Sabbatical Sabotage
Commentary by Robert P. Mills, The Presbyterian Layman, December 8, 1998
Giving a congregation permission to defy the PCUSA Constitution is extremely troubling and deserves a forthright response.
The action of Northern New England Presbytery is troubling because it embraces a cafeteria approach to our denomination’s constitution. By allowing congregations to choose which Book of Order provisions it will obey and which it will ignore, Northern New England Presbytery is prompting schism within the PCUSA. And it has set the stage for the fragmentation of a once-connectional church into 11,000 fiefdoms.
Cafeteria constitutionalism may be judged an acceptable model of governance in Milwaukee (which made a similar statement last year) and Northern New England, for it allows every session to do that which is right in its own eyes. But it is a far cry from the Presbyterian (not to mention Pauline) principle that “all things should be done decently and in order” (I Cor. 14:40, RSV).
A two-fold response
In response, a two-fold approach might be considered. Two overtures, both of which would need to be approved by one or more presbyteries prior to the Feb. 19, 1999 deadline for consideration by the upcoming General Assembly, could together provide for an orderly and pastoral resolution to the constitutional crisis some seem intent upon provoking.
The first would be both remedial and disciplinary, declaring “null and void” any ordinations conducted in violation of G-6.0106b and mandating that ministers and elders involved in such ordinations be removed from the exercise of ordained office for not less than one year. This overture recognizes picking and choosing among constitutional provisions to be schismatic.
The second would be modeled after Article 13 of the agreement that reunited the former southern and northern Presbyterian churches. After discussion with the presbytery and a supermajority vote of the congregation, it would allow particular churches that refused to abide by G-6.0106b a three-year period to leave the PCUSA with their property.
A simple choice
Some will claim this approach violates the “sabbatical” proposed prior to the Charlotte Assembly. But at best the sabbatical is illusory. Some congregations are electing ordained officers in frank defiance of the Constitution, and at least one presbytery has given permission to do so.
Presbyterians now face a simple choice. Either we take the necessary steps to live out what we say we believe or we sit in soothing sabbath silence and watch the “connections” of the PCUSA dissolve.