For many persons, reading “A
Season of Discernment: The Final Report of the [PCUSA] Task Force on
Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church” will be like eating an apple
with a worm in it. Though there are parts of the apple left untouched by
the worm that in isolation might taste just fine, the overall effect of
the worm’s presence is to destroy the eating experience as a whole.
I am sure that
the members of the Task Force did their very best in trying to come up
with a document that would answer to the needs of the church and would
uplift the hearts of readers and edify their minds. I truly wished and
prayed that the outcome would match the intent. Sadly, it does not.
Although there are some good
elements within the Final Report and doubtlessly the report reflects some
genuine goodwill, nearly the whole of the Final Report attempts to move
readers in various ways to the dangerously false conclusion that a
male-female prerequisite for a God-ordained sexual union is, whether or
not a serious matter, a nonessential feature of New Testament and
Reformed sexual practice. This is true of the sections on unity and
identity (pp. 2-8), Christology (pp. 13-14), biblical authority and
interpretation (pp. 14-15), of course sexuality and ordination (pp.
15-18), the resources for peace, unity, and purity (pp. 18-28), and
certainly of the recommendations that flow from the preceding discussion
(pp. 28-38) as well as the final word (pp. 38-39).
So desperate was the Task Force to
reach this false conclusion that even ‘ecclesiasts’ serving on the Task
Force were apparently willing to sacrifice on the altar the real authority
of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and so the
very connectional structures that bind this denomination together. For
all its attempts at obscuring the fact, the fact of the matter remains
that the Task Force promotes a variant of a local option model. While
I predicted that the majority on the Task Force would find some way of
pushing for functional local option on homosexual practice without
actually calling it local option explicitly, seeing the prediction come to
pass is anything but satisfying (for the prediction see the write-up on my
talk to the New Wineskins Convocation, “Seminary professor predicts PCUSA
task force will follow Lutheran task force example on ordaining active
homosexuals,” The Layman [Aug.
2005], p.9 or go
here).
Recommendation 5 encourages
every ordaining and installing body to see its role as determining
for itself whether any expressed standard or requirement in the
Constitution is essential, including of course the sexuality
standard for officers in G-6.0106b. If the GA approves this
recommendation, then the image of a worm in an apple, which I used to
describe the experience of merely reading the Report, would not adequately
describe the effect that GA approval would have on the polity and morality
of the PCUSA. For ultimately the adoption of Recommendation 5 would call
into question any claim that this transient denominational structure might
have to being an adequate institutional representation of the church of
the Lord Jesus Christ to the world. No national institutional structure
can officially give license to local ordaining and installing bodies to
demote specific, highlighted requirements in its constitution to the
status of a “nonessential requirements” (an oxymoron) without eventually
losing the trust and respect of its members and sowing the seeds of its
own destruction. Nor can such a structure long give official
countenance to practices among its own officers that would have appalled
Jesus and the entire apostolic witness of Scripture and expect to be
considered a viable vehicle for Christ’s work in the world. The damage
caused to the PCUSA would be the undoing of the very unity that the Task
Force was charged with promoting.
Since there is no specific
standard or requirement in the Constitution that is explicitly
tagged with the adjective “essential” (as any concordance search reveals),
every explicitly mandated constitutional provision, including in the Form
of Government of The Book of Order, would be fair game for not
being upheld as mandatory. This would apply no matter how obvious it was
from wording or context that the Constitution itself held the
standard or requirement to be essential. For if the ordination standard
and requirement for sexual behavior in G-6.0106b could be treated by any
ordaining and installing body as not required, as the Final Report itself
suggests, then no standard or requirement is safe from being ignored. As
we shall see below (section VI), the wording and context of G-6.0106b make
abundantly clear that The Book of Order presents this standard as
essential.
Not even the recommendation’s
reminder that the decisions of ordaining/installing bodies are “subject to
review by higher governing bodies” would prevent widespread departures
from explicit constitutional provisions (see section IV below).
It would be foolish to think that
the Task Force’s recommendations, if adopted, would bring us to a terminus
or finishing point on the polity question of homosexual practice. This is
merely a temporary way station. The recommendations of the Task Force, if
adopted, will pave the way for an ultimate legitimizing of homosexual
practice throughout the denomination. If renewal-type members of the Task
Force think that they have arrived at a solution that will insure their
own freedom of conscience on this question for a decade or more to come,
they are sadly mistaken (see section V below).
The Task Force proposes to effect
this radical change without even taking the matter to the presbyteries for
a vote. How can they do that, one might ask? They do it by claiming,
erroneously, that they are only giving “authoritative interpretation” to
an existing rule in The Book of Order (G-6.0108) rather than
advocating any change in the Constitution (see section VI below).
Majority approval of the General Assembly would suffice to effect this
sweeping change. The Task Force even denies that it is proposing a variant
on the local option model, mistakenly so (see section III below). For
these two reasons the proposed ‘clarification’ deserves to be called a
“local option Trojan horse.”
The Task Force’s recommendation, if
adopted, will have the effect of functionally thwarting, by mere General
Assembly approval, three prior churchwide expressions of the will of the
presbyteries of the PCUSA on sexuality standards. Two of these,
incidentally, were rejections, by increasing supermajorities of
presbyteries, of overtures to gut or delete G-6.0106b that came out of the
General Assembly. Yet now by a mere General Assembly vote a
standard that was constitutionally mandated for all ordaining and
installing bodies could become reduced to a standard that is merely
recommended, commended as suitable, or permitted. This is
representative government at work for us? All persons who respect the
integrity of constitutional procedures should be outraged. The Task Force
surely knows that if it ever put its recommendation to a vote among the
presbyteries it would stand little or no chance of passage.
Here in Part 1 I shall focus on the
most alarming failing of the Report: Recommendation 5. Alongside it I
shall give a brief assessment of its companion recommendation,
Recommendation 6. I propose two alternative recommendations to these two
recommendations. Part 1 is subdivided as follows:
I. An ELCA Déjà Vu:
Effecting Radical Change While Claiming None
II.
Beyond Interpretation of The Book of Order to Its Functional
Nullification
III. A Task Force
in Denial about Local Option
IV. Why “Subject to
Review” Is an Inadequate Safeguard
V. How This
Will Devolve Into Coercive Acceptance of Homosexually Active Officers
VI. An
Abuse of the Freedom of Conscience Section in G-6.0108
VII.
Outdoing one another in honoring one another’s decisions?
In Part 2 I shall address the problems
with most of the other recommendations and with the other sections of the
Final Report.
I. An ELCA Déjà Vu: Effecting
Radical Change While Claiming None
The wording of Recommendation 5 at
first glance looks harmless enough (see the appendix at the end of this
article for the text of the recommendation). Moreover, the Task Force
rationale for the recommendation assures us that Recommendation 5 merely
“clarifies potentially ambiguous words or phrases” in G-6.0108 (p. 32).
“No elements of the proposed authoritative interpretation are new” (p.
33). “In a word, the proposed authoritative interpretation introduces no
innovations” (p. 34). Somewhat confusedly, though, readers are also told,
“the authoritative interpretation might, however, introduce at least two
changes in current practices of ordination” (p. 33).
Closer inspection shows that
Recommendation 5 is a masterful example of obscuring from readers the
reality of radical change. In this it reminds me of the dissembling of the
Task Force and Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America (ELCA). In January 2005 the ELCA Task Force recommended that the
following policy in Vision and Expectations: Ordained Ministers in the
ELCA be retained but not enforced: “Ordained ministers who are
homosexual in their self-understanding are expected to abstain from
homosexual relationships.” In so doing, the ELCA Task Force ignored the
obvious point that a policy not enforced is, for all intents and purposes,
a policy no longer in force. While being retained in name, functionally
the policy would be defunct in synods that chose not to enforce it. The
ELCA Church Council revised that very slightly, claiming that the ELCA
would continue to “affirm and uphold the standards for rostered leaders as
set forth in Vision and Expectations” while allowing “exceptions”
for officers in committed homosexual relationships, determined on a
synod-by-synod basis. Since few if any advocates for homosexual practice
in the ELCA advocate for promiscuity, an “exception” for committed
homosexual unions would, in effect, an exception that overturns the entire
rule about ordained ministers abstaining from homosexual practice. For a
critique of the recommendations of both the ELCA Task Force and the ELCA
Church Council, see my “A
Faithful Journey Through the Bible and Homosexuality?” at
http://www.robgagnon.net/ArticlesOnline.htm). Fortunately a narrow
majority of delegates at the 2005 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Orlando
defeated the Council’s recommendation (503-490), recognizing it to be the
stealth attempt at radical change in policy that it was. We may pray and
hope for a similar fate for Recommendation 5 of the PCUSA’s Task Force.
