Presbyterians defying PCUSA constitution schedule service
The Layman Online, October 15, 2002
While some Presbyterian leaders are trying to scuttle a called meeting of the General Assembly to deal with constitutional issues, officers who are brazenly defying church law have scheduled a public worship service to reaffirm their acts of defiance.
The service will be held on Oct. 27 in South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., a congregation that has been in the eye of the denominational storm over ordination standards and “marrying” same-gender couples for years.
“Christian conscience calls us together to support our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) sisters and brothers,” the invitation reads. “Churches and individuals from across the Tri-State Area of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey will celebrate the gifts and diversity of all God’s people …”
South Presbyterian is one of 16 congregations in the Presbytery of Hudson River whose officers have publicly called for defying church law prohibiting the ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexuals. The presbytery has taken no action against them. Notwithstanding those unrestrained acts of defiance, the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly has declared that the denomination’s “constitutional process is working.”
South Presbyterian has conducted – without discipline from the Presbytery of Hudson River – high-profile defiance of the constitution, dating back at least to 2000, when The Rockfort Journal and The New York Times published articles about the “holy unions” being conducted at the church. The newspapers quoted South Presbyterian’s pastor, the Rev. Joseph Gilmore, as describing those ceremonies as “marriages.”
But during a trial related to the “holy unions,” Sharon Davison, the attorney for the presbytery, said the presbytery’s sanctioning of same-sex unions was not the equivalent of sanctioning marriages between same-gender couples. She declared then that the presbytery “does not permit same-sex marriages.”
Eventually, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission agreed with Davison, declaring that same-sex unions were permissible but that they could not resemble marriages and that ministers conducting them must not approve conjugal relations for same-gender couples.
Recently, South Presbyterian publicly announced, “Since 1991, our ministers have conducted services of worship joining lesbian and gay persons in same-sex unions, which are, in every important respect, marriages: two hearts declaring themselves home to each other, before God, with gratitude.”
The invitation to the Reformation Day service at South Presbyterian said the event is being sponsored by Presbyterian Promise, Presbyterian Welcome and the Dissenting Churches of Hudson River Presbytery.
The invitation encouraged participants to bring a “Statement of Reformation” that will be nailed to a church door, as were Martin Luther’s 95 theses in the 16th century.
“We will provide the spikes and hammers; you bring the pounding of your hearts, and depths of your consciences. Statements of faith, vision, and mission; letters of dissent and defiance; quotes that capture your soul and need to speak to ours; blank sheet stained with the tears of this struggle, the names of those targeted, or both – all will bear witness that in this church of ours the Reformation continues.”
An evangelical Presbyterian group is also using a Luther-like strategy with a declaration titled “A Call to Confession and Repentance.”
The preacher for the service will be the Rev. Hal Porter, who has also been in the forefront of the defiance movement. Porter is pastor emeritus of Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, a congregation whose session has issued declarations saying 1) it is violating – and will violate – the constitution’s “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard and 2) that its ministers “marry” same-gender couples.