 Assembly committee calls for vote to repeal G-6.0106b By John H. Adams The Layman Online Wednesday, May 28, 2003
If the General Assembly approves the committee's recommendation, the 173 presbyteries in the Presbyterian Church (USA) will begin voting later this year for the fourth time on the ordination standard. Notwithstanding the fact that presbyteries first approved and twice affirmed G-6.0106b by increasingly larger margins, reaching 73.4 percent in 2001-02, the advocates of repeal have not waned in their persistence. But a successful vote for repeal by the full General Assembly later this week is a big if. The General Assembly Committee on Church Orders included 14 youth advisory delegates, and most of them said they favored repeal. When the full General Assembly considers the issue, the youth advisory delegates will have voice, but they cannot vote. Also, Deborah Brincivalli, moderator of the committee, told commissioners that a number of committee members will file a minority report disagreeing with the full committee's recommendation. The vote on Overture 03-7 from the Presbytery of Des Moines came after more than two hours of debate on a three-pack of issues related to the ordination standard. The other issues were proposed authoritative interpretations, one of which would have essentially made the ordination law meaningless. The Des Moines overture seeks to wipe out any prohibition against ordaining co-habitating homosexuals, bisexuals and transgendered people. It seeks to repeal the General Assembly's previous authoritative interpretation. The most relevant interpretation was approved by the 1978 and later General Assemblies and includes the key theological proposition that has guided the Presbyterian Church (USA) in its consideration of ordination standards. That proposition is that homosexual practice is, as the Bible clearly says, sinful. Advocates for homosexuals, bisexuals and transgendered people claim their lifestyle choices are not sinful. They say God made them that way. Before the vote on repealing G-6.0106, the committee rejected a proposed authoritiative interpretation that would have retained the ordination standard but allowed ordaining bodies – presbyteries for ministers and sessions for elders and deacons – to interpret church law according to their own understanding of the church's covenants. In effect, it would have allowed presbyteries to exercise local option. One of the advocates for Overture 03-7 was the Rev. Don Stroud, a homosexual who has publicly announced that he cohabitates with another man. Stroud, a member of the Presbytery of Baltimore, currently faces charges of violating his ordination vows by not upholding constitutional law. Committee member Robert Sharmon, a minister from the Presbytery of North Alabama, was among a number of commissioners who suggested that "we leave G-6.0106b alone for a period of time. We are not our own. We must submit to the holiness of God and the boundaries of truth." Declaring the ordination law "bad for us," Stacey Horn Northern, a youth advisory delegate from New England, said, "Jesus said absolutely nothing about homosexuality. He wanted us to love our neighbors." Bill Hufham, a minister from the Presbytery of New Hope, who tried unsuccessfully to convince the committee to send the overture to the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity, expressed a concern that was repeated several times. "The debates (in national referendums) … have polarized the presbyteries. Another debate will further polarize them." While many argued for leaving things as they are – or sending the issue to the task force – others were less willing to wait. Alfred Block of the Presbytery of Milwaukee said, "I came to this General Assembly with the wish and truly the prayer of doing something. I don't believe in perpetuating the status quo by simply not doing anything." Laura Krauss of the Presbytery of the Pacific argued that G-6.0106b was masking a double standard. Noting that she is on a presbytery investigating committee that dismissed charges in one case, she said, "Are there cases being brought against heterosexual people? I know from experience that there are heterosexual people who are not living a faithful life." Cynthia Burse, a theological student advisory delegate who is a student at Johnson C. Smith Seminary in North Carolina, said G-6.0106b is hurting people who are honest – because they are, while lobbying against the standard, self-acknowledging their sexual behavior. "That self-acknowledgement is what's killing them. All of us know adulterers are preaching, but they're not coming out and admitting it." The pro-appeal argument included one commissioner's suggestion that the gay-ordination ban is tantamount to slavery. But Bob Sharmon of the Presbytery of North Alabama sharply disagreed. "The implication of the analogy of slavery implies that at some time the Scriptures are in favor of slavery. They are not – except in the slavery of all of us who are slaves of Christ." Like others, the Rev. Scott Mason of Miami, warned that another vote on whether to repeal G-6.0106b will continue to wreak havoc on his own church. "We've gone through this three times. If we go through it again, we're going to lose again." He worried that a repeal referendum would cause some of his members to leave. Opposing the repeal effort, David Myers of the Presbytery of the Mission defended the right to have standards for church officers. "Yesterday," he said, referring to the committees discussion of how the church should respond when pastors are accused of sexually molesting children, "we talked about excluding people – pedophiles." For church officers, he added, "we want our best up there. We all have sins, but when the prostitute came to Jesus, he said, 'Go and sin no more.'" John Bryan of the Presbytery of San Diego took a similar tack in his opposition to the repeal overture. "There's been a lot of discussion about the examination of people, about making value judgments on people." An elder and a member of his congregation's nominating committee, Bryan mentioned a case in which a man and woman were being considered for election as deacons. "They were not married, but they were living together. The male happened to be in the process of divorcing his wife, who is a member." The couple left the church, he said, asserting "that we should not be making judgments about people. This is a false assertion. We do that because we are called to do that." |
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