Clerk, minister disagree on how to avoid ‘constitutional’ train wreck
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, April 29, 2002
DECATUR, Ga. – Clifton Kirkpatrick, the stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), has called for an abbreviated Book of Order that would reduce the regulatory and disciplinary roles of governing bodies.
“We are heading toward a ‘train wreck’ if we can’t find a way to a new track as we seek to uphold the constitution of the church,” Kirkpatrick said, referring to constitutional fights and numerous national referendums on proposed amendments.
For his abridged version of the Book of Order, Kirkpatrick suggested that only a limited number of polity issues remain in the constitution – “things like the meaning of membership, our understanding of the offices of ministry, the call to holy living for church officers, the presbytery as the governing body of original jurisdiction, the ordination questions and the like.”
Convictions and rules
He called the current Book of Order “an odd mixture of cherished and deeply held Reformed convictions that gives far too many specific rules for matters that can and should best be decided by a session or presbytery.”
Kirkpatrick’s speech was made at a conference on “The Role of the Constitution in the Life of the Church” on April 26 at Columbia Theological Seminary. The seminary and Kirkpatrick’s office jointly sponsored the conference, which attracted about 200 people.
To illustrate his train-wreck metaphor, Kirkpatrick told a story about a train trip he took to Mexico City – only to have his interpretation of the story later challenged by the Rev. Jerry Andrews of Glen Ellyn, Ill., the only person who spoke against Kirkpatrick’s call for an abbreviated constitution.
The train-wreck story
The train was headed toward Mexico City when the engineer discovered that another train was approaching on the same track. Both trains stopped, and their engineers got out and met between the two trains to argue about which one had the right-of-way. That didn’t settle the matter, so they retrieved their operation manuals to continue the argument. Nothing was settled then, either, and the engineers resorted to a fist fight. Finally, railroad officers arrived and settled the issue – ordering one train to back up while the other proceeded toward its destination.
Kirkpatrick’s interpretation of the story was that the operation manuals failed to resolve the stalemate – just as, he contended, the Book of Order has failed to bring peace and unity to the denomination.
“We have a Book of Order almost as long as the manual those two engineers were using against one another and with every bit as many rules and regulations. We have transformed our Book of Order, which through most of our history was a very slim document of essential principles … into a detailed manual made for a regulatory agency model of church life.”
Leaders ended the stalemate
But Andrews, one of six panelists at the conference, later said, “I love the end of the story. It is the railroad officer who comes out of the office and offers a resolution.”
Andrews is a former co-moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition, an evangelical group that has called on Kirkpatrick to enforce the denomination’s constitution. Representatives of the Coalition wanted to meet with Kirkpatrick in Louisville to discuss their disagreements over his interpretation and enforcement of the constitution, but he declined when the Coalition insisted that the meeting be open to the public.
The Atlanta conference was Kirkpatrick’s answer to the Coalition request for a candid discussion about the constitution. It was open to the public – but it was a decidedly pro-Kirpatrick crowd. Both the panelists, whom Kirkpatrick and Columbia Theological Seminary invited, and audience members who spoke supported the stated clerk’s assessment.
Kirkpatrick and several of the panelists harkened back to the days when the Book of Order would fit in a shirt pocket.
Trust and trustworthiness
But Andrews said Presbyterians then didn’t need a detailed Book of Order because they shared theological consensus.
“There was a time when our consensus of faith was wrapped around the Westminster standards. Our trust permitted a broadness of behavior based on that coherence in doctrine,” he said.
The size of today’s “Book of Order is a function of trust,” Andrews said. “Regulation is a function of trustworthiness. Both are to be called for.
“Was there not a time when our consensus of faith was greater? The coherence of the body was tighter. The trust in our membership was deeper, so the rules of our common life were fewer.”
Why trust is an issue
The trust factor is an issue for many evangelicals because Kirkpatrick has expressed sympathy toward pastors and elders who have declared that they will defy the ordination standard.
But he has threatened pastors and elders who discuss possible separation from the denomination or withholding per-capita apportionments. Kirkpatrick has said those officers are, in effect, renouncing their ordination vows.
