Overtures challenge ordination standard By Robert P. Mills The Presbyterian Layman Volume 34, Number 2 Posted March 26, 2001 G-6.0106b: Those called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament. When General Assembly commissioners gather this June in Louisville on the banks of the Ohio River, they will be facing a flood of overtures to eliminate or eviscerate the PCUSA’s constitutional requirement that ordained officers live in fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness. Opponents of the denomination’s historic policy have had two years to prepare their assault. Last year’s assembly refused to address the issue, referring seven overtures to this year’s meeting in the hometown of the denomination’s headquarters. One overture to delete the “fidelity and chastity” provision, G-6.0106b of the denomination’s Book of Order, comes from Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, which, until its recent renaming, was known as Louisville Presbytery. Lines of attack G-6.0106b opponents have opened several lines of attack. Some, like that of Mid-Kentucky, simply want the paragraph removed. Others, like that from New York City Presbytery, not only want the standard removed, but also ask the assembly to issue an authoritative interpretation of the constitution that would declare “that our denomination’s pronouncements upon the ordination of homosexual persons and subsequent adoption of G-6.0106b … were in error.” Baltimore Presbytery has dictated a lengthy authoritative interpretation for the assembly, explicitly approving “the ordination of homosexual persons in faithful, monogamous relationships.” Baltimore does not say why its interpretation would not apply to homosexual persons not in faithful, monogamous relationships. Santa Fe Presbytery proposes to move the PCUSA away from its connectional heritage toward a congregational form of government by inserting provisions for a “waiver” of G-6.0106b in the constitution. Santa Fe does not extend its “local option” approach to the ordination of women. Heartland Presbytery is pursuing the strategy employed by the Syracuse assembly in 1997 – leaving the Book of Order number intact while so revising its content that the intent of the original entirely disappears. Syracuse’s handiwork, which became known as Amendment A, was defeated by a 2-1 margin in the presbyteries. As The Presbyterian Layman goes to press, nearly one-third of the overtures that will be considered by the Louisville assembly deal with G-6.0106b.

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