Whither The PC(USA)? Wither The PC(USA)?

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What next?  What does this mean?

I suspect that many of you have also been hearing these questions whispered and shouted as Amendment 10-A looks fairly certain to be approved by the presbyteries and replace the “fidelity and chastity” section of the Book of Order.  And I suspect that you are also hearing in the discussion of its passage the suggestion that there will be a resulting increase in the already high departure rate from the denomination or the comments that the next major Book of Order section to be changed will be the definition of marriage (W-4.9001) and then an exodus will really begin.

Well, as regular readers are aware, I have a particular interest in the dynamics of the realignments in Presbyterian branches (example 1, example 2, example 3).  Needless to say, I have been thinking about some of these questions in the larger context of the history of American Presbyterianism and what the church might look like in the near future.  So here is a back of the envelope calculation and a thought experiment related to what is next.  Because this discussion is currently gaining momentum in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I will be focusing on that branch, but I think a lot of this is easily generalized to other branches and denominations.

Experiment 1: Reality Check – The theological controversy is not the only membership decline issue
Frequently in the PC(USA) we hear that the denomination is losing members because of the internal controversies.  Well, it is probably a bit more complicated than that.

If we look at the summary of comparative statistics for 2009, the most recent year that is available, we can first make a rough estimate of the replacement capacity of the PC(USA).  In 2009 there were 20,501 individuals age 17 and under that joined the church by affirmation of faith. This is effectively the “internal gain,” that is the kids that come through the system from member families.  This represents a 1.0% membership gain for 2009.  This is offset by those that leave the rolls due to their new membership in the Church Triumphant, that is, those that have died.  For 2009 that was 32,827 or a loss of 1.5% of the membership.  So the net of -0.5% represents the church’s inability to replace its membership internally.

The other thing is that all of the mainline churches are declining in membership.  But within this decline there is a difference in the rates of decline relative to the strength of internal controversy in the churches.  For the six traditional “mainline” denominations that make the National Council of Churches 25 largest list, the less contentious United Methodist Church and American Baptist Churches in the USA declined by 1.01% and 1.55% respectively.  The three with more heated internal controversy had larger declines: PC(USA) declined 2.61%, the Episcopal Church declined 2.48%, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America declined 1.96%.  It would suggest that we could attribute at least 1%, and probably a bit more, of the PC(USA)’s decline to the internal controversy itself.  But that is only about half the total decline with the other half broken into about one-third the lack of internal replacement and about two-thirds the general decline in the mainline and the trend towards non-denominationalism.

Now the case can be made that these three factors are nothing more than different facets of the same general problem that the mainline faces — a younger generation shuns the “institutional” nature of the church with its continuing controversies in a hierarchical setting and their departure for the non-denominational or the “nones” raises the median age and decreases the birthrate.  However, the apparent correlation of membership declines with internal controversy is striking but not a complete explanation.

Experiment 2: Where could things go from here?
This is a fairly simple thought experiment — Let us begin with the question of the different paths forward and exploring a range of possible outcomes and then reflect briefly on the likelihood of each.  I’ll be structuring this a bit like a decision tree so at some point I can revisit it and place probabilities on the various outcomes. Also, I am trying to keep this as a generalization so it is applicable in other instances. And along the way here I have a notation to systematically label the different cases.

The first question is whether the denomination remains as a single body ( A ) or formally divides ( B ).

For branch A, where the denomination remains a single body, we could imagine one outcome where a unifying state is found (A1) and another where the church is internally divided (A2).

I think that taking this one more level is appropriate, and so let me suggest that the unifying state could be either a formal arrangement that resolves the issues and all sides accept as a solution (A1a) and maybe they are even happy with – a “win-win” situation” – or an acceptance to live by the decision of the majority submitting to Presbyterian polity that the church has gone through the discernment process to reach the decision and the church lives with that (A1b).

Now what if there is one body but with internal divisions – there could be either a formal and institutionalized arrangement (A2a) or a de facto division into clearly defined but not formally recognized divisions (A2b).

The other top branch is the formal division of a denomination into two distinct and separate bodies.  I must admit a bit more wrestling with this classification scheme and I’m not sure that always carrying it two levels further down works.  One form would be a formal division without specific action on the part of either side (B1). (More clarification on this in a moment.)  Another option would be division by action of only one side (B2).  For this we could consider two cases, one where the action is taken by the majority/dominant/controlling side (B2a) and the other where the action is taken by the minority/dissenting side (B2b).  Finally, there would be another case (B3) where the action is taken by mutual agreement of both sides.

Now, some clarifications of this system. First, this is a unary or binary system and only considers what is going on in one body that may be dividing into two bodies.  It does not consider a ternary system where some fraction is moved between two bodies.  In that case it would be viewed as a division of one and a unification of the second.  Second, as this example suggests, this system does not “map” the evolution of a division but only captures a description and classification of it at one point in time — a snapshot at an instant.  Third, it simplifies the situation of a whole body down to one category while a more complex description of different conditions at various levels may be better.  Finally, I have not yet reflected this classification system onto the reverse case of the merging of bodies.

So a quick check as to whether this scheme makes sense — here are some examples from Presbyterian history.

A1a – I would place the initial response for the Adopting Act of 1729 into this category where a solution was found that, at least temporarily, resolved the polity issue.  This was also the hope for the report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Uni
ty and Purity (PUP Report), although it is not clear that this hope was ever realized.

A1b – The category of living with the present polity even if opposed to it probably describes much of Presbyterian history — to use a liturgical analogy this is the “ordinary time” of our history.  This category does not preclude working to change what is disagreed with, but it suggests maintaining the system and the discussion while also maintaining a sense of being the Body of Christ together.

A2a – While the body living with a formal internal division is not at all common, it is not unheard of either.  This was part of the solution to reunify the mainline back in 1758 to resolve the Old/New Side split.  The existence of the continuing Old Side/New Side presbyteries in the following years is a suggested prototype for some of the flexible presbyteries and New Synod proposals circulating currently.

A2b – The case can be made that this unofficial status of division represents the present state of the PC(USA) with individuals identifying more with the various affinity groups in the church than with the denomination as a whole.

B1 – This is the category that I have the most difficulty defining because I am not sure that it can easily apply to a denomination as a whole, but rather represents a subdivision of the body.  However, I was looking for a category to represent the present church-by-church migration away from the PC(USA) through the New Wineskins organization.  So here, rather than leaving en masse, maybe the church divides through incremental departures.

B2a – Probably the premier example of the controlling group (and not necessarily the majority) forcing the division is the PCUSA General Assembly of 1837 where the Old School commissioners “locked out” a portion of the New School commissioners and controlled the Assembly.  It can be argued that this quickly became category B3 where the two sides basically agreed that they wanted to go it alone without the other.

B2b – This may be the most common category in the formal divisions of branch “B” with the majority group making a decision or disciplining a group or individual and that action precipitates a formal departure by members of the minority.  Well known examples of this division include the Disruption of 1843 in Scotland where the Free Church of Scotland formed from the established Church of Scotland and the controversies in the PCUSA in the 1930’s that would lead to a division and formation of a branch that would later become the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

B3 – The best examples I know of in this category are related to Presbyterian reunions where a small group dissents and is permitted to not be part of the merger and usually continue are their own individual branch.  This includes the continuing Free Church of Scotland churches that did not join the United Free Church in 1900, the churches from the Cumberland Presbyterian Church that did not join the PCUSA in 1906, the churches in the Presbyterian Church in Canada that did not become part of the United Church in 1925 and the Australian churches that did not join the Uniting Church in 1977 but continued as the Presbyterian Church in Australia.  Even more recently, with the reunion that formed the PC(USA) in 1983, there was an opportunity for churches that were part of the Presbyterian Church in the United States to depart after the merger.  It may be appropriate to have subcategories B3a for a mutual division that is not merger related and B3b for the case of a merger where a group is allowed to opt out of the union.

So, if you were keeping score at home you can see that the scheme I set up initially is not hypothetical but has examples from throughout Presbyterian history for each of the categories I suggest.

Discussion
So at this point some of you may be wondering whether my two experiments are “apples and oranges.”  After all, the first involves changes on the individual level and the second involves categorizing ecclesiastical changes at the highest levels.  Let me suggest that they are related…

These two forces are the tension the PC(USA), and other mainline churches, struggle with today.  Those who still honor or understand denominational identity are looking at how that identity can be perpetuated and the modern ethos asks what the need for denominations is in the first place.  Maybe the question to ask at this point is whether some of these categories of divisions could even happen today?  To put it another way – As Western religious culture has transformed to a non-denominational model would we see a denomination divide in the same ways that it has in the past?  Would we see a denomination truly divide at all or would it just dissipate?

Many of the great reorganizations and realignments in the Presbyterian church were based on the conviction of those involved that they were Presbyterian, but in good conscience could not accept some particular doctrinal or polity issue and so they removed themselves to be the variety of Presbyterians they thought God was calling them to be.

In the discussion above about membership loss the point is that some of the loss is not related to what it means to be Presbyterian, it is about finding a church that fits my tastes or has a style I can relate to.  If we are now in a non-denominational age then being a Presbyterian means a whole lot less than it did even 40 years ago.

Related to divisions in the church, this raises the question of whether a dissenting group could get enough critical mass to form a new Presbyterian branch.  That is why I was so determined to find some description for B1, the incremental informal departure.

So based on the present conditions which of these categories are likely outcomes and which are not?  Group A1 is probably not likely since the PUP Report was apparently not accepted as a unifying solution and the ongoing discussion over ordination standards and the questions about the future if 10-A passes seem to imply that there are concerns in some quarters of the current or future polity.  If we are looking for a unifying solution is must transcend the polity debates.  So, unless a unifying solution can be found, if we want to keep the PC(USA) together we are considering branch A2 – somehow living with or working out an internal division.  So far the General Assembly has been reluctant to approve flexible presbyteries or a parallel synod.  Whether you want to identify our current state as A1b or A2b the bottom line is that the membership decline will most likely continue as long as the current state continues — I would suggest considering alternatives.

