Santa Barbara union presbytery plan with ECO struck down
The only essential tenet is the freedom to believe that there aren’t any
Analysis by Carmen Fowler LaBerge, The Layman, November 16, 2012
Synod PJC finds Santa Barbara presbytery guilty as charged:
1. Conferring on a “special interest” group a veto over the constitutional governance of the church. (The “special interest” group is ECO.)
2. Promotion of division and schism.
3. Mischaracterization of ECOP as a “Reformed” body.
4. Mischaracterization of the “Presbytery of the West” as a “comparable” council or governing body (to Santa Barbara presbytery).
5. Mis-use of our constitutional provisions for union presbyteries.
6. Disregard of important constitutional requirements for union
7. Violation of our constitutional guarantee of respect for biblically-formed conscience.
8. Conditioning congregational membership on more than a profession of faith.
9. Infringing congregations’ right to elect, and sessions’ responsibility to assess the fitness of, congregational leaders.
10. Violation of presbytery’s obligations in assessing its congregations’ choices of pastoral leadership.
11. Defiance of the church’s discernment that categorical exclusion of gay and lesbian Presbyterians is improper
12. Denial of our commitment to remain open to God’s continuing reformation of the church.
13. Violation of presbytery’s duty to exercise genuine, good-faith discernment in providing for dissident congregations
14. Undermining of the property trust provisions in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
15. Violation of obligations to congregations and members who remain exclusively loyal to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
16. Deprivation of full rights of membership in the presbytery.
17. Violation of presbytery’s duty to pursue ministry, and to establish ecumenical relationships, within its geographic bounds.
18. Failure to conduct business decently and in order.
In an act of judicial activism, the Synod PJC of Southern California and Hawaii has issued a sweeping ruling, sustaining 18 of 19 charges against Santa Barbara presbytery’s plan of union with ECO’s presbytery of the West. But that is not all they did. The SPJC also functionally redefined what it means to be “reformed.”
The church’s passive role in reformation as a body being actively reformed by the Word of God, has yielded itself to an aggressive politically motivated judicial activism. No longer humbly sitting under the Scriptures nor even under the denomination’s Constitution, one the SPJC has wielded it’s institutional power to the detriment of the body of Christ.
The only essential tenet is that there are none
The issues raised in the case are myriad. The most glaring is the SPJC’s effective reduction of the Reformed faith to one tenet: freedom of conscience. To say that “it is the current understanding that the Reformed tradition rests on a clear understanding that Jesus Christ alone is Lord of the conscience” is a gross misrepresentation of those who would self-describe as Reformed Christians the world over. For a PCUSA body to so thoroughly misunderstand its own heritage and misrepresent its own confessions is tragic.
The SPJC should read the PCUSA’s own published materials on the matter which include theological papers, confessional studies and curriculum. Therein the SPJC would learn that being Reformed begins with God’s sovereignty, is built on a Christ-exclusive soteriology, and uses Calvinistic language with very specific attached meanings. To say that there is some “current” understanding of what it means to be Reformed that is divorced from these, is to admit that the faith once delivered is not the same faith as is now in vogue among those whose opinion is expressed in the ruling. The error then is not with ECO, but with the PCUSA.
It would seem wise to seek the counsel of the larger Reformed family in this matter. The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the successor body to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). It represents 75-million Reformed Christians around the world and the PCUSA is a major player. The WCRC says in its constitution that “The basis of the World Communion of Reformed Churches shall be the Word of the triune God, incarnate in Jesus Christ and revealed in the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is to this triune God that the church bears witness. The World Communion of Reformed Churches is committed to embody a Reformed identity as articulated in the Ecumenical Creeds of the early church, in the historic confessions of the Reformation, and as continued in the life and witness of the Reformed community.”
The current understanding of the Reformed tradition by the WCRC does not include the elevation of the individual conscience above the Scriptures. Nor does it allow for the freedom of conscience to trump the historic ecumenical creeds of the early church. Nor does the freedom of the individual conscience outrank the historic confessions of the Reformation. So, according to the WCRC, what it means to be a Reformed body has actual identifiable substance, also known as essential tenets of the Reformed faith.
Although the ruling states that “Councils do not have the right to bind the conscience of either pastors or members to a pro-forma set of essentials,” the SPJC has sought to do just that by elevating the freedom of conscience above all other values in our common life.
According to the PCUSA Book of Order (G-3.0303b, G-4.0203, G-4.0207) presbyteries alone have the right and bear the responsibility to dismiss congregations from the Presbyterian Church (USA). Where they dismiss to is also the explicit purview of the presbytery. Presbyteries are to determine for themselves what is best for the continuing witness of Christ for the churches in their geographical context. They are to seek to answer the question “where” congregations can be dismissed by seeking to ascertain that the receiving body is a Reformed denomination whose organization is conformed to the doctrine and order of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
ECO has adopted the entirety of the PCUSA Book of Confessions as its confessional standard. How then can anyone in the PCUSA say that the theology of ECO is not sufficiently Reformed? Is that also to say that the PCUSA is not sufficiently Reformed?
