Hudson River to take no action against ministers
The Layman Online, September 24, 2003
The Presbytery of Hudson River is accepting a committee’s report that no action be taken against two ministers accused of conducting same-sex “marriages” and ordaining lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people as deacons and elders.
On October 3, 2002, attorney Paul Rolf Jensen filed accusations against Joseph H. Gilmore and Susan G. De George, co-pastors of South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. He also filed similar charges against Jean A. F. Holmes of the Nauraushaun Presbyterian Church in Pearl River, N.Y. and Jack S. Miller of Mt. Kisco Presbyterian Church in N.Y.
Citing statements published by all four ministers in which they refused to comply with the denomination’s ordination standards, Jensen alleged that the ministers openly defied the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The Constitution, including the Book of Order, requires that ordained leaders of the denomination live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness. In statements sent to other church leaders and posted on the Web site of the pro-gay ordination group More Light Presbyterians, the four ministers said their consciences will not permit them to obey this requirement.
The Book of Order provides that any person who is under the jurisdiction of a governing body of the denomination may file an accusation against another member if he or she believes that the accused has violated Presbyterian standards of faith and order.
Jensen, who lives in Virginia, filed the accusations with the stated clerk of Hudson River Presbytery, which has jurisdiction over the ministers.
The Book of Order requires that, upon receipt of an accusation, the presbytery must form an investigating committee to examine any evidence related to the accusation. If the committee determines that there are probable grounds to believe that an offense was committed, it may proceed to file disciplinary charges against the accused.
A report from the September 23 presbytery meeting, posted on the Web site of the pro-gay ordination group That All May Freely Serve, stated that the presbytery “accepted the findings of its Investigating Committee that no action be taken against ministers of South Presbyterian Church, Dobbs Ferry, NY in charges filed by Paul Rolf Jensen.”
In one of its public announcements, South Presbyterian Church said that, “Since 1991, our ministers have conducted services of worship joining lesbian and gay persons in same-sex unions, which are, in every important respect, marriages: two hearts declaring themselves home to each other, before God, with gratitude.” The highest court in the denomination, while permitting services that bless couples of the same sex, has declared that they cannot resemble marriages and that they must not sanction homosexual activity.
The defiance against the constitution by South Presbyterian Church was rewarded during the 215th General Assembly when More Light Presbyterians presented it and 12 other congregations in the Presbytery of Hudson River with its “Inclusive Church Award” for ordaining practicing homosexuals, conducting same-sex unions and recognizing them as marriages and practicing open communion.
The Presbytery of Hudson River long has been a center of defiance in the denomination, but moved into the limelight in 1999 when judicial action was brought against it for allowing its ministers to conduct same-gender blessing services. The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission ruled that ministers could conduct the services, called “holy unions,” if they did not call the unions “marriages.”
Since then, some of its congregations have made public declarations that they conduct same-sex unions and recognize them as marriages, as well as practicing open communion, both in defiance of the constitution.
In an open letter, South Presbyterian Church wrote that, “On March 8, 1992, we ordained elders and deacons including, for the first time, those who were self affirming, unrepentant, practicing homosexuals. There have been other ordinations since that time, and our boards currently include such individuals. Joseph Gilmore, Susan De George, and our clerk of session presided on these occasions for worship. Since 1991, our ministers have conducted services of worship joining lesbian and gay persons in same-sex unions, which are, in every important respect, marriages: two hearts declaring themselves home to each other, before God, with gratitude.”
The letter claimed that the congregation’s leaders were not violating the Constitution because they were exercising their constitutional right of “conscience.”
Despite a constitutional requirement that officers of the church confine their sexual activity to marriage (between a man and a woman only), a provision that was upheld by a 3-1 vote of presbyteries, nearly two dozen congregations nationally have declared that they will ignore the standard.
The South Church letter called the ordination standard “barbed wire around the hospitality of God. … Three decades of corporate insistence that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) folk are somehow less of the human mystery than non-LGBT persons has produced enough deception and injury within the body of Christ.”
The letter also said, “It is our position that the refusal to follow G6.0106b and allow the inclusion of LGBT folk in the full work and worship of our church can be debated no more than one’s God-given right to breathe. The courts and debates have been used by too many to harbor ongoing pain, while maintaining the status quo. We adamantly refuse to be complicit in such a strategy.”
In another instance, the presbytery promoted by e-mail to its ministers a “Universal Worship Service” in which the participants offered prayers to a smorgasbord of gods – including those who, “whether known or unknown to the world, have held aloft the light of truth through the darkness of human ignorance.”
After the congregations in Hudson River declared that they would not obey the standards, the presbytery formed a committee to discuss the matter with those sessions. To date, the presbytery has initiated no disciplinary or remedial actions to require these congregations to comply with the constitution.
The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly, also has declined to take any administrative action that would require the presbytery to ensure compliance. According to the standing rules of the General Assembly, Kirkpatrick’s duty is to “preserve and defend the Constitution,” but his office has told leaders of the Presbyterian Coalition who have criticized his inaction that ensuring constitutional compliance is not his job.
And, notwithstanding the continued acts of defiance, the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly has declared that the denomination’s “constitutional process is working.”
In early 2000, Gilmore was one of 34 people identifying themselves as Presbyterians who signed a statement calling upon churches to bless same-sex unions and to abandon the traditional Biblical and Reformed ethic in sexuality.
The principle sponsors of the statement were representatives of the Unitarian Universalist and the United Church of Christ. Of the more than 900 signatures, 281 identified themselves as Unitarian Universalist and more than 130 identified themselves as United Church of Christ.
The statement, called a “Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing,” said, “Our culture needs a sexual ethic focused on personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts. All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure.”
The statement calls for “full inclusion of sexual minorities in congregational life, including their ordination and the blessing of same-sex unions.”
Many of the members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) who signed the statement have been in the vanguard of the movement to break down Biblical taboos against adultery and homosexual and bisexual behavior.
DeGeorge was a member of a synod commission that wrote a dissent opposing the re-examination of a gay man for ordination and reconsideration by the presbytery’s judicial commission.
“We believe that, while one’s freedom of conscience must be exercised within certain bounds, it is ultimately the ‘responsibility of the governing body in which he or she serves’ to determine whether or not the candidate ‘has departed from the essentials of Reformed faith and polity,'” the dissent stated.