Now it should be noted that in the
ELCA Churchwide Assembly vote, while the majority opposing the
recommendation was only slight, a two-thirds vote in favor of the change
was required for passage since a change of ELCA by-laws was involved. ELCA
Churchwide Assembly votes are final, requiring no subsequent approval by
synods. The PCUSA has a different, and I think more effective, safeguard.
Although a motion to change the PCUSA constitution needs only a simple
majority for passage at a PCUSA General Assembly, this proposal must then
be ratified by a majority of the presbyteries. However, as noted above,
the PCUSA Task Force is trying to effect radical change by doing an
end-run around this vital constitutional safeguard.
II. Beyond Interpretation of
The Book of Order to Its
Functional Nullification
What has the Task Force proposed?
Slightly different from the ELCA recommendations but along a similar
trajectory, the PCUSA Task Force with its Recommendation 5 proposes that
each ordaining and installing body has the right to decide for itself
“whether any departure” from the scriptural and constitutional
standards for ordination and installation “constitutes a failure to adhere
to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity” (point 3b; p. 31). As the
Report itself notes (p. 35), the specific ruling that this is most apt to
affect in the short-term is G-6.0106b. G-6.0106b was added to the
Constitution in 1997 to specify what had been understood for
centuries; namely, that among the historic confessional/behavioral
standards of the church that the PCUSA should absolutely insist upon for
ordination was “the requirement to live either in fidelity within the
covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in
singleness.”
b.
Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life of
obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional
standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to
live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man
and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to
repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call
sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or
ministers of Word and Sacrament. (boldface added)
This amendment was added
precisely in order to take away from all ordaining bodies the right to
decide for itself whether this standard for ordination was essential.
Yet, says Recommendation 5, every
ordaining and installing body can ignore this obvious intent. Every such
body may decide for itself not merely what G-6.0106b means but
whether it is essential, or more particularly whether the standard
implicitly deemed essential therein is in fact essential. This goes
beyond interpretation and application of The Book of Order to
legislating by functional nullification against the clear intent of
The Book of Order. Any local ordaining or installing body can
regard as nonessential for ordination, and thus not in force, what The
Book of Order itself has very specifically, very explicitly, and very
recently singled out from among all the confessional standards of the
church to be absolutely binding on all ordaining bodies. Recommendation 5
will change the primary way that ordaining and installing bodies view
themselves, from instruments for upholding the requirements of The Book
of Order to active determiners of which “requirements” are essential
to uphold.
Let no one think that the Task
Force did not understand the implications of its recommendation for
G-6.0106b. For the recommendation was clearly formulated with G-6.0106b in
view. The one specific example that it gives of how Recommendation 5 might
be used involves G-6.0106b:
If an ordaining or
installing body determines that an officer-elect has departed from
G-6.0106b, a manner-of-life standard, the ordaining/installing body
must then determine whether this departure violates essentials of
faith or polity. . . . If the departure is judged not to violate the
essentials of Reformed faith and polity, after the
ordaining/installing body has weighed the departure in the full
context of a candidate’s statement of faith and manner of life, then
there is no barrier to ordination. (p. 35)
Moreover, the Task Force clearly
contends that this option will allow all ordaining bodies “to gain the
broadest visions of each officer-elect’s faith, manner of life, and
promise” (p. 34). This is code for discounting what The Book of Order
treats as an essential requirement if ‘in other respects’ the ordaining
body judges the candidate acceptable for ordination. The ordaining body
can choose not to consider serial unrepentant homosexual practice on the
part of the candidate to be a disqualifying factor if it feels that other
parts of the candidate’s life offset this requirement. Thus the ordaining
body will have more “flexibility” to discount what The Book of Order
strongly intimates is essential for ordination and so be free from “strict
compliance required on all points of conduct and polity.” And anyway, we
are told, “because Presbyterian standards for office are ideals . . . ,
all candidates for office will depart from them in some ways, in both
belief and practice” (p. 34). “Standards are aspirational in character. No
one lives up to them perfectly” (p. 32). (For a critique of these
arguments see section VIII below.)
So, by this reasoning, if an
ordaining or installing body wants to consider self-affirming homosexual
activity as a violation only of ‘nonessential’ standards—or, for that
matter, any other form of proscribed sexual activity, from multiple
short-term sexual relationships to committed multiple-partner unions, from
adult committed incestuous unions to adult-adolescent committed unions—it
may choose of its own accord not to consider the sexual behavior in
question as a necessary disqualifying factor. Members of the Task Force
may protest that they intend no such thing. Yet there is nothing either in
the wording of Recommendation 5 or in the Rationale given for it that
excludes this possibility. In fact, there isn’t any specific
doctrine or practice that couldn’t be functionally nullified. Why couldn’t
an ordaining body treat as nonessential any of the Constitutional
Questions in G-14.0405b, including the first about trusting Christ as
one’s Savior and acknowledging him as Lord of all? The word “essential” is
nowhere used of a specific standard in The Book of Order. The end
result is that the Constitution becomes virtually meaningless to
the life and polity of the PCUSA, something very close to what the Book of
Judges declared when it characterized the depravity of Israel as “a man
does what is right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Only here we should
substitute “every individual ordaining body” for “a man.”
III. A Task Force in Denial about
Local Option
It is interesting that it takes the
Task Force seven pages to lay out Recommendation 5 and its
Rationale—exactly twice as long as the space allotted to the six other
recommendations and rationales combined. The very length is suggestive
that a significant change to Constitution is being introduced, not
merely an interpretation.
At least one prominent Task Force
member, Prof. Stacy Johnson of Princeton Seminary, has been quoted as
denying that the Task Force is recommending a kind of local option
proposal, saying that “No matter what a particular governing body does, I
think first they have to keep the standards in place. . . . Anyone who
wants to claim this is local option has a hard point to prove” (go
here). The Final Report itself declares that this new “authoritative
interpretation” does “not permit the kind of ‘local option’ arrangements
that some have proposed, in which each ordaining and installing body sets
its own standards. Such a procedure would be new, and it would be
un-Presbyterian” (p. 33). The key words that must be parsed here are
“kind,” “some,” and “set.”
Granted, the Task Force is not
recommending the same kind of local option arrangement that
some have proposed. But it is nevertheless a kind of local
option arrangement that others, by the Report’s own tacit
admission, have proposed (so p. 32: “Some ordaining/installing bodies have
maintained that the Constitution gives them the right to overlook
or dispense with certain churchwide standards”). It is a variant form of a
local option model. An ordaining or installing body may not be able to “set
its own standards” in terms of introducing new standards. But it
will be granted the express power to functionally nullify or ignore
any ordination requirements that they wish, even those that are expressly
and recently singled out by The Book of Order among the confessions
of the church as standards not to be dispensed with. The distinction
between allowing ordaining/installing bodies to discard the standard in
G-6.0106b and allowing them to demote the mandatory standard therein to a
nonessential standard is a distinction without much of a functional
difference.
The end result of this proposed
policy would be radically different notions of what constitutes
essential ordination standards existing throughout the country. If one
ordaining or installing body can treat an explicitly insisted upon
requirement in The Book of Order as nonessential while another
ordaining or installing body can treat the same requirement as essential,
then for all intents and purposes local option on that “requirement”
reigns. The “local” part is clear enough and the “option” is the option to
treat as nonessential what The Book of Order itself patently treats
as essential. (For the clarity with which G-6.0106b presents its sexuality
standard as essential for ordination/installation, see VI. below.) If
homosexually active officers have their ordination recognized in some
churches, presbyteries, or synods but not in others, isn’t this a form of
local option? Yes, the confessional “standard” remains formally in
place. But that’s all it is: a mere formality for those who opposed
G-6.0106b all along.
The Task Force wants us to believe
that this new national circumstance, where there is a dividing line
between ordaining and installing bodies that want to ordain unrepentant
participants in homosexual practice and those that don’t, will underscore
our connectionalism and help bring us all together. Clearly it will have
the exact opposite effect. The only thing that the Task Force will
accomplish by their “authoritative interpretation” will be to thwart the
thrice-expressed will of the presbyteries on G-6.0106b and thereby give
proponents of homosexual practice the upper hand in an ongoing struggle
for defining sexuality standards in the PCUSA. And it won’t end there.
IV. Why “Subject to Review” Is an
Inadequate Safeguard
To be sure, the Task Force Report
assures us, these ordination decisions are “subject to review by higher
governing bodies” (point 4 of Recommendation 5, reiterated on pp. 32-33,
36). Yet one might fairly ask: How much of a safeguard is this against
significant and arbitrary deviations from the Constitution?
Instead of operating with the
assumption that explicit provisions of The Book of Order formulated
with a “shall” or referred to as “requirements” are mandatory and
essential, governing bodies may assume that such indicators mean nothing.
