General Assembly committee recommends loophole to open meeting rule
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman Online, June 27, 2000
LONG BEACH — A commissioner’s committee of the 212th General Assembly will recommend a loophole in the General Assembly Open Meeting rule by exempting some meetings from the requirement that they be open to observers.
By a vote of 28-19 Monday, the Committee on Mission Coordination and Budgets will ask the General Assembly to exempt certain non-business meetings if the subject group is “small” and its purpose is to deal with “personal issues of faith and life.” Neither “small” nor “personal issues” are defined.
The committee’s recommendation will go to the General Assembly later this week. A minority report is expected.
The committee heard vigorous debate during its hearings. Rev. William Lancaster, who described himself as a veteran journalist and a member of the Advisory Committee on the News, encouraged commissioners to approve the loophole. He said that the change was needed in order to protect people’s privacy when discussing sensitive, “personal issues.”
Lancaster’s position was quickly challenged by Leslie Day Ebert, who pointed out that there is only one group at denominational headquarters that appears to be chafing against the open meeting policy, the National Network of Presbyterian College Women. Ebert reminded commissioners that this group’s written materials and website were judged Biblically deficient by previous General Assemblies. They have lost credibility, she said, and they must work very hard to restore the church’s trust. “If I were a part of a group like that, the last thing I would want is secrecy. I would throw open the doors and say ‘come on in and look at anything you want.’ That’s the way you restore trust.”
Rev. William Yolton said the loophole was necessary because of “the invasion of hostile visitors, especially those that come in the guise of being members of the press … like that tabloid, The Presbyterian Layman.”
But John Berstecher, of Shippensburg, PA, called on denominational leaders to follow the example of Jesus Christ. He pointed out that all of the gospels describe Jesus as proclaiming his message out in the open. Scripture says that he taught in the temple every day, and in that public place his enemies didn’t lay a hand on him. We learn from this Scripture several principles, he said: “Jesus talked in open forum. He spoke to people at all stages of the faith. He was obviously aware of the fact that his enemies were there, stalking him, but he refused to hide.”
Rev. Douglas Pride, representing Huntington Presbytery, told the committee, “This debate has gone on for a number of years, beginning in 1989.” Pride reminded commissioners that the denomination’s first open-meeting policy included a “small group loophole,” that resulted in a “flurry” of small group, closed-door meetings. That experience led the 1997 General Assembly to close the loophole. Pride urged the committee not to return to gatherings behind closed doors.
“Trust in our denomination is at all time low,” said Pride. “I wonder if it would wise to take any action that would further erode that trust.”
Rev. John Silbert, chairman of the General Assembly’s Advisory Committee on the News, protested the suggestion that the denomination’s Open Meeting Policy was being changed. He said that it “is not nor has it ever been a substitute or revision of the open meeting policy.” The only change, he said, is the kind of meeting to which it applies.