 General
Assembly’s actions defy  The Layman Volume 36, Number 3, Posted July 1, 2003
It was a “Not Now Assembly,” said Presbyterian Outlook. The outcomes of the assembly “aren’t half bad,” declared a spokesman for Presbyterians For Renewal. The commissioners’ decisions warrant no dulcet descriptions. What did the 215th General Assembly actually do? With rare exception, the decisions of this assembly – like those of the two that preceded it – furthered the agenda of denominational leaders who deny the church’s faith and defy the people’s will. For the record: The assembly decided not to call for a referendum seeking the removal of our sexual behavior standards. That was a political decision by the left, whose tacticians knew they didn’t have the votes in the presbyteries. The commissioners’ vote had nothing to do with a conviction that these standards should remain in the constitution, and it certainly did not represent a victory for the unquestionably outnumbered traditionalists. The left controlled a solid 60/40 majority throughout the week-long assembly. If it had wanted to submit our ordination standards to a referendum by the presbyteries, it had the votes to do so. But while the assembly did not attempt to remove our standards, it took a giant step toward undermining them. On the advice of the stated clerk (who says it is not his job to enforce the constitution), the assembly removed a critical provision in its Standing Rules (rule G.2.g), that allows the assembly itself to enforce the constitution when the rulings of its highest court are ignored. Denominational leaders and their Covenant Network allies entertain the assumption that the defeat of our ordination standards is inevitable. “It’s like water dripping on a rock,” a Covenant Network member told the Associated Press. “It’s just a matter of time.” That assumption surfaces in rhetoric that one often hears from Louisville. Despite the fact that the standard was reaffirmed by an almost 3-1 vote in the last referendum, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick has repeatedly declared, “Presbyterians are divided on this issue.” Louisville rarely says, “PCUSA policy does not allow the ordination of practicing homosexuals.” Instead, it reports that the PCUSA doesn’t do so – yet. If those who manage the denominational infrastructure anticipate the inevitable demise of our standards, and if, in fact, they desire this to be the case, then what policy would they pursue in the interim? They would do everything possible to impede enforcement. This is where Kirkpatrick’s disclaimer that it is not his job to enforce the constitution enters the picture. This explains the refusal by lower-court gatekeepers even to allow courts to hear cases of defiance. It explains the obfuscation that passes for official interpretations of the constitution; e.g., “there is more than one definition of ‘chastity.’” It explains why this General Assembly – at the bidding of the stated clerk’s advisers – determined that the General Assembly has no authority to “intervene” in matters of constitutional compliance. The strategy is clear: Undermine the standard until you can garner enough votes to kill it. By refusing to deal with defiance, commissioners to the 215th General Assembly rendered our highest governing body impotent and played right into the hands of that strategy. For the record: The assembly reaffirmed its policy that sanctions killing babies at the time of their birth. Desperate to claim some semblance of victory that resulted from their hard work at this assembly, a handful of renewalists have called this year’s decision an “improvement” over the past because it now uses the words “mother” and “child” rather than “woman” and “fetus.” But these are word games, bones thrown to the pro-lifers by the victorious abortion lobby. One could even argue that the newly enacted policy is worse than before, because the General Assembly now admits bald-face that the victim whose skull is being crushed with its blessing is a “child.” The act that this assembly deemed to bless has now been declared a crime by the United States Congress. We thank God for Presbyterians on Capitol Hill whose moral compass proved truer than that of their fellow churchmen in Denver. For the record: The assembly exempted its Theological Task Force from the open meetings policy at the recommendation of the task force’s co-moderator and with the approval of some of its members. Created by a General Assembly whose commissioners would not forthrightly declare Jesus Christ the Son of God and humanity’s only savior, this task force has generated much skepticism from the start. All the hype that has been heaped upon it by the Covenant Network, the Louisville bureaucracy and a handful of moderates has done little to inspire confidence in its work. But whatever sliver of trust it might have possessed will vanish if it closes its doors. For the record: The assembly reaffirmed its decision to hold less frequent meetings, and made it more difficult for called meetings to occur. This means less accountability to representatives of the people and more power vested in a relatively small council that is heavily “resourced” by denominational staff. For the record: The assembly voted to continue massive funding for the World Council of Churches despite the fact that the PCUSA has been forced by declining income to make drastic cuts in its own mission funding. The 2.45 million member PCUSA gives more money to the World Council of Churches than any other U.S. denomination – five times more than the 8.5-million member United Methodist Church. For the record: The assembly referred “Families in Transition” back to its authors rather than killing it or, in the alternative, referring it to an independent commission of competent theologians and social scientists. “Families in Transition” promotes an aberrant definition of marriage and family that comes nowhere close to the teachings of Scripture. For the record: The assembly has asked its Congregational Ministries Division to publish “pastoral resources” for Presbyterian ministries to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. Congregational Ministries is the division that refused to bring its controversial sex education curriculum into conformity with Scripture, even after it was ordered to do so by a previous General Assembly. For the record: The assembly rejected a proposal to require greater accountability from the stated clerk when he files amicus curiae briefs on behalf of the denomination. Recently, the clerk went to court on behalf of a cult that was using dangerous drugs to inspire ritual vomiting and hallucinations. Arguing “freedom of religion,” his lawsuit demands that federal drug enforcement agents return confiscated drugs to the cult. Some observers have welcomed the fact that the assembly expressed itself in soft and dulcet tones. But Christians are called to discern between spin and substance. Language has its limitations: The little one whose skull has been crushed is no less dead because this assembly decided to call it a “child.” Those who would spin what this assembly has done would do well to hear God’s holy Word: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness … Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 5: 20 ff. Parker T. Williamson is editor-in-chief of The Layman. |
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