Rather, they have the right to decide for themselves, explicit
constitutional provision by explicit constitutional provision, which if
any are essential. If there is to be any uniformity in the application of
The Book of Order, we will have to wait for the “higher governing
bodies,” and ultimately the General Assembly or the GA Permanent Judicial
Commission, to go through The Book of Order, provision by
provision, and declare to the church that this explicit mandatory
provision is essential and that one is nonessential. Until they do this it
is every man and woman—I mean, governing body—for itself.
Even decisions by the GA or GAPJC
would create a ‘canon within canon’ as far as The Book of Order is
concerned. A national majority vote by the presbyteries to amend The
Book of Order would be virtually meaningless since by definition it
would be up to the GA or GAPJC on a national level, not the amenders, to
decide whether the amendment is truly mandatory and essential or merely
has the appearance of being so. Normally the way courts are supposed to
work, though, is to evaluate whether any given regulation is
constitutional. They are not supposed to decide whether a constitutional
provision is mandatory or not. When they get that power then the courts
become the constitution, not just the guardians of the constitution.
Likewise, a legislative body cannot alter something in the constitution
apart from a special amendment process.
Giving the power to determine
whether an explicit constitutional requirement is required—I realize the
oxymoron here but the Task Force proposal does not—only to the GA and
GAPJC on a national level, and taking it away from the collective will of
the presbyteries through the amendment process, means subjecting the rules
and standards of the church much more easily to shifting political and
ideological winds. An example of this is already at hand in the Task
Force’s proposal. For although the GAPJC has already ruled in the 2000
Londonderry case (see section VI below) that the sexuality standard in
G-6.0106b is a mandatory provision, the Task Force’s rationale presupposes
that whether it is or isn’t is still up for grabs (p. 35; see section II).
Perhaps the Task Force thinks that its Rationale for Recommendation 5
overrules this GAPJC verdict? Or does it expect that since the GAPJC
operated with the sane assumption that Recommendation 5 no longer
accepts—namely, that express provisions of the Constitution must be
complied with—this GAPJC verdict (like the women’s ordination verdict in
1974?) is voided by the new “authoritative interpretation”? Or is the Task
Force implicitly projecting onto the future landscape an additional
“authoritative interpretation” that, it is expected, will rescind the 2000
decision? However the Task Force conceives it, the end result underscores
the serious erosion of constitutional protections for maintaining
institutional stability.
Some of the same tendencies that
are reflected in left-of-center churches and presbyteries are reflected in
left-of-center presbyteries and synods. So presbyteries and synods often
cannot be counted on to correct abuses. General Assemblies vary in
theological mood from year-to-year but nearly always drift to the left of
the theological center prevailing in the pews and presbyteries, often
significantly so. The leftward tilt of GAs can be seen in the repeated
selection of GA moderators whose views on sexuality do not reflect those
of over 60% of Presbyterians (according to the Presbyterian Panel Survey).
But it is most vividly illustrated in the disastrous GA attempts (1997 and
2001) to translate GA decisions for gutting or deleting G-6.0106b into a
constitutional amendment. On sexuality issues, at least, the GA no longer
functions as a truly representative body of the PCUSA.
Background Note:
In 1996 the General Assembly
approved G-6.0106b, known at the time as “Amendment B,” and the
presbyteries went on to ratify it in 1997 by a vote of 97-74-1 (56.4% for
G-6.0106b, 43% against). In 1997 the GA reversed itself, voting to change
the language of G-6.0106b so that it would not limit sexual activity to a
man-woman marriage (i.e., from “live either in
fidelity within the covenant of marriage
between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness” to “demonstrate
fidelity and integrity in marriage or singleness, and in all relationships
of life”). Yet presbyteries
rejected the attempt to gut G-6.0106b by a significantly greater margin
than they had approved G-6.0106b only one year earlier: 114-59 (65.9%
against deletion of G-6.0106b, 34% for). In 2001 the GA voted for an
amendment to delete G-6.0106b by a landslide vote of 317-208 (60.4% for,
39.6% against). Once again the presbyteries defeated the attempt to
nullify G-6.0106b. This time they more than reversed the GA percentages
with a whopping 125-46-1 vote against the proposed amendment (72.7%
against, 26.7% for). So as the GA increasingly opposed G-6.0106b,
presbyteries increasingly favored it, to a point where they became near
mirror opposites.
One may also detect a
left-of-center drift in Permanent Judicial Commissions of many
presbyteries and synods and in the General Assembly Permanent Judicial
Commission. The latter rendered a decision in 2000 (Benton
v. Presbytery of Hudson River Presbytery, Remedial Case 212-11)
that allowed the PCUSA ministers to conduct homoerotic union ceremonies,
even on church property, so long as the word “marriage” is not explicitly
used. The GAPJC rendered this decision even though G-6.0106b explicitly
declares that such unions are constituted in sin. Before that, in 1995,
there was a concurring opinion by seven of the fifteen members of the
GAPJC to void the 1978 Definitive Guidance that spurred the passage of
“Amendment B.” Consequently, there is little basis for believing that
“higher governing bodies” will impede substantially serious leftward
departures from Scripture and the Constitution.
Moreover, should the 217th
General Assembly approve Recommendation 5, it doubtlessly would do so in
agreement with the Rationale given on p. 35 of the Final Report (cited
above), which explicitly states that an ordaining or installing body could
use the “authoritative interpretation” to treat the ordination requirement
in G-6.0106b as a nonessential matter of faith and polity. It was not
because the Task Force wanted the church to retain a churchwide
ordination policy against unrepentant homosexual practice that it put
Recommendation 5 in the Final Report. If the Task Force had wanted to do
that, it would have recommended instead an “authoritative interpretation”
of the “freedom of conscience” clause in G-6.0108 that was not at odds
with the ordination standard for sexual behavior in G-6.0106b. For
G-6.0106b was clearly put in The Book of Order to prevent local
option on this issue.
If the “authoritative
interpretation” proposed by the Task Force can subvert a constitutional
amendment as clear as the sexuality standard in G-6.0106b, then nothing
passed nationally by the presbyteries and put into the Constitution
can have any meaning, no matter how clearly worded as an essential
requirement. Power will shift radically from the collective, grassroots
will of the presbyteries to the more elitist and less representative
General Assembly and GAPJC and to the fragmentary will of individual
churches, presbyteries, and synods on the regional level. Confidence in
the integrity of the Constitution will wane, creating a void that
will be filled by cynicism and hypocrisy. Many will perceive that the
plain meaning of the Constitution counts for nothing in the face of
clearly contrived, deconstructionist “interpretations.” If any
ordaining/installing body or even the GA or GAPJC can declare any or every
provision or amendment to the Constitution nonessential, then the
system of checks and balances devised by Presbyterians will have
collapsed. Imagine the U.S. Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court or,
worse, any local or state legislature or court having the right to
determine whether any explicit provision of the U.S. Constitution is
essential. Such is the chaos that would ensue in the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.).
It might be fairly asked: Why must
any ordaining or installing body consider a GA or GAPJC ruling
binding when it doesn’t have to consider any explicit provision of the
Constitution binding? Why should any consider this proposed
“authoritative interpretation” compelling, if it passes the GA, when a
more authoritative ruling—an amendment passed by a majority of the
presbyteries—does not have to be treated as compelling?
It seems likely that eventually the
General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission will step in and declare
that it is unconstitutional to have two different sets of “essential”
ordination standards around the country with a unique class of ministers
and other officers whose ordination is recognized in some parts of the
PCUSA but not in others. The GAPJC can simply declare that, since so many
governing bodies of the PCUSA have found the sexual standard enunciated in
G-6.0106b to be nonessential, G-6.0106b has indeed become nonessential to
the life of the church. A standard for ordination that isn’t observed as
essential by up to a third of the PCUSA, whose disobedience is sanctioned
by a GA “authoritative interpretation,” is by definition a nonessential
standard of the church. An alternative scenario is that another General
Assembly meeting can just pass an additional “authoritative
interpretation” to resolve the confusion nationwide. It doesn’t take a
rocket scientist to figure out on which side of the dispute the GA would
fall.
When the national will to resist
endorsement of homosexual practice has been sapped by this local option
model, those who support the proposed “authoritative interpretation”
precisely because they want to see allowances made for committed
homosexual unions are going to ‘rediscover’ that the PCUSA is a
connectional church after all. They are content for the moment to have a
local option arrangement of sorts because the only connectionalism on
homosexual behavior currently available is one that doesn’t support their
position. Moreover, nearly all of them have been supportive of the current
national uniform standard against ordaining and installing anyone who does
not support women’s ordination. But since the principle of connectionalism
asserted for women’s ordination does not support their ideological
interests as regards homosexual behavior they allow ideological objectives
to trump principle and throw connectionalism to the wind. In the future
they will defend this unseemly flip-flop by saying that they really were
for connectionalism all along but had to support a local option
arrangement temporarily in order to arrive at a connectionalism that
matched their ideological aims.
