General Assembly rapidly disposes of some matters
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, June 13, 2001
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — With committee meetings completed, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) got down to business in earnest on June 13 and raced through the proposals of seven of the 15 assembly committees in less than five hours.
The session produced a flurry of issues — most minor — little debate and, mostly, raised-hands votes rather than slower electronic voting.
The business is expected to bog down later this week when more controversial issues — including the Lordship of Christ and a committee recommendation to chuck the denomination’s ordination standard — are taken up.
It was the first chance for the new General Assembly moderator, Jack B. Rogers, to run the show. He did so with only one miscue.
In contrast to his strident criticism of the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA) when commissioners questioned him about his candidacy, Rogers took a point of personal privilege to declare, “I am a confessing moderator.”
He then asked commissioners to stand and recite with him the Apostles’ Creed. When he reached the phrases, “I believe in the Holy Ghost and the Holy Catholic Church,” he got them in reverse order. He grinned and acknowledged that some had memorized the creed better than he had. Rogers, a former seminary professor, is the author of a book about Presbyterian creeds.
At the first evening meeting of the General Assembly, Rogers led the commissioners in reciting the Nicene Creed. This time, everybody read the text and Rogers sailed through.
FINANCIAL OVERVIEW — The opening session included a cost alert.
Commissioner William H. Neal Jr. of the Presbytery of the James, told commissioners that if they adopted all of the proposals made by committees, the per-capita apportionment would have to be increased beyond the $5.20 already recommended.
“The overtures would add an additional 5-cent increase, atop the 22-cent increase already proposed,” Neal said.
He also said there are no reserves available to make up the difference if the new programs exceed the denomination’s program budget — $14.01 million for the 2001 fiscal year and $14.64 million for 2002.
He urged the commissioners to consider the financial implications of their votes.
PCUSA AND CATHOLICS — Representatives of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Roman Catholic Church have had a number of discussions recently. The General Assembly approved three resolutions to keep them going.
The first resolution recognizes the Catholic Church as a part of the body of Christ and calls on the denomination “to form the appropriate language to describe the character of this relationship.”
The second authorizes a joint study of the “events of the 16th and 17th centuries” — the heart of the Reformation and the time of great acrimony between Catholics and Protestants.
“We hope that it may become possible to declare that the pejorative statements made against one another in the past are not in keeping with our views of each other today,” the resolution says.
The third resolution calls for a joint Presbyterian-Catholic study that “will enable us to mutually affirm one another’s baptisms.”
Ralph DelColle of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops spoke briefly, referring to a recent document titled Dominus Iesus, a Vatican-approved statement on Protestant-Catholic relationships. He noted many ecumenical Protestants were upset that Dominums Iesus did not recognize Protestant denominations as fully Christian churches, but as “ecclesiastical bodies.”
Then he cited the language of one of the three resolutions — which viewed the “Catholic church as a part of the body of Christ.”
“That could sound to Catholic ears or others as either arrogant, unilateral or preemptive,” DelColle said. “But the presumption of our mutual place in the body of Christ has been in place in our church since Vatican II. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops warmly perceive the intent of these recommendations.”
THE UNMENTIONED ITEM — In approving the pro-Catholic resolutions, the General Assembly did not refer to another resolution it approved. But they have a connection.
The General Assembly voted 420-74 to accept the recommendation of the Committee on Catholicity and Ecumenical Relations — a favorable review of the National Council of Churches in Christ.
The council, which is comprised wholly of Protestant denominations, is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and has long been criticized — even by some of its own delegates — as more political organization than an ecumenical religious body.
Phillip Young, a Presbyterian who serves as the council’s treasurer, told The Layman Online that the council is unlikely to financially survive another year in its present form. Its best hope beyond a year, Young said, is for a merger with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church are the leading financial supporters of the National Council of Churches, and Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick has worked over the years to keep PCUSA support high enough so that the council would not collapse.
The General Assembly’s pro-National Council of Churches resolution was its response to an overture by the Presbytery of Savannah (Ga.). That overture sought to hold the denomination accountable for its continued relationship with and multimillion-dollar support of the National Council of Churches.
The Savannah overture called for an end to Presbyterian funding if the National Council of Churches failed to end its deficit-spending and failed to involve evangelicals and Catholics in the ecumenical work.
BOY SCOUTS — The General Assembly has decided to stay out of the controversy over the relationship of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to the National Association of Presbyterian Scouts.
The commissioners approved by a show of hands a resolution from the Committee on Christian Education and Publications. They referred Commissioners’ Resolution 01-11, a pro-Scout statement, and Commissioners’ Resolution 01-15, an anti-Scout statement, to the General Assembly Council and instructed the council to bring a report to the 214th General Assembly.
Just before the General Assembly opened on June 9, the General Assembly Council adopted a statement that simply referred to the fact that the council and the National Association of Presbyterian Scouts currently work together in a written covenant.
But that covenant is in peril. Several members of the General Assembly Council have openly disagreed with the policy of the Boy Scouts of America in their prohibition against homosexual scout leaders.
The staff of the General Assembly Council has already informed the National Association of Boy Scouts that a grant request was disapproved by the staff and that the Scouts would not be permitted to use the Presbyterian Youth Connection logo on their jamboree patches.
Commissioners’ Resolution 01-11 had asked the General Assembly to “encourage churches and other judicatories of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to continue and increase support for the scouting efforts throughout the United States and worldwide.”
Commissioners’ Resolution 01-15 had asked the General Assembly to urge congregations who allow Boy Scout troops to make use of their facilities, to “cease this practice of discrimination,” and to refrain from allowing organizations that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation use church facilities.