 Team working on family policy shuns declaration on marriage By John H. Adams The Layman Online Monday, December 15, 2003 LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A team of writers who are revising a proposed policy statement on families for the Presbyterian Church (USA) shunned giving their endorsement to a pro-marriage statement that has been approved by leaders of religious organizations comprised of more than half the Christians in the United States.
For less than 24 hours, Robert Edgar, president of the National Council of Churches, also had his signature on the declaration. Pleased that he had forged an agreement with Catholics and Christian traditionalists, Edgar called an afternoon press conference on Nov. 17, 2000, during the annual meeting of the NCC to announce his role in drafting and endorsing the declaration. But homosexuals and their allies in mainline denominations took Edgar to the woodshed. The next morning, he announced, almost tearfully and as if he had committed a firing offense, that he was scratching his name from the endorsement. Saying he could no longer sign a statement that describes marriage as between only a man and a woman, Edgar reneged because "I support a blessing of partnership, marriage of people who love each other." Alan Wisdom of Washington, D.C., a member of the team revising the proposed policy statement on families, asked his colleagues to call on the 216th General Assembly to endorse the declaration. But a heated discussion followed and several members of the writing team said the declaration's affirmation of marriage between "one man and one woman" would be considered by some homosexuals and lesbians as targeting their behavior. "A Christian Declaration on Marriage" did not say anything dramatically different from what the PCUSA Constitution says about marriage. But Barbara Gaddis of Boone, Iowa, said she wasn't comfortable with Presbyterian tradition on the family – especially the denomination's unwillingness to sanction marriages of same-gender couples. "This is an issue in our church that is going to rip us apart if we don't watch out," she said. Gaddis noted that the writing team had been careful not to emphasize Presbyterian and Biblical doctrine that marriage is between a man and a woman only. Endorsing the statement would be a "red flag to most of the culture," she said. Gloria Albrecht of Detroit, a sociologist at Mercy University and the consultant to the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy that will present the final version of the proposed family policy to the 216th General Assembly in June, had a number of objections. She said it was endorsed by a very small group, and included groups that have a different theology of marriage. "At least two of the groups [Southern Baptist and Catholic bishops] have very different ideas on marriage and the equality between men and women," she said. Albrecht strongly opposes notions of a male hierarchy in marriage – favoring what she describes as "mutual" marriages. She also expressed concern over the anti-divorce emphasis of the declaration. Charles Wiley of the PCUSA's Office of Theology and Worship, who prepared the bulk of the theology section of the family paper, said he was "not comfortable with making alliances" only with Christians on the liberal side of the spectrum. "There are patriarchal marriages that are more life-giving than mutual marriages," Wiley said. Nevertheless, Wiley said he didn't believe the declaration had a "snowball's chance" of gaining approval from the 216th General Assembly. Responding to Wiley, Sue Dickson, vice moderator of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, said, "There's no such thing as a healthy patriarchal marriage." William "Beau" Weston, a sociology professor at Centre College in Danville, Ky., challenged Albrecht's statement that the signers of the Christian marriage statement represented a small number of Christians in the United States. Instead, he said, "that's most of the Christians." In 2000, there were 62 million Roman Catholics in the United States and 20 million Baptists, and both were growing. The National Association of Evangelicals includes a number of the fast-growing Pentecostal denominations and independent churches. Combined, the three groups represent more than 100 million Christians out of a total of 191 million in 2000. Eric Mount, a retired professor of religion and theology at Centre, said endorsing the Declaration on Marriage would become "a lightning rod for everything. This could become a diversion" that undermined the family policy. Peter Sulyok, staff coordinator for the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, objected that the Presbyterian Church (USA) had played no role in drafting the Christian Declaration on Marriage. But Wiley pointed out that the PCUSA often endorses statements made by the National Council of Churches and other groups without helping to draft them. Eventually, Wisdom pulled the proposal off the table. "I sense a strong majority wanting to take it out. But I wanted to have this discussion." |
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