V. How This Will Devolve Into Coercive
Acceptance of Homosexually Active Officers
The Final Report throws a bone to
“conservatives”—I put the label in quotation marks because those who
support the clear witness of Scripture and Jesus Christ for an other-sex
prerequisite and against homosexual behavior and who do so out of love for
God, the church, and homosexual persons are in every sense the centrists
and moderates in this discussion. They stand in the center of Scripture,
the center of the lordship of Christ, and the center of the worldwide
church. But what’s the “bone”?
If [G-6.0106b] were to be removed, or
others were to be added, the authoritative interpretation, with its
emphasis on the right of ordaining/installing bodies to apply the
standards in a given case, would continue to ensure that an ordaining
body could not be forced to ordain a person whose faith or manner of
life it deems to constitute a departure from essentials of Reformed
faith and practice established in The Book of Confessions and the
Form of Government in the Book of Order. (p. 37)
In other words, look at the bright side,
you conservatives and moderates. With our proposed “authoritative
interpretation” of G-6.0108 in place, you will be able to deem
nonessential any future amendment to the Constitution that would
require the ordination of homosexually active persons.
Think about what this assurance
says about the Task Force’s view of the Constitution. It seems to assume that
there is no conceivable wording for an amendment to The Book of Order
that could impose a binding obligation on all ordaining and installing
bodies. Apparently not even if proponents of homosexual unions succeeded
in passing an amendment that prohibited ‘discrimination’ against
homosexually active candidates and explicitly designated such a
prohibition “one of the essentials of Reformed faith and polity” could
The Book of Order mandate compliance on the part of all ordaining and
installing bodies. Ordaining and installing bodies would still have the
“right” to declare nonessential a standard that The Book of Order
itself explicitly and specifically designated as “essential.” Perhaps the
members of the Task Force were not thinking clearly when they made this
argument. But if they knew what they were doing, then it confirms that
they believe that their “authoritative interpretation” gives to ordaining
and installing bodies carte blanche to ignore any standard
in The Book of Order under virtually any circumstance. This, in
turn, confirms how unreasonable their interpretation of G-6.0108 really
is.
As it is, the Task Force’s argument
that their proposed “authoritative interpretation” would preclude any
ordaining/installing body from ever being forced to ordain persons
actively engaged in unrepentant homosexual practice is unrealistic. There
are a number of different routes by which precisely such a course of
coercive action could take place.
-
The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission could
subsequently disagree with the interpretation that the Task Force gives
to its own Recommendation 5 and assert that a standard in the
Constitution explicitly tagged with the label “essential” would
override any scruples of an ordaining or installing body. Then
proponents of homosexual unions, knowing how to play the game, could
formulate an amendment to the Constitution that used the magic
word “essential” and make the standard binding on all ordaining and
installing bodies. Alternatively, without a GA court ruling, proponents
of homosexual unions might get their amendment passed and then correct
or overturn the “authoritative interpretation” at the next General
Assembly meeting.
-
What if a governing or judicial body in a presbytery or
synod made the determination that a departure from G-6.0106b did not
constitute a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and
polity? Could it not, then, compel all ordaining and installing bodies
within its jurisdiction to treat the requirement in G-6.0106b as
nonessential? Couldn’t the General Assembly issue another authoritative
interpretation that declared as much, or for that matter the GA court?
And let’s not forget that any parishioners that happen to be in a church
where the scriptural position on homosexual practice is deemed
nonessential may find themselves pastored, against their wishes, by a
homosexually active person. Moreover, “ordaining bodies” are not
monolithic entities. A minority of persons in an ordaining/installing
body would be forced to ordain homosexually active persons if the
majority votes for it.
-
The immediate effect of the passage of this
“authoritative interpretation” will be to erode the church’s resistance
to homosexual practice. It will probably also lead to a number of
churches pulling out of the PCUSA, possibly to a major split, quickly
making opposition to homosexual practice a minority view. Large numbers
of violations of the obvious intent and wording of G-6.0106b, sanctioned
by the “authoritative interpretation” of G-6.0108, will desensitize the
PCUSA to homosexual unions and acclimate it to the idea of ordaining
homosexually active persons. Those supportive of homosexual practice
will ratchet up the rhetoric comparing opposition to homosexual practice
with racism and sexism. They will become more empowered to marginalize
and ultimately silence any remaining courageous voices upholding
Scripture’s witness on homosexual practice in churches, presbyteries,
synods, and the General Assembly. In such a climate the idea that
ordaining and installing bodies could not be coerced to accept
homosexually active officers seems incredible.
All this underscores that the only
way to keep out coercive acceptance of homosexual practice is by doing the
near opposite of what the Task Force recommends; namely, by recognizing
that the sexuality standard put forward in G-6.0106b is binding on all
ordaining and installing bodies.
In section VII below I discuss how
Recommendation 5, point 5, strongly infers that all Presbyterians and all
governing bodies will be expected to recognize the ordination and
installation of homosexually active persons by other governing bodies (see
also section IV above).
VI. An Abuse of the Freedom of
Conscience Section in G-6.0108
The entire case for treating
Recommendation 5 as an “authoritative interpretation” that does not need
to be approved by a majority of presbyteries rests on the Task Force’s
interpretation of G-6.0108. The text reads as follows:
a. It is necessary to the
integrity and health of the church that the persons who serve in it as
officers shall adhere to the essentials of the Reformed faith and polity
as expressed in The Book of Confessions and the Form of
Government [i.e., the first major division of The Book of Order]. So far
as may be possible without serious departure from these standards,
without infringing on the rights and views of others, and without
obstructing the constitutional governance of the church, freedom of
conscience with respect to the interpretation of Scripture is to be
maintained.
b. It is to be recognized,
however, that in becoming a candidate or officer of the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) one chooses to exercise freedom of conscience within
certain bounds. His or her conscience is captive to the Word of God as
interpreted in the standards of the church so long as he or she
continues to seek or hold office in that body. The decision as to
whether a person has departed from essentials of Reformed faith and
polity is made initially by the individual concerned but ultimately
becomes the responsibility of the governing body in which he or she
serves.
This section of The Book of Order,
which is labeled in the left margins “Freedom of Conscience” (a) and
“Within Certain Bounds” (b) cannot bear the weight of the so-called
“authoritative interpretation” put forward by the Task Force.
The meaning of G-6.0108a.
Paragraph (a) has in view “freedom of conscience with respect to the
interpretation of Scripture” for officers of the church, not the freedom
of a governing body to disregard a spelled-out and specific requirement
for ordination in The Book of Order. This sort of freedom of
conscience is already being offered officers of the church who believe
(erroneously) that committed homosexual unions are not strongly prohibited
by Scripture. The PCUSA does not deny anyone ordination who has an
interpretation of homosexual practice that is at odds with
Scripture, the historic confessions of the church, and the clear
pronouncement in G-6.0106b that sexual activity outside of a man-woman
marriage is sin. (In fact, a dirty little secret of most PCUSA seminaries
is that, with the exception of an occasional token, the best way for most
candidates to a faculty position to shoot themselves in the foot is to
come out strongly in favor of the current sexuality standards in
the Constitution during interviews.) However, ordaining and
installing bodies do not have the freedom to “obstruct the constitutional
governance of the church” by ignoring an explicit and specific ordination
requirement in The Book of Order, let alone one placed in The
Book of Order a scant two paragraphs before the “freedom of
conscience” paragraph. Nor do officers have the freedom to engage in
homosexual behavior and thereby commit an obvious “serious
departure from these standards.”
Why G-6.0106b is one
of the “essentials” of G-6.0108b. The intent of paragraph
(b) of G-6.0108, as the caption in the left-hand margin states, is not to
expand on the “freedom of conscience” outlined in paragraph (a) but rather
to circumscribe that freedom “within certain bounds”—in other words, to
place limitations on that freedom. “His or her conscience is captive to
the Word of God as interpreted in the standards of the church so
long as he or she continues to seek or hold office” (emphasis added). He
or she must not “depart from essentials of the Reformed faith and polity.”
It is unreasonable to suggest
that one of the standards of the church to which a candidate’s or
officer’s conscience might not be captive, one of the essentials from
which he or she may depart, would be the very standard for sexual
conduct singled out among all “the historic confessional standards
of the church” just two paragraphs earlier as a mandatory standard for all
candidates and officers. What is the point of singling out from among
all “the historic confessional standards of the church” the standard of
“fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman . . .
or chastity in singleness,” if not to say: This standard in particular
cannot be abridged; it is essential? There is no point otherwise in
singling it out. The best way for The Book of Order to communicate
that an other-sex prerequisite for the sexual activity of its officers
might not be an essential standard would be simply to omit all mention of
it. Conversely, the best way for The Book of Order to communicate
its essential status would be to single it out from among all other
standards for explicit mention.
