Theological task force adopts schedule for addressing issues
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, August 5, 2002
CHICAGO – The Task Force on Peace, Purity and Unity held its third three-day meeting in Chicago August 1-3 without providing a clue of where it is going – but, this time, the panel approved a road map to wherever that will be.
Skittish about their image and press coverage, members of the task force have tip-toed through the land-mine issues they were assigned to assess, including Christology, Biblical revelation, ordination and how power is divvied up in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
But they did settle on “A Plan for Moving Ahead” that would bring those issues to the fore during the next several meetings. Each meeting will include a theological topic and a polity/governance/history topic.
Following the blueprint
They will begin following that blueprint Oct. 24-26 when they meet in Louisville, the headquarters for the Presbyterian Church (USA). The first issues will be Jesus, what it means to be his disciples in a pluralistic age and the current social and religious context of Presbyterian life and mission.
The lightning-rod issue of whether the PCUSA should consider once again whether to ordain self-affirming, practicing homosexuals is on the October 2003 agenda. The denomination has had three referendums on the ordination issue since 1997. The current constitutional standard, which was adopted in the first referendum, was reaffirmed earlier this year by a 3-1 margin during voting in the denomination’s 173 presbyteries.
John “Mike” Louden, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, Fla., told the committee that the ordination question is the watershed issue.
After the task force’s deliberations began ranging in a number of directions – including the possibility of producing curriculum for the denomination and setting up “shadow” or “mirror” task forces that would consider the same issues – Loudon said, “You pay your rent. For us to pay the rent, we have to take a look at 3B” – a designation the task force used for considering the ordination standard.
“Our most important issue is not creating mirror task forces or curriculum,” he said. “Our most important issue is ordination and why we’re beating each other up.”
Decisions made by consensus
There was no vote on the road map, which was approved by consensus, the decision-making model the task force hopes to use throughout its deliberations before making a final report to the General Assembly in 2007.
That model prompted Gary Demarest of Glendora, Calif., co-moderator of the task force, to quip, “I have spent much of my professional life becoming somewhat of a parliamentarian. Now, you’ve taken that away from me.”
The discussion of the “Plan for Moving Ahead” was wide-ranging, with some members tweaking words and phraseology. One victim of the editing process was the word “resolve,” which committee members considered too, well, resolute when making statements about controversial issues. Instead of resolving, they decided “addressing” the issues would suffice.
With the adoption of an agenda for the next four meetings, Demarest, who has politely nudged the task force to dive into its task, tipped his hat. “That’s a lot of progress, folks. I think we ought to feel real good about what we’ve done.”