Synod votes to conduct second review of Baltimore Presbytery
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, March 29, 2004
RICHMOND, Va. – Despite protests from the Presbytery of Baltimore, including the presbytery’s threat of retaliation in church courts, the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic has reopened its cold case file and called for another administrative review of the presbytery.
This time, the synod voted 19-14 to conduct the review in accordance with all of the requirements set forth in the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), including a determination of whether the presbytery has been faithful to the mission of the church and has been obeying the “lawful injunctions of a higher governing body.”
During a three-hour called meeting in Richmond on March 27, commissioners to the synod and presbytery representatives heatedly debated the proposed second review with only a few references to the issue that prompted the synod’s initial review.
That issue is the presbytery’s decision against calling for a church trial after it received a complaint against one of its minister members, the Rev. Don Stroud, a homosexual activist who works for the Baltimore office of That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS).
TAMFS, which has recently applauded the illegal gay “marriages” of some of its leaders and allies in San Francisco, has conducted an aggressive assault on the constitution and promoted outright defiance of church law prohibiting same-sex marriages and the ordination of practicing homosexuals.
Stroud has issued his own statement of defiance. He told the presbytery that he could not comply with the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” requirement in the Book of Order “because to do so, for me, can come only at the price of denying my faith in God’s grace in Jesus Christ. My conscience will not allow me to do such a thing.”
The presbytery, which shares office space in the same building with TAMFS, appointed an investigating committee to determine whether to call for a disciplinary trial of Stroud. The investigating committee, with a majority of its members having financially contributed to TAMFS, recommended that there be no trial, and the full presbytery concurred.
Powell SykesBefore the called meeting on March 27, the following had occurred: The presbytery’s action prompted the synod to call for administrative review. The review committee issued a report in November 2002 saying that the presbytery had been procedurally correct in its investigation of Stroud. The synod council approved that report. But, in December 2004, the synod council voted not to approve the report and called for a new administrative review committee. In January, the council reversed itself, calling off a second review and accepting the report by the first review committee.
Stroud attended the synod meeting, sitting beside Peter Nord, the executive of the Presbytery of Baltimore, but did not speak.
The Rev. Powell Sykes, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Burlington, N.C., made the motion to conduct a new review – with a new synod committee – in accordance with church law.
In the first review, the synod committee limited its consideration to the first three requirements of G-9.0409a, the Book of Order section that outlines the duties of an administrative review committee. Titled “Manner of Review,” that section says:
- In reviewing the proceedings of a lower governing body, the higher governing body shall determine, either from the records of those proceedings or from any other information as may come to its attention, whether:
- (1) The proceedings have been correctly recorded;
- (2) The proceedings have been regular and in accordance with the Constitution;
- (3) The proceedings have been prudent and equitable;
- (4) The proceedings have been faithful to the mission of the whole church;
- (5) The lawful injunctions of a higher governing body have been obeyed.
David YeuellDavid Yeuell, former chairman of the synod’s council, said there was some confusion over why the first synod review committee chose to limit its assessment to Nos. 1, 2 and 3 and not include Nos. 4 and 5. “I got conflicting information,” he said, referring to advice from Mark Tammen, a constitutional lawyer who works for General Assembly Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick.
According to Yeuell, Tammen finally advised that the review committee did not have to include all five sections of G-4.0904a – that it could pick and choose from the list of five.
But Powell disagreed. He said the constitution clearly says that the synod, being the higher governing body over the presbytery, “shall” determine the appropriateness of the presbytery’s actions in all five areas. “Shall,” Powell emphasized, is a requirement, not an option. He declared that Tammen’s suggestion that the committee could change the meaning of “shall” to “may” was not constitutional.
“The question before you today is, ‘Are we going to follow the constitution or not and does shall mean shall?'” Powell told the synod.
“I was thinking of this from the perspective of a pastor,” Powell added. “‘In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.'”
“We have a system where minority rights are protected. When an elite majority imposes its will on the minority, it’s a recipe for disaster, and that’s where I think we are today. The little question is this, ‘What is the meaning of the word shall? It means mandated. We’re not here talking about what Baltimore hasn’t done. We’re here talking about what the synod hasn’t done.”
Yeuell said that at one point he wondered “whether or not the task we were assigned was correct and should we have included the last two items. I got no clear answer.”
After the synod council first reconsidered the question of whether its committee had met constitutional requirements, Yeuell said it voted to authorize a new review committee.
“That was adopted and forwarded to the presbytery of Baltimore,” he said. The presbytery responded with a statement of its “intent to file a remedial complaint against the synod.” Deterred by that threat, the synod council re-adopted the first review committee report and called off a second review.
John Goodman, executive director of the Presbytery of Coastal Carolina and chairman of the synod’s first administrative review committee, said the committee intentionally limited the scope of its investigation.
“The committee clearly understood a review of the judicial aspects were not within its purview,” he told the committee. “I would underscore that point. We were not permitted to become involved in the judicial process. We were an administrative review committee.”
He said the committee conducted “face-to-face” meetings with “key players,” including Charles Forbes, the stated clerk of the Presbytery of Baltimore. Forbes signed the articles of incorporation for the Baltimore office of TAMFS and made suggestions to the presbytery’s moderator about people to name to the investigating committee in the Stroud case.
The report of the first administrative review committee found no reason to question the role of Forbes and TAMFS-friendly investigating committee members. The report concluded that, whether or not there was any appearance of impropriety, the full presbytery had settled the issue by approving all investigating committee members, “an act which the ARC determines cures any bias that may have been present in the nomination process.”
