 Task Force-Coalition debate Questions about scrupling and essentials are debated By John H. Adams The Layman Online Friday, May 12, 2006 CHICAGO – During much of their day-long questioning of five members of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity, three directors of the Presbyterian Coalition zoned in on scrupling as the task force's way to skirt the constitutional prohibition against ordaining practicing homosexuals and adulterers.
The task force report cites the Presbyterian Church's Adopting Act of 1729, when American Presbyterians adopted the Westminster Confession and its catechisms as the standards for faith and required ministers to subscribe to them. But they also allowed ministers to declare a scruple if they could not agree with some standards. Ordaining bodies were permitted to decide whether that scruple represented a departure from an essential standard. Scrupling hotly contested Exactly what the Adopting Act allowed candidates to scuple was hotly contested during the Chicago meeting. The Coalition's Jerry Andrews said the Adopting Act specifically mentioned only two areas for scrupling, Westminster chapters 20 and 23, both of which dealt with the church's relationship with civil magistrates and not theological or moral issues. "That's not our context," Andrews said. "That context is lost. What we have now is multiple confessional standards, and now scrupling, which I think we intentionally jettisoned 40 years ago." Task force member Milton J. "Joe" Coalter disputed Andrews' point. He passed out copies of the Adopting Act and declared, "Something similar to this appears in 1758. It was also picked up early in the 20th century. I don't see where it was ever revoked. The Adopting Act as far as I can tell is still a valid point and it's consistent with other statements about the confessions and the Book of Order. They indicate there is a difference between standards or essentials. The Book of Order is a standard." Nonconstitutional citation Coalition director James R. "Jim" Tony responded: "The question is, Whose judgment is constitutional? Where is the Adopting Act enshrined in the constitution?"
The task force report calls for "a judgment to be made by the ordaining body [that] puts aside the conscience of the church," Andrews said. Task force member Barbara Wheeler argued that the Adopting Act was not limited to issues involving civil magistrates. "I think the possibility is held out that any article may be held out." Only two exceptions? Andrews: "It named two." Task force member Mark Achtemeier argued: "It's very clear that everything is on the table." Wheeler said that for some ministers asked to embrace Westminster "subscriptionism was pernicious." The Adopting Act "provided for the ongoing life of the church in which both views were joined. The provision that was made was that any article could be scrupled." Achtemeier: "It seems that the tradition [of scrupling] is tailor made" for today. "The scrupling tradition attempts to seek a place for the preserved conscience. The PCA [Presbyterian Church in America] polity is exactly in accordance with the proposal." Andrews: "I'm in agreement with scrupling. The Scots Confession calls the pope the anti-Christ. I'm not required to scruple against that statement. I think it's a false statement and embarrassment." But Andrews would not acknowledge a right to scruple a specific constitutional requirement, such as the "fidelity/chastity" ordination clause. Subscriptionist mode? Coalter: "You could make a case that scrupling for doctrine may be far more important. What one means by being guided by the confessions is even more important. Are we increasingly in a subscriptionist mode?" Quoting from G-6.0106b, Coalter cited a number of practices that the current confessions of the PCUSA call sin that are simply ignored today – besides the requirement to "live either in fidelity within the covenant between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness."
The Coalition's Mary Naegeli said, "It seems to me the 'shall' statements of the Book of Order are the essentials of the polity and the essentials of faith generally seem to mean the essentials of the confessions." Achtemeier: "I think your case would be more credible if you looked at the Book of Order and all you had was a procedural manual. But confessional positions crop up all the time in the Book of Order. Because you didn't have the votes to put it in the confessions, you encoded G-6.0106b in the Book of Order as a doctrinal position." What does 'shall' mean? Tony: "The reason G-60106b is not in the confessions, it says why: Among the standards in the confessions is fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness. The church made that decision, General Assembly after General Assembly after General Assembly. What do you think the church was saying when it put 'shall' in it?" Coalter: "The church is not just the General Assembly. The presbyteries work with the candidates. Whether we like it or not, the presbyteries still have the authority to meet with candidates and determine whether those candidates meet the standards." Achtemeier: "A word needs to be said in here about our usage of the church – 'the church has decided.'" He said that sounds like, "Our side are the church and that other group of people are in outer darkness somewhere. I think the Scripture binds us together with other folks in ways you simply can't capture by saying, 'We won the vote, so keep quiet.'" Andrews: "Does the church have a right to its conscience, to be clear about that, to have a reasonable expectation about the church mandating and whether or not they can ignore the mandate?" Coalter: "What is the mandate? The General Assembly puts something in the Book of Order; the presbytery then has to apply it." Tony: "The Book of Confessions points out a lot of things that are sinful. The presbytery has a right to examine and decide which of those sinful things are applied, especially when the church hasn't decided. But what about the judgment of G-6.0106b, which is what the church decided?" Argument against G-6.0106b? Andrews: "What I'm hearing is an argument against G-6.0106b. What I'm waiting for is an argument against the church being able to mandate its behavior." Naegeli: "Why are we arguing about one – G-6.0106b? It's because, it feels to me, that you disagree with the standard." Task Force member John "Mike" Loudon: "I don't have a problem with it being in there." Andrews: "How can you have an intelligent discussion when you say G-6.0106b is a standard and not an essential? How can that be a happy conversation?" Achtemeier: "I think our recommendations two through four begin to lay that out."
