California church files complaint against Santa Barbara’s union-presbytery plan
By Jason P. Reagan, The Layman, June 26, 2012
A California church is trying to scuttle its presbytery’s plan to form a union presbytery with a recent judicial complaint.
On June 21, the session of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara, Calif., along with 28 ministers, filed a complaint against the Presbytery of Santa Barbara, claiming the governing body’s recently adopted plan to re-form as a union presbytery with ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians is unconstitutional and will promote schism within the Presbyterian Church (USA).
On June 2, the presbytery voted 104-38 to affiliate both with the PCUSA and ECO’s Presbytery of the West as a union presbytery. The presbytery also voted 106-36 to recognize ECO as a Reformed body.
Due to the growing exodus of churches from the PCUSA to more conservative Reformed bodies, presbytery leaders 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.
In its 19-count complaint to the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii, St. Andrew’s session claims that ECO is not a functioning church or denomination and that it has few or no congregations.
“[ECO] does not have the theology, polity relationships or other characteristics that might enable it to qualify as a genuinely Reformed body,” the complaint read, adding that, subsequently, the union plan violates the PCUSA constitution.
However, a recent ECO press release reveals the denomination comprised 15 churches as of June 21.
A May report indicates that a total of 47 congregations are now in the process of leaving the PCUSA and preparing to join the new denomination. The denomination also posts documents on polity and theology at its website.
The complainants also say ECO had no churches when the presbytery adopted the June 2 proposal. However, ECO documents reveal that at least one church — Trinity Presbyterian Church of Satellite Beach, Fla. – had already joined in May.
Three other PCUSA presbyteries — Tropical Florida, Pueblo and Olympia — have approved ECO as an eligible Reformed body to which congregations can be dismissed.
Santa Barbara’s Presbytery Council 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 complainants further claim that, since ECO will not ordain gay ministerial candidates not living in chastity, the move represents an attempt to nullify Amendment 10A.
Adopted in 2011, Amendment 10A deleted the explicit “fidelity/chastity” requirement from the constitutional ordination standard, and now allows the PCUSA to ordain of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people as deacons, elders and pastors.
The complaint states the union concept “invites congregations to join a comfortable association of the like-minded rather than continuing the work of collective discernment and reconciliation.”
Since ECO developed essential tenets and requires adherence to them, the complainants claim this “violates [the] fundamental theological conviction that God alone is Lord of the conscience and that freedom of conscience in the interpretation of Scripture must be maintained.”
In a May blog post titled “Is ECO a Reformed Body,” ECO proponent Jim Singleton pointed out, in addressing a similar allegation, that “every ruling elder, teaching elder and deacon in the PCUSA has agreed to ‘…sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable exposition of what Scripture leads us to believe and do…’”
The complaint seeks to “declare null and void the actions related to purported union with ECO” and to order Santa Barbara to “cease and desist from any further efforts to promote union with ECO.”