Opposition to gay ordination
could have major consequences
By John H. Adams, The Layman, July 18, 2008
With its purge of the Biblical reasons for not ordaining practicing homosexuals and its declaration that the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” requirement is not essential, the 218th General Assembly has created a local option that has denominationwide consequences.
During arguments over the sweeping changes, advocates for the changes repeatedly argued that no session or presbytery was obligated to ordain candidates for ministers, elders or deacons whose sexual behavior deviates from the constitution.
But the sum of the General Assembly’s decisions is that individual presbyteries and local church sessions are now free to decide whom they will ordain. And because the General Assembly declared that there are no “essential” standards, they are now able to ordain homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators and people who have multiple sex partners.
But there’s a rub. The ordination of ministers “is an act of the whole church carried out by the presbytery, setting apart a person to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament,” says G-14.0480 in the Book of Order.
Similarly, “The office of elder or deacon is perpetual and no one can lay it aside at pleasure or be divested of it” except for disciplinary reasons, according to G-14.0210.
In other words, an ordination by a regional presbytery or a local church session cannot be nullified by another presbytery or session. What began as a local act, thus becomes a denominationwide decision.
Suppose a New England presbytery, where unconstitutional ordinations of both pastors and lay officers have already occurred, approved the ordination of a minister to accept the call of a congregation in that presbytery, but received a call to a conservative presbytery later.
While the conservative presbytery might strongly oppose the call because of the candidate’s sexual behavior, it would not have the right to rule that candidate ineligible on the basis of his or her behavior. To the contrary, the local presbytery would be required to recognize the candidate as a duly ordained officer because the first presbytery carried out “an act of the whole church.”
The same would be true of deacons and elders. Although ordained by local church sessions, they serve in perpetual offices, meaning that they remain deacons and elders when they become members of another PCUSA body. Even if they’re not elected to active service as a deacon or elder, they are eligible to perform the constitutional duties that accompany those offices.
For example, under the hypothetical New England-conservative situation, an elder who lives in a homosexual relationship and believes it is a “gift of God,” would be eligible to serve the conservative congregation as its representative to presbytery even if he was not elected to the session. He would also be able to teach or preach, duties that are constitutionally tied to the office of elder.
Individual efforts to prevent the recognition of officers whose lifestyles are outside the bounds of “fidelity in marriage” and “chastity in singleness” could result in repercussions – even ouster from the denomination.
The case of Walter Kenyon is such an example.
Kenyon, citing Biblical grounds, said he would not participate in the ordination of women – but he said he would willingly work with ordained women. After the Presbytery of Pittsburgh approved Kenyon’s call in 1974 to serve as minister to a small congregation, the highest court in the Northern wing of the mainline denomination (then the United Presbyterian Church USA) ruled in 1975 that he was unacceptable.
Kenyon was stripped of his ordination because he stood by what he believed to be a Biblical principal.
Today, Kenyon remains in self-imposed exile from the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is a member of the Presbyterian Church in America, a conservative denomination that does not permit the ordination of women. He teaches philosophy, Bible and ethics at Belhaven College, a fast-growing evangelical school.
Ironically, the PCUSA claims Belhaven as one of its own, but not the professor.