Parliamentary ax falls on call for listing essential tenets By John H. Adams The Layman Online Tuesday, June 18, 2002 214th General Assembly Columbus, Ohio June 15-22, 2002 COLUMBUS, Ohio – An effort by a General Assembly commissioner to have the Presbyterian Church (USA) develop a list of essential tenets for new officers was defeated by parliamentary decree after the proposal had been debated Tuesday by the Committee on Christology and Confessions. The parliamentarian, Dick Coffelt, ruled that the motion by Jeff Ebert of New York City constituted new business and, therefore, was out of order. A chagrined Ebert rose to ask Coffelt why he didn't say something before the debate, and the parliamentarian said he was too slow on the draw. Coffelt's motion joined a cemetery full of proposals calling for a list of essential tenets so that, when new officers take their vows, they will have some notion of what they're committing themselves to. The Book of Order requires newly-elected deacons, elders and ministers to answer affirmatively this question: "Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?" But a previous General Assembly declared that there are no essential tenets, and a long prologue to The Book of Confessions – titled "The Confessional Nature of the Church" – discounts the value of the confessions as a guide to establishing specific standards or theological conclusions for Presbyterians. Ebert's motion was tied to an overture from the Presbytery of South Alabama that called for the writing of a new confession of faith. The overture fared slightly better - it was passed along to the denomination's Office of Theology and Worship as "information" - meaning that it still is wriggling, but that no specific actions need to be taken. Few people on the committee seemed willing to call for a new confession. "We use this phrase 'essential tenets' in our ordination vows," Ebert said. "One lay person asked me, 'What are they?' That's a good question." He said he was not calling for a new confessional statement – just a clarification of what is meant by essential tenets. But the Rev. Tammy Rider of the Presbytery of Twin Cities, admitting she had never read all of The Book of Confessions, said, "The beauty of the Presbyterian way lies in its complexity. I resist attempts to summarize it." MaryAnn McKibben, a theological student advisory delegate of the Presbytery of Dana, also opposed Ebert's motion, saying, "Historically, the church has resisted efforts to define what essential tenets are." But the Rev. Bruce Kochsmeier of Nevada supported Ebert's motion as a call for clarity – "to move out of this sort of gnostic realm." Kochsmeier said the church needs to answer "what it means when we say we are in the Reformed tradition." The Rev. Robert Mitchell of the Presbytery of Stockton said movie-makers know the value of making trailers to cultivate ticket sales. "Do Presbyterians have a trailer?" he asked, citing the denomination's loss of membership. "Maybe part of that loss is that we simply cannot identify what the essentials are."

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