Goodman told the synod that “the conclusions we reached … in the presbytery’s handling of the case did not involve any irregularities or delinquencies. But we were well aware that some people would have preferred a wide-ranging review.”
Nord, the Presbytery of Baltimore executive, told the synod that appointing a new administrative review committee and broadening the scope of its investigation would damage relationships between the presbytery and synod.
“I’m sort of sad to be here,” he said, “because when I came to this position, I wanted to create a new, positive relationship between the Presbytery of Baltimore and the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic. This kind of rehashing of events about what happened in my presbytery really seeks to do damage to building that positive relationship.”
Nord criticized the synod for considering a new review. “In Scripture, it tells us, when you have a complaint against your brother or sister, you go and talk to them. No one has taken the time to explore with us … It seems, I’m sorry, stupid.”
Nord argued that his presbytery’s validation process – including its continuing validation of Stroud – is a model. Further, he noted that the full presbytery had voted unanimously to approve all validations.
But Gilbert Broyles, an elder at First Presbyterian Church in Hendsonville, N.C., the Presbytery of Western North Carolina, told Nord, “I would like to know how your annual revalidation procedures takes into account the stated mission of the Baltimore presbytery and how it conforms with the overall mission of the church. How do your procedures handle the ministry of an organization that has the sole purpose of overturning a constitutional requirement? How do you determine you’re still in conformance with the Book of Order?”
“I’d love to be able quote to you the mission of and vision of the presbytery of Baltimore,” Nord said. “It does, indeed, talk about inclusiveness. We have, indeed, validated a ministry whose organization seeks to work within the system and advocates for change within the system. As best as I can tell in my five or six months there, that staff [TAMFS] works very hard not at dividing the church, but to reconcile.”
Terry Schlossberg, an elder at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, had a question for Goodman. “Why is what is mandatory in the Book of Order found to be unsuitable by the administrative Review Committee?”
Goodman said the committee’s assignment was spelled out on the first page of the report [Nos. 1, 2 and 3 of G-90409a]. “That’s what we attempted to be faithful to.”
There was some discussion – and confusion – about how Nos. 4 and 5 were left off the list. Sykes said, “I’ve been a member of the synod council since 2001. The synod council was never told that we are doing three things and not two of them.”
Kurtis C. Hess of the Presbytery of the James, a member of the first administrative review committee, said the committee “realized that there were many implications in the work we were asked to do. We went back to the synod council and listed these three things and said this is what we understand our task is.”
After the question-and-answer session, the synod began the process of deciding what to do next. The first motion on the floor was that the synod sustain the review committee’s report and not reopen the case. Then Powell entered the motion to elect a new administrative review committee that would consider all five sections of G-4.0409a. The synod voted to change slightly his motion to allow the moderator, in consultation with the synod nominating committee, to select the members of the new committee. Powell had called for direct election by the synod and hoped that could be done at the March 27 meeting.
The synod never voted on the first motion. It perfected Powell’s substitute motion, declared it the main motion and approved it.
The debate before that vote produced more acrimony. Tim Stearns, pastor of a new church development in the Presbytery of Baltimore, took umbrage over the call for a new review committee. “We’ve been called elitist,” Stearns said. “We’ve been called children.”
“I’m against the substitute motion,” Stearns said. “There have been all kinds of reversals. When the governing body above you reverses itself at least three times, it does not seem fair. What is the particular irregularity that is alleged here? It is not clear to me and I don’t believe it has been clear at any time. It is clear that there is animosity.”
Rudolph Cohen of the National Capital Presbytery, a retired Navy chaplain, also opposed a new review committee. Acknowledging that G-4.0409a “clearly says shall,” Cohen further suggested that if the synod wanted to pursue that course, it should do so – and not delegate the responsibility to an “element of the synod.”
Later, Cohen added, “The question is whether or not this body is saying, ‘We don’t trust what you have done. We don’t like the results.’ In essence, that is what we are doing right now. Ask yourself as you vote to think through that part of it, ‘Do we trust the bodies and the people and the work they have done?'”
Joseph Condro, a minister in the Baltimore Presbytery, supported Sykes’ motion. “I heard a lot of hostility between the synod and my presbytery,” he said. “If various ministries are coming into our presbytery, this needs to be done decently and in order. I consider Don [Stroud] my friend. I want his ministry to be seen as validated, but in the right way.”
Schlossberg, who is executive director of Presbyterians Pro-Life, said, “There are serious concerns about whether members of the Baltimore Presbytery are speaking and acting in ways not only in disagreement with the constitution, but also with a refusal to obey that constitution.”
An unidentified speaker opposed Powell’s motion. “I am concerned that this is solely a way to see if Baltimore is violating G-6.0106b. I am afraid this would be one of many procedures that in many ways go into back doors to try to get what we perceive are violators of that section of the Book of Order. Do we want to begin trying to peek into the doors and windows of our member presbyteries looking and searching and using our parliamentary procedures to find violators?”
Laura Smith, an elder in the Shenandoah Presbytery, supported Powell’s motion, saying, “I look at the Book of Order. That’s all I know to do. I see only three of the five things being done. To me, it is very simple. It says it should be done. Now we have time to rectify the situation. We can do it right away. To me, it’s a no-brainer.”
Yeulle opposed a new review, noting that the first review committee has “acted and has completed its work. That is a catch-all substitute [Sykes’ motion]. Do we look at every minister in the Baltimore Presbytery?”
George Conn, a retired minister in Abingdon, Va., said, “I don’t see it that way. We have an unresolved issue which festers and makes tensions.”
Jack Sharp, the chairman of the specialized validation committee of the Presbytery of Baltimore, opposed a new review. “You’re attacking the group I’m responsible to,” he said, “because of one individual