 Attempt to muzzle Lay Committee isn't the first By John H. Adams The Layman Online Friday, January 30, 2004 The Presbytery of Western North Carolina will meet at 9 a.m. Saturday at First Presbyterian Church in Asheville to vote on whether to continue to validate the ministry of Parker T. Williamson as chief executive officer of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and editor in chief of its publications.
If that's truly the case, it won't be the first time a Presbyterian body has tried to muzzle the independent voice of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a national lay-led organization that has reported on the mainline denomination since 1965. Five times, dating back to 1971, General Assemblies and their agencies have weighed charges against the Lay Committee. In every case, the General Assemblies determined that the charges were without merit. The most recent attempt to muzzle the Lay Committee was in 1995 when the 206th General Assembly, meeting in Wichita, Kansas, established a "Special Committee on Reconciliation with the Presbyterian Lay Committee" under the leadership of Moderator Robert Bohl and Executive Director James Brown. The committee asked an employee of the Associated Press to examine all Lay Committee publications over a period of one year. Of the hundreds of articles that were examined, the consultant challenged only two stories. On further examination – when the Lay Committee produced documentation – those two articles were found to be accurate. The 207th General Assembly, meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, received a motion to censure the Presbyterian Lay Committee for alleged bias in reporting and for disturbing the peace and unity of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Charges centered primarily on The Layman's coverage of the Re-Imagining god conference that was largely sponsored by PCUSA leaders and heavily funded by the denomination's Bicentennial Fund. The moderator appointed a special General Assembly committee to deal with the motion to censure. After two days of testimony and examination of hundreds of documents, the committee concluded that the Presbyterian Lay Committee had committed no censurable offense. The committee also declared its hope that the matter would not be brought up again. Previous examinations of the journalistic work of the Presbyterian Lay Committee included: 1. The "Columbia School of Journalism Study"(1971) in which accusations against the journalistic integrity of the Presbyterian Lay Committee were found without merit by a blue-ribbon committee whose consultant was the dean of the prestigious Columbia University School of Journalism. 2. The "Biloxi General Assembly" (1987) that criticized one of the Lay Committee's fund-raising letters that did not include the required statement (now no longer required) that "contributions to the Presbyterian Lay Committee should not replace contributions to the work of the Presbyterian Church (USA)," but declared "unsubstantiated" charges that The Layman had violated generally accepted standards of journalism. 3. The "St. Louis General Assembly" (1988) that found no substance to allegations by an advisory council on church and society that The Layman had exceeded generally accepted standards of journalistic integrity. 4. The" Salt Lake City General Assembly" (1990) that heard a report from a special committee appointed to investigate allegations into the Lay Committee's "unauthorized" use of congregational mailing lists, in violation of a General Assembly rule to that effect. The committee concurred with the Lay Committee's contention that published lists of names and addresses are part of the public domain. On the special committee's recommendation, the General Assembly rescinded its rule by removing the Chapter Nine Organization" section from the Book of Order. The case against Williamson – an action that could lead to his being defrocked as a minister of the Word and Sacrament – is different from the previous attempts to silence the evangelical voice of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. This time, there are no specific charges. Rather, the presbytery's Committee on Ministry has presented its case in a question-and-answer format without citing a single article or editorial. It makes a reference to a constitutional requirement to prepare written guidelines for validation, G-11.0402 in the Book of Order: "A presbytery shall determine the ministers of the Word and Sacrament who shall be its continuing members. In making this determination the presbytery shall be guided by written criteria developed by the presbytery for validation of ministries within its bounds." While the constitution says the presbytery must ("shall") develop its own written criteria for validated ministries, the Committee of Ministry regards that as optional. Rather, the Committee on Ministry says Book of Order standards "may be supplemented by written criteria the presbytery develops." Williamson, 62, has been a member in good standing of the presbytery for 32 years, including 19 as pastor of a local congregation and 14 in his ministry with the Presbyterian Lay Committee. |
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