So far, task force has done little to get feedback from Presbyterians By John H. Adams The Layman Online Wednesday, August 11, 2004 Near the conclusion of the ninth meeting of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity, Gary Demarest, the chairman of the panel, raised an issue that no one answered. "We could end up going the whole way talking to ourselves," said the retired California pastor, who was serving a Confessing Church congregation when he was appointed to the task force. "I don't think that is the case, but that feedback piece is most important." By "feedback piece," Demarest was referring to the charge given to the task force when it was chartered by the 213th General Assembly in 2001: "The task force is directed to lead the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in spiritual discernment of our Christian identity, in and for the 21st century, using a process which includes conferring with synods, presbyteries, and congregations seeking the peace, unity, and purity of the church. This discernment shall include but not be limited to issues of Christology, biblical authority and interpretation, ordination standards, and power." (Italics ours) So far, the task force has touched base with "Christology, biblical authority and interpretation, ordination standards, and power" but has resolved little. Most of its theological work has come from within the ranks, especially from Barbara Wheeler, president of Auburn Seminary, and four seminary faculty members: Mark Achtemeier of Dubuque Seminary in Iowa, Milton "Joe" Coalter and Frances Taylor Gench of Union Seminary in Richmond, and William Stacy Johnson of Princeton Seminary. And its "conferring" with congregations and regional governing bodies has focused more on self-promotion than seeking to gain any understanding of how Presbyterians regard those issues. For instance, the task force produces its own news releases, which reveal little other than the fact that its members demonstrate that they get along together well. It has produced a video to shore up its enigmatic theological consensus. It promotes its consensus-driven decision-making style. And it pats itself on the back repeatedly for demonstrating that it can have "dialogue" without flare-ups or passionate debates. In one case, Vicky Curtiss, an Ames, Iowa, pastor and advocate of ordaining practicing homosexuals, described what she did in her appearance before a presbytery. It boiled down to an exercise in how to reach consensus by comparing positive and negative reactions with the breathing process. She spent about an hour at the task force meeting explaining that exercise, concluding that good decisions rise out of a balance – like healthy breathing. If there have been moments of high tension and frayed nerves among task force members, the public hasn't seen them. During its meeting in Dallas, while considering church law on ordaining homosexuals, the thorniest of the issues, the task force ducked into two executive sessions so that observers were unable to detect any cracks in the panel's self-asserted harmony. Members of the task force tried to make their big splash at the meeting of the 216th General Assembly in Richmond (June 27-July 3) – and there they did ask for feedback, but not for comments about their Christological work or any of the other issues on their agenda. Rather, the official "feedback questionnaire" simply asked participants in a pre-General Assembly conference to tell the panel whether they understood what the task force was doing. Before the conference, on a scale of one to 10, the mean answer registered 5.2; after the conference, that figure rose to 8.7. This response was presented at the Dallas meeting as evidence of a shared sense of pride that they were getting their message out. But the questionnaire did not ask the participants to evaluate what the task force members had already produced, including the video, or their own discernment/decision-making process. It did not seek any critical review of its theological statement. But Demarest was looking for something else in a "feedback piece." What are Presbyterians saying about the direction the task force is heading? How is the final draft report, which will be issued in 2005 and then distributed to the presbyteries before being revised for its final presentation to the 217th General Assembly, going to play in the pews? There's already been some feedback on the ordination issue. Three times – by increasing margins and reaching nearly 75 percent in 2001, the year the task force was established – the presbyteries have decided that practicing homosexuals should not be ordained, even if they live in "committed partnerships." Also, Robert A.J. Gagnon, the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary professor who has written the definitive book on the Bible and homosexuality, has weighed in with a stinging criticism of the task force's theological assertion that Jesus is the Church's Peace, Unity and Purity – period, without any accountability being required. Basing its conclusions on selected portions of Ephesians, the task force declared that unity was an absolute mandate: "Christians cannot even entertain the notion of severing their ties with sisters and brothers in Christ without also placing themselves in severe jeopardy of being severed from Christ himself." In other words, leaving the Presbyterian Church (USA) jeopardizes one's salvation, a suggestion that some believe is at loggerheads with the historic Reformed confidence that no one can abandon the salvation that God alone has granted and secured. Gagnon's feedback was that the task force's theology seriously truncates the message of Ephesians as regards "purity" and distorts the message of Ephesians regarding "peace" and "unity" as well. Posted on The Layman Online while the General Assembly was meeting, Gagnon's comments were read by thousands of Presbyterians. But Gagnon's name wasn't even mentioned during the meeting of the task force in Dallas. The closest to acknowledging the criticism by Gagnon, the denomination's most prolific writer on the issue of homosexual ordination, was a comment by John "Mike" Loudon, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, Fla. Without using the word "Gagnon," Loudon noted the Pittsburgh professor's criticism and suggested that the task force ought to grapple with personal "holiness" as part of its theological conclusion. Meanwhile, one of the members of the task force – a member who does not take a hardline Biblical stand on the ordination issue – told The Layman Online, but not for attribution, that Gagnon was correct about the flawed theology of the task force's interim report. Instead of conferring with congregations and presbyteries, and seeking their reaction to what the task force has done and may do, the panel has relied almost exclusively on selected readings and non-divisive comment within the task force. And many of the readings have been pointedly in opposition to standards that reflect the denomination's majority. During the meeting in Dallas, the primary readings dealt with the issue of homosexual ordination and included: 1. An essay by Rowan D. Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, titled "The Body's Grace." Williams concluded that "the absolute condemnation of same-sex relations of intimacy must rely either on an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous texts, or on a problematic and nonscriptural theology about natural complementarity, applied narrowly and crudely to physical differentiation without regard to psychological structures." 2. Chandler Burr, a journalist who wrote an essay titled "Homosexuality and Biology" that was published in the June 1997 Atlantic Monthly, reviewed scientific studies that have failed to produce biological evidence of such a thing as a "gay gene." Even so, he declares, "Five decades of psychiatric evidence demonstrates that homosexuality is immutable, and nonpathological, and a growing body of more recent evidences implicates biology in the development of sexual orientation." 3. In chapter five of Know My Name: A Gay Liberation Theology, Richard Cleaver, a Roman Catholic writer and gay activist, says, "No lesbian or gay man denies that we are capable of celibacy, though many who object to our ordination or to our presence in the armed forces, to name only two issues, do deny it. We deny only that celibacy is a universal precondition for us to live a Christian life." Cleaver's Know My Name is one of 18 books on homosexuality sold by the Presbyterian Publishing Corp. Westminster-John Knox Press. Only one of the 18 presents a balanced view of the issue. 4. In a chapter titled "Pastoral Accommodation" from his book, What Christians Think about Homosexuality, L.R. Holden presented the arguments for and against pastoral accommodation to homosexuals. Overall, his book cited six views on the homosexual issue, aligning closely with the six views Princeton's Johnson presented to the task force. Holden did not express his opinion about how the church should respond to the homosexual issue; his material did include critical analysis of both sides of the ordination argument. 5. A chapter titled "Sources for Body Theology" from a book by Dr. James B. Nelson, a professor at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, supports homosexual relations and condemns "homophobia." His self-acknowledged "bias" is that homosexuality or heterosexuality "is a gift to be integrated fully and joyously into our spirituality. Our orientations, whatever they may be, are part of that gift – to be received with thanksgiving and honored by each other." Nelson was the consultant to the PCUSA's Task Force on Human Sexuality, which delivered a report reflecting his idea of a "Reformed Christian ethic of sexuality." That report was rejected by the 1991 General Assembly by a vote 523-17. Nonetheless, several of Nelson's books are published and sold by Westminster-John Knox Press, and he continues to be considered a major resource for Presbyterians who favor the ordination of practicing homosexuals. 6. The reading material for the task force also included four pages (164-167) from Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. Some of Barth's comments were underlined, including: "But the decisive word of Christian ethics must consist in a warning against entering upon the whole way of life which can only end in the tragedy of concrete homosexuality … What is needed is that the recognition of the divine plan should cut sharply across the attractive beginnings. … The command of God shows him irrefutably … that a man can only be genuinely human with woman, or as a woman with man. In proportion as he accepts this insight, homosexuality can have no place in his life, whether in its more refined or cruder forms." 7. Other than Barth, only one other reading submitted to the task force took a firmly traditional view in keeping with the denomination's constitutional standard and interpretations. That was from chapter six of Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church's Moral Debate by Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse. Their book was published by Intervarsity Press, an evangelical publisher. Jones is the provost and a professor of psychology at Wheaton College. Yarhouse is an associate professor in the School of Psychology and Counseling at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va. They criticize Nelson's 1991 study for the PCUSA and conclude that Christians "are asked to say no to certain types of sexuality in order to say yes to a certain ordering of our lives that is ordained by God to be morally good. Such a life involves many elements alien to the modern mind – self-denial, sacrifice, but above all a willingness to admit our guilt and unworthiness before God, a willingness to plead for mercy and forgiveness, and a willingness to follow Christ in obedience to his revealed will. Our goal must be an unending pursuit of the holiness of life." 8. The eighth reading included a chapter titled "Rethinking Christian Sexuality: Baptized into the Body of Christ" from a book by Martha Ellen Stortz, a member of the faculty of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, Calif. She argues that the identity of a Christian is established by baptism, not sexual orientation or practice. Consequently, she says, "Values of fidelity, service and generativity ought to direct relationships this church is prepared to support. If relationships meet these criteria, they should be supported by the church. … Lifting up fidelity, service, and generativity raises the bar for all couples" – whether heterosexual or homosexual. The eight readings demonstrated that the task force is listening to others, particularly the proponents of changing the denomination's law and interpretations. But Demarest's concern was whether the task force was seeking feedback from congregations and presbyteries – the "most important" part of its work. So far, there is little evidence of any feedback being part of the process. One member of the task force, Barbara Everitt Bryant, a lay Presbyterian who served as director of the U.S. Census Bureau under President George H.W. Bush, suggested that she was ready to abandon both Presbyterian law and its Authoritative Interpretation. "I recommend to evangelism committees not to recommend recruiting homosexuals," she said, adding that it was "illogical to invite homosexuals to join a church and not invite them to participate in the ordained leadership." That comment came after the General Assembly, just over a month earlier, had provided its own feedback on the issue: rejecting overtures to repeal the denomination's "fidelity/chastity" ordination standard and the Authoritative Interpretation that declares that practicing homosexuals should not be ordained.

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