The 20/20 General
Assembly:
Little done to end hemorrhage
By John H.
Adams
The Layman
Online
Monday,
June 2, 2003
DENVER – For the official record, it was the 215th General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) that met May 24-31 in Denver.
Unofficially, call it the 20/20 assembly.
The two 20s stand for the 20th anniversary of the reunion of the
Northern and Southern mainline branches of the denomination in 1983 and
the 20-percent fallout that has occurred since then.
The denomination lost another 41,000 members in 2002, commissioners
were told – the highest percentage loss (1.64 percent) in a single
year since before reunion. The new denomination that emerged in 1983
with 3.2 million members now has fewer than 2.45 million.
The 215th General Assembly did little to end the hemorrhage and maybe
exacerbated the reasons for acrimony by:
- Electing Susan R. Andrews, an avowed opponent of the
constitutional "fidelity/chastity" law, as moderator. At
one point during the assembly, she called on gays, lesbians,
bisexuals and transgendered people to stand in a display of their "pain."
- Ducking any real possibility of ensuring that the Constitution of
the Presbyterian Church (USA) is upheld.
- Reaffirming the 214th General Assembly's decision to make the
PCUSA the only mainline denomination in the nation that approves of
partial-birth abortion – which includes the killing of an
infant even in the process of delivery.
- Passing the buck on ordination requirements to the Theological
Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity – and also giving the
task force the permission to meet secretly to discuss controversial
theological issues.
- Continuing to give more money to the foundering World Council of
Churches than any other U.S. denomination (about $1.2 million).
- Singling out the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community for
aid through special "pastoral resources."
- Defeating an overture that calls for more accountability in
budgeting priorities so that commissioners might better determine
whether the declining gifts of Presbyterians are advancing the
kingdom of God.
- Keeping alive a controversial report by the Advisory Committee on
Social Witness Policy titled "Living Faithfully: Families in
Transition." Instead of killing the report – which would
place homosexual partners on par with a man and a woman as a godly
example of a "family" – the commissioners referred it
back to ACSWP with a rider: Get some help from the PCUSA's Office of
Theology and Worship.
- Rejecting a proposal to require the review of Stated Clerk
Clifton Kirkpatrick's authority to sign amicus curiae briefs in
support of various judicial views. One of his recent briefs supports
a Brazilian sect's right to use a hallucinatory drug in its "religious"
rituals. The rituals have nothing to do with Christianity or any
other traditional faith group.
Not all the assembly did will prolong controversy. Some of the
actions will probably be remembered – and acted upon – by a
few Presbyterians.
They included addressing global and national matters with a weakened
voice: Palestine-Israel, a soft statement; the controversial Kyoto
Protocol on the environment, yes; helping victims of AIDS in Africa,
yes. For-profit private prisons, no.
There was at least one notable exception to the social-indignation
agenda. An overture calling on the General Assembly to denounce General
Motors for sponsoring a Christian music-preaching concert tour was
disapproved. Thus, General Motors did not become the Taco Bell of 2003.
(The 214th General Assembly called on Presbyterians to boycott the
Mexican fast-food chain because its owners buy tomatoes through
distributors that are picked by workers who say they aren't adequately
paid.)
The theme of the 215th General Assembly was a House of Prayer for All
People. The "all people" focused – through the General
Assembly's official Bible study, some of the worship services and much
of the debate – on gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered
people who say they the victims of church discrimination.
But one thing was inclusive. At several of the sessions, in prayers and
pronouncements, God the father was referred to as "him" and "her."
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