The just concluded speaker for the original motion made a comment that effectively said “Our fellow denominations have been dragging on studying this for years and it has only divided them and made the situation worse.” I wonder if he had the PC(USA) specifically in mind?
Now the counter motion (substitute motion in some circles) by the Mission and Discipleship Council is presented. The maker of the motion says that the Legal Questions motion puts the “legal cart before the theological horse.”
The Legal Questions Committee report can be found at: (Link broken)
http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/generalassembly/gareports.htm#legalq
The counter motion is in the daily papers: (Link broken)
http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/generalassembly/downloads/ga06tuesnotmots.pdf
The counter motion, and an addendum, have been presented and debate has begun.
The Church of Scotland GA is presently debating and questioning the convener of the Legal Questions Committee about a proposal to clarify the performance of civil unions by ministers. It preserves the right of conscience of ministers to decline but would permit ministers to perform civil unions of same sex couples.
A few quick observations on the CofS GA over the last 24 hours:
They have started podcasting and having available the Rev. Douglas Aitken’s updates on the GA. The podcast is linked from the GA Live page, the direct link to the updates is: (link no longer active)
http://stream1.churchofscotland.org.uk/generalassembly/ga06dailynewsupdates.php
(The start page is available on the Internet Archive but the media is not archived)
For the celebration of the Lord’s Supper this morning among the silver plates and chalices used were ones from churches which had been dissolved. A nice tribute to the “host of witnesses” in my opinion.
In the afternoon debate on properties there were a couple of recurring issues. One was the balance of individual churches keeping older manses which were more expensive to keep up but would last longer (typically traditional stone homes) versus newer structures which were cheaper in the short run but would need replacement sooner. The other was a push to have church buildings use “green” energy including wind, solar, and ground pumped heat.
Blessings
Steve
The Church of Scotland (CofS) GA just wrapped up a debate on the structure of the national church and the role that presbyteries play. The petition before the GA was to give presbyteries more authority in the reorganized structure of the CofS and weaken the power, especially regarding monetary issues, of the central structure. The discussion touched on all the usual issues about connectionalism and what it means to be presbyterian.
An amended version of the petition was rejected in a close vote. (How close I am trying to find out since my web streaming crashed right then.)
In a discussion I was in yesterday a past moderator of the PC(USA) GA commented:
“Presbytery drains from churches by taking away some of their best talent to do presbytery jobs.”
After the opening formalities yesterday today is a quiet day, business-wise, for the GA. As far as I can tell, no new press releases, news updates, or podcasts have been issued. I’ll keep watching. The most recent press release, issued just before GA convened, talks about GA authorizing a full report by their Church and Society Council on Israel and Palestine. The six key principles of the report going into it seem fairly straight forward: condemnation of terrorism and violence, the right of Israel to exist, the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, the unique status of Jerusalem as a “thrice Holy City,” condemnation of statements by individuals or countries inconsistent with these principles, and a call for countries and international agencies to work with the parties to restart negotiations. The report would be presented at the next GA.
The press release can be found here: (link now broken)
http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/news/nrga300506.htm
This news article just crossed my e-mail:
Congratulations to the Rev. Esther Abam Adjetey, recently elected the clerk of the GA of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. She will be the first woman to serve in that position.
Full article: (link now broken)
http://www.graphicghana.info/article.asp?artid=12151
Need your GA fix and the PC(USA) GA is still three weeks away?
If you want to get warmed up the Church of Scotland convened at 10AM this morning Edinburgh time. For those of us in North America the time difference is a bit of a problem. But they deal with many of the same issues all of us in the Presbyterian family have to face. And, they web cast live and this year podcast. For info on their web media go to the link below, and enjoy. I’ll add commentary as the week progresses.
Church of Scotland GA Go Live! Page (Link broken)
http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/generalassembly/galive.htm
Hi there fellow junkies,
Caught this one on a news feed. The moderator elect of the PC in Canada will be the first elder to serve as moderator of GA. We in the PC(USA) have been used to Elders as moderator of GA for a while now.
Here is an article from the Toronto Sun: http://torontosun.com/Lifestyle/2006/04/30/1557516-sun.html (link is now broken)