The point of the singling
out—making a confessional standard “express” or “explicit”—is easily
illustrated by looking at the first and third ordination vows (G-14.0207,
G-14.0405, G-14.0801). The first ordination vow includes expressing trust
in Jesus Christ as one’s Savior and acknowledging him as Lord of all. The
third ordination vow involves receiving and adopting “the essential tenets
of the Reformed faith expressed in the confessions of our church as
authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe
and do” and being “instructed and led by those confessions.” Now “the
essential tenets of the Reformed faith” are not explicitly named beyond
stating that they are “expressed in the confessions of our church.” But
surely the confession of Jesus as one’s Savior and as the Lord of all is
among those essentials. Otherwise there would be no point to the
specification in the first ordination vow. And yet the word “essential”
is never directly used in connection with the beliefs expressed in the
first ordination vow. Does that mean that there is a possibility that
some ordaining body could legitimately argue that the beliefs expressed in
the first vow are nonessential since not everything written in The Book
of Confessions is an essential standard of faith? Or that there is a
need for formulating an “authoritative interpretation” to clarify that it
is up to the ordaining and installing bodies to decide if The Book of
Order treats the confession of Jesus as Savior and Lord?
Not only does G-6.0106b single out
one “confessional standard” among all “the historic confessional standards
of the church,” but it also calls the limitation of sexual activity to
marriage between a man and a woman a “requirement” for officers,
not merely a “recommendation.” My Webster’s dictionary defines a
“requirement” as “something required,” “something essential to the
existence or occurrence of something else”; “require” as “to demand as
necessary and essential”; and “requisite” as “essential,
necessary.” What exactly, then, is a “nonessential requirement”? This is
like referring to a “nonessential essential.” It is an oxymoron. The
preface of The Book of Order concurs, for it carefully
distinguishes between
-
“practice that is mandated”
-
“practice that is strongly recommended”
-
“practice that is commended as suitable”
-
“practice that is permissible but not required”
A comparison of (1) and (4) indicates
that “practice that is mandated” is the same as “practice that is
required”; that is, “mandated” and “required” are synonyms (an obvious
point, to be sure).
Practice that is specifically and
explicitly mandated or required demands the highest level of compliance
and thus signals something that is essential. Contrary to what the Task
Force says, an ordaining or installing body has no right under the
Constitution to demote a standard that is specifically classified as a
“requirement,” a mandated practice, to the status of a standard that is
merely strongly recommended, commended as suitable, or (what the
“authoritative interpretation” appears to have in mind) just permitted.
As if to confirm the above point,
G-6.0106b uses the language “shall not be ordained
and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and
Sacrament” (emphasis added). The preface to The Book of Order
states explicitly that “shall” signifies “practice that is mandated.” By
implication, “shall not” signifies a mandatory prohibition. If the
intent of G-6.0106b had been to communicate merely that the non-ordination
of such unrepentant offenders was “strongly recommended,” the language
“should not” would have been used; or if merely “commended as suitable,”
the language “is not appropriate”; or if merely permitted but not
required, the language “might not” (compare “may” for an affirmation).
However, G-6.0106b does not say that such impenitent offenders “should
not” be ordained and/or installed. It does not say that “it is not
appropriate” to ordain and/or install such impenitent offenders. Much less
does it say that they “might not” be ordained and/or installed. It states
clearly that they “shall not” be ordained and/or installed. Compliance
here is mandatory, required, and so essential.
No one thought in 1997 when
Amendment B (G-6.0106b) was being voted on that all that was being
proposed was a standard that could be overridden or offset by other
factors in the candidate’s or officer’s favor. Neither proponents nor
opponents thought this. Virtually everyone who voted for or against the
amendment knew that the vote was for or against a binding, essential
sexual standard for all officers. I can say with some degree of confidence
that, among Task Force members, Prof. Stacy Johnson thought this. Prof.
Mark Achtemeier thought this. Rev. Jack Haberer thought this. Certainly
Rev. Mike Loudon thought this. And almost certainly all the other members
of the Task Force thought this. I don’t recall anyone making the argument:
“Oh, what’s the big deal since we are not adding an obviously essential
standard to Reformed faith and polity?” If the wording of G-6.0106b had
been unclear, there would have been no need for the 1997-98 attempt by
opponents of G-6.0106b to change the wording from “live either in fidelity
within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in
singleness” to “demonstrate fidelity and integrity in marriage or
singleness, and in all relationships of life.” All of this is testimony to
the plain meaning of the G-6.0106b’s language. It is only now, after
several years of trying to figure out how to do an end run around amending
G-6.0106b, that the majority of the Task Force have convinced themselves
and the rest of the Task Force that it is possible that some
ordaining body could legitimately argue that The Book of Order
doesn’t clearly present the two-sex model for sexual conduct in G-6.0106b
as a binding standard for all officers of the church. That members of the
Task Force do think that it is possible to view G-6.0106b legitimately as
nonessential is, again, apparent both from the very existence of
Recommendation 5, which is designed to address the issue of homosexual
practice and otherwise would be superfluous, and from the specific
reference to such a possibility in the Rationale on p. 35.
These two facts—(1) the obvious
implications of The Book of Order’s singling out from among
all the other “historic confessional standards” a sexual standard for
special mention as a “requirement” that “shall not” be
abridged and (2) the fact that even persons in the Task Force didn’t think
at the time of Amendment B’s passing that there was something nonessential
about the amendment—gives the appearance of disingenuousness in the
Final Report’s Rationale for Recommendation 5.
The contextual meaning of the
crucial last sentence of G-6.0108b. Returning now to the
wording of G-6.0108b, let’s look at the third and last
sentence on which the Task Force hangs virtually the whole case for their
“authoritative interpretation”:
The decision as to whether a
person has departed from essentials of Reformed faith and polity is
made initially by the individual concerned but ultimately becomes the
responsibility of the governing body in which he or she serves.
(boldface added)
The context for this remark is not: None
of the standards and requirements of the Constitution are obviously
and plainly essential so it is up to the governing body to make the
determination at every point. Rather the context suggests: The individual
who deviates from the standards doesn’t get to decide if he or she “has
departed from essentials of Reformed faith and polity” but rather that
one’s “governing body” will decide. The emphasis is not on any
latitude that a governing body might allegedly have in treating a pointed
requirement of the Constitution as nonessential. Instead, the
emphasis is on a governing body applying the pointed requirements
of the Constitution to restrict the freedom of conscience of
the candidate or officer. The proposed “authoritative interpretation”
inverts this emphasis. As such, it is more a correction of
G-6.0108b than an interpretation, for which a constitutional amendment
would be required.
Previous decisions by the General
Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission would seem to confirm the point
made above. In 2000 the GAPJC rendered a decision in The
Session of Londonderry Presbyterian Church v.
Presbytery of Northern New England
that is of particular relevance to the Task Force’s “authoritative
interpretation” (see pp. 575-82 of the Minutes of the 213th
General Assembly [2001] or go to
http://www.pcusa.org/ga213/business/12ogapjc.htm). The Session of
Christ Church Presbyterian in Burlington, Vermont vowed that, since
G-6.0106b was allegedly at odds with other parts of the Book of Order
that affirm inclusivity, they would “continue welcoming persons living
singly or in committed relationships, regardless of sexual orientation,
into the life, membership and leadership of this congregation on an equal
basis, including eligibility for election and ordination as a ruling elder
or deacon.” The session of Mid-Coast Church, Topsham, Maine, adopted a
similar resolution. The Presbytery of Northern New England at first
mandated, but then rescinded, a directive that both sessions be in
compliance with The Book of Order. However, though the dominant
ethos of the GAPJC was hardly ‘conservative,’ the GAPJC ruled that
there are no constitutional grounds
for a governing body to fail to comply with an express provision of the
Constitution,
however inartfully stated. Assertions of inconsistency, confusion, or
ambiguity may justify the right to protest. They do not create a
right to disregard any part of the Constitution. Furthermore,
no court in our denomination has the authority to amend the
Constitution or to invalidate any part of it. This is exclusively a
legislative process (G-18.0300). (12.1069, boldface added)
Some may argue that this decision
is not relevant to the “authoritative interpretation” being proposed by
the Task Force inasmuch as the latter’s proposal does not (allegedly)
challenge any standard but merely allows the ordaining/installing body
the right to determine whether the standard is essential. Yet such an
argument would not grasp the point here. The GAPJC found that an intent
not to apply the “express provision” of G-6.0106b as a mandatory
rule was to “violate the Constitution” (12.1070). This leaves no
scope for what the “authoritative interpretation” proposes; namely, that a
governing body could decide to ordain/install an unrepentant, homosexually
active candidate or officer on the grounds that G-6. 0106b’s prohibition
was nonessential and thus not mandatory. According to the GAPJC ruling, it
is the intent to ordain/install a homosexually active person that
represents noncompliance “with an express provision of the Constitution.”
The self-rationalization used to get to that intent is irrelevant.
