At the present time Amendment 08-B, changes to the “fidelity and chastity” section, is going down to defeat… There are currently no presbyteries for and one against.
OK, humor aside, a couple of days ago I got a report from Josiah F who left the comment to another post with the news from Palo Duro Presbytery:
At the 111th stated meeting of Palo Duro
Presbytery. The amendment altering the ordination standards failed by a
29 for, 47 against. The bulk of the Presbyteries across the country
will be voting on this in February.
Even
though it was in Texas, the make-up of the voting body in this
Presbytery is very mixed and the majority are moderates (with just a
few far left and right). When it comes to the political make-up of the
voting body, this issue had a real shot.
In verifying the Presbytery vote I contacted Janne Brumbelow, the Stated Clerk of the Presbytery, who not only verified the vote, but included some helpful information about the process the Presbytery used. I would remind you that the Assembly added a comment to this item, 05-09, which is not in the Amendment Booklet. The comment reads “Presbyteries are strongly encouraged to consider this overture using a process of listening and discernment.” With Ms. Brumbelow’s permission, here is her description of how Palo Duro did it:
Yes, the vote was 47 to 29 against but the process was very helpful for
all.We had two 15 minute presentations by respected ministers in our
presbytery — one for and one against. Then we discussed the
presentations and amendment around tables of 6-8 persons. All were
invited to speak even if they were not voting commissioners. Then a
period of silence and a speakout time limited to 15 minutes total with 2
minutes per speaker. Then silence and prayer and vote by only
commissioners by ballot. There was little rancor and all appreciated
the process. I think the way we handled it helped to build up
relationships rather than divide.
My own Presbytery is encouraging dialog and discussion on the issues and the amendment in a series of events spread over several months before we vote.
I know that voting will extend from now to March and one presbytery does not make a trend. But, considering Josiah’s assessment of his presbytery this could be an up-hill battle for 08-B. Within the next month several more presbyteries will probably be voting so we will begin to see if any trends develop.
I won’t be doing play-by-play on the voting but will provide “color” when warranted. To follow the voting there is usually a chart over at the Layman Online and the Stated Clerk’s office has their official vote tally that is delayed since it needs the official report from each presbytery’s stated clerk.
[Update 10/28/08: The Layman now has the chart online.]
So stay tuned and we will see where this journey takes us.
Update: No sooner do I post this than the Layman has their first article on the voting posted as well. In addition to Palo Duro they also have the result from Presbytery of Central Washington which likewise defeated the amendment, in this case by a 55 to 7 vote. The Layman does not have their chart up yet, as far as I can tell, but the Layman observes divergent results in these two votes relative to the previous vote in 2001: for the votes in the negative the Central Washington vote was a few percentage points higher and Palo Duro was a few points lower.