This June’s General Assembly is shaping up to be an interesting one as ordination standards are addressed by the commissioners.  The inconsistency between churches and the variation in ordination practices are raising concerns among conservative congregations that the church’s polity and confessional standards are being stretched and an overture is being sent to GA to look at this.

Sound familiar?  Well this is the Presbyterian Church in America’s General Assembly.  Last month I mentioned that the Presbytery of Philadelphia was wrestling with the role of women in the diaconate and had approved this overture.  Well thanks to David in an article on the BaylyBlog, we now know that the official overture is available and he has filled in a few more of the details.

As I mentioned when this first came up, the questions boils down to the role of women in the diaconate and if they have a role how that should be recognized.  In this situation the women were not “ordained” but “commissioned” by the laying on of hands.  But the PCA has no definition or service of commissioning in this sense and there is an understanding among some that anything that involves laying on of hands and prayer is an ordination.  So, if it looks like an ordination and contains all the elements of an ordination, but you call it something else, is it still an ordination?

Well, the narrative attached to the overture provides us with the details in this case that I was lacking before.  It seems that in the Presbytery of Philadelphia there is a licensee who has taken exception to the office of deacon being open only to men.  Furthermore, the records review of the Presbytery minutes identified an exception regarding the commissioning of deaconesses at this licensee’s church.  To sort this out the Presbytery created a study committee and the church involved submitted to the Presbytery a proposed overture to GA to allow both men and women to be ordained as deacons on equal footing.  (That’s pretty much the “whereas” section of the overture.)  In light of these charges the Presbytery overtured the General Assembly to form an ad interim study committee to sort out the theology and give the PCA clear guidance, and clarify the polity if necessary, about the nature of commissioning and the role of women in the diaconate.

The post on the BaylyBlog also points to the church in question, liberti Church, posting on their photo page the pictures of worship service where the church was chartered which includes three pictures ( Pict 1, Pict 2, Pict 3) of the “commissioning” with the laying on of hands.

So, the PCA has some distinctions to sort out as the PC(USA) is doing.  And while the PCA and PC(USA) may be dealing with similar questions but different issues, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland may be addressing the ordination of women at its GA but from the other side:  women can be ordained, but congregations need not recognize it.