After Mexico breakup, PCUSA looks for new partners
By Alan F.H. Wisdom, Special to The Layman, September 26, 2011
Presbyterian Church (USA) officials are still coping with the fallout from the August 19 decision of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico (INPM) to break relations with its U.S. mother church. PCUSA World Mission held a September 16 webinar in Spanish to explain the situation to concerned church members, following on a September 1 webinar in English. (Click here for videos of the two webinars.)
The Spanish webinar revisited many of the same themes covered in the earlier English presentation; however, important new information was added. PCUSA mission staffers were more definitive in abandoning any hope of salvaging significant cooperation between the U.S. and Mexican denominations. Presbyterian World Mission director Hunter Farrell looked instead toward a “new future” of “collaboration with new partners in Mexico” outside the 2-million-member INPM.
Spanish webinar panelists included Farrell; María Arroyo, PCUSA area coordinator for Latin America; and Dave Thomas, regional liaison for Mexico. Their remarks focused on relationships between U.S. and Mexican Presbyterians.
The panelists had little to say about Amendment 10A deleting the PCUSA’s “fidelity and chastity” standard for church officers, which was the reason cited by the INPM for its decision to cut ties. Farrell asserted briefly that the amendment “did not really have to do with sexuality, which was the main concern of the Mexican church.” On the contrary, he claimed, Amendment 10A was about “a person submitting in all aspects of his life to the lordship of Christ.”
The resultant rupture between the two denominations has produced “a time of much profound sadness,” Thomas said. “Our [11 PCUSA] mission personnel no longer have a job.” The Mexico liaison again recounted how he and others involved were passing through “the five stages of grief.”
Anger surfaced at points. Thomas noted that the INPM’s decision to break relations was made by only 138 delegates, after barely an hour of discussion. He was the sole PCUSA representative at the Mexican church meeting, he recalled, but he was not permitted to speak.
“The Mexican church sees us [the PCUSA] as a more liberal church” on a range of issues, Thomas said. “The Mexican church at this time is not at the same point of knowledge, of understanding, of theology” as the PCUSA. Arroyo observed that Mexican Presbyterians “would rather miss relationships and resources than mix with people who don’t share their views.”
Arroyo recounted how PCUSA officials had negotiated with the INPM about the future of joint projects between the two denominations. Prominent among these is the 27-year-old Presbyterian Border ministry at six sites along the U.S.-Mexico border. Arroyo presented an agreement that had been reached at a September 8 meeting in El Paso. The PCUSA and INPM envisioned a “transition period” through the end of 2011 in which the border ministries would move from national church to local church sponsorship, or they might be disbanded.
“Each Mexican presbytery,” the agreement specifies, “needs to decide as soon as possible its participation in the ministry site.” Then each U.S. presbytery would decide if it “agree(s) to submit to the condition of the INPM: to disavow the PCUSA 2010 General Assembly action on Amendment 10A regarding ordination standards.” If both presbyteries concur, “they will then be able to establish a local covenant.” Otherwise, “the ministry site board will decide on its future ministry and partners.”
“We have some doors that are open,” Arroyo said. But Farrell did not leave much hope for continued joint ministries. “The decision of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico places us in a situation that is a bit difficult, if not impossible,” he said. The Mexican church is “asking U.S. Presbyterians to disavow a decision that was made by our General Assembly.”
Some PCUSA presbyteries and churches have already stated their opposition to Amendment 10A deleting the “fidelity and chastity” standard. But Farrell would not condone such statements of dissent. “For a congregation or a presbytery or a synod to disavow or reject a decision of the [General] Assembly, this is not possible for us,” he insisted.
The Presbyterian World Mission director concluded that “[w]e cannot favorably recommend the participation of our [PCUSA] groups or entities, our churches, in joint work with the INPM.” When webinar participants asked about various institutions or programs formally affiliated with the Mexican denomination, Farrell and his fellow mission staffers seemed pessimistic about prospects for a continuing PCUSA role. On the other hand, they saw more possibilities for continued involvement in institutions or programs in which some Mexican Presbyterians might participate, but which were not formally under the INPM.
“We have to respect what they [the INPM] asked, not to have relations,” commented Arroyo. She compared the situation between the two denominations to a divorce, in which “it is not good to run to have a new relationship.”
Farrell discouraged the idea that the Mexican church might link up with U.S. Presbyterians sympathetic to its views while the PCUSA might connect with Mexican Presbyterians aligned with its position. “We respect the decision of their assembly,” he said, “and we ask respect for our decisions in assembly.” The PCUSA would not “work to disrupt the unity of the church in Mexico,” Farrell pledged.
Yet Farrell said he was “convinced that we here in World Mission will continue working in Mexico.” He reported that PCUSA World Mission would be “identifying and developing structures of collaboration with new partners in Mexico.” There were “a lot of groups” not affiliated with the INPM that had “expressed their desire to work together” with the PCUSA, according to Farrell.
The PCUSA official closed his September 16 presentation on a positive note. “The Spirit is blowing,” he proclaimed. “It is inviting us into a new future.” That future, it appears, will no longer include the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico.