 Resolution attacking heresy charge calls for fairness study By John H. Adams The Layman Online Monday, May 26, 2003
The assembly's Committee on Church Orders and Ministry voted 65-1 Monday morning to approve the resolution, which was signed by the Rev. Christopher Yim of National Capital Presbytery and the Rev. Diane C. Gibson of San Jose Presbytery. The committee was not briefed on Yim's status – vice moderator of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Council, the highest church court in the Presbyterian Church (USA) – or the nature of the heresy charge. The thrust of the commissioner's resolution was that disciplinary charges in the process of a transfer do "harm to the individuals, congregations, presbyteries and synods involved." The case that prompted the overture involves the Rev. Robert E. Martin III, who recently received a call to serve First Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto, Calif., a congregation in the San Jose Presbytery. The presbytery approved the call and voted him into its membership. The Committee on the Ministry of the Presbytery of Western North Carolina, where Martin served – as a pastor and chaplain at the PCUSA-affiliated Warren Wilson College – had approved his transfer, effective June 1. But the charges against Martin were filed before the transfer could be completed. Paul Rolf Jensen, a Reston, Va., Presbyterian and lawyer, accused Martin of heresy – specifically by Martin's allegedly denying the bodily resurrection of Christ when he addressed the San Jose Presbytery on April 26. Jensen's action requires an investigation by the Presbytery of Western North Carolina before Martin can be released to serve the California congregation. The Book of Order does not allow ministers under investigation on disciplinary charges to accept new calls until those charges are resolved. The commissioner's resolution does not circumvent the process now under way. As slightly modified by the committee, the resolution would direct the Office of the General Assembly "to study the problem of allegations, not involving misconduct or personal injury, which interrupt processes of transfers already initiated by governing bodies, thereby doing harm to individuals, congregations, presbyteries and synods involved." It also recommends that the Office of the General Assembly "recommend any appropriate measures to ensure fairness in the judicial processes of the church to the 216th General Assembly." Yim and Gibson said the heresy charge against Martin "violates the spirit of the preamble to the rules of discipline … and violates the intent of the rules of discipline to provide procedural safeguards and due process for members within the disciplinary process." In her remarks to the committee, Gibson focused on Martin's hardships: temporarily having no job or salary, having already sold his home in North Carolina and the possible affect the case will have on his son, who is scheduled to become a college freshman this fall. She said the Book of Order requirements that are holding him in limbo are primarily for cases that might involve undisclosed sexual abuse charges or the like, not doctrinal issues. Jim Wilson of the Presbytery of Scioto Valley in Ohio, a member of the PCUSA's Advisory Committee on the Constitution, said the ACC had discussed the Yim-Gibson resolution and had a couple of observations. "First, the General Assembly needs to be very careful about involving itself in ongoing disciplinary matters, so any study should be carefully structured so that it doesn't interfere with the judicial process," Wilson said. And he suggested that there may be a way to resolve Martin's immediate crisis. "The home presbytery (Western North Carolina) could give him permission to labor outside its bounds and the (San Jose) presbytery could give permission to work within the bounds" without formalizing the transfer. "Finally," Wilson said, "it is hoped that our judicial process works quickly." |
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