Gay rights group calls session’s decision to sever communion with defiant presbyteries ‘unreasonable’
By Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online, Posted Thursday, April 29, 2004
A gay rights group is criticizing as “unreasonable” a Pennsylvania congregation’s decision to sever communion with 10 presbyteries that seek to repeal the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s “fidelity/chastity” ordination requirement and to nullify the General Assembly’s authoritative interpretation that declares homosexual behavior sinful.
The group, More Light Presbyterians, is one of the most aggressive of a handful of small, special-interest groups that have been lobbying for the denomination to end its historic and Biblical prohibition against ordaining practicing homosexuals as ministers, elders and deacons. The organization also opposes the denomination’s Biblical definition of marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman.
On Tuesday, The Layman Online reported that Beverly Heights United Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh had approved a resolution – the first of its kind during the current controversy in the denomination – that said the 10 presbyteries continue “to offend the Peace, Unity and Purity of the denomination by forcing their heretical views upon the greater church.”
The resolution also said the 10 presbyteries have caused “grief and embarrassment to their brothers and sisters through their public display of the abandonment of the tenets of the Reformed faith;” were promoting schism; and had “entered into a protracted course of unrepentant sin.”
In response, the board of More Light Presbyterians said it was “dismayed at the Beverly Heights Church’s unreasonable response to other faithful Presbyterians with whom they disagree.”
The board never directly referred to the defiance of the denomination’s constitution that is taking place across the country as addressed in the resolution but, instead, sought to redefine defiance as dissent. The statement also sought to portray the Beverly Heights session as separating itself from communion with the presbyteries, as opposed to the session’s declaration that the presbyteries, by their actions, had separated themselves from communion with the denomination.
The board wrote that it was “surprised that Beverly Heights United Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh has taken the very un-Presbyterian step of attempting to separate itself from a select portion of our Presbyterian communion. In making their statement the pastor and session of Beverly Heights have suggested that dissent is the same as heresy, disagreement synonymous with sin, and working within the constitutional framework of our denomination somehow disordered. We are dismayed at how disproportionately Beverly Heights is responding to other faithful Presbyterians with whom they disagree.”
The board’s statement ended with a plea for ordination contrary to the denomination’s constitution: “We pray for our church that we might follow the lead of Jesus in opening our doors to all who would enter, not close them to those who make us uncomfortable.”
More Light Presbyterians is the same group that, during the 215th General Assembly in Denver last year, rewarded defiance against the denomination’s constitution by presenting its “Inclusive Church Award” to 13 congregations in the Presbytery of Hudson River for ordaining practicing homosexuals, conducting same-sex unions and recognizing them as marriages and practicing open communion.
The Presbytery of Hudson River long has been a center of defiance in the denomination, but moved into the limelight in 1999 when judicial action was brought against it for allowing its ministers to conduct same-gender blessing services. The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission ruled that ministers could conduct the services, called “holy unions,” if they did not call the unions “marriages.”
Since then, some of its congregations have made public declarations that they conduct same-sex unions and recognize them as marriages, as well as practicing open communion, both in defiance of the constitution.
In another case, the presbytery promoted by e-mail to its ministers a “Universal Worship Service” in which the participants offered prayers to a smorgasbord of gods – including those who, “whether known or unknown to the world, have held aloft the light of truth through the darkness of human ignorance.”
After the congregations in Hudson River declared that they would not obey the standards, the presbytery formed a committee to discuss the matter with those sessions. To date, the presbytery has initiated no disciplinary or remedial actions to require these congregations to comply with the constitution.
The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly, also has declined to take any administrative action that would require the presbytery to ensure compliance. According to the standing rules of the General Assembly, Kirkpatrick’s duty is to “preserve and defend the Constitution,” but his office has told leaders of the Presbyterian Coalition who have criticized his inaction that ensuring constitutional compliance is not his job.
And, notwithstanding the continued acts of defiance, the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly has declared that the denomination’s “constitutional process is working.”