Governing bodies must “comply with the express corporate judgment
of the Church in an explicit constitutional provision”; failure to
do so “exceeds the constitutional bounds of freedom of conscience” (citing
G-6.0108a; 12.1065-66, emphasis added). The Presbytery of Northern New
England, in allowing these two sessions to declare that they would not let
homosexual activity be a necessary and sufficient barrier to
ordination/installation, had not “upheld the Constitution” or the
“connectional obligations” associated with G-6.0106b (12.1070).
Obviously, then, the GAPJC in 2000
believed that G-6.0108 could not be interpreted in such a way as to
permit an ordaining/installing body to do anything contrary to what is
prescribed or proscribed in an “express/explicit constitutional
provision.” And the GAPJC rightly recognized the obvious about G-6.0106b:
G-6.0106b expressly/explicitly proscribes the ordination and/or
installation of any person participating consensually and unrepentantly in
sexual relations outside the “covenant of marriage between a man and a
woman.” We might add: A confessional standard that The Book of
Order specifically requires, singles out, or highlights from among all
the historic confessional standards of the church is by definition
essential. Ordaining and installing bodies have absolutely no right,
authority, or responsibility to demote an essential standard in The
Book of Order to a nonessential, merely recommended standard. To do so is to promote local
option and destroy the connectional unity of the PCUSA. Many persons
on the Task Force and elsewhere in the PCUSA may not like the fact
that G-6.0106b puts forward an essential constitutional provision. But the
fact remains that it does and the only constitutional recourse for
complainants is to excise G-6.0106b from The Book of Order through
the amendment process—something that two prior attempts (1997 and 2000)
failed to accomplish by wide margins.
That the provision in G-6.0108b
cannot be read in such a way as to conflict with an “express/explicit
constitutional provision” elsewhere in The Book of Order is clear
also from the circumstances surrounding the origination of G-6.0108.
Michael Walker, Executive Director of Presbyterians for Renewal, rightly
calls our attention to this in his online essay “Lordship
of Jesus, Local License: Responding to the Task Force Report” (Aug.
26, 2005):
Perhaps ironically, the initial
intention of G-6.0108 [added in 1983] was to restrict ordination,
particularly to prevent the ordination of those who disagreed with the
ordination of women, which the church determined to be an essential of
reformed polity (see Maxwell/Kenyon decision of the GAPJC). (n. 3)
In the early 1970s Walter Kenyon
was ordained by the Pittsburgh Presbytery. Soon thereafter Rev. Jack
Martin Maxwell filed a complaint claiming that Kenyon’s ordination was
invalid because Kenyon did not subscribe to women’s ordination. Now Kenyon
was only expressing a dissenting opinion. Although he personally would not
ordain a woman to his church’s session, he declared that he would not
obstruct his session’s wishes to do otherwise but would get another
minister to do the ordination (see
http://www.layman.org/layman/news/2004-news/presbyterians-enforced-ordination.htm).
Yet the GAPJC of the old United Presbyterian Church (USA), the Northern
denomination, ruled in 1974-5: “Neither a synod nor the General
Assembly has any power to allow a presbytery to grant an exception to an
explicit constitutional provision” (Maxwell v. Presbytery of
Pittsburgh, p. 257 of 1975 Minutes of the General Assembly;
boldface added). As G-6.0106b is also clearly “an explicit constitutional
provision,” governing bodies have no right to circumvent the mandatory
prohibition against ordaining persons who are sexually active outside the
covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. The point of putting
G-6.0108b in The Book of Order was obviously not to enable
ordaining/installing bodies to avoid implementation of “an
explicit/express constitutional provision” (note the similar wording in
the GAPJC decisions of 1974 and 2000).
Contrary to what the proposed
“authoritative interpretation” promotes, it is not the job of the members
of an ordaining or installing body to decide whether they personally think
that a standard against homosexual practice should be one of the
essentials of Reformed faith and polity. Rather, it is their job to look
for indications in the Constitution itself of a given standard’s
essential or nonessential character. As it is, the wording of G-6.0106b
(the singling out of the sexuality standard, the word “requirement,” the
expression “shall not”) and its placement (a scant two and three
paragraphs before “essentials of Reformed faith and polity” is
mentioned)—not to mention the intention behind G-6.0106b’s genesis and the
near universal understanding of its import by both proponents and
opponents alike during the amendment process—give absolutely no hint that
this “requirement” for candidates and officers was intended as a
nonessential ordination standard or as a “should be” or “might be” rather
than a “shall be.” To the contrary: Every indication from The Book of
Order itself and from the facts surrounding its inclusion point in the
direction of an essential standard.
This is not a postmodernist game
where the text is only so many ink scratches until readers impute their
own meaning. The text itself often puts significant and even decisive
controls on the latitude of interpretation possible. Contrary to what the
Task Force’s rationale states, G-6.0108b does not say that “essentials”
are merely “those matters of faith and polity that the officer-elect’s
governing body discerns are indispensable for ordained service” (p. 32).
The third and final sentence of G-6.0108b doesn’t say that the
governing body decides what the essentials of Reformed faith and polity
are. It says that the governing body decides whether the candidate or
officer “has departed from essentials of Reformed faith and polity.” There
is a difference. “Essentials” are those matters of faith and polity
that the Constitution itself indicates are indispensable for
ordained service, which the governing body is bound and obligated to apply
when the candidate or officer is unwilling to recognize that his or her
professed beliefs and behaviors are in violation of such. The indicators
that The Book of Order treats the sexuality standard as essential are so
clear that any ‘determination’ otherwise would necessarily be a
prejudicial one borne of personal antipathy to an other-sex requirement
for sexual relations. It would not be a reasonable discernment of the
plain meaning of G-6.0106b or a correct application of G-6.0108b.
The faulty comparison with
the Adoptive Act of 1729. That is why the Task Force’s oft-cited
comparison with the Adopting Act of 1729 is misplaced (pp. 22, 33, 34).
The Task Force gives an adequate description of this Act:
The then highest judicatory of the
church, the synod, adopted the Westminster standards as its basis of
faith and required all ministers to subscribe to them. . . . The
question of freedom of conscience under Scripture emerged immediately,
however, because some ministers of the synod considered certain articles
in the standards to be at variance with, or at least not explicitly
enjoined by, Scripture. The synod resolved the conflict of conscience by
permitting these ministers and, later, candidates for ministry to
declare their disagreements (“scruples”) with particular articles of the
Westminster standards. It then delegated to the examining body the
responsibility for determining whether the candidate’s disagreement
concerned an essential article of the church’s “doctrine, worship or
government.” Although the Adopting Act was later modified, it
established a precedent. . . . (p. 22, citing Minutes of the
Presbyterian Church in America, 1706-1788, Guy S. Klett, ed.
[Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1976], 103-104)
However, the
Task Force’s comparison between
this Act and how G-6.0108 might affect a reading of G-6.0106b doesn’t
work. The reason why it doesn’t work is not just because those who today
want to deviate from the confessional standards of the church as regards
homosexual practice have, unlike the dissenters in 1729, absolutely no
clear basis in Scripture for doing so. Both pointed scriptural texts and
the larger scriptural witness from the creation texts of Genesis to the
final judgment texts of the Book of Revelation speak decisively against
any accommodation to homosexual practice. The historical context for these
texts confirms that Scripture’s opposition to homosexual practice was
limited neither to particularly exploitative forms nor by any assumption
that all persons who engage in homosexual practice are primarily
heterosexually oriented.
Compromising standards
because of personal prejudice. The Final Report assures readers:
“The interpretation proposed here makes clear that standards may not be
compromised merely because they are unpopular in a particular locale”
(p. 34; emphasis added). The inference is that standards may be
compromised for some better reason (the context for this sentence in
the Final Report confirms this inference). This is precisely what the Task
Force recommendation is guilty of doing: compromising the standards of the
faith by their interpretation of G-6.0108.
At any rate, readers should have
absolutely no confidence in their assurance (or exhortation) that
“standards may not be compromised merely because they are unpopular”
(emphasis added). Comments like this throughout the Report are indicative
of a lack of realism and/or candor. It is obvious that the norm will be to
compromise standards that are not appreciated. Does anyone in the Task
Force or anywhere else really and truly believe that the vast majority of
officers strongly opposed to the sexuality standard in G-6.0106b are going
to treat the sexuality standard as essential if the “authoritative
interpretation” is passed? For example, perhaps the Task Force can tell us
the name of even one Task Force member who, opposed to the passing and
retention of G-6.0106b in 1997, 1998, and 2002, is now prepared to say
that if Recommendation 5 passes s/he will advocate that the sexuality
standard in G-6.0106b be viewed as “essential.” Just one. Prof. William
Stacy Johnson? Prof. Frances Taylor Gench? Barbara Wheeler? Scott
Anderson? Victoria Curtiss? Jenny Stoner? John Wilkinson? Barbara Everitt
Bryant? Martha Sadongei? Sarah Sanderson-Doughty? Mary Ellen Lawson? Joan
Kelly Merritt? It doesn’t take a cynical person to recognize that
supporters of committed homosexual unions are, almost to a person, going
to “discern” that the sexuality standard in G-6.0106b is nonessential.
