Participant in private meeting says no deals were negotiated By John H. Adams The Layman Online Thursday, October 30, 2003 The gathering was cordial, the Bible study was less than rigorous, there were no deals and no manipulation. That was the assessment of Dr. Jerry Andrews after a three-day private meeting with the highest-ranking staff members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and one denominational aide. Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick and General Assembly Council Executive Director John Detterick had invited Andrews and nine other Presbyterians – five from each side of the denomination's theological spectrum – to the Oct. 27-29 gathering at a retreat center near Chicago. In addition, Sharon Youngs, Kirkpatrick's communications director, attended. The denomination paid for the rooms, meals and meeting room – roughly $2,750 – but not the travel. Was it worth it? "It's a necessary kind of event and environment and it has a very limited value," Andrews told The Layman Online shortly after he returned to his office at First Presbyterian Church in Glen Ellyn, Ill., where he is the pastor. The incoming co-moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition, Andrews added, "I don't think talk is going to solve our problem and this is all talk." He said there was one attempt to get the participants to make a brief statement about how they could be united even in their disagreements – a "common statement that the church could model." But that idea fizzled. Andrews opposed the joint statement. "That could lead to all kinds of misunderstanding," he said. "Once you make it a private meeting, you have lost the right to speak for the church." The five members of the evangelical group attending the meeting were Andrews; Anita Bell of Philadelphia, outgoing co-moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition; Jin S. Kim, a Korean Presbyterian church pastor in Minnesota; and Nancy Cross and Keith Hill of Presbyterians for Renewal. The participants representing the left flank were Laird Stuart of San Francisco, former co-moderator of the Covenant Network; Joanna Adams of Chicago and Eugene Bay of Milwaukee, current Covenant Network co-moderators; Michael Adee, an openly homosexual elder who works for More Light Presbyterians; and Kent Winters Hazelton, president of Witherspoon Society. Andrews is no stranger to the process of bringing together disparate groups for a Bible study. At the request of the Covenant Network, which claims it represents the "broad middle" of the denomination in its unrelenting attempt to undermine and repeal the denomination's constitutional "fidelity/chastity" ordination law, teams selected by the Coalition and the Network met twice at his church in late 2000 and early 2001. No denominational leaders were invited to those sessions. The participants had planned a third meeting, but it never occurred because there was an obvious stalemate on Biblical authority and the ordination issue. But reporters from The Layman and other Presbyterian media were permitted to cover the first two meetings. The prior meetings also used Paul's letter to Ephesus as the springboard for discussions about denominational issues. Andrews said that study in the presence of reporters was more rigorous because the participants seemed to have done their homework. Besides, he added, Presbyterians have always done their theology in the open – not behind closed doors. Andrews said the Kirkpatrick-Detterick gathering "wasn't better because it was private. The press may have something of a chilling effect on some of the things I'm inclined to say. But, frankly, those are things I shouldn't be saying. When your mother's in the room, you remember your manners." "I don't think anything false or manipulative happened that the presence of the press would have prohibited," he said. Terming the study led by Kirkpatrick and Detterick as "OK, but not rigorous," Andrews said the method consisted of reading a verse and asking people what they thought about it. Andrews says he prefers a Bible study in which participants focus on what the Scripture says – and means – rather than what they think about it. " I really don't want to hear about your ignorance, I don't want to hear about mine," he said. "I want to know what the text means." One of the most prominent themes of the Kirkpatrick-Detterick gathering was "things that could be put broadly in the category of rules of engagement – how we speak to each other and about each other. But I don't think anybody walks into the room thinking that there was going to be something negotiated. That part didn't come up." If it had, Andrews said he was prepared to say, "'Gee,who are we to negotiate?' I'm happy to say it didn't come up." But there were some points of agreement. Pressed to say what they could agree on, members of both groups identified missions and new church development, particularly immigrant and racial/ethnic congregations. He said Kim made a passionate appeal for racial/ethnic congregations. Looking back, Andrews said, "forty-eight hours have passed and what have we got to show for it? On the other hand, I'd be suspicious if there were something to show for it."

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