Following the other path, there is discussion of a division in the church if 10-A passes.  I’m not sure I want to place exact odds on explicit division, or any particular form of formal division.  But as I mentioned above, the B1 division continues with departures of individual congregations (another one last week) and so like status quo on branch A, there is no reason to expect this not to continue.  The problem with branch B of course is that any alternative means two smaller denominations.  The alternatives, after doing nothing, are 1) keep working to find a unifying solution, 2) create internal parallel structures, 3) by one method or another create two smaller denominations and see if that configuration is stable for both of them.

Now, as you can see from my list above you can’t use the seven last words of the church here: “We’ve never done it that way before.”  You could argue that its not the way its supposed to be done.  I can relate to that — remember I have a good friend who pretty accurately describes me as a “polity fundamentalist.”  I don’t like the notion of a flexible ecclesialogy at all. Its just not… well, ITS NOT PRESBYTERIAN!

Please don’t think that I am abandoning Presbyterian polity for the purely pragmatic p
urpose of reversing membership decline.  But, for those of us who value Presbyterian polity it appears that we have two choices – 1) Maintain the status quo and live with 50,000 member/year losses or 2) Consider what it really means to be Presbyterian (sovereignty of God, connectionalism, meetings, discerning the will of God together, etc.) and find creative ways to be the Church in modern society while holding on to our core beliefs and (I think this is important) letting people know why we value the essentials of our polity.  If being Presbyterian means something to us let people know why!

I pray daily for the Middle Governing Bodies Commission.  I am encouraged by Tod Bolsinger’s comments at our Synod Assembly that the Commission will be looking for ideas to try on a demonstration basis.  I hope that we all have the courage to try some creative ideas that may or may not work, but show that we can still be Presbyterian and do things in a new way.  Maybe they would be along the lines of unifying ideas or maybe trying to live under the same tent with polity that differs a bit.  I don’t know but I look forward to the suggestions.

So where is the denomination headed?  Whither the PC(USA)? I don’t know.  But I do know that if we keep doing what we are doing the PC(USA) will continue to wither.

Postscript: After posting and reflecting on this piece I realized that a part in my original outline that hit the cutting room floor provided a certain balance to the tension I develop.  Rather than go back and add it to the original (there was a reason it got pulled) let me add three sentences here: What I don’t develop, but have mentioned elsewhere, is the non-organizational aspect of the membership decline.  What studies are finding (Almost Christian, Vanishing Boundaries) is the need for mainliners to develop their spiritual focus, depth and expectations.  If we subscribe to that remedy than we need to take Deep and Wide, or similar initiatives, seriously.

Presbyterian Mutual Society — Full Court Decision And Payout Plan

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It took about a month but the full decision from Justice Deeny of the Northern Ireland Courts has now been published in the case related to the request of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to be allowed to transfer £1 million to an assistance fund for investors in the failed Presbyterian Mutual Society.


IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
CHANCERY DIVISION
IN THE MATTER OF THE TRUSTS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN IRELAND
-and-
IN THE MATTER OF THE CHARITIES ACT (NI) 1964
BETWEEN:
THE TRUSTEES OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN IRELAND – Plaintiff;
-and-
HER MAJESTY’S ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR NORTHERN IRELAND – Defendant.

Now, regarding the actual decision, that the church could contribute these funds, there is nothing new here.  However, there are some details that I found interesting that were not included in the summary.

For example, I did not pick up the rushed nature of this case. Mr. Deeny writes:

[2]        The plaintiff had
asked for this matter to be listed for early hearing before the court as an
urgent decision was required to facilitate the creation of the access fund
prior to the adjournment of the Assembly on 24 March.  The court was told at
the hearing on 9 March that the General Board of the Presbyterian Church was
actually meeting the next day 10 March and were anxious to have a judgment by
then.  This is far from ideal.  The court has been able to facilitate this
request by announcing it’s ruling on 10 March.

The judge also makes several comments about the Mutual Society and how investors might have thought they had more security than they actually did:

[3]        It is necessary, for
present purposes, to recall the factual background to this application.  The
Presbyterian Mutual Society Limited received monies by way of investments or
loans akin to deposits from persons, largely in Northern Ireland.  It was not,
but might have been mistaken for, a building society.  Rather it was a Society governed
by the provisions of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act (NI) 1969. 
This meant that it was not covered by Government guarantees extending to banks
and similar institutions when there was a run on such institutions after they
had lost the confidence of the public.  The Society went into administration on
17 November 2008.

and

[4]        By the Rules of the
Society the persons who invested up to £20,000 in the Society were credited
with  shares in the Society…  Sums invested
over and above that level, attracted by the interest rates which the Society paid,
were treated as loan capital to the Society.  This had an unintended effect that
these different investments, without the original investors very largely being
aware of it, had a very different status in law once it became apparent that
the Society would be unable to recover all its loans…

and

[6]        The Presbyterian
Church in Ireland had no legal responsibility for the Presbyterian Mutual
Society Limited.  That is clear.  But I accept the averments of Rev Dr Donald
Watts, Clerk of the General Assembly and General Secretary of the Presbyterian
Church in Ireland that this distinction was not apparent to very many members
of the Church.  They tended to consider the Church responsible for the
Society. 

[8]        It is important to bear in mind… what the membership of the Society was…  “Membership shall only be available to members of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland over the age of 18 years and their families… Any Corporation or unincorporated body shall be admitted to membership if the Board is satisfied that the Corporation is representative of members of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.”  Therefore the perception that the Presbyterian Church owed a moral obligation for the Society is not only a matter of nomenclature or encouragement to invest but also because  members of the Society had to be Presbyterians. [emphasis in the original]

Regarding the legal tests it turns out that if properly structured by the Northern Ireland Government this hearing would not be necessary and the church would be free to make the contribution to “relieve the poverty of individual members.”  When the General Assembly originally authorized the use of the money it was termed a “Hardship Fund.”  In the rescue package put together by the government it is now a “mutual access fund.” Considering the nature of the arrangement even the Attorney General did not want to authorize the expenditure, something “He was empowered to but
he thought it “preferential” (ie. preferable) to put the matter before the court.” (paragraph 13).

Beginning in paragraph 14 the decision begins with the legal restriction that “a charity is not allowed to make disbursements for
non-charitable purposes” but goes on to consider the case law regarding the situation when a charity has “a moral obligation to do so.”  There is an interesting reference in para. 17 regarding the British Museum and the “moral obligation” to grant an exception “so as to permit
restitution of cultural objects of which possession was lost during the Nazi
era (1933-1945).”

Why the court is involved is then clearly outlined:

[19]      The
attention of the court has been drawn to the briefing note regarding the mutual
access fund which accompanied the Minister’s letter of 26 January 2011.  From
that one learns that “there has been extensive opposition from PMS members to
the use of means testing and lobbying that the fund should operate on a formula
basis and Ministers are now prepared to adopt this approach.”  It is the
absence of means testing which deprives the gift of the sum of £1m of its
charitable character. 

 The decision, having considered the situation and the case law, now focuses on the specific decision at hand:

[20]      What is a moral obligation?  …It might be said that a person or organisation is under a moral obligation to act in a particular way towards another not by reason of law or force but because, on account of some earlier promise or the relationship with that other person or some other reason, their own conscience or that of right thinking people generally would consider they behaved honourably and well if they acted in that way but badly and wrongly if they failed or neglected so to do.  How would that apply here?  In his affidavits [the Clerk] gave a few moving examples of the hurt felt by some of these small savers deprived of an investment, modest by some standards but substantial to them.  These people will benefit by the scheme proposed to a considerable extent.  If the Church does not contribute it may well be that the scheme does not proceed and therefore the persons exposed to poverty will not be assisted.  By operation of law and the realities of the state of the Society it is extremely unlikely that they would receive any of their money back without such external assistance.

[21]      It is interesting to note that the [General Assembly] resolution of 2010 referred to the gift going to a solution which included a hardship fund i.e. that it would not be exclusively for those in hardship.  I bear in mind that any saver who finds themselves deprived of money which they had invested in an apparently reputable financial institution in the United Kingdom may be aggrieved to find themselves deprived of it when others in apparently similar circumstances have been compensated or indemnified. 

[22]      Perhaps the matter goes further.  It can be seen that the contribution of the Church is a modest one compared to the contribution to be made by taxpayers in Northern Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom.  It would be paradoxical if the general body of taxpayers consisting of Anglicans, Catholics, atheists, agnostics, Moslems and Jews (as well as Presbyterians and many others) contributed to this solution but the only Church to which the members of the Society could belong did not make any contribution. I am satisfied that [the Clerk’s] apprehension that the Presbyterian Church would be considered very widely to have acted badly in such circumstances is a correct one.  I am satisfied that the surrounding circumstances, including in particular the promise previously given by this resolution, constitute a moral obligation on the Church which enables and allows the court to authorise the payment of up to £1m towards this mutual assistance fund.

The decision continues a bit further to distinguish between “convenient” and “expedient” and just at the end make an interesting observation about the impact on the ministry of the PCI.  It points out that not only does this contribution deprive other charitable work of needed funds but that the Mutual Society issue has negatively impacted financial contributions to the church and this use of the money might improve that perception:

…I [that is Justice Deeny] take into account that there is a loss to the funds of the charity
i.e. the Church by the disbursement of this money but that the disbursement
will lead to very considerable benefit to a considerable number of members of
the Church and thereby in both the reputational and in all likelihood financial
sense to the Church itself, bearing in mind [the Clerk’s] report of some diminution
in contributions which may be caused not by the current economic difficulties
but by the controversy over the Presbyterian Mutual Society. It is in the
broader interests of the Church.