This will not be a coincidence. It will reflect the fact that prejudice
against the sexuality standard, not anything in the wording of G-6.0106b,
will determine what is to be “discerned.”
Undoubtedly the major motivation
for most people on the Task Force itself to get behind this “authoritative
interpretation” was their own personal antipathy toward G-6.0106b or at
least toward its absolute language. Although they may have wanted to see a
complete removal of G-6.0106b from The Book of Order they knew that
the presbyteries in 2006-7 would never support such a move. So they got
the best deal that they could. They could comfort themselves with the fact
that passage of the “authoritative interpretation” will lead ultimately
and irrevocably to the eventual removal of G-6.0106b. Is there anyone on
the Task Force who believes that passage of the “authoritative
interpretation” will not accelerate a process culminating in the removal
of G-6.0106b? Is there anyone who believes that ordaining large numbers of
persons who engage openly in ‘committed’ homosexual activity will buttress
the standard against homosexual practice in G-6.0106b? Apparently no one
on the Task Force believes such because the Task Force itself acknowledges
that some standards, notably G-6.0106b, will be compromised by their
“authoritative interpretation.” When that happens, the ultimate collapse
of G-6.0106b will not be far off.
I acknowledge too that a few on the
Task Force may have had other motivations. One motivation may have been
the terribly misguided hope that the “authoritative interpretation” is
somehow going to strengthen the unity of the church. It will clearly have
the opposite effect by creating two distinct ordination standards and
thwarting the will of the majority of the presbyteries who passed, and
twice voted to retain, G-6.0106b on the premise that it established a
binding standard. Another motivation may have been the mistaken view that
by agreeing to this compromise they stave off for the time being removal
of the sexuality standard altogether. In truth, however, a recommendation
by the Task Force to remove the standard would not have passed the
presbyteries in the foreseeable future. A third motive may have been the
false feeling that a good faith effort required them to compromise since
left-leaning members were meeting them ‘halfway.’ In reality, proponents
of committed homosexual unions gave up nothing that they already had and
nothing that they might reasonably hope to get passed.
All parties should
endeavor to outdo one another in honoring one another’s decisions,
according the presumption of wisdom to ordaining/installing bodies in
examining candidates and to the General Assembly, with presbyteries’
approval, in setting standards.
I do not see how it will be
possible for many to “honor”—if honor means “according the presumption of
wisdom”—any “decision” or determination by an ordaining or installing body
that neither Scripture nor The Book of Order regards a two-sex
prerequisite to sexual activity as essential. A decision that violates the
clearly expressed witness of Scripture and distorts a directive of The
Book of Order cannot, by definition, be the product of wisdom. No one
who cares about the lordship of Jesus Christ over this church and who
understands the degree to which Christ and the authors of Scripture would have been
appalled by the undermining of the two-sex character of marriage ordained
by God at creation could possibly “honor” the ordination and/or
installation of persons engaged in serial unrepentant homosexual activity.
The Task Force also strongly urges
us to “honor” (i.e., accord the presumption of wisdom to) “the General
Assembly, with presbyteries’ approval, in setting standards.” The fact of
the matter is that the Task Force itself, with its proposed “authoritative
interpretation,” does not “honor” the decision once made and twice
affirmed by the majority of the presbyteries, which was manifestly a
decision to establish a mandatory sexuality policy for candidates
and officers, not just a strongly recommended policy. So the Task Force’s
recommendation here lacks credibility.
It is not possible to get one’s
brain logically around the notion that a “presumption of wisdom” should be
accorded both (a) ordaining/installing bodies that recognize that
unrepentant homosexual practice is a necessary and sufficient barrier to
ordination/installation and (b) those that do not so regard
homosexual practice. It isn’t possible because the positions are mutually
exclusive. A person can’t believe simultaneously both that
Scripture (and The Book of Order in conformity to Scripture)
strongly affirms that homosexual practice of any sort is a very serious
affront against God (on the level of incest or adultery, putting the
offender at grave risk of not inheriting God’s kingdom) and that it
is an act of wisdom to ordain/install persons who are unrepentantly
engaged in such activity. At least one can’t believe in the wisdom of both
positions without becoming schizophrenic. That the Task Force does not
recognize this most basic of points is surely alarming. To accord wisdom
to the ordination/installation of homosexually active persons requires
that one first accept the false notion that homosexual activity is not a
serious affront to God after all.
Point 5 of Recommendation 5 raises
a critical issue: Will all governing bodies and indeed all
Presbyterians be required to recognize the ordination/installation of
homosexually active officers? Point 5 of Recommendation 5 infers that
such recognition is at least strongly recommended. For since point 5
strongly recommends to persons opposed to homosexual practice that they
“honor” (i.e., accord the presumption of wisdom to) the decision of
a governing body to ordain/install homosexually active persons, then
perforce it is strongly recommending that all “parties” “honor” (i.e.,
recognize) the ordination/installation of such persons. Certainly if the
“authoritative interpretation” is adopted, the pressure will be very great
to coerce acceptance, including promoting the admonition of those who do
not comply with this strong recommendation. It is only a hop, skip, and a
jump from that point to mandate such recognition (which could come from a
GAPJC ruling or another “authoritative interpretation” by the GA). If a
large enough number of ordaining bodies determine a standard to be
nonessential, or if the GA or GAPJC comes to such a conclusion for the
whole church, then there is little justification for withholding
recognition of the ordination/installation of officers who violate the
standard. And from there it is only another hop, skip, and a jump to
overturning G-6.0106b and coercing acceptance of committed homosexual
unions.
Recommendation 6.a of the Task Force
Final Report
strongly encourages a. the 217th
General Assembly to adopt no additional authoritative interpretations,
to remove no existing authoritative interpretations, and to send to the
presbyteries no proposed constitutional amendments . . . on any of the
major issues in the task force’s report, including Christology, biblical
interpretation, essential tenets, and sexuality and ordination.
I suppose that the proposed two-year
moratorium on additional authoritative interpretations and constitutional
amendments is a bone thrown to conservatives and moderates. Part b seems
to be a bone thrown to liberals: No judicial proceedings against alleged
violators of the Constitution unless “all other efforts fail to
preserve the purposes and purity of the church.” What is the rationale
given for Recommendation 6? “We believe it would create confusion and
further conflict to attempt to make major constitutional changes to
section G-6.0106 or on other controversial issues before the church has
reacquainted itself with the time-tested principles of the proposed
authoritative interpretation.” Accordingly, Recommendation 6 is predicated
entirely on the GA’s acceptance of Recommendation 5: “If the 217th
General Assembly adopts Recommendation 5, the task force strongly
encourages. . . .”
Although it would be nice to have a
brief moratorium on further attacks on G-6.0106b, this recommendation
comes at too high a cost: the acceptance of Recommendation 5. If it were
disengaged from the acceptance of Recommendation 5 then the first part
(a.) would be acceptable with some modification (see X. below).
It is very unlikely that those who
would like to see G-6.0106b go can muster a majority of the presbyteries
to amend the Constitution to remove G-6.0106b. The last attempt to
do this in 2001-2 failed by almost a 3 to 1 margin (72.7% to 26.7%). So as
an exchange for passing Recommendation 5 it is hardly a fair trade,
especially since Recommendation 5 gives away most of the store to
opponents of G-6.0106b anyway. Recommendation 5 gives them everything
short of deletion of G-6.0106b: local option to ordain homosexually active
persons. Even if the 217th General Assembly overturned the
“Definitive Guidance” of 1978 concerning homosexuality (which the 205th
General Assembly [1993] acknowledged to be an authoritative
interpretation), this would produce less damage than the passage of
Recommendation 5. Unlike Recommendation 5, it would not make application
of G-6.0016b optional. Nor would it introduce the dangerous precedent of
granting all ordaining and installing bodies the right to demote
explicitly highlighted, mandatory constitutional standards to nonessential
standards. In addition, overturning the Definitive Guidance of 1978
probably would not have the effect of permitting ordination of
homosexually active persons. The case for interpreting “chastity in
singleness” in G-6.0106b as allowing sexual intercourse outside the
covenant of man-woman marriage is contextually very weak. Moreover, the
2000 GAPJC Londonderry case (section VI above) rejected the stated intent
of sessions to ordain homosexually active persons by sole appeal to
G-6.0106b. Short of a constitutional amendment to delete G-6.0106b, only
the approval of Recommendation 5 would lead certainly to an effective
local-option nullification of the force of G-6.0106b, as well as to an
across-the-board undermining of connectionalism and constitutional
authority.
