Commentary: A dangerous deviation
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, March 11, 2010
As Presbyterians prepare for a General Assembly in which Christian standards of sexual behavior will again be challenged, news of deviant and unlawful behavior by one of its highest elected officials has come to light.
Clark Chamberlain, formerly stated clerk of the Synod of the Sun, acting stated clerk and parliamentarian for New Covenant Presbytery, victorious candidate for the General Assembly’s highest elected office, and a six-year member of the denomination’s highest court, was stripped of his ordination credentials by New Covenant Presbytery on Nov. 18, 2009.
On the record
In 2005, Dallas police arrested and charged Chamberlain with soliciting a minor for sexual assault. He admitted to the arresting officer that he propositioned oral sex to the 14-year-old boy, but claimed that he didn’t know the boy was a minor. In 2007, Chamberlain pled guilty to the lesser charge of “injuring a child/criminal negligence.” He was ordered to participate in sex offender counseling, placed on probation and later incarcerated when he violated his probation by failing to complete his counseling regimen. Chamberlain sought to justify his noncompliance by complaining that his court appointed counselor was intolerant and incompetent.
Chamberlain insists that he is not a pedophile. “My sexuality is exclusively with other consenting adults,” he told the court. Presumably – and assuming there have been no other incidents like the one for which he was arrested in Dallas – he could say this only because the child whom he approached spurned his invitation.
According to “Keeping Body and Soul Together,” a human sexuality document that was rejected by the 1991 General Assembly but approved as a recommended study resource by denominational agencies, it is okay to engage in homosexual and adulterous activities so long as the participating adults agree. So, according to the ethic of mutuality, Chamberlain’s behavior, minus any attention that he may have given to minors, passes the morality test.
A denominational leader
The Presbyterian Church (USA) was alerted to Chamberlain’s sexual proclivities more than a decade ago. Having won election to the office of General Assembly Stated Clerk in 1992, Chamberlain resigned within 24 hours. Shocked by the announcement, many commissioners at the assembly asked what had happened during that 24 hours that persuaded him to step down. Later, it was reported that a denominational employee who claimed to have suffered an abusive relationship with Chamberlain at a previous assembly meeting reported it to authorities after the election. Faced with the alleged non-mutuality, the stated clerk-elect forfeited his office, and no judicial proceeding resulted.
Was a deal cut in which the allegations would disappear if Chamberlain dropped out of sight? We can’t know what went on behind closed doors. What we do know is that Chamberlain’s disappearance was short lived.
In 1995, the General Assembly awarded him a coveted position on the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, in essence the Supreme Court of the PCUSA. He arrived just in time to vote on lesbian activist Jane Spahr’s bid to occupy a New York church pulpit. Chamberlain carried the gay rights banner during those proceedings. Although his was a minority voice in that case, he paved the way for successors who now show more tolerance for the preferences he championed.
In 1996, he again sought national church recognition, running for the office of General Assembly stated clerk. He was defeated in that election by Clifton Kirkpatrick.
Early warning
PCUSA leaders have been repeatedly warned of dire consequences awaiting a denomination that will not discipline – and, in fact, appears to applaud – deviant sexual behavior. In 1997, when the General Assembly proposed that its sexual behavior standards be stricken from the constitution, Robert L. Howard, a prominent Kansas attorney and vice chair of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, sounded the alarm.
In an article that was published in The Layman and distributed widely across the denomination, Howard warned that removing the standard “creates enormous legal exposure for the Presbyterian Church (USA).”
“Sexual misconduct and harassment cases are burgeoning throughout the United States, and plaintiffs’ attorneys almost always seek to impose liability on entities above or beyond the perpetrator of the offending conduct in order to recover more substantial damages,” said Howard.
Deep pockets
Citing a $119.6 million verdict against the Catholic Diocese in Dallas, Howard said, “Any church that repudiates previously established prohibitions against sexual misconduct by its ordained ministers and officers, and substitutes an unclear policy permitting its ministers and officers to determine their own standards, invites costly legal claims, regardless of the ultimate merit of the suits.”
“Creative plaintiffs’ lawyers,” Howard continued, “will inevitably claim such church action had the effect of granting actual or apparent authority to its ministers and officers to self-define standards of sexual behavior, bringing any such behavior within the ‘course and scope’ of the duties or church-related activities of the ministers or officials … Even if misconduct occurs outside the scope of authority, a church can still be subject to liability if it was negligent in failing to prohibit wrongful conduct. An employer, for example, that knows of sexual harassment in the workplace in violation of its own policy, yet fails to take remedial steps, creates liability for itself.”
Howard noted that many presbyteries have sexual misconduct/harassment policies on their books, but he warned that a decision by the denomination that waters down its constitutional standard can “seriously impair or effectively rescind the validity of such subordinate policies.”
“If the prevailing constitutional standard leaves it to individuals to define the limits of acceptable conduct, an agency of the church may not be viewed as credible in its defense if it relies on subordinate policies.”
Affirming the standard
In 1996, the PCUSA placed in its constitution the standard that it will not ordain or install persons who refuse to confine their sexual behavior to the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (G-6.0106b). That standard, said Howard, “makes it absolutely clear that the PCUSA does not condone any form of sexual misconduct.”
With that standard in place, he said, “no victim can reasonably claim that a minister or officer of the church had the actual or apparent authority to engage in sexual relationships that may turn into harassment or abuse.”
Undermining the standard
In 2006, however, the General Assembly adopted a “local option” recommendation from its “Peace, Unity and Purity” task force that has created great confusion about the enforceability of the standard. The assembly declared that although it was leaving G-6.0106b in place, an individual who chooses not to abide by it may declare a “scruple” against it. If that person’s presbytery deems the standard “not essential,” it may proceed to ordain the person who defies it. Subsequently, John Knox and San Francisco presbyteries have approved the ordination of persons who refuse to limit their sexual activities to heterosexual marriage.
Striking the standard
Compounding the potential liability that arises from the denomination’s unwillingness to enforce its standard are proposals to the 2010 General Assembly that would strike that standard from the books altogether.
The Clark Chamberlain story is tragic. It may also be a portent of things to come, spotlighting the very danger that Howard flagged more than a decade ago. Standards that the PCUSA appears no longer willing to enforce – or even to recognize, if those who wish to remove G-6.0106b have their way – may gain more traction in criminal and civil courts than they currently experience in denominational policies. Presbyterians who have been inclined to ignore the clear counsel of Scripture may find in lockups and lawsuits some additional motivations for obeying the Word of God.