So, not as easy of a read as the Summary but still a fairly understandable, straight-forward and interesting decision.

In the month since the decision was handed down matters have progressed with the resolution of this specific issue.  The Administrator sent out the proposed settlement last Friday and the shareholders have a month to approve the package and if they approve it must also be approved by the courts.  If everyone agrees savers may get their money by June or July.  In a press release the Administrator warns “if the scheme is rejected the offer of money from the government and the Presbyterian Church will be withdrawn and the alternative will be liquidation of the Society’s assets.”  In the event of liquidation those shareholders in the smaller category will get nothing and the creditors with larger amounts would get about 72% of their investment back.

The scheme is moderately complicated with a sliding scale and proposed deferment of some monies to the creditors for ten years to allow for the smaller shareholders to get nearly complete recovery of their investment.  The scheme ensures that all savers will receive at least 77% of their outstanding holdings returned to them and small savers should get at least 97% returned.

So, after 30 months this saga appears to be finally coming to a resolution and, for some, a close.  It is of course far from over since the series of approvals are needed and even after approval the Administrator will still be working to repay a government loan and larger savers will be waiting the return of their deferred money.  But considering how long this situation went on with little news and occasional rumors, this is very significant forward progress.

Synod PJC Upholds the Presbytery PJC Decision In Spahr Case

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The Rev. Jane Adams Spahr appealed the decision of the Presbytery of the Redwoods Permanent Judicial Commission in her disciplinary case to the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Pacific. The appeal was heard Friday March 25 and the decision released early last week.  The executive summary is that the Synod PJC, without dissent, did not sustain any of the 13 specifications of error and attached an interesting comment section which identifies two important points of polity for the General Assembly PJC to consider on further appeal.  The Presbytery PJC decision remains in force.

Briefly, the background in this case is that the Rev. Spahr was previously tried for preforming same-sex ceremonies that could be interpreted as a Christian marriage but the GAPJC found that, by the definition in the Book of Order, a same-sex union can not be a marriage and therefore she was not guilty because what she was charged with was not possible (Spahr(2008) decision).  The Rev. Spahr has since conducted more ceremonies and has been charged again with this offense.  The Presbytery PJC found her guilty, following the GAPJC precedent and interpretation, and gave her both a rebuke and an apology for having to find her guilty under current church law.

There is an important and pressing polity issue embedded in this case which is the situation of preforming same-sex marriages in a civil jurisdiction that permits them, in this case California during the “window period,” but when the church does not permit or recognize them.  In the recent Southard decision, which involved a marriage ceremony in Massachusetts, this issue was not addressed since the GAPJC dismissed the charges on appeal based on the fact that the Rev. Southard performed the ceremony before the Spahr (2008) decision was published.  [Correction: this issue was addressed – see the comment below]

In this present case the facts are not in doubt — all those concerned are clear that the ceremonies preformed were intended to be rituals of Christian marriage officiated by an officer of the church and were consistant with the laws of the State of California at the time of the ceremonies.  But as the SPJC notes at the beginning of the Preliminary Statement “…the outcome of this case depends upon the application of ecclesiastical precedent to those facts.”

The SPJC notes that the controlling precedent is the Southard decision and goes on to say:

The question is this: in the performance of these same-gender marriages, did Spahr’s participation in any way “state, imply or represent” that these ceremonies were ecclesiastical marriages, the standard set in Southard? This Commission concludes that it did.

After a summary review of the facts and testimony in the case the SPJC concludes with

The standard at the time Spahr conducted the weddings and the standard used by the PPJC in arriving at its decision was Spahr (2008), which held “that officers of the PC(USA) authorized to perform marriages shall not state, imply or represent that a same sex ceremony is a marriage.” Southard followed and offered a more narrow view. This Commission is compelled to follow Southard as the most recent decision by the GAPJC. There is no prejudice to the parties because the conduct prohibited by Southard is a subset of the conduct previously prohibited by Spahr (2008).

Because of the number of specifications of error, and the fact that none were sustained, I will not walk through all 13.  The key specification was number 2 — “The Presbytery Permanent Judicial Commission erred in constitutional interpretation when it determined the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr committed ‘the offense of representing that a same sex ceremony was a marriage.'”  The response to this specification is the longest, references back to the Preliminary Statement and wraps up with “Under both Spahr (2008) and Southard, the implication that a civil marriage is also an ecclesiastical marriage when performed for same-sex couples is a violation of the constitutional standard.”  The decisions in three other specifications refer back to this rational.

In three of the specifications of error (9, 10, and 11) the specification points to sections of the Book of Order related to inclusion and justice and makes the claim that the PPJC decision “…constitutes both error in constitutional interpretation and injustice in the decision.”  In all three cases the SPJC responded “The constitutional interpretations of Spahr (2008) and Southard by the PPJC are not inconsistent with the Book of Order when read as a whole.”

And for the polity wonks, the SPJC did their job fact checking the specifications of error because they note that one reference cited in a specification (G-5.0502) “has no application to this case” and that another (G-5.0202) does not exist.

The SPJC has included at the end of the decision a one-page Comments section where they make note of three important polity points in this case.

Let me jump to point 2 first, because this is the church-state matter I have raise before. The SPJC raises the concern for the pastoral role of Teaching Elders and here is their comment, in its entirety with my emphasis added in the last paragraph:

2. This Commission has a continuing concern about the pastoral role of a Minister of Word and Sacrament to those same-gender partners who wish to have a civil marriage. Spahr and Southard help to clarify the difference between civil and ecclesiastical weddings and the prohibitions required from PCUSA clergy in officiating at same-gender ecclesiastical weddings.

Our concern is for those PCUSA clergy who wish to officiate at a same-gender civil wedding. What would such a minister need to do to faithfully perform a civil wedding while conforming to PCUSA polity regarding ecclesiastical weddings? Would a Minister of Word and Sacrament be faithful to PCUSA polity, for example, if they officiated in a civil wedding outside a church plant, performed without any reference to the Directory for Worship, have the wedding license signed with no reference to a denomination or an ordination, or sans any other implication stated or unstated to the PCUSA? Or, is it a violation of church polity for PCUSA clergy to officiate at a civil same-gender wedding in all circumstances?

In a time when increasing numbers of states permit same-gender weddings and civil unions, it is important for the church to clarify how its clergy might pastorally participate in such secular occasions while honoring the PCUSA’s definition of Christian marriage.

I mention this first because I think their first points relates to this.  The first comment is about the role of the GAPJC in interpreting the constitution: “It is troubling that the GAPJC appears to have usurped the legislative province of the General Assembly when it created a new basis for discipline in Spahr (2008)… Whatever our opinion of the principle may be, it would appear that if the GAPJC has authority to proscribe specific behavior in this instance, it may do so in many other instances as well.”

An important and interesting observation, but one I do not entirely agree with.  I agree that any issue is best dealt with through the full General Assembly, but we also must realize the the Assembly has limitations in time.  At one time in the mainline church, and currently in some Presbyterian branches, the full GA sits as a judicial body deciding such cases. However, with typically a dozen cases now coming to the GAPJC between Assemblies there is no time in the full Assembly’s schedule for individually hearing these cases themselves.  For purposes of expediency and efficiency the GAPJC has been empowered as a commission to act with the Assembly’s authority in these matters.

Regarding legislative action on these matters the Assembly has had the opportunity to speak and has chosen not to.  Even regarding the formation of the Special Committee on Civil Union and Christian Marriage, on which I served, the Assembly charged us with writing a social witness document and explicitly charged us not to write a polity statement. Given this vacuum the GAPJC was in the position to fill it when a question arose.  While I fully agree that “The General Assembly and the presbyteries are more representative and better equipped to consider such matters by the usual practice of amending the Book of Order,” to date they have not, or are content to let the GAPJC decisions be the guiding authority.

Finally, the third comment is a message to us all and is important enough to quote it in full:

3. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has had a long season of discourse and debate regarding issues involving the participation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons within the life of the church. Bound by the call of Scripture and Christ’s message of grace and love, many have chosen to stay in the midst of conflict to serve as advocates for those people and issues important to them. This Commission heard argument referencing the personal and poignant nature of this debate from participants on all sides who care at deep levels about the direction the church may go. The goodwill evidenced between the parties and their commitment to the church’s discernment process was an example of how members may remain faithful to their convictions yet further the resolution of conflict. In her decision to stay within the bounds of the PC(USA) and be subject to the church’s polity and discipline, Rev. Spahr’s ministry provides another example of engagement and commitment. May the church, as it continues this debate, find friends among colleagues in ministry and work with them, remaining subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit.

So for the moment nothing has
changed in this debate.  The indication is that there will be an appeal to the GAPJC so we will have to wait for that to play out before we have an interpretation and guidance on the nature of marriage as described in Confessions and the Book of Order. Stay tuned…

The PC(USA) Does Appear To Have A “Lightning Rod”

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I have two polity-heavy posts that I have been working on and decided to take a break from those to exercise the other side of my brain and crunch some numbers…

In the initial letter introducing the Fellowship PC(USA) the statement is made

“Homosexual ordination has been the flashpoint of controversy for the last 35 years.”

On most levels I take issue with this because in a larger sense Presbyterians around the world have throughout their history been debating scriptural and confessional imperatives and implications and this is only the latest specific detail over which the discussion is continuing.

But on a more practical level this statement seems to hold a fair amount of validity to me based on my personal experience.  For the last several votes on changing Book of Order section G-6.0106b it has always struck me that my own presbytery had significantly higher attendance for the amendment vote meeting than for regular meetings.  Even at the beginning of the debate, for our vote to include the current “fidelity and chastity” language in the constitution we had 284 commissioners vote.  A couple of meetings later a very contentious issue had 202 commissioners vote.  The pattern still continues today as I have had more than one commissioner ask me when our presbytery is voting and when I mention the different meetings for the different amendments they tell me they only want to know about Amendment 10-A.

