Task force member says he’ll back ordination standard
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, Posted Friday, July 16, 2004
The Rev. John “Mike” Loudon, an evangelical member of the Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity, says he doesn’t know what the task force will say about the ordination of practicing homosexuals.
Rev. John “Mike” LoudonBut Loudon added in an interview with The Ledger of Lakeland, Fla., “I’m going to say, let’s hold on to the standards we have. The authority of Scripture for me is what it comes back to. Is the Bible the Word of God forever or just a contextual reading of the signs of the times?”
The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) forbids the ordination of men and women who are sexually active, whether adulterous or homosexual, outside of marriage. The constitution also says marriage is between a man and a woman – not two people of the same gender.
Loudon’s comments were published by The Ledger on June 26 – the day the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) convened. Loudon is the pastor of Lakeland’s First Presbyterian Church, which is a member of the Confessing Church Movement.
His comments were consistent with what Loudon has said all along at task force meetings. He has been one of the few members of the group to declare forcefully that he is opposed to the ordination of homosexuals. But he has not said whether ordaining homosexuals should be a dividing issue for the PCUSA.
“Issues will come up and there will be rattling of sabers,” Loudon told The Ledger. “As we look at this issue, we have to ask, will we split and 30 or 40 years later come back together? Or will we say, we’re not going to split over it?”
The task force’s interim report, which was adopted without dissent, says, “Christians cannot even entertain the notion of severing their ties with sisters and brothers in Christ without also placing themselves in severe jeopardy of being severed from Christ himself.”
Loudon also told the newspaper that a bond had developed among the 20 members of the task force.
“We all admire each other. We get along well. We worship together, take communion together, we laugh together. We stand our ground, both the evangelicals and the liberals. We voice our opinions, but in a healthy way. We’re modeling to the denomination how to get along on this. The surprising thing is how much we have in common. The commission has not had any knock-down, drag-out disagreements,” he said.
The next meeting of the task force is August 3-7 in Dallas. The group will focus on ordination issues.
The 213th General Assembly (2001) established the task force to consider three other issues as well: Christology, the authority of Scripture and how power is divvied up in the denomination.
Although they have muffled their disagreements in a show of unity, some members of the task force have indicated strong commitment to ordaining homosexuals – even to the point of participating in decisions that violated church law.
One, John Wilkinson of Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, N.Y., and a member of his presbytery’s Committee on Ministry, supported the presbytery’s approval of Pat Youngdahl as interim co-pastor of Downtown Presbyterian Church in Rochester.
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. McKenzie was named vice moderator by former Moderator Ben Weir, who became famous as one of the Americans held hostage in Iran for 495 days until they were released in 1985.
Both Weir and Wilkinson have served on the board of the Covenant Network, one of the special-interest groups working to repeal the denomination’s constitutional standard that prohibits the ordination of unrepentant, practicing homosexuals.