Santa Barbara approves plan for union presbytery with ECO
By Jason P. Reagan, The Layman, June 7, 2012
A Southern California presbytery has embarked on an experiment in structure it hopes will foster unity amid a denominational landscape rife with controversy and division.
On June 2, the Presbytery of Santa Barbara voted by a 73-percent majority to re-form as a union presbytery allowing the governing body to affiliate both with its current denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the recently formed ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.
Acknowledging the growing exodus of churches from the PCUSA to more conservative Reformed bodies, Santa Barbara’s Presbytery Council stated that the move was designed to stem the tide and retain the “viability of congregations, presbyteries and their mission.”
The union concept will allow member churches from both the PCUSA and ECO to join the presbytery and would put member churches under two forms of government. The union presbytery will be subject to the constitution of each denomination.
Congregations would be considered either PCUSA or ECO, however the plan allows for the eventual formation of union congregations as well.
Across the PCUSA, departing churches say the denomination no longer recognizes the authority of Scripture and is embracing universalism. An increasing number of churches decided to depart after the 2011 passage of Amendment 10A and the new Form of Government.
The amendment deleted the explicit “fidelity/chastity” requirement from the constitutional ordination standard, and now allows the PCUSA to ordain noncelibate gay people as deacons, elders and pastors.
The new Form of Government (nFOG) has raised concerns that the PCUSA may become more hierarchical and less connectional, as well as becoming more universalistic in theology.
“The loss of congregations from the presbytery will call into serious question the viability of the presbytery as a mission outpost,” presbytery leaders stated in a rationale document presented to voting members.
The PCUSA Book of Order states that mandatory provisions within each constitution take priority over permissive ones in the case of conflict. If mandatory provisions conflict, an appeal must be made to the two highest governing bodies of each denomination for resolution.
Under the plan, Presbyterians who wish to stay within the PCUSA even if their congregation joins ECO will be allowed to do so at the presbytery level. Teaching elders will hold ordination in one or the other denomination but will not be required to be members of both. The union presbytery would retain the current staff structure of Santa Barbara Presbytery.
Santa Barbara would grant congregation dismissals from the PCUSA to ECO as a matter of routine. The union presbytery will have one Committee on Ministry and Committee on Preparation for Ministry.
“These committees will be sensitive to and respectful of the unique culture, values and theology of the presbytery’s member churches and will not force the values or theology of one denomination upon a congregation of another,” presbytery documents state.
Santa Barbara’s Presbytery Council also released a report (see page 15) before the June 2 vote analyzing ECO’s viability as a Reformed body. The report noted that around 200 congregations are currently in the process of joining ECO and that the mission and values of both the presbytery and ECO’s Presbytery of the West were comparable. The council’s report included analyses by noted Reformed theologians and seminary leaders.
The report concluded that, although ECO is newly formed, the fledgling denomination “was created drawing on the strengths of both the current and previous Forms of Government within the PCUSA.”
Formed at the Fellowship of Presbyterians’ January 2012 meeting in Orlando, ECO changed its name from the former Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians after the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) expressed a concern that the closeness of the two denomination’s names would have the potential of causing confusion, according to ECO’s press release.
The union plan must now be approved by the PCUSA’s Synod of Southern California and Hawaii as well as ECO’s Presbytery of the West.
However, Santa Barbara leaders say, if the plan doesn’t get approval, the expected backlash would “lead to the loss of a number of the presbytery’s member congregations and great damage to the presbytery’s life and mission.”
“In the end, the forming of the union presbytery is the best and only course available for keeping the presbytery united and working together.”
The concept of union presbyteries will be the subject of at least four overtures presented at the PCUSA’s 220th General Assembly June 30-July 7 in Pittsburgh.
Santa Barbara has submitted just such an overture that would amend the denomination’s constitution concerning how conflicts are handled within a union presbytery.
Currently, the wording states: “Where there are conflicting mandatory provisions, the union presbytery shall overture the highest council or governing body of the denominations involved to resolve the conflict either by authoritative interpretation or by constitutional amendment.”
Santa Barbara’s overture would strike that wording and replace it with: “Wherever the constitutions of the denominations involved hold conflicting mandatory provisions, it remains the express right of the union presbytery to determine for itself which one of these provisions will be held to be the authoritative and ruling standard for that presbytery.”
“There may be no better or clearer evidence of the church’s trust in the Holy Spirit and confidence in its councils than declaring the right and granting the freedom to union presbyteries/councils to decide for themselves the appropriate and fitting constitutional standard that best reflects its faith and aids its mission to glorify God and expand the kingdom of Christ Jesus,” the overture’s rationale states.
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“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 2 Cor. 6:17.” Obeying God and His infallible, inerrant Word is the Biblical Command to leave the PCUSA. One way or another, Conservative congregations within the PCUSA will have to leave those wicked people disobeying God and His Holy Bible just as Sodom was destroyed even though Lot’s wife wanted to stay, and in the end, she was turned into a pillar of salt. Leave or be destroyed Conservative churches within the PCUSA.