Well, with the voting this year I have an ideal data set to test whether this observation holds in other presbyteries as well.  Short answer – YES!

First, the usual comments on the data I use:  My data is aggregated
from numbers from Twitter as well as vote counts at the Covenant Network, Yes on 10-A, Reclaim Biblical Teaching and the Layman.
This aggregation is available in my spreadsheet through this past weekend’s
reports.  Because I will be looking at voting on all three major issues — Belhar, nFOG and 10-A — the Layman and Reclaim Biblical Teaching charts provide the full data set.  (Note how this in itself is suggestive of my hypothesis about the focus on the 10-A voting as that is the only one followed by all four of these sources.)

Now there are 55 recorded votes for the Belhar Confession, 62 for the nFOG, and 115 for 10-A.  (Again, suggestive of the higher-profile nature of 10-A and the need for a recorded vote.)  Of these we have 39 recorded pairings of Belhar and nFOG, 36 pairings of Belhar and 10-A, and 45 pairings of nFOG and 10-A.

For those 39 presbyteries with recorded votes on Belhar and nFOG the ratios between the two range from having 31% more votes for Belhar to having 40% less.  But the average and median are right at 1.00 indicating that on balance the turnout is the same for those two issues with a fairly symmetric distribution around that.

For the 36 presbyteries that have recorded votes on both 10-A and Belhar there are, on average, 12% more commissioners voting on 10-A than Belhar with the range from 75% higher to 13% lower.  The comparison of nFOG to 10-A for those 45 presbyteries is very similar with the average 13% higher for 10-A and the range from 63% higher to 12% lower.  With medians at 7% and 5% respectively, the distributions are clearly not as symmetric, having extended tails at the higher end.

I am sure that several of you have already started complaining about the problem with the analysis that I just did – the three votes are not always three independent events but in many cases multiple votes are taken at the same meeting and so, with the exception of a few commissioners who only come for the one vote they are interested in, the total number of votes cast should be, and in several cases are, nearly identical.  (The other thing that could cause minor fluctuations is the fact that I don’t include abstentions.)

So, my first point is that in spite of not accounting for independent events the numbers are so robust that the upward shift is visible in this mixed data set.

Well, as much as I would like to separate these out into independent data sets, I have not personally kept a time history of the voting to be absolutely certain of which votes were take at the same meeting and which were not. (If any of you have that information please do the analysis of independent events and let me know how far off I am.)  I can tell you several votes were taken at the same meeting and in fact these are very obvious in the posted spreadsheet having only a vote or two variation in the numbers.  But let me try to separate out the different votes using my usual criteria that a 4 vote difference or a 4% difference is normal fluctuation and vote totals within this range will be treated as having happened at the same meeting.  Also, from here on I will only consider the comparison of the Belhar and 10-A votes for two reasons: 1) My earlier work showing the closer correlation of these two votes still holds, and 2) it is my impression, and only my impression, that presbyteries are tending to do these votes at different meetings more than splitting nFOG and 10-A. After the voting is over I’ll revisit this topic with the final data set and I suspect that we will find a bimodal distribution to help us answer this question.

So, of the 36 presbyteries with recorded votes on both Belhar and 10-A , 20 have noticeable differences in the number of votes.  Eighteen of those are higher for 10-A and two are higher for Belhar.  Of the ones higher for 10-A they range from 7% higher to 75% higher and have an average increase of 24% with a median increase of 18%.  While tempting to do the full frequency distribution analysis at this point, I will save that for a while until there are more data.

Now, accepting the fact that one of my analyses certainly includes dependent events and the other probably has unfairly eliminated independent events, it is still clear that a vote on “fidelity and chastity” brings out the commissioners more than a vote on changing the Book of Confessions.  Like it or not, we have to accept the premise from the Fellowship PC(USA) letter that there is a “flashpoint” or “lightning rod” in the denomination.

Before bringing this exercise to a close, let’s ask the obvious question – “Was the increase in commissioners who voted yes or voted no?”  The answer is both, but while there is significant variability between presbyteries, it was the no voters who tended to show up for the vote on 10-A.  And yes, this is based on the presumption that a commissioner that voted one way on Belhar was going to vote the same way on 10-A so the other way to look at this is that there was a trend for more uniform commissioner turn-out with some commissioners that voted, or would have voted, yes on Belhar to vote no on 10-A.

In terms of the specific numbers, the average number of yes votes increases 7% while the number of no votes more than doubles, rising 102%.  However, these are influenced by a couple of presbyteries with a small number of votes in a given column that when they pick up just a few more votes becomes a large ratio.  For example, North Alabama had 3 no on Belhar and 28 no on 10-A giving a nine-fold increase.  Another case is Central Washington which went from 7 yes on Belhar to 12 yes on 10-A for a 71% increase.  With the extreme values present considering the median value of each data set (the value for which half are above and half are below) is more reasonable.  Still, the median number of yes votes is up 4% and the median of the no vote increase is 28%.

So when presbyteries have important issues to discuss it appears from this data that commissioners are more likely to show up when the issue is G-6.0106b.  I have to agree that for the last few decades the “issue de jour” for the mainline Presbyterians has been sexual orientation and practice, particularly as it applied to those who hold ordained office.  But throughout the history of Presbyterianism other issues, such as church-state relations and confessional subscription and standards, have been the flashpoint over which we have debated, and divided. (It would be interesting to know if presbytery meeting attendance increased for votes on modifications to the Westminster Standards earlier in our history.)  It also leads to the interesting question of what will become the “issue de jour” if 10-A passes.  I think many would see the denomination moving on and rather than staying with modifications to G-6.0106b the next discussion point will probably be the definition of marriage (W-4.9001).  But maybe it is something else that does not come to my mind at the moment.  And the question of whether we Presbyterians need an issue as the focus of our debate is a topic for another time.  We will see what develops over the next few years.

Court Date For The Presbyterian Church In Ireland And The Presbyterian Mutual Society

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The Hon. Mr Justice Deeny, sitting today in the Chancery Division of the High Court in Belfast, granted authority to the Trustees of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to make an ex gratia contribution of £1m from its unrestricted charitable funds to an access fund which is being proposed as part of the Government’s “rescue package” in respect of the Presbyterian Mutual Society (PMS).

Last week the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Presbyterian Mutual Society (PMS) had a date in court to hear the decision about the hardship fund that the church would establish as part of the “rescue package.”  I am still waiting for the full decision to be posted, and appreciate the response I got from the court library that they would let the legal team know the decision is of interest and they should check it over promptly.

While I initially planned to wait for the full decision, my impatience got the better of me and I decided to post about the decision based upon the available information.  What we do have is the Summary of the decision — a document that is complete, concise, and clear enough that it was tempting to just post it without commentary.  The Summary has very little “legalese” in it and at two pages long makes for a quick and useful read.

To briefly cover the history of this situation, back in November 2008, when financial institutions were under pressure and failing, the Presbyterian Mutual Society experienced a “run on the bank” and could not liquidate its investment property fast enough or favorably enough to cover the demands for redemption.  The organization was put into administration and the investors took the administrator’s advice to “wind down” operations and try to recover some value from the real estate assets.  The situation is complicated or compounded on a couple of points.  First, the British Government has provided rescue packages for most kinds of financial institutions, but not the mutual societies.  A second complexity is that under British financial law there were two kinds of investors, with differing rights in receivership, based solely on the size of their investments.  The final question is what is the role and obligation of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in this situation?  I will let the Summary pick up that thread.

The Court was told that the Presbyterian Church in Ireland had no legal responsibility for the PMS. This, however, was not apparent to very many members of the Church who tended to consider that the Church was responsible for the Society. Pressure has been put on the Church by those who have suffered hardship as a consequence of the PMS going into administration.

The legal situation is that the Mutual Society is a legally separate entity from the church but carried the church’s name, required investors to be members of the church, and was housed in the church’s offices and used the church’s web domain.  Throughout this situation the church has held to the claim that they have no legal responsibility but it has developed a realization and sense of moral obligation.  As part of this moral obligation, when a possible rescue package was developed last year the church agreed to participate in that package. Again, from the Summary:

The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment has described the Government rescue package as a “mutual access fund”. It will consist of some £25m from the Government of the United Kingdom, £25m from the Northern Ireland Executive and the £1m from the Church subject to the approval of the court. These grants are coupled with the offer of a loan from the Government of the United Kingdom of a further £175m.

Now, note the line above about “subject to the approval of the court.”  For me, this was the new twist on the story that I found out about from this present court decision.  The Summary continues:

On 13 April 2010 a Special General Assembly passed a resolution to contribute £1m from its charitable funds towards a hardship fund. This stated:

“That in the event of the Government failing to secure a “commercial” solution and the NI Executive bringing forward a final comprehensive proposal which includes a “Hardship” Fund element, the General Assembly agree in principle to contribute £1m while affirming their view that the members of the PMS are thrifty savers and not risk taking investors.”

The general principle under law is that a charity is only allowed to make disbursements for charitable purposes. To do otherwise would be inconsistent with the purpose for which the charity was set up. It would also be an abuse of the privileged tax position which a charity can enjoy. The fund now proposed went beyond the relief of poverty and was not in law charitable as a result.

Mr Justice Deeny referred to case law which stated that the court (or the Attorney-General) has power to give authority to charity trustees to make ex gratia payments out of funds held in charitable trusts if there is a moral obligation to do so. He noted that such a power should not be exercised lightly and only in cases where it can be fairly said that if the charity were an individual it would be morally wrong of him to refuse to make the payment.

