Something in it for everyone,’ task force member says
after GA approves PUP report
By Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online, June 21, 2006
217th General Assembly
Birmingham, Ala. BIRMINGHAM — “There is something in it for everyone,” a press conference was told Tuesday night after the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to keep the current ordination standards in the denomination’s constitution, but allow those who choose not to obey them to declare them to be non-essential.
Asked if the deeply divided positions on both sides of the issue were in some way responsible for the relative closeness of the vote (298-221-1), Barbara Wheeler, a member of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity that wrote the controversial report voted on by commissioners, said, “The recommendation (#5) over which there was that division was not intended to create a situation in which one side wins and another side loses, although it was construed in that way.”
“We hope in time that all people in the church are going to come to see that this measure gives those who are a minority the chance to exercise their conscience within the bounds of Scripture in matters that they deem to be non-essential,” she said. “Those who are minorities today will welcome this. The Presbyterian Church (USA) will coalesce around this because there is something in it for everyone.”
In an opening statement in a room in the Sheraton Hotel, Joan Gray, the moderator of the 217th General Assembly, said that, “We saw the Presbyterian process today of doing things at its best, decently and in order. We proceeded fairly, with treating each other justly in the debate and in the process before the debate.”
“Before the issue came up,” she said, “Cliff (Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick) and I met and worked together to craft a process that everyone agreed was fair. I was proud of the way we carried out this debate and the way commissioners carried out this debate.”
Kirkpatrick said that, “I would share that there may be issues and concerns on which we share deep divisions, but that doesn’t stop the continuing need for prayer and reaching out to those who are hurting.”
“The task force itself had deep-seated convictions during the process, but they got together in prayer and Bible study and came together in fellowship. They were one in Christ together.
“I am so grateful that commissioners approved the first four recommendations almost unanimously,” he said. “The common commitment to the foundational theological convictions of the Reformed tradition we saw in prayer and in dialogue, in sharing with one another, and in building Christian community.
“We have not in any fundamental way changed our standards,” Kirkpatrick said. “The standards remain the same, but the assembly’s action has offered a more pastoral way and spirit to uphold those standards.”
Blair Monie, who chaired the General Assembly Committee on Ecclesiology that recommended the approval of the report, said that, “I’m a local pastor. Our system is not a bunch of politicians — it’s pastors and elders coming together to make important decisions for the church. This has been an extremely inspiring experience for me.”
“My vice moderator and I began this process by working with one commitment,” he said. “Our great aim was be fair and to do everything we could to hear all sides of opinion and to be faithful in that process. Today, we saw the Presbyterian system at work.” Monie also offered an observation on what he said was “one thing you hear a lot about, that the Presbyterian Church is so divided. I think it is divided because I think the country is divided in so many ways. Our country is divided — we live in a diverse culture and a diverse society. We Presbyterians are not unlike others, but what unites us is that we are disciples of Jesus Christ.”
In summation, he said that, “What the task force has brought us today is a great gift. They were diverse people who were able to agree. They were people who disagreed on so many things, but they agreed on the answer that the church asked for. This is a new opportunity to be the church.”
Kirkpatrick, when asked if the people in the Presbyterian Center in Louisville were more concerned about the aftermath of this decision and were planning for it, said that, “I don’t think there was a full-scale, developed plan. There was a huge expectation and a huge anxiety around this assembly.”
He said he and the moderator hoped to have a letter out to the churches that can be read at Sunday services “to share the message about what occurred here.” Kirkpatrick also said he hoped that “Presbyterians will replicate in many places the experience of the task force” and that, at a conference in Montreat next month, there will be “a serious conversation about the identity and future of the Presbyterian Church. We also hope to have a series of conversations in presbyteries and seminaries so the whole church can experience some of the same reality.”
Gray, when asked if the decision by the General Assembly was consonant with Scripture, said that, “Presbyterians have a wide variety of understandings of Scripture in terms of how they interpret the text. That was evident today. My sense is that we are struggling with that as a denomination. Today, we worked on it some more, and we’ll probably keep it up.”
Asked if the General Assembly’s action closed or opened the door to ordaining gays or lesbians, she said that, “It puts more weight on the decisions of local committees. The standards have not changed, but more weight has been put sessions and presbyteries to make a decision on whether, in the case of a particular candidate, that candidate’s departures from the standards of the church are essential or non-essential.”
Kirkpatrick, asked if the General Assembly’s decision will make it easier for someone to declare a scruple and whether in San Francisco or Los Angeles the standards would be different in terms of what constitutes essentials or non-essentials, said that, “We have not used the language of ‘scruples’ for a very long time. It always has been our practice to declare if someone is out of accord with the standards, and give the authority to local sessions to make that judgment. But it is crystal clear that those standards have not changed. Different judgments in different locations are always a possibility, but so is the possibility of judicial review by higher governing bodies.”
Asked what the essentials of the faith are for Presbyterians, Mark Achtemeier, a member of the task force, said that, “Presbyterians serve a living God. A living God can’t be reduced to a checklist. For that reason, we have said that a checklist is not the way to discern the activity and presence of that living God in a person’s life.”
“As we consider that person’s qualifications for ministry,” he said, “it is the sort of judgment we have to make on a case-by-case basis with prayer, with examining the fruits that come from their lives, with Scripture and the confessions. There is a sense in which these don’t get applied in a cookie-cutter fashion. We look for that living God rather than a checklist.”
After the press conference, John Huffman, senior pastor at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, Calif., handed out a statement that reads: “It is a sad day for many of us in this deeply divided church. A political end run has been made around our confessional standards and constitutional processes which, for all practical purposes, makes us no longer Presbyterian but Congregational in polity.
“Although the final vote was close, we who are in disagreement with it, but opposed to schism, must go home and try to pick up the pieces in many of our congregations. ‘Peace, Unity and Purity’ has been blatantly disregarded. Of course we must love all, regardless of sexual orientation and practice. But the issue is not one of human sexuality, but one of faithfulness to Biblical authority.”