 Covenant Network speakers lash out at opponents, vow to continue efforts to repeal ordination standard By Craig M. Kibler The Layman Online Saturday, May 24, 2003
Those who oppose the Covenant Network demonstrate "bias" and "a disregard for civility" in its attempts to repeal G-6.0106b, which is "doing harm to the body of Christ," John M. Buchanan told about 160 people May 23 during the Covenant Network Convocation Dinner on the eve of the 215th General Assembly. Commissioners are meeting in Denver on May 24-31. The Covenant Network was formed in 1997 in opposition to G-6.0106b, the constitutional standard that requires church officers to maintain fidelity in their marriages and chastity in singleness. Evangelicals support the standard. Buchanan, the pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and moderator of the 208th General Assembly, and Robert Bohl, retired pastor of Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas, and moderator of the 206th General Assembly, were the founding co-moderators of the Covenant Network. In their speeches to the audience, using an "us vs. them" theme, both men criticized the opponents of the Covenant Network and vowed that the organization will continue its fight to repeal the ordination standard. Buchanan said there are "two very different visions of the church. Our vision includes them, their vision does not include you and me." The Covenant Network is "committed to the removal of G.6106b," Buchanan said. "It's wrong constitutionally and Biblically," and efforts to repeal it seek to "get the church to return to its senses. It's doing harm to the body of Christ. That's why we're here." In the past, the Covenant Network has criticized evangelicals who support the ordination standard. The organization's co-moderator, Rev. Eugene Bay, pastor of Bryn Mawr Church in Bryn Mawr, Pa., has called them "tight lipped … mean spirited … rigid … pharisaic … narrow … legalistic … self-righteous … itsy-bitsy people." The Covenant Network's efforts to have the standard removed have met with little success. Three denomination-wide referendums on the "fidelity/chastity" ordination standard, by increasing margins, have affirmed the standard:
In his criticism of evangelicals, Buchanan singled out The Layman and its editor in chief, Parker T. Williamson. "My life as a Presbyterian would be happier without The Layman in my life," Buchanan said. "I don't know why I read it. Over time, I weaned myself" and finally "I quit cold turkey." Recently, however, he said he received an e-mail from Barbara Wheeler, who "always has something important to say." In 1999 Wheeler, a member of the Covenant Network's executive committee and the president of Auburn Seminary in New York, crafted a takeover strategy of the church that included "countenancing actions that are wrong and possibly also making statements that are untrue." Buchanan said Wheeler included in her e-mail a story on The Layman Online headlined, "Covenant Network throws in towel." Despite his earlier insistence that he didn't read The Layman, Buchanan said, "I was hooked, and read the story." The story, he said, included a statement by Joanna M. Adams, co-moderator of the Covenant Network and co-pastor of Buchanan's church in Chicago, that said: "The recent defeat of the attempt to delete G-6.0106b leads us to conclude that at the moment the church would be most helped by time: time well spent to inform, to build bridges, to organize and plan, to open our hearts and minds to one another, to await God's movement among us – time to create a climate in which change can and will occur. We therefore, reluctantly, will not work for the passage of overtures to delete G-6.0106b this year. This is not an easy position for us to adopt; but we are concerned that another divisive vote may in fact delay the change we seek." "The Joanna Adams I know," Buchanan said, "would never throw in the towel." He then quoted from a reader's letter to The Layman Online: "Be careful when leftists throw in the towel. Usually, the towel is wrapped around a brick." "Now that," Buchanan said, "sounds like the Joanna Adams I know." The Covenant Network, he said, will "never throw in the towel. No way. We're here to recover something of the church that has baptized us and nurtured us." Bohl also vowed that the organization will continue its fight to repeal the ordination standard, saying, "Not everybody loves us," but we "be successful when those who confess Jesus Christ are welcome to the table and ministry of the Presbyterian Church (USA). We won't stop until that happens." In the past, he has complained that the overwhelming affirmation of the ordination standards by Presbyterians in the pews was due to "extremism and strong-headed absolutism" on the part of evangelicals. "Damn them!" he declared. "I wish they'd leave." Mentioning 9/11 and armed conflicts in his speech, Bohl then tried to make an analogy between the violence in the world and the battle over the ordination standard, saying that "the magnitude of hate in the world seems to be outrunning the attitude of love – and we as Christians can't stand for that." "We live in a world of fear," Bohl said. "G-6.0106b is bad ecclesiology, bad theology and it contradicts portions of the Book of Order. "Americans don't realize how much they have become fearful, not just in society but in our churches," he said, calling for "equality and justice for all." Bohl then said the debate over the denomination's ordination standard is "all about power," challenging his audience to get involved in the battle against "those who want to take over the church." He quoted the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, a former chaplain at Yale University and a prominent anti-war and social activist: "If you can't be optimistic, be persistent." "Persistence," Bohl said, "always pays off eventually. In persistence, the saints have made possible what the sinners have made necessary." He concluded by saying "it's not so important where we've been, it's only important where we're going." |
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