So, to use the funds in this manner requires court approval of a moral obligation.  This is where I was reading some quotes, either from the decision or said by Justice Deeny from the bench, in articles like the one from the Belfast Newsletter which says “In all the circumstances a moral obligation does exist on the church.  I
authorise the payment of up to £1m towards the mutual assistance fund.”  The Summary says:

Mr Justice Deeny stated that [small investors] will benefit to a considerable extent by the proposed scheme: “If the Church does not contribute it may well be that the scheme does not proceed and therefore the persons exposed to poverty will not be assisted”. If the fund comes to reality it will bring substantial relief to those impacted.

Only members of the Church could be members of the PMS. It would be paradoxical if the general body of taxpayers funded all of the assistance without any contribution from the only Church whose members would benefit from the fund. Such an outcome would, if it occurred, reflect badly on the Church.

Those are the important points from the summary.  We still await the full decision and the Summary cautions that it does not take the place of the full decision and they should be read together.  I will update here if there are additional details or interesting sections of the full decision.

It should also be noted that according to a PCI press release, the afternoon following the court approval the General Board met and approved the transfer of £1m out of the unrestricted fund.  They also responded to the Norther Ireland Executive’s request for a larger contribution by noting the lack of any more money to contribute to the rescue package.

This court authorization and the board action are very hopeful signs that after almost two and a half years there is finally concrete progress on the rescue package.  This still has a ways to go before the resolution is complete, but after many months of negotiations and speculation about a commercial rescue or a complete British bail-out, a package with government and church participation is at hand.

A Brief Update On Cross-Issue Correlation In PC(USA) Amendment Voting

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Not Much Change.

Brief enough for you?  OK, you want a bit more?

As I have commented the past couple of posts on this stuff there was a bit of a question about the data, particularly for the New Form of Government vote, because the official tally from the Office of the General Assembly differed markedly from the unofficial “word on the street” numbers.  Well, in the last week the unofficial lists have caught up and as of today’s release of the official numbers the differences have mostly disappeared.  The official numbers always lag a bit because of the extra time required to report the votes (the Stated Clerk still does not accept reports from those of us who tweet it).  So, at the moment the numbers are: Belhar – Official 44-23, unofficial 46-29; nFOG – Official 50-33, unofficial 50-39; Amendment 10-A – Official 57-37, unofficial 67-47.

For those playing along at home it appears that nFOG and 10-A are on track to be affirmed by the presbyteries but the Belhar Confession is very close and trailing the 2/3 confirmation it needs to join the Book of Confessions.  Of the other 14 amendments being voted upon, 11 have now been affirmed by the presbyteries and the other three are seeing some degree of negative votes, but still on track to be affirmed.

As usual, my data is aggregated
from numbers from Twitter as well as vote counts at the Covenant Network, Yes on 10-A, Reclaim Biblical Teaching and the Layman.
This aggregation is available in my spreadsheet and my cross-vote spreadsheet through yesterday’s
reports.

What appears to have happened is that the Layman and Reclaim Biblical Teaching lists, which are the ones that track the Belhar and the nFOG voting, have gotten a bunch of new data on nFOG.  The good news is that new data is always good and makes my analyses more reliable.  The bad news is that most of these are unrecorded votes meaning that either the vote was taken by voice or a show of hands and not counted out, or the counted data was not available to the reporting groups.  The bottom line is that there is not much new for my strength of voting analysis so I’ll let my previous one stand for the moment and just look at the cross-tabulation of the “yes/no” votes.

So here are the correlations:

 n=52 Belhar
Yes 		Belhar
No
 nFOG yes  25
48%		 3
6%
 nFOG no  4
8%		 20
38%
n=48 Belhar
Yes 		Belhar
No
 10-A yes  27
56%		 3
6%
 10-A no  4
8%		 14
29%
 n=65 nFOG
Yes 		nFOG
No
 10-A yes  28
43%		  6
9%
10-A no 10
15% 		 21
32%

Well, there is a little shift, but the same quantitative pattern holds and the shifts are mostly minor.  The Belhar/nFOG correlation is now tied for the best with 86% of presbyteries voting the same way on both issues (down slightly from 90% last time) and 14% opposite voting.  Yes, now Belhar Yes/nFOG No has one more vote than the other combination while it had one less vote last time — still pretty similar.

The Belhar/10-A correlation is interesting because it has the same number of opposite voting presbyteries as the Belhar/nFOG correlation and within the rounding this gives essentially the same percentages – 14% opposite and 87% same.  The previous analysis had 83% of the presbyteries voting the same so there is a slight increase in the correlation.

Finally, we have the least favorable correlation, the nFOG/10-A voting, and the numbers are very close to the previous analysis, and maybe a bit better correlated.  Previously, within the rounding, 75% of the presbyteries voted the same way on both issues and now we have the same number again.  Last time the opposite votes were the same and now we see a slight tendency for a presbytery that votes no on 10-A to still support a yes vote on nFOG.  In fact, since the previous analysis only one more presbytery has been added to the count that voted yes on 10–A and no on nFOG.

What does it all mean?  Well, for the data crunchers like me it is nice to see that the larger quantity of data supports the preliminary analysis I did before.  We are still only at about 1/3 of the presbyteries in any one of these comparisons so this is still in a preliminary mode, but it is valuable to see that as the data set grows the basic trends remain the same.  It is also suggestive that we can have some confidence in the previous analysis that used the strength of voting.

It also continues to encourage us to ask the question of why these votes are correlated.  I’ve pondered that in the previous posts so won’t repeat it again in print until the data set has filled out substantially more.  Some of you have suggested additional variables to look at with the strength of vote numbers to help clarify that question a bit.  When the strength of vote data has increased some more I’ll revisit it again.

This continued trend does not however allow up to say anything about the time trend of the data.  These data have no associated date information and just because they were added in the last week does not mean that the votes were taken in that time period.  So while they have the same trend we can not say that the voting trend truly “continues” in a temporal sense.

Anyway, a little lunch hour diversion and we will watch the voting continue and await more data.  The rest of this week I have a heavy meeting schedule so I’ll try to catch up on some global Presbyterian issues over the weekend.  Stay tuned…

The Fog Around nFOG

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[No, this is not about the questions arising from the differences in the official vote count on nFOG and the unofficial tallies.  (The official tally for this week is posted and the OGA has the count at 45-32 while the unofficial “word on the street” is 24-35.)]

This post is about my experience the last three days with the discernment process around approving a New Form of Government (nFOG) section of the Book of Order that is currently being voted upon by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) presbyteries.  But it seems that this amendment has left many people conflicted or confused.  And it seems that it is hard to work up any enthusiasm for or against this major change in polity.

As part of the discernment process for my presbytery the group planning the presbytery meeting where the Belhar Confession and the New Form of Government would be voted upon asked two individuals to be resource people for each of these issues.  Each of them had served on the committee (Belhar) or task force (nFOG) for that issue.  Unfortunately, the nFOG specialist was not available yesterday and I guess I got the call as the second choice.  So my job at the presbytery meeting was to give a pre-presbytery presentation on nFOG, a brief intro to the debate, and to answer questions during debate.  In agreeing to the request I did make it clear to the planners that they were not getting an nFOG advocate but a polity junkie who would try to give a fair and balanced presentation.  What I got out of it was a better understanding of nFOG myself, and a fascinating insight into the nFOG discernment in my congregation and presbytery.  So here it is as a story in three scenes.

Scene 1
I have the advantage that I have been following the progress of the New Form of Government since the task force was created over four years ago, so I know the history.  I have read, but not studied in detail, a lot of the material that is out there concerning nFOG.  And I have previously heard presentations at least five times by members of the task force, including the member who was not able to make it yesterday.  But that really only covers the history, charge, and over-arching view of the product — what about the details?

I set about to look more closely at the details of nFOG by first visiting the official documents.  The amendment as printed by the Office of the General Assembly runs 46 pages. (The booklet itself also contains an Advisory Handbook bringing the total length to 58 pages.)  There is also an eight page insert that provides some background material and a study guide.  That insert has a list of six additional printed resources and a link to a 21 slide PowerPoint presentation explaining the proposal.  All total, that comes to 352 pages of material.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!  If that is not enough for you there are many additional nFOG resources floating around out there.  The most useful, and what I drew heavily from, is the regular analysis from the Association of Stated Clerks.  There is also a blog by the nFOG task force folks.  Most of the rest of the resources are from advocacy groups promoting one side or the other and most of those promoting a negative vote.  I won’t go into detail, and I have not made any attempt to add up the pages, but if you are interested I’m sure the best list of all these items is over at GAHelp.  And if you want one more, I have a one-sheet, front and back, nFOG Summary I used for my presentation yesterday.

The point of all this is that there is plenty of material out there about nFOG, and arguments for and against, for your reading pleasure.  For me, the challenge was to figure out what to pack into a 45 minute discussion and then a 15 minute presentation.

Scene 2
My pastor, seeing that I was doing the presbytery presentation, invited me to present to our church’s Session on Sunday.  I welcomed the opportunity to not only educate them, but to practice my presentation.  It turned into a bit of a “focus group” experience for me.

I had my prepared materials and went through my presentation and at the end one of the elders commented “this is just as murky as before.”  Message or messenger?

Well we talked about nFOG for a while and in the end it was probably a bit of both that was causing the murkiness.  Specifically, for our elder commissioners to presbytery, I recommended the GAHelp site and they were going to check it out to prepare themselves for the discussion.

Scene 3
With the help of the focus group behind me I threw out my first presentation and handout and started over to try to construct a more helpful one.  It must have been successful because I got good feedback from members of presbytery about it.  But what I also got was a lot of feedback about how people were feeling about nFOG.  I spoke with almost no one who had strong feelings about it but rather they were leaning one way or the other but said they were still uncommitted.  And this was across the demographic spectrum – it included teaching elders and ruling elders of different ages, levels of experience and theological leaning.  In fact, in the debate on the floor of presbytery there was no debate – there was one speaker against who made some claims, another speaker who then asked the question whether what the previous speaker had said was really correct because that was not his understanding, I got called on to answer the question, and debate was over — no one else rose to speak.  In the last three days I have had contact with no one in my church or presbytery who expressed strong feelings either way about nFOG except the one speaker who seems to have been working with incomplete information.  (For the record, I am pretty sure that several commissioners attending my presentation had firm opinions on nFOG but did not express them in that session or later in debate.  Also, again for the record, the lack of debate could also get back to my rule of thumb that a governing body has in it “one good debate per session” and the body had already had that debate on Belhar.)

