Act Now to Respond to PUP and to FOG
November 07, 2007

Two critical matters of constitutional business will be before the next General Assembly. You can influence the outcome by sending an overture to the G.A. The deadline for overtures related to the constitution is February 22, 2008. It's closer than we think!

I urge you to work with your session and then your presbytery to send an overture or to concur with an overture that already has been adopted. The deadline is the same whether it's a new overture or a concurrence. You will find on our website a list of overtures already adopted and overtures we are suggesting: click here

Respond to the Peace, Unity, and Purity (PUP) Report
Already, some candidates for ministry are asking their presbyteries to find their sexual behavior not essential to their fitness for office. These candidates are trying to use the 2006 authoritative interpretation from the PUP Report as the basis of their request.
Two overtures are seeking to eliminate the ambiguity of the 2006 AI. A problem with the 2006 AI is that some people believe it introduces local option into ordination and installation processes within our presbyteries. One of the overtures seeks a complete rescinding of the General Assembly's action of 2006 (Ovt 005 from the Presbytery of South Louisiana).

A second overture offers an alternative authoritative interpretation of G-6.0108 that is far more faithful to the text of that section of the constitution (Ovt 009 from the Presbytery of Cherokee). You can find the wording of G-6.0108 by following this link and scrolling down to the numbered paragraph in Chapter VI.

This is the 2006 G.A.'s authoritative interpretation of G- 6.0108:

"a. The Book of Confessions and the Form of Government of the Book of Order set forth the scriptural and constitutional standards for ordination and installation.

"b. These standards are determined by the whole church, after the careful study of Scripture and theology, solely by the constitutional process of approval by the General Assembly with the approval of the presbyteries. These standards may be interpreted by the General Assembly and its Permanent Judicial Commission.

"c. Ordaining and installing bodies, acting as corporate expressions of the church, have the responsibility to determine their membership by applying these standards to those elected to office. These determinations include:

"(1) Whether a candidate being examined for ordination and/or installation as elder, deacon, or minister of Word and Sacrament has departed from scriptural and constitutional standards for fitness for office,

"(2) Whether any departure constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity under G-6.0108 of the Book of Order, thus barring the candidate from ordination and/or installation.

"d. Whether the examination and ordination and installation decision comply with the constitution of the PCUSA, and whether the ordaining/installing body has conducted its examination reasonably, responsibly, prayerfully, and deliberately in deciding to ordain a candidate for church office is subject to review by higher governing bodies."

The authoritative interpretation of the same section of the Book of Order proposed by the overture from the Presbytery of Cherokee reads as follows:

"A governing body is not permitted to ordain or install a candidate for deacon, elder, or minister of the Word and Sacrament after determining that the candidate has departed, without repentance, from the standards for ordination expressly provided in the Book of Order. Such unrepentant departure is a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed polity, and is a negative answer to the required constitutional question: Will you be governed by our church's polity? Provisions of the Book of Order are signified as being standards by use of the term 'shall,' 'is/are to be,' 'requirement,' or equivalent expression."

I encourage you to consider concurrence with one of these overtures.

Respond to the proposed new Form of Government (FOG)
Overtures in response to the proposed new Form of Government (FOG) also must meet the February 22 deadline. I urge you to make your voice heard on this troubling complete rewrite of our polity. We offer an overture draft on our website for you to consider.

Please let me know how we can help you in the overture process.

Let us take courage and, in these times of testing, not "shrink back." (Hebrews 10:39) Let us pray earnestly, confident in him who has promised. And let's also remember those, especially our brothers and sisters, who continue to suffer the effects of the fires in Southern California.

Terry Schlossberg
The Presbyterian Coalition

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