports. We were deeply
disappointed, but having a fair hearing did make the results a little
easier to take.

She has a lot of description of the debate itself but makes these observations about the general tone:

Listening
more closely, though, it seemed like the pro arguments sought to mold
Jesus and Scripture into the image of today’s world. If anyone in
history was ever counter-cultural, it was Jesus – followed closely by
Paul. Neither of them was afraid to tell the culture that what they
were doing was wrong.

and

When
it came down to it, the line at their [the pro] microphone was longer than ours.
They had more people with prepared, precisely-timed, two-minute
speeches. And their arguments fit well into the strong current in which
our whole culture has been drifting.

I also thank Ms. Poteet for filling in a significant piece of demographic information for me:

Perhaps
Saturday’s result was because we have lost several of our brothers and
sisters to the greener pastures of the EPC. Perhaps it was because the
heart of our presbytery, Asheville, N.C., is living up to its title of
the “San Francisco of the East.” Perhaps God is at work in ways we
can’t understand right now.

I would note that three churches have departed from the presbytery since the last vote, the largest being Montreat Presbyterian Church.

There is lots more in the piece and while Ms. Poteet’s viewpoint is clear, it is labeled as commentary after all, it strikes me as a very fair and informative assessment of the meeting.  Thank you.