From an “official” point of view it has been a fairly quiet couple of weeks since my last post looking forward to the upcoming 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church(USA) (PC(USA)) in June. We have had some personal business as I arranged for a hotel room for myself and we had to get release forms notarized for my son, who will be a YAD. But on the PC(USA) web site there have been only a couple of items come up, and no new Moderator candidate endorsements or new overtures posted. So, let’s get started…
First, shortly after that last post I found that Moderator candidate Carl Mazza has started a blog that he appears to update weekly, usually it seems in the early hours of Saturday morning, with moving stories about individuals and situations that he ministers to in his Meeting Ground ministry.
Second, I discovered that I was not drilling down quite far enough to properly follow the work of the Stated Clerk Nominating Committee. So, now following their news page I find that they report having 14 applicants, all eligible for the position, and they are having phone interviews this month.
The last official item is the business sent to the GA by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) from their meeting the last week of January. This business is discussed in a news article from the Presbyterian News Service and will provide a lot of reading for the commissioners and delegates.
The ACSWP is sending two documents about Iraq to GA. The resolution is titled “Costly lessons of the Iraq War” which includes a call for increased Christian-Muslim dialog as well as reducing anti-American pressure on Christian churches in majority-Muslim countries. The study paper sounds like it is further reaching (I have found none of these documents on-line yet) covering “developing a plan to continue responding to concerns of Iranian and Iraqi churches during and after the war; providing ethical reflection and guidance to the PC(USA); and steps for education, advocacy and relationship building for members, congregations, soldiers, chaplains, governing bodies and the denomination’s United Nations and Washington
offices.”
The second topic was homelessness and a resolution titled “From Homelessness to Hope: Constructing Just, Sustainable Communities For All God’s People” was sent to GA. This resolution is said to affirm those congregations and other entities involved in working with the homeless and calls on the church to be involved in a more comprehensive approach to ending homelessness. It also asks the denomination to use investment money to work with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation to create a revolving loan fund.
Another resolution recognizes those that have contributed to clean-up and rebuilding efforts following Hurricane Katrina and calls for continued rebuilding work, to not abandon segments of society, and for better coastal public policy. There is also a resolution on Voter Rights and Electoral Reform that, among other things, calls for the reauthorization of the voting rights act of 1965 and the standardization of voting across the country. And there is a resolution calling for improved Human Rights in Columbia.
There is also a resolution on Energy Policy, that builds on the last policy statement from 1981. This statement was ordered by the 214th General Assembly (2002). The resolution calls for alternative fuels, conservation, sustainable agriculture, and for Presbyterian families, congregations and governing bodies to be “carbon neutral.” A moratorium on coal and nuclear power plants is also called for. I note the trade-off here since nuclear power plants are one path to carbon neutrality. And expect more on carbon neutral policy in the future since the ACSWP web page has a page on Carbon Neutrality with a link to a working paper that was requested by the 217th General Assembly (2006). That will probably come back in 2010.
Another issue that GA has looked at before is serious mental illness and ACSWP will bring to this GA a resolution that came out of their study requested by the 211th General Assembly (1999). The resolution addresses justice-related issues and calls for full inclusion of the seriously mentally ill in the church and in society without having a stigma attached.
The resolution that probably hits closest to home is one on pay equity titled “God’s Work in Women’s Hands: Pay Equity and Just Compensation.” In addition to society in general, the report looks at compensation within the PC(USA) and the differential between men and women in the same position. It makes recommendations for congregations and bodies to examine and reform this.
The final ACSWP item is a new “ Social Creed for the 21st Century” that marks the centenary and updates the 1908 “ Social Creed for the Churches.” This is an ecumenical document that will involve the National Council of Churches. The news article says that the United Methodist Church is working on a version for “singing,” which should be interesting, unless that is a typo and they mean “signing.” (Spell checkers don’t always help you).
This meeting of ACSWP was covered by James D. Berkley on behalf of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. His article on the GA business is titled “ Commentary: ACSWP swamps General Assembly with papers.” I must agree with him that the shear volume of material for commissioners to work through will be daunting. We will have to see how it gets divided between committees. But he talks about the volume being too large for ACSWP itself and how many of these papers were still in various stages of preparation. In what condition will they make the February 22 business deadline? In his commentary you can read Mr. Berkley’s comments on all this business from ACSWP I just outlined.
There are two other items that are floating around that I will mention, even though they have not made the official overture list yet.
It is reported that Pittsburgh Presbytery has passed an overture calling for a new translation of the Heidelberg Catechism. The news is covered on, among other places, the More Light Presbyterians web site. There have been concerns about the accuracy of the translation for a while. As an elder commissioner to the 209th General Assembly (1997) I was lobbied to support a new translation. For details on the perceived problems there is an article on the MPL web site about that as well.
The other overture that is “out there” is one calling for the reconsideration of the PC(USA) being in correspondence with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. I discussed some of the reasons behind this last week, but the short version is that if the PC(USA) is not in correspondence with the EPC then churches can’t be dismissed to it and it would stem the flow of churches out of the PC(USA). Well, according to Bill Crawford of Bayou Christian and his sources the overture failed in the Mississippi Presbytery meeting last night, but the news is circulating that other presbyteries may try to pass it.
Finally, the preparations are beginning for GA at the various affinity and special interest groups. In particular, More Light Presbyterians and the Presbyterian Coalition have started building out their web sites with GA specific sections. But at this point Presbyterians for Renewal has the most impressive preparations with a whole new site dedicated to GA at GA2008.com.
Well, we are approaching the February 22 Constitutional Business deadline so things will get busy in the next two weeks. Stay tuned and let’s see what develops.