 Constitutional crisis is ranked top story for 2002 in PCUSA By John H. Adams The Layman Online Monday, December 30, 2002
The staff of The Layman, the bimonthly newspaper that goes to more than 500,000 Presbyterian homes, and The Layman Online, the official Web site of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, covered this emerging constitutional story throughout the year and ranked it first in importance in 2002. In addition, The Layman and The Layman Online also ranked related developments in the denomination – including defiance movements and judicial cases in which church officers were accused of violating their oaths of office because of their refusal to obey the constitution – among the Top 10 stories in 2002. 1. Constitutional Crisis and the call for a special meeting of the General Assembly Alex Metherell of Laguna Beach, Calif., a physician and engineer, was a commissioner to the 214th General Assembly when it met in Columbus, Ohio, in June of 2002. Metherell was prominent in addressing a number of issues, including an overture from the Presbytery of Shenango in Pennsylvania that summoned the commissioners to exercise administrative oversight in a defiance case involving the Presbytery of Northern New England and Christ Church in Burlington, Vt. The Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly, the highest court in the 2.5-million-member denomination, had ordered the presbytery to work pastorally – or with disciplinary measures if necessary – to require the session of Christ Church to rescind its public resolution stating its intent to defy the denomination's constitutional ordination standard. The court said even a statement of intent to defy the constitution violated church law, and two years had passed without any action. Nonetheless, after Christ Church "set aside" its defiant resolution a few days before the General Assembly convened, the commissioners voted against the Shenango overture and, as a result, numerous other church sessions began publicly defying the constitution. As incidents of defiance increased across the country with no disciplinary response by any presbytery or church court, Christ Church reasserted its intention to ordain practicing, self-affirming homosexuals, which is prohibited by church law. In the midst of this constitutional crisis, Metherell decided it was time for an historic called meeting of the General Assembly. He contacted the commissioners to the General Assembly by e-mail and letters, spelled out the reasons for a called meeting (constitutional issues, only) and, as a physician, warned that the defiance movement was like a spreading cancer, threatening the very life of the PCUSA. Despite opposition from the bureaucracy of the PCUSA, and even from the ranks of some of the renewal groups, at year's end Metherell was within one commissioner of meeting the requirements for a called meeting (25 elders and 25 ministers). He hoped to finish the campaign early in 2003. Related stories:
On Nov. 22, 18 months after First Presbyterian Church in Sebastian, Fla., adopted a Confessing Church resolution, a church court order that would have forced Sebastian to rescind its resolution was overturned on appeal. Thus, the Sebastian resolution and hundreds of similar resolutions by other sessions whose congregations have become part of the growing Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA) were affirmed. Norman F. Blessing, a Sebastian elder, had brought the action against his colleagues because, he argued, they did not have the right to adopt standards that were not in the precise wording of the Book of Order. The case boiled down to a trial over whether sessions could use Scripture and the church's confessions as standards or whether they had to toe the line with precise Book of Order prescriptions. Historically, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has always held Scripture as the highest written authority, followed by the confessions and, finally, the Book of Order. Blessing won his case before the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of Central Florida. The court ordered the Sebastian session to rescind the entirety of its Confessing Church resolution. But the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the South Atlantic ruled otherwise, and the Sebastian resolution remains intact. The Sebastian case was at least partly responsible for slowing the growth of the Confessing Church Movement. The presbytery verdict against the Sebastian case was announced at the National Celebration of Confessing Churches in February, creating a wave of negative reaction and questions about whether the church courts could outlaw the entire movement. Related stories:
In early 2002, Christianity Today called the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA) one of the major religious stories in America. The CCM ranked sixth in a list of 10 – evidence that its impact was being measured well beyond the borders of the PCUSA. During the year, the movement continued to grow, although at a slower pace. Today, there are 1,289 Confessing Churches in the denomination – 11.6 percent of the 11,142 congregations listed in the Comparative Statistics of the PCUSA. The Confessing Churches have 427,820 members – 17.1 percent of the denomination's 2,493,781 members. During 2002, the highlight for the movement was the National Celebration of Confessing Churches in Atlanta in February, which was attended by more than 1,000 Presbyterians. Presbyterian Confessing Church members and leaders were also prominent at a multidenominational gathering for confessing Christians in Indianapolis in November. There, confessing Christians were urged to stand fast in their denominations and to continue to pray and work for renewal. The Presbyterian CCM avoided becoming an institution – refraining from creating a national staff or raising money for programming. Instead, the movement began to focus on congregational life and building support networks on a regional basis. Related stories:
After the 214th General Assembly decided not to exercise any administrative oversight that would enforce the constitution before it adjourned in June, acts of defiance began spreading across the denomination. The principal issue was the denomination's constitutional ordination standard, which prohibits the ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexuals. In March 2002, a denominational referendum concluded with three-fourths of the presbyteries affirming the "fidelity/chastity" law. But there were acts of public defiance of other constitutional standards as well. Ministers announced that they had "married" homosexual couples. Sessions approved admitting members who were not Christians. Some congregations began practicing "open communion," serving the elements to people who had not confessed their faith in Christ. Even though the 214th General Assembly adopted a statement – "Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ," which asserted that Jesus Christ alone is Lord and Savior for the world – some ministers taught brazenly that belief in other gods is a path to salvation. A minister who denies the deity of Jesus Christ was approved for service in West Jersey Presbytery and a church in California declared "Jesus Christ is the foundation to our path to God, but we recognize that he represents one of many ways to know God," in its statement of faith. "We recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the pathway to the Divine." The denomination's stated clerk issued statements calling on all Presbyterians to obey the constitution, but he took no steps to ensure enforcement, saying that this was not his job. The Standing Rules of the General Assembly list as a primary duty of the stated clerk that he "preserve and defend" the constitution. Related stories:
This was the year of litigation in the Presbyterian Church (USA) – but, despite more than two dozen complaints against ministers and elders who openly defied the constitution, little seemed to come of those actions. One Presbyterian, Paul Rolf Jensen of Reston, Va., filed the bulk of the cases, filing his complaints against Presbyterians who had announced publicly that they would not submit to the denomination's "fidelity/chastity" ordination standard. But at the end of 2002, not a single complaint made by Jensen had gone to trial, and some dated back to as early as March of 2001. Presbyteries in Baltimore and Redwoods, Calif., summarily dismissed his complaints. The net result during the year was that not one minister or elder who had publicly stated that he or she was defying the constitution was disciplined. Related stories:
Since its inception in America, the Presbyterian Church has always believed that "the Lord loves a cheerful giver." Consequently, there has never been a compulsory tax levied in local churches to support the programs of higher governing bodies – presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly. Those bodies do apportion the costs of doing business by requesting per-capita support from the local congregations. But church law and rulings of the highest court in the Presbyterian Church (USA) have affirmed time and again that sessions can decide whether or not to pay those apportionments – and that, if they do not pay them, they will not be disciplined. Many times, presbyteries have asked the General Assembly, including the 214th, to change the law and make per-capita payments mandatory. None of those overtures have been approved. But the campaign to make per-capita mandatory picked up steam in 2002. Despite a ruling by the denomination's highest court that per-capita payments cannot be coerced, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick warned ministers and elders that refusal to pay per capita could constitute a violation of their oaths of office. If Kirkpatrick seemed more serious about that threat thanabout public defiance of the constitution's ordination standards, there may be a good reason. Per capita is the lifeblood of the denomination's Louisville headquarters. And money from other sources is drying up fast – both because of the withering economy and the decision by sessions of some evangelical congregations to redirect their per-capita money to other ministries. In December, 2002, the Presbytery of Scioto Valley decided to ignore church law and impose a per-capita tax on its congregations unless they are excused by the presbytery. A regional court upheld that new policy. An appeal is being considered. Related stories:
The year 2002 will go down in Presbyterian history as the year of the great mission retreat. Faced with declining revenues – both because of the economy and diverting funds from mission to other less popular programming – the PCUSA cut 10 percent of its foreign mission force. That decision, proposed by the staff at the Louisville headquarters and affirmed by the 214th General Assembly, drew numerous protests. But Louisville promised a quid pro quo – a $40-million fundraising campaign called "Mission Initiative." The fundraising campaign was authorized despite a consultant's report that cited declining denominational loyalty as a challenge to the campaign's success. Related stories:
The Presbyterian year 2002 was split between two moderators – the controversial Jack Rogers, who carried the torch for radical changes in the denomination, and Fahed Abu-Akel, a Palestinian Christian who overwhelmingly won election during the second ballot at the 214th General Assembly in June. While Rogers had used his office to denounce the Confessing Church Movement and support liberal causes – including the marriage of same-sex couples – Abu-Akel focused on promoting church growth along traditional lines: faith in Christ, Scripture and witness. The new moderator did, however, carry the torch for Palestinians in Israel, but he expressed understanding for Jews as well and viewed himself as a possible source of reconciliation because of his office in the PCUSA. Abu-Akel also resumed a long-standing custom of the moderator writing a column for The Layman – a practice that Rogers had abandoned. Related stories:
The 214th General Assembly, at the urging of the staff of the denomination's Louisville headquarters, decided that annual meetings of the General Assembly are expensive, time consuming for staff and not needed. Thus, the commissioners voted overwhelmingly to have the national body meet every other year – the first time in the history of Presbyterianism in America that the governing body chose not to meet annually. In approving biennial assemblies, beginning in 2005, the commissioners chose the option of reducing costs over the minority's arguments that the business of the denomination needed annual review, and that fewer assembly meetings would further concentrate power in the smaller General Assembly Council. Related stories:
The year went out with a small number of Presbyterians heralding a new way to look at the faith: "progressive theology." It is "progressive" in the sense that its teachings are more culturally centered than Biblically based. Progressive theology is like beauty – or truth – that is discovered in the eyes of the beholder. But it does have common tenets that challenge orthodoxy, and some of the denomination's most high-profile groups, including the Covenant Network and More Light Presbyterians, are promoting those tenets aggressively. Related story: |
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