Some observations
So what do I gather from this little drama in three scenes?  First, that there is too much material out there about nFOG and it results in sensory overload.  OK, let me rephrase that – while it is good and useful to have the 352 pages of official material available for someone thoroughly studying the dynamics and implications of the New Form of Government, how that material gets presented needs to be carefully considered.  One approach would be to have tiers – general information on the first tier, more specific resources on the second, and the comparison charts (all 268 pages) and other very detailed material on the third tier.  As it is now, they are all listed together with no guide for the uninitiated as to what to read first.

But the corollary to this is the fact that when these issues are sent out to the congregations and presbyteries for study, it is my experience that we usually pass up the opportunity.  (Anyone out there studying the Marriage Report I helped write and put so much time, effort and sleepless nights into?)  As faithful teaching and ruling elders we need to be aware of these items the GA wants us to study and encourage each other to do so.  This is especially true when we will have to vote on making them part of the church constitution.

Second, the nFOG in and of itself is too long to be easily considered in one fell swoop.  Yes, it is easier from a polity standpoint to just do a rewrite of the whole thing rather than work with a hybrid document as it is revised in bite-size pieces.  But we did the hybrid thing with current Chapter 14, maybe it would work for the rest of the book.  And based on the “deer in the headlights” looks I saw in my presentation when we started talking about the work of producing the operating manuals, taking those incrementally as well might make the task seem easier.

Finally, there is a great deal of mixed feelings about the nFOG.  Many of the people I have talked with understand the goal of flexibility and concept of returning the Book of Order to a constitutional document by removing the operational details.  But many experienced elders I have talked with in the last three days, both ruling and teaching, know how much our polity hinges on a few words here or a sentence there.  That is the stuff that Authoritative Interpretations and GAPJC decisions are made of.  To lose some of those, particularly the one due process section, raises concern in this experienced cadre.  For both experienced and inexperienced elders I really sensed that they were looking at the “risk/reward” balance and it was pretty even – the rewards did not outweigh the risks by much if anything.  I can also say that I had input from very few that saw this as an ideological issue or that saw it as change for change’s sake.  There was a real and profound sense that everyone was deliberately weighing the pros and cons of the text itself and actively seeking God’s will in this matter.

A couple of additional observations:
1. It might be reasonable to take some of these observations and experiences and look at the Presbyterian Church in America and the defeat of the Administrative Committee’s funding initiative in the same light.  While that change to the Book of Church Order was much shorter, only two specific sections, it struck me that it had the same sort of “sensory overload” as large amounts of official material, including the video, were unloaded on the church to “help” them make a decision.  Similarly, there was a large amount of unofficial chatter about the amendments. Were these resources truly helpful or did they add to the sense of confusion and being overwhelmed?

2. On the nFOG vote the commissioners in my presbytery were not alone in being undecided or looking for strong reasons one way or the other.  Last week there was an interesting exchange when John Shuck in advance of the Holston Presbytery meeting asked on his blog “Should I Vote for the New Form of Government?”  He expressed an undecided position and lack of strong reasons in support of the document,  sentiments that were similar to what I heard from commissioners in my presbytery.  Mr. Shuck admits in the first paragraph “I really don’t see myself having a horse in this race.”  In terms of arguments either way, one of them is “I know the LayMAN and the various true
believers and biblical reclaimers are against it. That would give me
reason to vote in favor, but admittedly not much of a reason.”  After the vote he tweeted “Holston Presbytery approved nFOG. I ended up voting in favor. Time
for a new thing…”  Change for changes sake?

So this was an interesting experience with the New Form of Government.  I don’t know if it will be approved and therefore it will be over and dealt with, or if the presbyteries will not concur and another rewrite may be back for another round in the future.  But whether it is this issue, or another large and complex one, we as a denomination need to think carefully about what will happen to it after it leaves the General Assembly and how it is presented to the presbyteries so they are best positioned to be able deliberate, discuss, debate and discern the issue.

Oh, how did it turn out?  San Gabriel Presbytery did not concur with nFOG by a 47 to 99 vote.  They approved of the Belhar Confession by a 79 to 66 margin.  Each vote had one abstention.

My Thoughts On The New Movements In The PC(USA)

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I had to laugh yesterday morning when I opened up Twitter because my friend Robert Austell (@gspcrobert ) had asked the question I had been pondering myself the last few days.

So what’s the difference (other than theological perspective) between #nextchurchindy and the fellowship/whitepaper? any takers? #pcusa

I’ll tell you my answer at the end, but let me first rewind to what got me into this line of thought in the first place…

In retrospect I realize that I was all over the Fellowship PC(USA) announcement because it fell in my lap.  I got the original e-mail, it pushed one of my hot buttons, and I was off to the races.  In contrast, the NEXT Church event earlier this week was something I had seen mentioned but had not really kept track of.  It looked like just another conference like Big Tent (pick one ), Wee Kirk, or the College Conference. But when I started reading the tweets, and then watching the live streaming it seemed that this was a bit more high-profile than I had realized.

Well, the next stop was the web site to see what it said.  On the conference web page I read this:

For some months a group of friends and colleagues across the church have been in conversation about the “next” Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). We have focused less on denominational controversies and other matters and more on vital, faithful and connectional congregational ministry.

Déjà vu all over again.  Sound familiar?

Over the past year, a group of PC(USA) pastors has become convinced that to remain locked in unending controversy will only continue a slow demise, dishonor our calling, and offer a poor legacy to those we hope will follow us… Our purpose is to LIVE INTO new patterns as they are created, modeling a way of faith: the worship, supportive fellowship, sharing of best practices, and accessible theology that brings unity and the Spirit’s vitality.

Yes, those are lines from the original Fellowship PC(USA) letter.  And yes, on balance the rest of the letters are a bit different in tone and viewpoint, I will grant you that.  But both originated out of these small groups, mostly pastors it seems, that wanted to do something new to promote unity and connectionalism in the PC(USA).

Now, to be fair, almost any change, or movement (if that’s what these are), comes out of a small group and grows.  After all, Jesus started with a core of 12 and grew the movement from there.  And changes in the Presbyterian system begin with overtures from presbyteries to be debated by the General Assembly moving upward from local governing bodies to the national level.  But in this case, it looks like both of these movements have grown out of groups of “tall-steeple” pastors who wanted to do something different.  For more on the development of the NEXT group have a look at the post by YoRocko!, who happens to be addressing this exact same question.

At the moment, there is something that is different about these groups, aside from the theological perspective, and that is the fact that the NEXT group has had its first big conference.  What that conference demonstrated, and which was pointed out by the attendees during the feedback session, is that those present were mostly white and middle class, with the most diversity being provided by the seminary students. It was also pointed out that the attendees included only a small number of ruling elders and most of those were from the local area. These were initial criticisms of the Fellowship group.  The NEXT group made a commitment to diversity, much as the Fellowship group has.  The point here is that both these groups reflect the reality of what the PC(USA) looks like now.

Another similarity between the groups is that they both advocate that something needs to change in the PC(USA).  The NEXT web site says about the conference “Together, we will seek God’s guidance in discerning how to move forward in a rapidly evolving church and culture.”  The Fellowship letter says of their conference “Our purpose is to LIVE INTO new patterns as they are created, modeling a way of faith: the worship, supportive fellowship, sharing of best practices, and accessible theology that brings unity and the Spirit’s vitality.”  Both groups seek ways to discern and discuss what is the future of American Mainline Presbyterianism in a changing world.

I found one more interesting, and possibly telling, similarity between the two groups — both of their initial web sites are hosted as part of the church web sites at tall-steeple churches.  The Fellowship PC(USA) web site is hosted by Christ Presbyterian Church of Edina, Minnesota.  The NEXT web site is hosted by Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, Indiana.  Checking the Top 15 list of PC(USA) churches we find that these churches are number three and number thirteen respectively on the list.  If your first reaction is “so what?”, you might be correct.  Big churches have the resources to share with developing groups like these and both groups have announced that they will be migrating to their own web presence with unique URL’s.  But look again, because I think there is a subliminal message which may not be intended but might be conveyed. In each case, at my screen resolution, the church’s banner takes up 1/3 to 1/2 of the visible page.  In both cases the church was careful (as far as I can tell in the very dynamic world of web pages) not to put the conferences on their front page, sending no message that it is a ministry of the church.  But each group’s individual page is still done in the church’s template implying an association with that body.  When I place them side-by-side, and maybe it is only me and I am over-interpreting here, the message that I see is one of “battle of the tall-steeple churches.”  The movements both give the impression of being driven by large churches contending for control of the PC(USA).

As I said, I might be getting this wrong.  But try to think about it as if you are not an insider to the PC(USA) world — if you look at these two pages with the eyes of an outsider what message does the totality of the page send?  OK, maybe I’m the only one getting this impression.

Turning to what is different, the first thing that strikes me is the tone of the two groups and their outlook.  There is a lot more printed verbiage from the Fellowship group so their perspective is easier to see.  To be specific, the Letter and the White Paper are very negative about the future of the PC(USA) but do strike a hopeful tone about the possibility of reform when they say “We hope to discover and model what a new “Reformed body” looks like in the coming years, and we invite you to join us, stepping faithfully, boldly, and joyfully into the work for which God has called us.” Interestingly, in the white paper the similar line is followed by “We propose this change with regret, despising division and all it entails in witness to the world, but with excitement at what may emerge.”  The mix of negative and positive.