Just who is fomenting schism?
The SPJC sustained the charge that Santa Barbara presbytery was promoting division and fomenting schism in the church by adopting the Plan of Union with the ECO’s Presbytery of the West. In reality, the presbytery was explicitly seeking to prevent division by their action. Faced with a number of churches that desire to realign with ECO, the presbytery’s plan of union was a way of keeping congregations “in” the PCUSA, even if they knowingly had one foot in fellowship with another denomination.
Pastor Mark Patterson, a minister member of Santa Barbara Presbytery posted in response to the ruling, “As one of the authors of this union plan this decision of the PJC is disappointing. Our honest desire was to keep our presbytery together even as we acknowledged deep differences in our understanding of the gospel, Sc
ripture and ministry.”
The ruling by the SPJC almost guarantees that churches in Santa Barbara Presbytery will now seek to formally leave the PCUSA. The action of the SPJC to declare “null and void the actions taken by Santa Barbara Presbytery at their called meeting of June 2, 2012 wherein the Plan for Union was approved” will now foment schism in a presbytery that was seeking to rightly exercise its constitutional rights and responsibilities.
In failing to allow the presbytery the freedom it needed to hold its congregations together, the SPJC has insured that the presbytery will now be torn apart.
Patterson said, “We in the evangelical side grieve this even as we acknowledge its reality and turn to take another course. It has become radiantly clear to evangelicals that in spite of liberal claims of inclusivity we are welcome only when and if we submit to their values and rules. It is thus clear that the Presbyterian tent is not really as big or inclusive as some would like to believe.”
Synod has no standing to do what it did
The SPJC was asked to rule on the constitutionality of a particular Plan of Union between a presbytery within its bounds (Santa Barbara) and a presbytery of another denomination (ECO’s presbytery of the West). Instead, the SPJC ruled on a variety of matters beyond its appropriate purview.
The synod has no standing to issue a judgment against fellow Presbyterians who have formed a new denomination, ECO: a Covenanted Order of Evangelical Presbyterians and specifically, the Presbytery of the West; declaring that those Presbyterians are not sufficiently Reformed in theology nor polity.
The members of the SPJC may disagree with the presbytery’s ruling in the matter, but as long as the presbytery used the three criteria of doctrinal compatibility, polity similarity and the permanence of the receiving body, the SPJC cannot say that the presbytery erred.
The court also overstepped into activism in issuing a judgment against the presbyters in Santa Barbara for fomenting schism, attributing to them motives that cannot be known as testimony was not heard, and finding their conduct to be indecent and out of order, when in fact, they followed all the rules.
A mockery of the process
At six different places in the “Findings and Rationale” portion of the ruling, the SPJC notes “the preponderance of the evidence.” This case attests to the robust nature of the offense being presented against presbyteries who are seeking to maintain unity in the midst of fractious times.
According to the procedural history portion of the report, “The complainants presented a notebook containing all the documents … and entered them into evidence.” On the other hand, “The respondents did not present a pre-trial brief or any additional documentation.” And the SPJC only heard witnesses on behalf of the complainants. The respondents, namely Santa Barbara Presbytery, presented no witnesses. Standing silent before your accusers is one thing, but failing to present relevant evidence about ECO, which is barred from participation by an internal PCUSA remedial hearing, is not a helpful strategy.
It is reminiscent of the recent GAPJC trial where San Francisco Presbytery did not even have counsel present, presented no defense and allowed the GAPJC to quite literally hear only one side of the story. These failures make a mockery of the PCUSA’s so-called ecclesiastical system of justice.
In spite of the presbytery not doing more to robustly defend itself, the ruling by the SPJC is still egregious.
Violations galore
- The SPJC ruling violates the conscience of the majority of presbyters who voted on the Plan of Union and judges ECO to be, in fact, a Reformed body.
- The ruling violates the PCUSA principle of allowing diversity within the denomination by siding so fully with one political position while relegating all others to marginalized status of “special interest” or “theological affinity” groups.
- The ruling violates the nFOG which was designed to de-centralize the church and is supposed to allow presbyteries to make their own decisions as best fits their own unique context.
- The ruling violates the spirit of the Stated Clerk’s Constitutional Musing #25 which guarantees the right of presbyteries to dismiss congregations and preserves the presbytery’s right to determine the Reformed nature of the receiving body.
- The ruling violates the truth in that the SPJC did not bother to read the ECO polity which clearly states (1.0302 and 1.0303) that membership is trust in Jesus Christ, the same standard of membership for which the SPJC appeals and the basis upon which it rules ECO un-Reformed.
The ultimate irony
The SPJC ruling suggests that a PCUSA church can only rightly be dismissed to another denomination that is just like the PCUSA. But why would churches be seeking to leave if they didn’t desire to be doing church differently in a different denomination? The reason people want to leave is evidenced throughout this SPJC ruling, which smacks of a sense of ecclesiastical superiority and smugness that is unbecoming to the Bride of Christ.