What are the essentials? Coalter: "If you look at the pattern of the Presbyterian Church being asked about essentials, the church refused to give a list of essentials, all the while talking about in the ordination whether you will adhere to the essentials. But what are those essentials? Where are they decided? They're not in the Book of Order. Your concern is a valid one. How does the church declare its conscience? The way it declares its conscience is through the constitutional process. There's no checklist here, so who's deciding this? You may not like the fact that there is no list of essentials, but there isn't." During the afternoon session, Tony raised a constitutional issue, quoting from a July 2000 ruling by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission in a case titled Londonderry Presbyterian Church v. the Presbytery of Northern New England. "Would your authoritative interpretation conflict with this one?" he asked. Coalter: "The Advisory Committee on the Constitution says it believes the General Assembly has the authority" to adopt the task force's proposal to interpret whether G-6.0106b is essential for ordination. Tony: "As I understand, the way you define standards, you have acknowledged and seek to maintain all of the previous and in-place standards of the church." Complicated climate unwanted Wheeler: "We encouraged the 217th General Assembly not to make changes that would complicate the climate for the working out of recommendation 5 if that authoritative interpretation is passed." Tony cited the General Assembly PJC's Londonderry ruling in which the presbytery was instructed to require one of its congregations to cease from openly defying the constitutional ordination requirement. Tony noted that denomination's highest court based its ruling on a previous decision in another case [Maxwell], in which the previous court declared that a presbytery erred by approving the ordination of a minister who refused to participate in the ordination of women. That evangelical minister, Walter Kenyon, was eventually defrocked because of his opposition to women's ordinations.
Effect on Maxwell decision What effect would the task force's proposed authoritative interpretation have on Maxwell? Tony asked. Loudon: "My gut reaction is that it overturns Maxwell." That prompted Tony to ask whether the church's standards were merely aspirational. Achtemeier said they were: "The highest standard is Scripture; no one of us is going to attain all of them." The task force report clearly says the same (line 1104). Tony: "Would it be fair to say we do not require assent to the standards in the Book of Order?" Achtemeier: "I hope we're not ordaining people who scrupled the Nicene Creed." Tony: "I don't think anybody ever asked me if I agreed with the Book of Order. Is there something I missed?" Task force member Gary Demarest: "It's not a case of what the task force says, but ultimately what the higher governing bodies say." Determining the essentials Tony: "How does a presbytery or a session determine which standard is essential?" Wheeler: "Scripture and confession." Loudon: "I remember a candidate who had trouble passing in another presbytery. After three times, the presbytery gave him a pass. Did the presbytery throw out the standard? They did not."
Wheeler: "This recommendation is not to those who might bring overtures. The recommendation is to the General Assembly itself. We were instructed to suggest an instrument and a process for living together differently. It was our judgment the church can't do two things at once. That probably means both of them would be done badly." Sabbatical from legislative action? Achtemeier: "It needs to be said that recommendation 6 is not a sabbatical" for legislative action. "We're asking our friends in the Chicago Presbytery … to join us in the rest of the church to seek more productive ways" to deal with the ordination issues. Tony: "My concern is the preservation of some form of constitutional process in our church. Other than fidelity-chastity, what other standards might you consider to be inessential? Could an ordaining body conclude that one or more of the questions for candidates for ordination is not essential for an ordaining body?" Achtemeier, opposing the establishment of essentials, said, "Presbyteries and the General Assembly could decide that Krishna is lord." Through the traditional legislative process, as opposed to the task force's discernment approach, "We're trying to decide a system so perfect, no one has to be good." Are the floodgates opening? Loudon told Tony: "You envision the floodgates opening; I don't see that happening." Naegeli: "I think it is already is happening. Whether it's a floodgate or not, it is opening. There are plenty of presbyteries already violating what we consider to be essential standards." Wheeler, pointing to her role in the women's movement of the church, said that ordaining bodies are violating mandates requiring women elders. "There are quite a number of Presbyterian churches that don't have women elders." Tony: "What you argued consistently, in my opinion, is that we are a government of people, not of law." Loudon: "I think it's going to come down to the Permanent Judicial Commission. I think it is possible to envision patterns of behavior where any reasonable person can say a presbytery has made a mockery of the standards of the church." Scrupling over property? Tony: "Is it possible for an elder to scruple his willingness to be governed by the property section of the Book of Order." Loudon: "You know I don't like that chapter." Andrews: "Scrupling was not just at ordination. It was at the moment of changing your mind anywhere along the way. I think I owe it to the presbytery to say whenever I change my mind about things. Integrity requires me to inform my presbytery." Achtemeier: "I think personally, if someone wants to scruple the property clause and is willing to put their ordination on the line, it would give rise at the presbytery level, what the property clause means." What changed their minds? Andrews: "Mike, Mark and Gary. You're on public record over a long period as believing that same-gender sex is sinful. Now, with your support for recommendation 5, what were you thinking? How does that help the purity of the church?" Loudon: "Same-gender sexuality is sinful. I believe in the principle of the Adopting Act. I believe recommendation 5 needs to be there. I in my own mind hold to those principles. I think it is going to be very difficult for presbyteries to ignore the standard and not apply it." Achtemeier: "My support for recommendation 5 is predicated on a judgment that the status quo is unproductive for bringing about the church's compliance that we are seeking. We have been attempting to substitute judicial and legislative power for persuasion and conversion. Ultimately, the only way this issue is going to be put to rest is that we don't drive these folks away before we bring them around. I don't think that's effective discipleship." Demarest: "My thinking all the way through this is that I would be faithful to Jesus Christ and my understanding of his call and claim on my own life. The issue became, 'Do I seek out a group of like-minded people or do I try to learn with people with whom I have disagreements.' The issues for the next few years will be: 1) How do we use the Bible. I have learned to live with the fact that that I may be wrong. 2) If we're going to lift up Jesus Christ with people with whom we are unable to come to a uniform interpretation." |
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