Kirkpatrick called for a Book of Order that would place a priority on the first four chapters, which do not include regulatory or disciplinary requirements. He suggested – without explaining how – that those chapters be elevated in importance over the rest of the Book of Order.
“In my experience, these four chapters have a broad resonance in all quarters of the church and are a wonderful statement of the vision of church life that is the unique gift of the Presbyterian Church to the Church ecumenical,” he said.
He said he had no “magic formula” for major overhaul of the Book of Order. The denomination’s presbyteries recently rejected one proposal, Amendment 01-H, which called for simplification of the Book of Order. That proposal came from Kirkpatrick’s office.
But he did call for “a churchwide discernment process that enables us together to identify those key principles of Reformed polity (and they need to be limited in number) and distinguish them from all of the rules and procedures that may be valuable but are not of constitutional character.”
Even if the Book of Order is not abridged, “we need to grant much greater freedom to presbyteries and sessions to order the ministry of the church in ways that enable them to respond to the diverse and multi-faceted missionary challenges of the 21st century,” Kirkpatrick said.
Besides Andrews, panelists for the conference were:
- Pam Byers, executive director of Covenant Network, an organization that has declared that it will continue to seek the repeal of the constitution’s “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard;
- Jim Choomack, executive presbyter of the Presbytery of Cherokee in Georgia.
- Jill Oglesby-Evans, a member-at-large in the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta.
- Cam Murchison, dean of the faculty and professor of ministry at Columbia Theological Seminary.
- David Wallace, dean of Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary.
Covenant Network statement
Byers mentioned the latest statement – dated April 26 – by the Covenant Network on G-6.106b, the “fidelity/chastity” ordination clause.
Calling for a “vision of the church based on the hospitality we have received in Jesus Christ,” the Network said it would continue to work for the repeal of G-6.0106b “and for the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Presbyterians.”
“I appreciate the idea of a polity suited for a mission church,” she said, affirming Kirkpatrick’s view. “I strongly endorse the idea of a streamlined Book of Order.”
She also agreed with Kirkpatrick that sessions and presbyteries are “best suited to determine the qualities for office.”
Clerk’s remarks applauded
“I applaud the stated clerk’s remarks in many ways,” Choomack said.
His presbytery’s growth in racial-ethnic membership has been accompanied by “constitutional stresses,” Choomack said. “When you are on the mission field, constitutional turmoil is more than inconvenience. It is a drain on our spiritual resources.”
Choomack said the constitution has become “overly regulatory. We have lost our character as missionary theologians and exchanged it for being theological lawyers and strategists. I, too, long for a leaner book that respects our ability to pray and think to discern God’s will. It cannot happen unless we have a revival … in the heart, not in the head, certainly not in the hip, because we shoot from the hip.”
Call it ‘Cliff notes’
Oglesby-Evans also liked the idea of an abbreviated Book of Order – and she offered a title. “Call it ‘Cliff Notes,'” she said.
She opposed following the “letter of the law that makes clear who’s in and who’s out and what’s permitted and what’s not permitted. Who knows what we might lose and what we might learn if we ditch some of the rules.”
Oglesby-Evans said she supports “ecclesiastical disobedience as an act of public conscience.”
‘Fresh, new vision’
Wallace called Kirkpatrick’s presentation “a fresh, new vision of the role the constitution plays and must play.” He said African-Americans “long for a fresh, new vision that will lead us out of this quagmire.”
“The enemy is not our fellow Presbyterians with whom we disagree,” Wallace said. “I believe the enemy is resistance to change. The solution not demonizing those with whom we disagree. We need a new vision that helps us to act differently, and to think differently. We need to make our constitution leaner and more enabling for the world mission.”
‘Shame on us’
“Shame on us for allowing this situation in the Presbyterian Church,” Murchison said, affirming Kirkpatrick’s call for Presbyterians to focus on The Book of Confessions and the first four chapters of the Book of Order.
Citing the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA), Murchison said, “It seems like a new departure to be part of the Confessing Church. We are a Confessing Church. The Book of Confessions is a confessional document.”
He also agreed with Kirkpatrick that the church’s “missional context is the right context to come to any discussion of church polity.”