In late 2002, while an effort by Alex Metherell seeking a called meeting of the General Assembly to deal with constitutional issues was under way, church officers in the presbytery held a public worship service to reaffirm their acts of defiance.
“Christian conscience calls us together to support our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) sisters and brothers,” the invitation read. “Churches and individuals from across the Tri-State Area of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey will celebrate the gifts and diversity of all God’s people.”
The preacher for the service was the Rev. Hal Porter, who also has been in the forefront of the defiance movement. Porter is pastor emeritus of Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, a congregation whose session has issued declarations saying that it is violating – and will violate – the constitution’s “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard and that its ministers “marry” same-gender couples.
In presenting the award during the 215th General Assembly to a delegation headed by Jim Vanderberg, executive presbyter of Hudson River, the More Light board said, “These congregations have worked together to build a more inclusive church at the local and national levels. What is remarkable about these congregations, more than their long history of concerted action, is their ability to work together on a local level and influence debate at the national level.”
The board also said that the award “seeks to recognize congregations or More Light chapters in presbyteries or seminaries/colleges for their ongoing history of commitment to the mission of MLP, namely … ‘seeking to make the Church a true community of hospitality…[by working] for the full participation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people of faith in the life, ministry and witness of the Presbyterian Church (USA).”
The New York congregations are First Presbyterian Church in Bedford, Brook Presbyterian Church in Hillburn, First Presbyterian Church in Congers, South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, First Presbyterian Church in Goshen, Mt. Kisco Presbyterian Church in Mt. Kisco, Nauraushaun Presbyterian Church in Pearl River, Palisades Presbyterian Church in Palisades, Huguenot Memorial Church in Pelham, All Souls Parish in Port Chester, Stony Point Presbyterian Church in Stony Point, Good Shepherd Presbyterian in Yonkers, and First Presbyteria
n Church in Yorktown Heights.
The public declarations of defiance vary with, for example, South Presbyterian publicly announcing that, “Since 1991, our ministers have conducted services of worship joining lesbian and gay persons in same-sex unions, which are, in every important respect, marriages: two hearts declaring themselves home to each other, before God, with gratitude.”
In 2001, the pastors and ruling elders of Mt. Kisco Presbyterian Church declared that they “have not [complied] and cannot comply” with the constitutional ordination standard of the Presbyterian Church (USA), while Nauraushaun Presbyterian Church expressed their “refusal to abide by this ungracious statement.”
The More Light board offered other examples:
- As early as 1984 and as recently as 2003, congregations in Hudson River presbytery have named themselves More Light churches as a public declaration of welcome. Both before and since the passage of Amendment B, these churches and others in their presbytery have declared their opposition to unjust laws that would prohibit lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons from full participation in the life of the church.
- In 1998, South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry was charged with violating the Book of Order because it allowed – as it had for many years – the use of its property for same-sex union ceremonies.
- The First Tuesday Group at Mt. Kisco Presbyterian Church produced and broadly distributed a document entitled “What We Wish We Had Known,” more commonly referred to as the Blue Book. This resource has been well used in high schools, university and seminary libraries, and by congregations studying how and whether to stand for justice for LGBT people.
- In 2000, 11 church sessions in Hudson River Presbytery collaborated in declaring – or re-affirming – their unwillingness to abide by G-6.0106b, and in writing a letter to the stated clerk of the presbytery stating their dissent. These churches further invited other churches in their presbytery, and indeed, across the denomination, to join them; many did. As the circle of dissenting churches widened, a group of individuals from these congregations offered a memorable street-theater witness at General Assembly declaring, “G-6.0106b is barbed wire around the hospitality of God.”
- Collaborating with other more light and dissenting churches in their presbytery, as well as Presbyterian Promise and Presbyterian Welcome in Southern New England and New York City Presbyteries, South Church Dobbs Ferry hosted a Reformation Sunday service in October 2002. Hundreds of participants from throughout the region nailed messages to the denomination to the door of South Church, and then reaffirmed the ordinations of LGBT clergy. Similar events were organized throughout the country.