Coalition grapples with constitutional enforcement The Layman Online Monday, October 7, 2002 ORLANDO, Fla. – "There is no provision in our rules of discipline for enforcement," David Snellgrove told participants at Gathering VII, an evangelical meeting sponsored by the Presbyterian Coalition. "Our [judicial] system is built on trust in people to abide by the constitution." Snellgrove, a synod executive who has served the Presbyterian Church (USA) as a pastor, presbytery executive and moderator of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, addressed the Coalition audience Oct. 4 amid growing concerns that the denomination is facing a constitutional crisis. Scores of churches and sessions have declared they would not obey the constitution and, as of this date, nothing has been done to require their compliance. A covenant people Snellgrove's lecture was essentially a primer on Presbyterian polity. We are a covenant people, he told the gathering. "We Presbyterians believe that we are called into community with one another." Snellgrove said that God gave his people the law to make it possible for us to live an ordered life together. Because we are all sinners, we never vest decision-making power in the hands of individuals, he said, but in groups. Snellgrove said the denomination's connectional system is built on the principle that what one governing body decides affects all others. "When a congregation ordains an elder or a presbytery ordains a minister," he said, "that person is ordained to the whole church." Abide or withdraw "We are a constitutional church," Snellgrove said. "When our officers are ordained, we agree to uphold all parts of the constitution … We all made those vows voluntarily … The constitution says that if you cannot abide, you will peaceably withdraw. We don't have a right to tear the church apart." Courts don't enforce Snellgrove suggested that those who are concerned about incidents of defiance may be asking too much of the judicial system. He said that once the courts have ruled on the constitutionality of a matter, they have done their job. Enforcement is an administrative concern, he said. "The presbytery enforces decisions of its permanent judicial commission … synod of the synod … and General Assembly of the General Assembly," he said. "It is up to the governing body that makes the decision to enforce it. If the presbytery does not enforce the constitution, than the proper way to proceed is through administrative review by the next governing body, the synod." Snellgrove did not address the question of redress when the denomination's highest governing body refuses to enforce the decisions of its court. Acting on a case in which the Presbytery of Northern New England allowed one of its churches to defy the constitution, the denomination's highest court ruled that church leaders and governing bodies have no right to defy the constitution. But when the 2002 General Assembly was asked to enforce that judicial decision, it chose to take no action.

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