The NEXT group says less on their web page, but do begin by quoting the prophet Isaiah (43:19) “Behold, I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it?”  They make passing reference to the current situation in the PC(USA) and give the invitation in a positive phrasing:

We will join with friends and colleagues, old and new, who care about
the future of Presbyterian witness. Together, we will seek God’s
guidance in discerning how to move forward in a rapidly evolving church
and culture.

The NEXT Conference plenary sessions are available online so you can hear what was actually said.  I have listened to some, but not all, and again find the tone mostly positive.  But let’s turn to someone who was there, Carmen Fowler, and what she had to say in an article for the Layman.  While Ms. Fowler could probably at a minimum be described as a “skeptical observer” and she had plenty to critique about the NEXT Conference, she also had mostly positive comments about the spirit of the conference.  This includes:

The
spirit of the event was positive, framed by beautiful Reformed,
Word-centered worship and designed to promote genuine fellowship.
…
There
were no exhibits, no stoles, no banners, no buttons and no animosity
from the leadership toward the few folks in attendance who could be
identified as “right” of center.
…
There is hope among Next organizers that when Next meets again, a broader spectrum of voices will participate.

Again, when the Fellowship group meets it will be interesting to see if their tone is reviewed as positively by a neutral or skeptical observer.

Maybe the biggest difference between the two movements is that the Fellowship documents lay out as their agenda specific points and actions they want their group, and by extension the denomination to take.  The NEXT group outlines their conference description as “We will engage in worship, hear presentations and participate in small
groups. More than that, we will build relationships, connect with others
in shared ministry and learn from one another.”  In this case, the discussion and relationship are the agenda.

Finally, there is the “theological perspective” of each group.  It seems that this has been set up as a Conservative (Fellowship) versus Liberal (NEXT) polarity.  The Fellowship group is pretty clear with the stance when they list one of their characteristics as seeking “A clear, concise theological core to which we subscribe, within classic biblical, Reformed/Evangelical traditions, and a pledge to live according to those beliefs, regardless of cultural pressures to conform.” 

The lack of verbiage on the NEXT web site makes it more difficult to clearly claim a theological perspective from that source, but if nothing else the comments during the meeting that held up NEXT as an alternative to the Fellowship seem to also declare an alternate theological perspective.  Ms. Fowler suggests this as well, telling us “Unfortunately,
the conversation was had largely in isolation among Presbyterians who
share a progressive theology. Conservative Presbyterians did not show
up.”

Finally, let me mention one more factor what we will have to wait and see if it is a difference or a similarity.  One thing that really struck me about the NEXT Conference was the number of members of the PC(USA) national leadership that showed up for it.  This included the Moderator and Vice-moderator of the General Assembly, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, and the Chair and Executive Director of the General Assembly Mission Council.  The list goes on, making you wonder who was left in Louisville.  When the Fellowship consultation rolls around we will have to see if the showing is as good.

Now I have listed most of the similarities and differences I have seen and the question Robert asked excluded the theological perspective.  When I first considered his question I looked at the theological perspective in a very broad sense that attributed all the differences to the differences in theological perspective.  In other words, how much does the theological perspective influence the tone and their view of the PC(USA).  How much does the theological perspective influence how the agenda is shaped and how specific it is or is not.  In a broad sense I thought that it did and my answer to Robert was “not much it seems.”  (If you think this is too terse or superficial remember that the medium was Twitter.)

If theological perspective is more narrowly viewed as just the stance each group takes, then there are some areas in which the two movements diverge.  But on balance, I would argue that these groups presently have more similarities than differences.  Breaking it down, in origin and structure the two groups appear very similar.  In theological perspective and agenda the groups are pretty different.

OK, if you want to make up your own minds, there is plenty of reading out there about the NEXT Conference and I suspect more will emerge.  I’ve already mentioned YoRocko! and the Layman article. There are also discussions from McCormick Theological Seminary, MGB Commission and MGB Commission member John Vest, Landon Whitsitt’s riffing on John’s piece , and Bruce Reyes-Chow’s comments .  And that is just a start.

As I said, at this point we are at a disadvantage in the comparison since one group has a lot of written material but the first conference has not yet been held, and the other has had their conference but has not provided a lot of written background, at least in the public domain.  So we will see how all this develops and maybe we’ll be in a better position to compare the different approaches in August after both have met.  May I suggest they also live stream their event for those of us who can’t get free to attend in person.

Stay tuned…

Cross-Issue Correlation In PC(USA) Amendment Voting

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OK, I need to get two things onto the table right at the beginning of this post:


  1. Yes, this is an extremely geekish and polity wonkish post, but that’s what interests me and this analysis is the one I have really wanted to do since the 219th General Assembly adjourned last July.  I do think there is something important about the PC(USA) in here so if you want to skip the data analysis and jump to the end you will find my discussion there.
  2. I posted a preliminary result on Twitter on Saturday but got the variables confused.  Sorry about that. I posted a correction on Twitter and will point out the error when I come to it in this post.
So, the question that has had me on the edge of my seat is the degree to which each of the three high-profile amendments is correlated with the other two.  I took an initial pass at this question a couple of weeks back and found a strong correlation.  That correlation has weakened a bit but is still present, stronger in some relationships than others.  While it still may be a bit premature to make strong conclusions from the data at this point in time, I think I’ve got enough data to do a preliminary analysis.

Now, if you are looking for just the vote results after last Saturday here is the “word on the street.” Belhar is still not getting the 2/3 it needs with 32 yes and 28 no.  The New Form of Government continues to have weak support and still trails, currently at 25 to 31.  The story of the last week is that support for Amendment 10-A continues at the pace we have seen throughout the month and with three more presbyteries switching their votes a total of 12 presbyteries have shifted to “yes” with only one shifting to “no.”  At this point enough presbyteries have shifted (a net of nine was needed) that with all the rest of the presbyteries voting as they did in the last round Amendment 10-A will be approved. At the end of the weekend the vote stood at 55 to 41.  No further analysis of that today, I’ll come back to that in another week or two. (Particularly in light of the question about the vote totals that is raised at the end of the next paragraph.)

First, the usual details regarding data:  For my data I have aggregated numbers from Twitter as well as vote counts at the Covenant Network, Yes on 10-A, Reclaim Biblical Teaching and the Layman. This aggregation is available in my spreadsheet.  I have also updated my cross-vote spreadsheet through Saturday’s reports.  The analysis below is more sensitive to the exact vote count and where the tally sheets sometimes differ a bit I have used either a majority among them, the Twitter reports, or a consistency in total votes to select a preferred number.  This is also probably a good place to add that the voting is not finished yet and this analysis is only preliminary based on the current data. And in a very interesting development today as I was finishing this up, the official vote tally from the Office of the General Assembly was posted.  It has caught the attention of several of us because it has numbers significantly different than the unofficial sites — nFOG 38 to 25, Belhar 38 to 18, and 10-A 47 to 33.  The difference is presumably due to reports by presbytery stated clerks not reflected in the unofficial counts.  Hopefully with time the two sets of lists will converge.

So, let’s take the three comparisons from strongest to weakest (and if you want to see the graphs in more detail they are larger in their original form and you can open them individually):

Belhar to nFOG
The strongest relationship between the issues is between the votes on the Belhar Confession and the New Form of Government. (This is the one I should have pointed out in the tweet on Saturday.)  So far 33 presbyteries have voted on both of these issues, and 27 of those have recorded vote numbers on both votes.  Looking at the numbers you can see the strength in both the cross-tabulation and the linear regression:

















 n=33 Belhar
yes
Belhar
no
 nFOG yes
  10
30%
  2
7%
 nFOG no
  1
3%
  20
60%



Bottom line: The strength of a presbytery’s vote on nFOG is going to be very close to the strength of a presbytery’s vote on Belhar.  The fit of the linear line is good with an R2 = 0.73  (a number very much like correlation that I talked about in a previous post with 1.0 as a good and 0.0 as not correlated, but this number is always positive), and a slope pretty close to 1 (the two vote percentages increase in the same proportion).  This is seen in the yes/no comparison where 30 presbyteries have voted the same way on both issues and only 3 (10%) have voted opposite on them.

Belhar to Amendment 10-A
The next strongest relationship between the issues is that between the votes on the Belhar Confession and Amendment 10-A.  (This is the one I incorrectly pointed to in the tweet.) So far 35 presbyteries have voted on both of these issues, and 25 of those have recorded vote numbers on both votes.  Here is what the numbers look like:
















 n=35 Belhar
yes
Belhar
no
 10-A yes
  17
49%
  3
9%
10-A no
  3
9%
  12
34%



Bottom line: The strength of a presbytery’s vote on Amendment 10-A is going to be related to the strength of a presbytery’s vote on Belhar, but not as strongly as for the last case and not in 1:1 proportion.  In this case, the fit of the linear line is not as good, but still moderate, with an R2 = 0.62 and a slope 0.51. There is also a significant upward shift in the trend line of almost 20%.  What this means is that for presbyteries not strongly in favor of Belhar, on average there is a 20% “base” in favor of Amendment 10-A.  On the other end, a presbytery strongly in favor of Belhar has, on average, a 30% “base” opposed to Amendment 10-A.  The yes/no comparison also shows that the linkage is not as strong and direct where 29 presbyteries have voted the same way on both issues and six (18%) have voted opposite on them.  From these results, the association of these two issues is only partial and the attitudes on one are not driving the other as strongly as might be suspected.

nFOG to Amendment 10-A
The weakest relationship is between the votes on the nFOG and Amendment 10-A. So far 36 presbyteries have voted on both of these issues, and 23 of those have recorded vote numbers on both votes.  Here is what the numbers look like:
















 n=36 nFOG
yes
nFOG
no
 10-A yes
  12
33%
  5
14%
10-A no
  5
14%
  14
42%



Bottom line: There is a weak, positive relationship between a presbytery’s voting strength on nFOG and the vote strength on 10-A.  However, as can be seen in the scatter of the data on the graph, especially at the higher end the relationship is weak.  The scatter in the data is evident with R2 = 0.39 and the lower slope of 0.46 also suggestive of a weaker linkage. The yes/no comparison supports  that the association is not as strong and direct with almost 1/3 of the presbyteries voting opposite ways on the two issues.

