Covenant Network leader mounts new legal attack on ‘Authoritative Interpretation’
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, August 17, 2004
The hue and cry at the 216th General Assembly from many of the advocates for ordaining practicing homosexuals was that the denomination’s Authoritative Interpretation – the theological anchor for the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” ordination clause – needed to be pulled up.
The Covenant Network of Presbyterians, the largest of several like-minded special-interest groups, targeted the Authoritative Interpretation but did not openly join the attack on the “fidelity/chastity” clause. Apparently, its strategy was to dispense first the authority for G-6.0106b in the Book of Order.
The Authoritative Interpretation concluded that “unrepentant homosexual practice does not accord with the requirements for ordination.” On the other hand, G-6.0106b doesn’t even mention homosexuality. It simply states:
- “Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.”
But now one of the Covenant Network’s legal activists is telling pro-gay ordination groups that the Authoritative Interpretation isn’t legal anyway.
In a column on page 6 of the recent edition of More Light Update, Peter Oddliefson, declared the Authoritative Interpretation “constitutionally defective.” In what appears to be an attempt to invite gay Presbyterians to ignore the Authoritative Interpretation, More Light Update titled Oddliefson’s column, “Despite G.A., the A.I. is Moot.”
Similar arguments were made without success at the 216th General Assembly. Even Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick didn’t suggest that the Authoritative Interpretation was moot. Appearing before the committee that considered the Authoritative Interpretation, as well as proposals to repeal the constitutional fidelity/chastity clause, Kirkpatrick gave no indication that the statement lacked legal – and constitutional – status.
Furthermore, the highest court in the Presbyterian Church (USA) – the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly – has cited it as authoritative (and legal) in a number of cases. And in 2001, the presbyteries of the PCUSA voted nearly 75 percent against a proposal that would have repealed the Authoritative Interpretation as well “fidelity/chastity” clause.
Oddliefson is an elder at Downtown Presbyterian Church in Rochester, N.Y., a More Light congregation that has been at the center of the storm over the ordination standard. Under the rubric of the Authoritative Interpretation, the General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission ruled in 1993 that Downtown Presbyterian Church could not install Janie Spahr, a lesbian activist, as an associate minister.
More recently, however, Downtown Presbyterian called Pat Youngdahl, a lesbian activist, as co-pastor in spite of church law. Youngdahl, a divorcee who was ordained in 1981 but kept her homosexual behavior secret until years later, says her long-term lesbian partner is Michal McKenzie, who served as vice moderator of the General Assembly in 1986.
In the meantime, Oddliefson has written extensively for the Covenant Network and More Light churches about what he calls the legal shortcomings of the Authoritative Interpretation and the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” standard.
In his column for More Light Presbyterians, Oddliefson employs a number of attempts to delegitimize the Authoritative Interpretation, including:
- 1. He said it was merely “construed” to be authoritative when it was termed “definitive guidance.” At the General Assembly, former Princeton Theological Seminary President Tom Gillespie, one of the members of the task force that wrote the 1978 definitive guidance, expressed his disagreement with that view. “Anything that is ‘definitive’ I would take as authoritative,” Gillespie said.
- 2. Oddliefson called the Authoritative Interpretation “an attempt to amend the Book of Order without obtaining the required ratification of the presbyteries because it excluded from ordination an entire class of persons in violation” of other Book of Order requirements for inclusivity.
- But the requirements he cites (G-3.0401, G-4.0403, G-5.0103 and G-5.0202) have nothing to do with qualifications for church office.
- G-3.0401 is part of a section about the church’s mission, calling for openness and diversity (specifically men and women) and makes no reference to homosexual behavior.
- G-4.0403 is about unity within the PCUSA and ecumenical unity. It doesn’t mention homosexuality.
- G-5.0103 addresses inclusiveness and calls on congregations to welcome all people upon a profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Again, there is no reference to homosexual behavior.
- G-5.0202 refers to the rights of membership – including the right to become elected as church officers – ministers by presbyteries and elders and deacons by congregations. But G-5.0202 also calls on members to submit to the government of the church – which Oddliefson encourages them not to do.
- 3. Oddliefson argues that the Authoritative Interpretation shouldn’t be church law – which it remains unless a future General Assembly nullifies it or adopts a new Authoritative Interpretation – because a majority of the Bible professors in Presbyterian seminaries says it wrongly interprets Scripture that condemns homosexual behavior. But the opinions of the professors have nothing to do with church law. Church law has to be established by the General Assembly through an Authoritative Interpretation or by a majority vote of the presbyteries.
- 4. He declares that the Authoritative Interpretation is “now obsolete and irrelevant” because it was superseded by G-6.0106b. But the Presbyterian courts have not regarded it as “obsolete and irrelevant;” to the contrary, they have continued, since G-6.0l06b was added to the constitution in 1997, to cite it as authoritative.
- Oddliefson was the attorney for the Presbytery of Northern New England when it refused to take action against Christ Church in Burlington, Vt., which had elected a self-acknowledged, practicing homosexual to its session. The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission said the presbytery should have intervened. In that decision, the court said, “This Commission finds that there are no constitutional grounds for a governing body to fail to comply with an express provision of the Constitution, however inartfully stated. Assertions of inconsistency, confusion, or ambiguity may justify the right to protest. They do not create a right to disregard any part of the Constitution.”
- 5. Oddliefson called the Authoritative Interpretation “defective because it violated the Confessions.” But he mentioned only one Confession – the Confession of 1967, which stresses reconciliation and inclusiveness. Homosexuality is not mentioned in the text of the Confession of 1967. It does include a passage that Oddliefson doesn’t cite: “Anarchy in sexual relationships is a symptom of man’s alienation from God, his neighbor, and himself.”