Passing Recommendations 5 and 6
would simply create the conditions for the 218th General
Assembly in 2008 to pass on to the presbyteries, with good chance of
success, a proposed constitutional amendment to delete G-6.0106b. In the
meantime, it would give virtual local option on G-6.0106b. Some deal.
X. Alternative Recommendations or
Amendments
Task Force members may have had
noble motives in proposing Recommendation 5. But Recommendation 5 is one
of the worst proposals for an “authoritative interpretation” imaginable.
It is not just that Recommendation 5 will disempower (one is tempted to
say disembowel) the sexuality standard in G-6.0106b. Recommendation 5 for
all intents and purposes will destroy the connectionalism of the PCUSA. It
will breed massive cynicism and disillusionment around the authority of
the Constitution and the plain meaning of the Constitution’s
words. And it will seriously weaken constitutional safeguards invested in
the collective will of the presbyteries and the amendment process. All of
this will irreparably damage the unity of the church. It clearly deserves
to be rejected by the 217th General Assembly. However, the
question remains: Should something be offered in its place?
There are good arguments for
answering “no.” Offering in its stead an authoritative interpretation or a
constitutional amendment might seem to give some validity to the false
claims that G-6.0106b does not clearly present as an essential the
sexuality standard lifted up therein or does not clearly mean by “chastity
in singleness” abstinence from sexual intercourse. Similarly, it might
support the notion that G-6.0108b does not clearly withhold from ordaining
and installing bodies the right to disallow express constitutional
provisions. Furthermore, given the usual left-leaning tendencies of GA, it
would be difficult to obtain GA approval for an alternative authoritative
interpretation or for a constitutional amendment that would then have to
be sent to the presbyteries for approval. Defeat might galvanize opponents
and lead to the passage of Recommendation 5. Even if an alternative
proposal passed, there would still be an uncertain future ahead. An
authoritative interpretation passed by the 217th General
Assembly could be replaced by a simple majority vote of a future General
Assembly. A constitutional amendment would be more difficult to dislodge
but getting a majority of presbyteries to approve it would be an arduous
battle.
On the other hand, there are good
arguments for answering “yes.” Passage of an alternative would be a
proactive stance rather than merely a reactive one. It could galvanize the
growing outrage for the disregard being shown the Constitution and
confessions of the PCUSA, not to mention Scripture. It would preempt any
possible judicial activism. A constitutional amendment, in particular,
would end efforts to do an end run around the Constitution through
specious authoritative interpretations and flawed judicial rulings. It
would bring greater stability to the PCUSA as a whole.
Here are possible alternative
wordings to Recommendations 5 and 6 if one went the route of
authoritative interpretations:
It is recommended that the 217th
General Assembly adopt in place of Recommendation 5 of the Task Force’s
“Final Report” the following authoritative interpretation of the
relationship of sections G-6.0106b and G-6.0108:
(1)
G-6.0108 shall not be construed as giving ordaining and installing bodies
or any other governing body the right to regard as nonessential to
Reformed faith and polity the explicit sexuality standard in G-6.0106b or
any other standard expressly highlighted and mandated in the Form of
Government from amongst the historic confessional standards of the church.
(2)
G-6.0106b shall be interpreted as prohibiting absolutely the ordination
and/or installation of all persons actively engaged in sexual behavior
outside the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman and/or who have
not repented of such activity.
(3) Higher
governing bodies shall not permit noncompliance with such standards but
shall, in a timely fashion, bring the offending party to compliance or,
failing that, implement the discipline of the church.
Rationale
G-6.0106b in the Form of Government
within The Book of Order explicitly singles out from among all “the
historic confessional standards of the church,” as a “requirement,” the
standard that “those who are called to office in the church are to.
. . . live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a
man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness.” It also expressly
states that “persons refusing to repent . . . shall not be ordained
and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and
Sacrament.” The singling out of this sexuality standard from among the
historic confessional standards of the church, the reference to it as a
“requirement,” and the use of language reserved for mandatory practices as
opposed to merely recommended or permitted practices (“are to,” “shall”)
all confirm the essential character of this ordination standard.
G-6.0108a does not allow “freedom
of conscience with respect to the interpretation of Scripture” to be
maintained when it constitutes a “serious departure from these standards”
and threatens to obstruct “the constitutional governance of the church.”
It does not empower ordaining or installing bodies with the right to
declare nonessential those historic confessional standards that the Form
of Government specifically singles out for the apparent purpose of
conveying their essential status. Rather it was intended to limit the
freedom of conscience allowable to officers of the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) by making an officer’s conscience “captive to the Word of God as
interpreted in the standards of the church.”
A confessional standard that The
Book of Order specifically requires, singles out, or highlights from
among all the historic confessional standards of the church is by
definition essential. Ordaining and installing bodies have no right,
authority, or responsibility to demote an essential standard in The
Book of Order to a nonessential, merely recommended standard. To do so is to promote local
option and destroy the connectional unity of the PCUSA.
It is recommended that the 217th
General Assembly adopt in place of Recommendation 6 of the Task Force’s
“Final Report” the following recommendation:
The 217th
General Assembly adopt no additional authoritative interpretations, remove
no existing authoritative interpretations, and send to the presbyteries no
proposed constitutional amendments that would have the effect of changing
denominational policy on sexuality and ordination.
Rationale
The PCUSA is in need of a
period of stability and respite from debates about sexuality standards. A
constitutional attempt to remove G-6.0106b is likely to fail. Attempts to
remove the 1978 authoritative interpretation are likely to increase
conflict in the church. The church will be better able to focus on its
mission to the world, while remaining faithful to Scripture and to
historic confessional standards of the church, if it allows the present
stance of the church on homosexual practice to remain as it is for the
next two years.
*
* *
If, in place of Recommendation 5,
one went the route of sending to the presbyteries a proposed
constitutional amendment rather than an alternate authoritative
interpretation, the proposal might read:
It is recommended that the 217th
General Assembly adopt in place of Recommendation 5 of the Task Force’s
“Final Report” the following proposed constitutional amendment to send to
the presbyteries:
(1) The
following addition be made to The Form of Government as G-6.0106c:
c. The requirement to
live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and
a woman, or chastity in singleness, shall be understood as an essential of
Reformed faith and polity. In accordance with the historic confessional
standards “chastity in singleness” shall be understood as including
abstinence from all sexual relations.
(2) The
following addition be made to the Form of Government at the end of
G-6.0108b:
This
responsibility given to the governing body shall not be construed as
granting it the right to declare nonessential those historic confessional
standards that the Form of Government specifically singles out for the
apparent purpose of conveying their essential status.
Rationale
See the
Rationale given above for an alternative authoritative interpretation to
Recommendation 5.
© 2005 Robert A. J. Gagnon
Appendix: The Text
of Recommendations 5 and 6 in the Task Force’s Final Report
Recommendation 5
5. The task force recommends that the
217th General Assembly adopt the following authoritative
interpretation of section G-6.0108 of the Book of Order:
(1) The
Book of Confessions and the Form of Government of the Book of Order
set forth the scriptural and constitutional standards for ordination and
installation.
(2) These
standards are determined by the whole church, after the careful study of
Scripture and theology, solely by the constitutional process of approval
by the General Assembly with the approval of the presbyteries. These
standards may be interpreted by the General Assembly and its Permanent
Judicial Commission.
(3)
Ordaining and installing bodies, acting as corporate expressions of the
church, have the responsibility to determine their membership by applying
these standards to those elected to office. These determinations include:
a. Whether
a candidate being examined for ordination and/or installation as elder,
deacon, or minister of Word and Sacrament has departed from scriptural and
constitutional standards for fitness for office.
b. Whether
any departure constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of
Reformed faith and polity under G-6.0108 of the Book of Order, thus
barring the candidate from ordination and/or installation.
(4) Whether
the ordaining/installing body has conducted its examination reasonably,
responsibly, prayerfully, and deliberately in deciding to ordain a
candidate for church office is subject to review by higher governing
bodies.
(5) All
parties should endeavor to outdo one another in honoring one another’s
decisions, according the presumption of wisdom to ordaining/installing
bodies in examining candidates and to the General Assembly, with
presbyteries’ approval, in setting standards.
Recommendation 6
If the 217th General
Assembly adopts Recommendation 5, the task force strongly encourages
-
the 217th General Assembly to adopt no
additional authoritative interpretations, to remove no existing
authoritative interpretations, and to send to the presbyteries no
proposed constitutional amendments that would have the effect of
changing denominational policy on any of the major issues in the task
force’s report, including Christology, biblical interpretation,
essential tenets, and sexuality and ordination.
-
all church members to acknowledge their traditional
biblical obligation, as set forth in Matthew 18:15-17, Matthew 5:23-25,
and the Rules of Discipline in the Book of Order, “to conciliate,
mediate, and adjust differences...prayerfully and deliberately”
(D-1.0103) and to institute administrative or judicial proceedings only
when other efforts fail to preserve the purposes and purity of the
church.