Discussion and Conclusions
I must admit that the strength of the Belhar/nFOG association was a bit of a surprise to me.  With the on-going discussion of the synergy between Belhar and 10-A I was expecting to that to have the strongest correlation. And the very nearly 1:1 association means that they two issues probably elicit the same response from any given commissioner.  One thought that occurred to me is the similar nature of these two issues in regards to their impact on PC(USA) polity.  While the impact of each is still being debated and is, to a certain degree, unknown, if approved they each would leave a significant mark on the constitutional documents.  There could also be a less tangible factor in the willingness to preserve the status quo — since these two amendments have similar impacts on the established order of things it is reasonable to presume that if a commissioner had a particular comfort level with changing one of them, they would have a similar comfort level changing the other. But whether it is related to those explanations, or other factors, the data appear to show that even if presbytery commissioners don’t necessarily explicitly link them, they still seem to think about them in the same way.

Having said that, and recognizing the vote tally differences from today’s announcement, I need to point out that it appears point twice as many presbyteries have voted against both of them as have approved them.  This raises a couple of questions when we look at the voting trends for the issues by themselves since the votes overall are more even.  The first thing is that as the double-issue voting catches up the close agreement could go away.  But if the close agreement continues, and considering that one currently has a majority and the other does not, we might expect the vote margins to narrow.  We also open up the possibility that Belhar might not even receive a majority vote if nFOG continues to not receive a majority.  The opposite could also be true – that nFOG will be pulled up by future positive voting on Belhar.

We could also ask the question about the strength of Belhar from the 10-A relationship.  Doing a back of the envelope calculation and extrapolating out the 10-A voting based on current proportions a 99 to 75 final vote (56.6% yes vote) would be a reasonable conclusion.  If we then mix apples and oranges and ignore whichis the the dependent and which the independent variables, plugging 56.6% yes vote on 10-A into the regression formula gives a 73% yes vote on Belhar.  Fun to speculate but I just violated too many mathematical and data rules to really believe that.  A more valid approach would be to take the presbytery yes/no vote cross-tabulation as a guide where we see that at the present time the opposite voting categories would off-set each other.  This would suggest that for presbyteries (apples to apples) the Belhar final vote could would be very close to the 10-A final count, in which case 56.6% won’t get it approved.

I’m not sure there is much to say about the weak correlation between nFOG and 10-A.  This is more of what I was initially expecting since the two issues do not have a lot in common polity-wise.  The weak linkage seen could be some polity point I am overlooking or a desire to preserve the status quo.  Either way, there is not enough strength in that correlation to risk making any conclusions about one from the outcome of the other.

So that is what I see at this point.  I will point out again that this is truly preliminary since at this time for each pairing only around 1/5 of the presbyteries have voted on both amendments.  I look forward to seeing how this progresses as the voting continues filling in the missing data.  Stay tuned…

PC(USA) Amendment 10-A Voting About To Reach Half-Way Point

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There has been a flurry of presbytery voting this past week with some interesting developments.  Here is a quick summary and some observations.

Following presbytery meetings last Saturday it appears from the reports that 81 out of the 173 presbyteries have voted on Amendment 10-A, quickly approaching the half-way mark of 87 presbyteries.  A potentially bigger development is the flurry of presbyteries that have voted “yes” on 10-A after voting “no” on 08-B in the last round.  The number of presbyteries switching now stands at a net change of eight towards “yes,” with nine total switching to “yes” and one switching to “no.”  Since a net change of nine is necessary for the passage of 10-A (it was 78 “yes” and 95 “no” last time) if the current trend continues it is reasonable to expect that 10-A will be approved.  However, don’t take that as a done deal because 1) part of being Presbyterian is the process and 2) just as there was a flurry of “yes” changes this weekend there could as easily be a momentum shift with a number of “no” switches in the future.  Oh, and if you are keeping count I think the vote is 46 “yes” and 35 “no.”

One of the interesting things in the past few weeks was how the three votes were tracking together — That has changed somewhat.  The first observation is that while there was a burst of voting on 10-A, there was not a corresponding burst on Belhar or nFOG.  At the present time 51 presbyteries have voted on Belhar and 47 have voted on nFOG.  Breaking it down, I have 12 presbyteries that have voted on all three amendments, 14 that have voted on Belhar and nFOG but not 10-A, 15 that have voted only on nFOG and 10-A, and 13 that have voted on 10-A and Belhar only.  That gives a total of 61 presbyteries (including my own) who have not voted on any of the amendments yet.

The second thing that struck me was a bit of a weakening of the cross-issue correlation I commented on a little while ago.  While I have not done a full recalculation of my chart to include Saturday’s voting, looking at the numbers it seems there have been a few presbyteries who have voted “yes” on 10-A and “no” on nFOG, to the point that while 10-A is currently passing nFOG is trailing 21-26.  I don’t know if it is this trend, or just a coincidence, that a few days ago GA Moderator Cynthia Bolbach in her monthly column encouraged passage of the new Form of Government and pointed readers to the nFOG blog. ( And yes, Ms. Bolbach’s statement to avoid nFOG advocacy applied only to the sessions of the General Assembly and not the voting period.) And if you are keeping score at home, both Belhar (needs 2/3 to pass) and nFOG are currently trailing, the former 28 to 23 and the latter 21 to 26.

I will leave further analysis of Belhar and nFOG for another time as well as the cross-issue trends.  But taking a more detailed look at 10-A voting we have 73 presbyteries with reported numbers for their votes on both 08-B and 10-A.  I have aggregated these numbers from Twitter as well as vote counts at the Covenant Network, Yes on 10-A, Reclaim Biblical Teaching and the Layman. This aggregation is available in my spreadsheet.

At the present time the total reported number of voting commissioners is 8635, down 8% from the corresponding 08-B total of 9337.  Votes for 10-A have increased slightly from last time, 4602 to 4726, a 3% increase.  Votes against have dropped 17% from 4735 to 3909.

In the chart below I try to graphically show the different results from the presbyteries.  I use my usual margin of a 4% change (or 4 votes for small numbers) being random variation, and so the numbers in that range are considered equivalent for this analysis.  And for the chart below, the comparisons mentioned (Y>N, Y<N, Y=N) are the magnitude or the absolute value of the change in Yes and No votes.  For example, if Yes votes decreased by 15 votes and No votes increased by 6 votes, that would be counted under the “Y decrease, N increase, Y>N” box.  I hope that makes sense.

  Y increase
N decrease
Y > N

n=8
11%

Y increase
N decrease
Y < N 

n=13
18%

 Y increase
N decrease
Y = N

n=4
5%

N no change
Y increase

n=7
10%

Y increase
N increase
Y > N

n=1
1%

Y increase
N increase
Y = N

n=0
0%

Y increase
N increase
Y < N 

n=0
0%

 Y no change
N decrease

n=13
18%

 Y and N
no change

n=4
5%

 Y no change
N increase

n=3
4%

Y decrease
N decrease
Y < N 

n=4
5% 

Y decrease
N decrease
Y = N

n=6
8%

 Y decrease
N decrease
Y > N

n=4
5%

 N no change
Y decrease

n=3
4%

 Y decrease
N increase
Y = N

n=2
3%

Y decrease
N increase
Y < N

n=0
0%

Y decrease
N increase
Y > N 

n=1
1%

 

See any patterns?  There is a tendency for “no” votes to decrease — in 10% of the presbyteries they increase, in 19% the no votes are constant, and 71% of the time they decrease.  And there is a weaker tendency for yes votes to increase — in 45% of the presbyteries it increases, in 27.5% they remain the same, and in 27.5% they decrease. But if you are looking for patterns of no decreases or yes increases it is tough to make a strong argument for a consistent behavior across all the presbyteries.  The best we can say is that the two cases of decreases in “no” with stable “yes” and decreases in “no” with smaller increases in “yes” comprise about 1/3 of the presbytery vote changes.  The other 2/3 are more evenly distributed across a greater variety of cases.

OK, eyes glazed over?  The object of this extensive enumeration is to make the point that there is little in the way of strong trends that one can point at.  Is the trend for shifting from “no” votes to “yes” votes?  Yes, in several presbyteries like Central Florida where the total number was stable (a 3 vote/1% drop) but there were 17 more “yes” votes and 20 fewer “no” votes. And then there is Stockton where there were 50 votes each time but five votes shifted from “yes” to “no.”  Yes, we can say that there are fewer “no” votes overall, but sometimes that comes at no increase in “yes” votes, as in the case of Cimarron, and sometimes with a substantial decrease in “yes” votes as well, such as happened in Heartland.

Bottom line – there are a few trends but if you are looking for easy explanations (like “the conservatives are leaving” or there is a “shift to equality” ) it is hard to tease that out as a simple rule when you look on a case-by-case basis at presbytery voting.  Presbyteries are amazingly unique entities — that is what I have found in my years of tracking this stuff.  (And that does not even include consideration of weather conditions, wind direction, what show in on in prime time that evening, or who is having a conference in Phoenix.)  Believe me, I would love easy answers.  But I have lost count of the number of numerical models I have made that are either solvable but too simplistic or complex but underdetermined.

So we will see how the voting goes in the next few weeks.  We are getting enough data that I can start calculating robust statistics and frequency distributions like I have in the past.  And I will try to keep the cross-tabulation above updated as well as the cross-issue correlation chart.  So stay tuned…