One of the continuing challenges, and discussions, for churches that are considering departure from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is about the ordination of women as deacons, elders, and clergy. The problem is that as churches look to leave the PC(USA) because of concerns symbolized by one debate over ordination standards, they by necessity step into another debate on ordination. No Presbyterian branch in the United States, besides the PC(USA) and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, uniformly accepts women to ordination as officers of the church, and in all but one of these branches it is completely prohibited.
As I have discussed before, the branch with “local option” is the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which probably helps explain why for departing PC(USA) churches this is the denomination of choice to realign with. For churches who realign through the New Wineskins Presbytery of the EPC, associated with the New Wineskins Association of Churches, the ordinations are not a problem since that presbytery recognizes the ordination. But this is to be a transitional presbytery which will disappear in five years and the churches in it are to transfer to standard geographic presbyteries. (Then again, the PC(USA) has had several “transitional” Korean language presbyteries which were supposed to have a limited lifetime but don’t seem to be going anywhere yet.)
We now receive news, through an EPNews Special Edition news item, that a permanent non-geographic affinity presbytery may be considered by the 2009 EPC General Assembly. The recommendation was made by the NW/EPC Transitional Presbytery Commission to the EPC Committee on Administration (COA). The article has a nice run-down of the status Of EPC presbyteries at this time:
energy driving it was the sensitive issue of the ordination of women as
teaching elders. 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.
Note that only teaching elders are discussed since the ordination of ruling elders and deacons is local option on the congregational level.
The article goes on to say:
the COA declared, “We recognize that an affinity presbytery is one of a
number of possible solutions to the dilemma of women teaching elders in
the EPC. While we do not believe it is the ideal solution,
nevertheless, it may be the ultimate solution. In the EPC, it has been
more than a decade since we have engaged in serious discussions about
establishing an affinity presbytery. An affinity presbytery certainly
has attractive features. However, we believe there are significant
issues that need to be addressed and resolved before a proposal such as
this can be advanced to the General Assembly. We would like to work
with you to address those issues as we pursue this as a possible
solution for 2009 General Assembly consideration.”
So, in the EPC the possibility of an affinity presbytery is being discussed as a way to accommodate this disagreement between churches over ordination standards while in the PC(USA) the same accommodation has been rejected by the General Assembly multiple times (2006, 2008) but is still one of the options talked about for keeping churches in the PC(USA).
I would note that the concept of affinity presbyteries is almost as old as American Presbyterianism itself, and was a way that the Old Side and New Side branches of the church could facilitate a reunion in 1758. (Yes, within the first fifty years of American Presbyterian history the church went through a split and a reunion.)
It is also interesting that there is news today from the Living Church News Service that Anglican dioceses that have realigned away from the Episcopal Church are beginning a planning process for a new North American Anglican Province. While not a parallel structure within the Episcopal Church, it would be a parallel Province within the Anglican Communion.
Going forward we will have to see where this leads us. But it is interesting how this conservative group within the PC(USA) is requiring both the PC(USA) and the EPC to wrestle with these ideas even if they are in slightly different forms.