Advisory panel says GA has power to approve PUP report
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, March 8, 2006
The Advisory Committee on the Constitution, a nine-member elected body dominated by long-time clerks and staff executives of presbyteries and synods, has declared that the proposed authoritative interpretation by the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity “is clear and within the power of the General Assembly to approve if it chooses.”
The committee’s assessment of the task force report says the 217th General Assembly “has the authority to interpret whether G-6.0106b [the constitutional ‘fidelity/chastity’ ordination requirement] is likewise limited by an ordaining or installing body’s authority to decide whether a particular deviation from confessional standards is a deviation from that which is essential to our faith and polity.”
The task force’s proposed authoritative interpretation, particularly recommendation 5, would allow sessions and presbyteries to decide on their own whether the denomination’s constitutional ordination requirement constitutes an “essential.” Critics of the report say General Assembly approval of recommendation 5 would undermine the constitution by making G-6.0106b in the Book of Order irrelevant if an ordaining body considered it nonessential.
The advisory committee noted that most of the interpretation and application of G-6.0106b has focused on the ordination or installation of homosexual candidates. But it added that the broader language of G-6.0106b “proscribes the ordination or installation of any person who self-acknowledges engaging in any ‘practice which the confessions call sin’ and refuses to repent of that practice.”
G-6.0106b states: “Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in 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 the Word and Sacrament.”
The category of “any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin” has not been addressed by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the highest court in the denomination.
Lawyers allied with the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, an organization established with the purpose of seeking the repeal of G-6.0106b, have frequently argued that ordaining bodies do not address all of the sins – such as usury – listed in the confessions. The Permanent Judicial Commission has, however, affirmed G-6.0106b as it applies to homosexual behavior.
Ruling in July 2000 in a case titled Londonderry Presbyterian Church v. the Presbytery of Northern New England, the denomination’s highest court focused narrowly on the prohibition against ordaining G-6.0106b, declaring that, “This Commission finds 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.”
The advisory commission quotes from the Londonderry ruling – but not that passage. Rather, its citation comes from a generic statement affirming the denomination’s right “to make and enforce” its standards.
The advisory commission also cites a report by the Special Committee on Historic Principles, Conscience, and Church Government of the United Presbyterian Church (USA), the northern denomination before reunion in 1983.
That report declares that, “The church should encourage diverse points of view. Diversity may be a sign of health of the church. Uniformity may be the result of the tyranny of those in control, the failure to acknowledge differences, or the fear of ostracism. Those beliefs and practices about which the church tolerates or encourages diversity are nonessential. The distinction between essential and nonessential articles entered our church with the Adopting Act of 1729. Nonessential issues are not unimportant but are those subjects about which diversity is understood to be desirable or acceptable. A nonessential issue is judged by a governing body of the church to be one about which agreement or compliance is not required. The General Assembly makes, for example, a particular pronouncement about an issue in the world. The issue is important and the debate of the General Assembly is intense and weighty because the consequences are important. But agreement with the position of the General Assembly is not required. People may even be encouraged by the Assembly to continue to voice contrary viewpoints.”
The advisory commission works with the Office of the General Assembly, which is under the direction of Clifton Kirkpatrick, the denomination’s stated clerk. The General Assembly selects its nine members from former members of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission; stated clerks or former stated clerks of synods or presbyteries; and “other qualified persons with knowledge of and experience with the Constitution and polity of the church.”
Four of the nine members of the commission are or have been stated clerks or executives of presbyteries and synods. The moderator of the commission in Margaret Wentz, a former member of the General Assembly Council and currently the stated clerk of the Synod of Southern California.
Wentz has played a key role in representing a minority group that has sought to remove the majority at First Presbyterian Church in Torrance, Calif., that voted to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA). She joined Rick Ufford-Chase, General Assembly moderator, and members of the minority group in attempts to disrupt a worship service at the Torrance congregation. Ufford-Chase later apologized for his role in the event.
Wentz is also a plaintiff, along with the denomination, in a lawsuit that lays claim to the property of the 2,700-member Torrance church. Recently, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge suggested that the plaintiffs were basing their case on what is probably an unconstitutional law in California.
The other members of the advisory commission are: the Rev. Paul Hooker, executive of the Presbytery of St. Augustine; the Rev. Kim Leech, the stated clerk of the presbytery of Wabash Valley; the Rev. William Chapman, the former stated clerk of the Synod of the Northeast; the Rev. George Adams, former executive of the Presbytery of Beaver-Butler; John Matta; Frances Pitts and James Wilson.