Liability issue raised in sexual-abuse case By John H. Adams The Layman Online Friday, October 4, 2002 ORLANDO, Fla. – A panel discussion on the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), a mild consideration of how to balance personal ministry failures with the major issues in the denomination, picked up a "hot potato" Friday. "Let me throw a hot potato to you gentlemen," the Rev. Doug Pratt told the three panelists – the Rev. Casey Jones, the Rev. Bob Davis and the Rev. Jerry Andrews. "It appears that the Catholic problem may be coming to us," said Pratt, who cited the recent case in the Presbytery of Hudson River, which removed the pastor of Mount Kisco Presbyterian Church from the pulpit after he was accused of sexually abusing a teen-ager. Hudson River is a presbytery that has taken no action against 16 congregations whose ministers and sessions have announced publicly that they are defying the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA). "If he is found guilty," asked Pratt, pastor of Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in Allison Park, Pa., and co-moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition, "does the fact that the presbytery has not enforced the Constitution put all of us in greater liability? What might be the financial implications for the entire church?" Davis, of San Diego, Calif., a lawyer who specialized in medical malpractice law before he went to Fuller Theological Seminary to get his master of divinity degree, told Pratt that the case had a lot of ifs. Nevertheless, he said, "This is a case that I would take and it's very likely I would make a profit. As a trial lawyer, I would name everybody I could name and let them try to walk away with it." But he said collecting punitive damages from the entire denomination might be difficult because it would require proving "reckless disregard of the truth" by the PCUSA. Davis, Jones and Andrews made brief presentations before an also-brief period of questions and answers. There were few impassioned pleas for enforcement of the constitution. Jones, pastor of Pearland Presbyterian Church in Texas and an unsuccessful candidate for stated clerk of the PCUSA in 2000, said the time may not be right for a major change in which the denomination's leaders take an active role in enforcing the constitution. "In order for evangelism to happen, first there has to be a climate," he said. "I think that's right for constitutional integrity as well. For heaven's sake, we're having a hard time getting Carmen Fowler into the Presbytery of Central Florida." He quoted Habbakuk's complaint to God: "How do you make me look at injustice and why do you make me tolerate wrong?" and God's response that he would send chaos. "I think it's beyond our control," Jones said – but he added another quote from God's message to Habbakuk: "The vision tarries, wait for it." "God's vision is still true, but maybe we're not ready for it," Jones said. He suggested: "Keep reading the gospels. I see all these people in them who are desperate for Jesus' touch. If we get desperate enough, and if we wait for the vision, even if it tarries, it will be come. There has to be a climate. People's hearts have to be changed. This denomination needs a heart-change and a climate that would produce constitutional integrity." He added, "Someone once said if you want renewal in the Presbyterian church, draw a circle and then get in it on your knees and ask God to change everything in the circle." Andrews said, "I, like you, would like to ream somebody's neck right now. But I think that's not best. Still, there are things we can do. We cannot ignore current issues while we engage in self-perfection." Picking up on earlier presentation by Dr. Charles Wiley on ordinary discipline, Andrews said, "This requires a self-discipline and character that we have not shown and I have not mastered. I am of the opinion that these things have not been done well in 100 years." Davis said the congregation he serves in San Diego has begun to help elders think more theologically about discipline and issues in the church. He said each elder has been given the Book of Order and The Book of Confessions and that they're assigned "word problems" – such as what they would do if a member of the church, following the example of the Crystal Cathedral, asked for a memorial service in which participants of different faiths lit candles and said prayers to different gods. Davis said every issue doesn't have to be settled by a church trial before a Permanent Judicial Commission. Quoting from G-9.0408 in the Book of Order, he said that a higher governing body, upon learning of a delinquency by a lower church body, may require records and take action directing the lower body to reconsider or correct its delinquency. Peggy Hedden, vice moderator of the Coalition and the person who moderated the panel discussion, cited statements by the directors of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and Presbyterians For Renewal in calling for confession and repentance to restore constitutional integrity and asked the panel how Presbyterians should respond. Jones said, "Americans are problem-solvers. We want to solve problems. But sometimes maybe we ought to just say there's something wrong: Our denomination is lacking in integrity. We can't fix it if we don't confess it."

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