Gay former minister declares scruple; requests reinstatement of PCUSA ordination, membership
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, November 19, 2007
The Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area will hold a special meeting to decide if former member Paul Capetz can declare a scruple to G-6.0106b – the fidelity-chastity ordination standard in the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Constitution – and be restored as a minister member of the presbytery.
After deciding at its Nov. 13 stated meeting to postpone a meeting that had been scheduled Dec. 1 on the issue, the presbytery – in what one participant called a “very close” vote – directed the committee on ministry to provide the presbytery with “a clear statement of what the departure from the constitution is and what was the rationale of the committee on ministry to recommend his reinstatement.”
Capetz cited the 217th General Assembly’s approval of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity’s report – including its authoritative interpretation – in his request for reinstatement to the presbytery’s committee on ministry.
He said he was “grateful for this new authoritative interpretation of section G-6.0108 in our Book of Order that makes it possible for me to request reinstatement as a minister with a good conscience and for this presbytery to have the authority to determine my fitness for holding this office once again.”
The presbytery’s committee on ministry voted 11-3 to concur with his request to be restored to the ordained office of minister of the Word and sacrament.
All-day meeting on issue
In a letter describing the discernment process to be used at the meeting, Anita M. Cummings, chair of the presbytery council, said, “How we discern the matter is as important as what we discern” (emphasis in original).
“We will be using an extensive discernment process for determining how we will respond to this particular request,” she explained. “Discernment is different from debate in that we are not trying to win an argument. We are trying to listen to one another. As we meet together, we will be in the strong Reformed tradition of trusting in the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”
She continued: “To be clear: Paul Capetz, formerly a member of the presbytery, is declaring a scruple to Book of Order G-6.0106b in his request for restoration of his ordination and membership in presbytery. We are to discern whether or not that which he is declaring as a scruple is as essential tenet of the Reformed faith.”
According to the original agenda for the Dec. 1 meeting, the presbytery was scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. and adjourn at 4 p.m.
Small group time to build community and affirm a covenant will start the process. The presbytery will then meet as a full group to clarify the issue; “let go” – described as offering to “God any fears blocks, hoped-for outcomes to be open to the Sprit’s leading here and now;” and share information.
Following lunch, prayer and singing, the small groups will meet again to name and then weigh options, before the group meets together again to choose the direction.
Asking for release
In his request for reinstatement, Capetz said that in April 2000, he requested to be released from the exercise of the ordained ministry because of G-6.0106b: “At that time, I was unable to construe that amendment to the constitution as implying anything other than commitment to a life of permanent celibacy on the part of homosexually-oriented persons who served as ordained officers in the church. Aside from the fact that I am a gay man who could not in good conscience pledge a vow of celibacy, as a theologian of the church I could not then, and cannot now, affirm such an interpretation as in accord with our Protestant and Reformed tradition …”
He continued: “From my own personal anguish as a gay Christian man, I know at first hand the existential toll this amendment has taken on that lives of persons of faith and integrity who seek to discern what it means to follow a call to serve God as an ordained officer in the church.”
He said his views have not changed since 2000, and that he remains as “firmly committed as ever to a future for the Presbyterian Church (USA) when it will recognize the moral demand to grant ‘unconditional acceptance and full equality to gay people.'”
“In the meantime, however, a possibility then unforeseen be me has been opened up” he said, referring to the 2006 GA’s approval of the PUP report. “Since the church has now seen fit to find a way beyond the impasse occasioned by the incorporation of G-6.0106b into the Book of Order, I have prayerfully discerned that it is appropriate for me at this time to request … my reinstatement in it as a minister member. … I still insist upon expressing a scruple of conscience or principled objection to G-6.0106b in particular and to the unsatisfactory moral position of the Presbyterian Church (USA) on the issue of homosexual relationships in general.”