Seeking to restore the language of obedience to the ordination standards of Presbyterian Church (USA), overture advocates proposed that words “guided by” be replaced with “obedience to” in one of the denomination’s ordination vows for church leaders. The General Assembly committee that received that business is recommending that the 221st General Assembly of the PCUSA reject that effort by disapproving 06-01.
The Church Polity and Ordered Ministry committee is also recommending that the assembly reject efforts to clarify what is meant in the denomination’s Book of Order by “Essential tenets of the Reformed faith.” The recommendation is that the GA disapprove 06-09.
Discussion of overture 06-09 was dominated, in terms of time allowed, by denominational resource people: Dan Williams of the Advisory Committee on the Constitution and Barry Ensign George of the Office of Theology, Worship and Education. Several commissioners were still seeking to discuss the matter when the question was called. A minority report may be filed by the commissioners who voted against the motion to recommend disapproval.
Referring to the last time a PCUSA affiliated denomination adopted a list of essentials, Williams noted that for more than a century there has been “resistance to condensing our faith down to a discreet list.” That was in 1910. That action was reversed after the Swearingen report (1926/1927), known as the “Fundamentalist Modernist controversy,” which resulted in a schism that produced the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
In 1979 Williams said “there was a nasty disagreement that led to third ordination question on essential tenets as expressed in the confessions of the church.”
And in 1983, upon reunion, the Office of Theology and Worship issued a statement declaring that the denomination should not substitute a list for the process of continually discovering what the confessions mean in a particular context.
Williams then declared, “We do our theology in the Book of Confessions, we don’t do it in the Book of Order.”
That statement was contested by commissioners during the Q&A. A teaching elder commissioner pointed out that the Foundations section of the Book of Order is theological.
Williams countered that “the Book of Order presents the theological underpinnings of our polity — not a place where we engage what our doctrine is. We resolve our theological disagreements in the midst of councils.”
Commissioners then read directly from the Book of Order section F-2.05 where a list of what is “central to this tradition” (referring to the Reformed tradition) is expressed.
Ensign George sought to frame the conversation around why the PCUSA has such a long-running tension on this matter.
He reminded commissioners that “The Book of Confessions is the first part of our constitution. Our Book of Confessions is a constituting document — it constitutes an us.”
The Book of Confessions is “not an anthology of great Reformed Confessional statements. If it were,” Ensign George said, “it might include a confession from Calvin’s Geneva.”
He said again that “The Book of Confessions constitutes an us. First it’s a statement to one another and then to the world of who and what we are, what we believe and what we intend to do.”
Ensign George asked the commissioners to consider the tense of the verbs in that statement. “These are present tense verbs. We live with this book that contains documents that are historical and yet we affirm that this particular group of documents express who we are — now, what we believe — now, and what we intend to do, now.”
Williams jokingly concluded his remarks with “I don’t know what the Essential Tenets are but I know when someone steps outside them,” which seems to be the very point the overture seeks to address.
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So the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is opting not to employ specific language that would call for obedience to the Scriptures. That appears to be the only position that is not open to any kind of “contextualization”. I would urge those who advocate a restoration of language which calls for obedience to the Scriptures to practice what they preach. Specifically, II Corinthians 6:14. Let me tell you ahead of time, you’ll be glad you did. Titus 3:9-10 comes to mind, also. Paul instructed Titus to have nothing to do with those who have institutionalized divisiveness, did he not? Doubtlessly the moral correctness of the endeavor to restore language that would call for obedience to Scripture is unquestionable. In addition, looking back is painful; as this once mighty bulwark was my denominational home for over two decades and it remains personally hurtful that it has degenerated to its current state.. The only problem is, at this point, making any legitimate Biblical case to the powers that be in the PCUSA is like feeding birdseed to a mountain lion. That being said, if this letter can serve as a moral catalyst that would tip the scale in favor of those to whom God has imputed true faith to “vote with their feet”, then taking the time to write this was well worth it!
Please examine carefully the committee’s recommendation against 06-01. The committee contends that the “authority” of Scripture over the confessions is adequately affirmed by other portions of the Book of Order. Two problems (at the very least) quickly appear:
(1) Even if the authority of scripture were already affirmed, surely we must ask why–at the level of application–we trade the importance of being “obedient to Scripture” to the language of being “guided by Scripture.” If the Scripture has authority, then we should stress that which is consistent with such authority, namely, obedience.
(2) The cited passages from Book of Order that affirm the authority of Scripture seem significantly limited in scope:
(a) F-2.02 upholds “the authority of Jesus Christ…as the Scriptures bear witness to him.” Now, obviously, this assumes that the Scriptures have enough authority to vouch for Christ’s authority. But does this actually uphold the authority of Scripture, generally? (I cannot tell that it does.)
(b) The committee also cites F-1.0203, “Scripture teaches us of Christ’s will for the Church, which is to be obeyed…” Here, again, it is not the overall authority of the Scripture that is here upheld, but merely the authority of the Scripture to tell us of Christ’s “will for the Church.” It appears to me that many readers of the Book of Order believe that the life of the Church is one thing, while the lives of individuals and communities (regarding such things as sexual, economic, and political practices) are other things. Just how much authority of Scriptures and how much obedience to them are really affirmed?
Eric: Spoken with conviction and an eloquence I would aspire to. I may be the one person in our little church in Mabank, TX that is aware of GA’s polity. I have one foot out the door.
“Discussion of overture 06-09 was dominated, in terms of time allowed, by denominational resource people”
Why is GA committee discussion time “dominated” by pcusa staff and sometimes even by people from outside the denomination?? This should be limited to a minority of the time available. The majority of time should be given to committee members, if the GA wants to claim to truly represent the pcusa, & not just the denominational staff who live off of our per-capita.
Not really news. PCUSA has thrown the Bible under the bus whenever it pleases.
Elders and deacons being ordained in the PC(USA) answer “yes” to the question, “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith……?” But when you ask many PC(USA) Presbyterians what the essentials are which they pledge faithfulness to, they dissemble incoherently. It has always baffled me that smart, well-educated, culturally sophisticated people like Presbyterians don’t grasp how foolish they look describing the undiscernible as essential.