 Declaration that ‘confessions’ are unlawful sparks firestorm By John H. Adams The Layman Volume 35, Number 2 Posted April 8, 2002 ATLANTA, Ga. – While the National Celebration of Confessing Churches was under way in Atlanta, a presbytery court declared the Confessing Church resolution of a Sebastian, Fla., session illegal. The announcement of the decision at the Celebration set off a firestorm. “If you don’t see this as a direct frontal attack on the Confessing Church Movement, you’re missing the point,” said Howard Edington, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Fla., who dared the commission to “come after” his 5,500-member congregation as well. After posting a story on its Web site, the Layman Online received dozens of letters about the decision, almost all of them criticizing the court’s determination. “What’s next?” Art Montgomery of First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City asked in one letter. “If I confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, is someone going to sue me, order me to stop, burn me at the stake?” Formal protest filed At the first meeting of the Presbytery of Central Florida after the ruling, an official protest against the decision was filed by 25 pastors and elders in the presbytery. “Our constitution demonstrates a breadth in its understanding of Scripture,” they said. “The statement made by the Sebastian session is solidly within this understanding. Since the resolution’s statement is so strongly and broadly supported by the constitution it cannot be in conflict with the question asked of church officers any more than the ordination question itself can be in conflict with the remainder of the constitution.” The presbytery docketed the letter for a later response. Court: Rescind resolution
“The session of First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian is enjoined from requiring any person to affirm said ‘confession’ as a prerequisite for their ordination and/or installation as officers, and that no one will be required to affirm said ‘confession’ as a prerequisite to employment in any ministry position,” the presbytery court said. In fact, though, the Sebastian resolution does not state explicitly any such requirements. And its call not to ordain officers who violate the “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard echoes the standard in the constitution. In essence, the presbytery court said sessions are not allowed to establish ordination standards for church officers that are not explicitly stated in the Book of Order – even though the standards cited in the Sebastian resolution are grounded in Scripture, the Book of Order itself and the denomination’s Book of Confessions. The unanimous decision of the presbytery court was not unexpected, said Christy Wilson III, the attorney for the Sebastian session and an elder at First Presbyterian Church in Orlando. “I think it was expected just by the demeanor and outlook of members of the PJC” when they reviewed the case during a hearing in October 2001, he said, adding, “I would say we are going to seek review by the synod and the General Assembly ecclesiastical courts.” Confessions called subordinate During trial testimony in Orlando in February, the complainant, Norman F. Blessing, said, “The confessions are subordinate to the Book of Order.” Historically, Jesus Christ “as the Scriptures bear witness to him,” Scripture itself and The Book of Confessions have had, respectively, a one-two-three authority ranking in the Presbyterian Church. Similar resolutions Hundreds of sessions of the more than 1,230 Confessing Church sessions within the Presbyterian Church (USA) have adopted identical or similar resolutions. In line with the denomination’s constitutional “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard, some of those resolutions, like Sebastian’s, have also urged other governing bodies not to ordain people who will not confine their sexual activity to marriage. Appeal being considered The Rev. Eleanor Lea, pastor of the congregation, said she received a copy of the court’s order Feb. 25 and e-mailed it to members of the session, including Ken Burgess, who was attending the Celebration in Atlanta. She said the session will meet soon to review the order and that she did not expect the elders to back down. “They haven’t balked at all,” Lea said. After the October hearing, the presbytery court issued a letter “requesting” the Sebastian session to recant part of its resolution and rescind another part. The final order was to recant the entire resolution. “Further, this order shall be published in the next issue of the [Sebastian] newsletter, The Presbyterian Post,” the order said. “The statement that ordination and/or installation as church officers requires affirmative answers to only the nine questions set forth in G-14.0207, along with the questions, shall be printed in the same newsletter.” Wilson said the case has far-reaching implications. After the overwhelming defeat of Amendment 01-A, which would have repealed the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” ordination clause, “now we see a shift by the ecclesiastical courts to do by the courts, what liberals cannot do by majority votes, to strike the Confessing Church Movement.” In urging the Presbytery court to outlaw the Sebastian resolution, one of the complainants’ attorneys, Alan Pickering accused the Sebastian session of “contumacy” – obstinate or contemptuous resistance to authority – for not complying with a previous ruling by the court. That ruling literally was a “request” that the Sebastian session recant part of its resolution and rescind its plea that other governing bodies “uphold these historic Christian convictions.” |
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