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Covenant Network plans a clean sweep

By James D. Berkley, The Layman, Posted Monday, November 10, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS – In a two-hour pep rally and strategy session Friday afternoon in Minneapolis, Covenant Network leaders issued stunning claims about the present constitutionality of gay ordination and laid out their ground game for further action back home in presbyteries to approve Amendment 08-B and hasten the routine ordination of practicing homosexual persons.

The Covenant Network, meeting November 6-8 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, is no big-bucks operation. In soliciting contributions on Friday, leaders described a budget of about $300,000 per year and a tiny San Francisco office “about the size of Sarah Palin’s clothes closet.” There will be no staff raises next year, although there were ample inducements given out to get young adults and seminarians to attend this conference.
 
Doug Nave and Tim Hart-Andersen set out to describe what they believe happened at the last two General Assemblies relative to the ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) candidates – “some sweeping decisions” as they termed it. Hart-Andersen, speaking from his home pulpit at Westminster Church, first presented his slant on General Assembly in 2006. He said that the Authoritative Interpretation (AI) from the Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church, approved by the assembly, introduced “processes of discernment and new ways of living together that are less combative.”
 
But the “main thing” was the authoritative interpretation, which “basically did two things: First it affirmed that the national church sets standards and the governing bodies apply, interpret and use those standards. Second, candidates for ordination may declare a departure from those standards, and the examining body determines whether, in light of all they know about the candidate, the departure from the standards puts the candidate outside the essential standards.”
 
Attorney Doug Nave, ubiquitous as counsel arguing for gay ordination in judicial cases, told of three ways the 2006 AI was controversial. “First,” he proclaimed in no uncertain terms, “you can declare a departure [a scruple] in matters of practice.” Must we all act in conformity with church rules? He answered with an amazing “No!”
 
Second, in Nave’s opinion, “we don’t have ‘super-sins.’” In other words, even though sexual practice is held up specifically in G-6.0106b, he claims it fails to qualify as an essential that must be kept.
 
Third, Nave says, the AI established that ordaining bodies “cannot accept a departure that affects the function of the office,” such as someone wanting to turn the clock back to not ordain women. Nave did not explain why possible unwillingness to perform a function of office would not logically be considered a substitute “super-sin” now under his definition.
 
Hart-Anderson talked specifically about ordination of practicing homosexual persons. He was clear and exultant: “In 2006, a door that has been shut since 1978 was swung open! The [Permanent Judicial Commission] tried to close it in what has been called the Bush decision, and the ’08 assembly threw the door back open. Now, a person wanting and needing to declare a departure from the standards can do so.”
 
Further, Hart-Andersen listed some prominent names. “There are people who have started walking through the door that we know about,” he announced. “Lisa Larges is the first one to take a step through the door, or safer to say that she is still on the threshold, having had a challenge. Scott Anderson. Paul Capetz.” He mentioned a lesbian woman from New York transferring to Philadelphia Presbytery, a presbytery not expected to allow her in, “but now the door is open.”
 
Hart-Andersen added “a straight minister from Sacramento Presbytery who declared a departure. The door being opened, he went through the door.” What he chose not to say was the odd examination procedure in Sacramento that allowed the candidate to slip through the cracks. “We assume [walking through the door] is happening around the church with deacons and elders,” Hart-Anderson concluded.
 
Nave showed great joy in explaining what everyone in the room already knew: That the 2008 General Assembly rescinded the 1978 AI, which had first codified what had always been a settled moral belief of the church, namely that “unrepentant homosexual practice does not accord with the requirements set forth for ordination.” “No vote of presbyteries was needed,” Nave made clear. “The action was first taken by a General Assembly. Now it could be lifted by a General Assembly.”
 
But Nave didn’t leave it at that. “There is one other thing to note: General Assembly didn’t say it was ‘rescinding’ the AI or that it was ‘not binding.’ It said that the AI would have ‘no further force or effect.’ That means that we are operating under a clean slate now.” Further, “it would be dishonest now to say ‘This [the removed AI] is what Presbyterians believe.’”
 
Hart-Andersen could not restrain himself from hammering home their perception of the current state of affairs. He demonstrated how his children would sometimes use an arm to sweep a game board empty of all the pieces. It is like that now in the church, he enthused. “All the items that once were on the table are suddenly off the table! It’s a dramatic outcome that we should acknowledge.”
 
The Covenant Network national organizer, Tricia Dykers Koenig, next took the pulpit, telling the audience to “Fire up! Get ready to go. Every single goal that the Covenant Network publicized before the General Assembly was accomplished.” She outlined two major initiatives remaining: First, getting otherwise qualified LGBT candidates ordained and installed immediately. “It is happening, and it needs to be happening more!” she urged. Second, passing Amendment 08-B. As she put it, “We wiped away the 30-year sin” of the 1978 AI. Now, “continue the process of eliminating the 11-year sin” – G-6.0106b.
 
Koenig noted that “it’s important how the conversations happen. It’s important that you make a witness to your faith in this circumstance.” She mentioned that often the Covenant Network side of the debate gets faulted for leaving faith and the Bible out of the matter.
 
Apparently Koenig was picking up some unhappiness about the tentativeness of any Covenant Network expectations that the new G-6.0106b would be approved, or even that it should have been put forward to a vote this year. “Make no mistake,” she clarified, “we cannot and will not abandon our brothers and sisters who are LGBT!” And a couple of minutes later, she repeated herself: “Make no mistake, we want to win the presbytery vote. Until this blight on our constitution is removed, we want to keep forcing it.”
 
Yet even later, a conference participant noted during an open-microphone session “a mood of ‘if it fails’” in the Covenant Network leadership. Doug Nave’s reply was candid about “dissention within our own board about the timing” of this vote. “You can say that some of our board members have declared a departure from the stance,” he quipped.
 
In the end, Nave mused, “who knows if B will pass or not. We haven’t taken a vote in a long time. But it almost doesn’t matter. Whether it happens or not, we have the ability right now to ordain whoever we want to ordain.”

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