Covenant Network claims it's the PCUSA's 'great center' By John H. Adams The Layman Online Monday, November 11, 2002 MINNEAPOLIS – Expressing their dismay that the denomination's votes against their reason for being – to allow the ordination of GLBTs (gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered) Presbyterians – the leaders of the Covenant Network have pledged to continue their campaign, forge new alliances and focus on theology. Joanna Adams, co-pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, and Eugene Bay, senior minister of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pa., claimed the network represents the broad center of the church and will continue to do so. To its critics from the orthodox wing of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the network's "center" seems far to the left. But to some of its supporters, the network seems too far to the right because of its failure to hammer the ordination issue at every General Assembly. Adams and Bay, the co-moderators of the conference, were trying to appeal to both sides. They made their comments about continuing their efforts to repeal or nullify the denomination's ordination standard Nov. 9 in a brief open-mike segment during the network's national conference. And they returned to the issue during other comments while they were at the podium during the conference. Before the worship service Nov. 10, the last day of the conference, Adams reassured the audience: "The Covenant Network is committed to removal of G-6.0106b … or any other impediment to ordination. We are going to build consensus." She said someone at the conference had told her pleadingly, "'I have a gay son …,' and I told him I have a wonderful daughter, and her name is Lisa. She is a lesbian and she's not a part of this church. You know why and I know why. I'm talking about the day our sons and daughters can serve the Lord – not in secret, but in the whole affirmation of their calling." "When that victory will come, I do not know, but that it will come, I am sure." She compared today's situation to the parable of the woman who kept on sweeping her house to find a lost coin. "We have to keep on sweeping," Adams said, "and when we find it, let's throw a great party and invite everybody to it." Bay also said the network would continue its commitment to dismantling the ordination standard, but he said the organization's board had decided recently that the ordination issue would no longer be its only agenda. "We believe the denomination needs a progressive theology," Bay said. Some of that progressive theology was highlighted during the conference, including a denial of the sacrificial death of Jesus as the justifying atonement for sin. Bay's comments were generous and inclusive, underscoring his point that the Covenant Network was the "great center of the church." They contrasted sharply with some of the remarks he made in 1997 at the first Covenant Network conference in Chicago when, after founding Covenant Network moderator John Buchanan urged the nascent group to practice civility, Bay called the supporters of the denomination's ordination standards "tight lipped … mean spirited … rigid … pharisaic … narrow … legalistic … self-righteous … itsy-bitsy people." His own progressive theology also was featured in a study document on euthanasia that was rejected by the 210th General Assembly in 1999. The report, titled "Euthanasia Study Materials," gave theological credence to suicide and included one of Bay's sermons. The sermon referred to the double suicide of Dr. Henry Pitt Van Dusen, former president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, and his wife. Interpreting Genesis 1 as a divine mandate to exercise dominion over our lives, Bay said the Van Dusens, in their suicides, were "assuming our God-given power and responsibility." The publication also included a response to Bay's sermon, written by Rich Allman, a Christian physician. Allman described euthanasia as "bad medicine, misapplied compassion and socially destructive."

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