Task force member expands his work on ordination issue
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, January 6, 2006
William Stacy Johnson told The Layman Online today that the report he will present to the final meeting of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity in Atlanta, Ga., is an expanded version of the presentation that he made in August 2004.
Johnson, a professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and a member of the task force, said he is still fine-tuning the 100-page-plus paper in preparation for the Jan. 11-13 meeting. He said he hopes the task force will spend time in open session discussing his new report.
In 2004, Johnson made a three-hour presentation to the task force on six different models – based on extracts from articles and books – about how the church might respond to the issue of ordaining practicing homosexuals.
The revised report has been expanded to cover seven models and include Biblical passages that the extracts included as writers attempted to shore up their perspectives. Johnson also renamed some of the models. They are now titled 1) prohibition, 2) toleration, 3) accommodation, 4) legitimization, 5) celebration, 6) liberation and 7) consecration.
He said his purpose for expanding the text was to provide a more complete resource for Presbyterians as they continue to wrestle with the issue of homosexuality and ordination. He said he will include a study guide with the material so that, for instance, a Sunday school teacher might use the material over an eight-week period.
Johnson said he realizes the material might be too long for some people, so he has included a 20-page summary.
“It’s not substantially different from the original version,” Johnson said. “One big difference is the addition of the Biblical passages, which was more than I could possibly do a year and a half ago.”
He also indicated that the use of Biblical passages would make the presentation less of a target for critics.
While expressing his hope that the task force would spend some time reviewing his presentation, Johnson added, “I’ll do whatever they ask me to do.”