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The Rev. Donald Stroud has issued a statement in which he
twice asserts that he can not in good conscience comply with the fidelity and
chastity standard of the Constitution of the PC (USA) (G-6.0106b). Mr. Stroud,
who both serves a church in Baltimore Presbytery and is employed by a homosexual
advocacy group called, “That All May Freely Serve” [TAMFS], has been the subject
of a church discipline investigation. The outcome of this process tests whether
Baltimore Presbytery will take the recent advice of Stated Clerk Clifton
Kirkpatrick delivered in an August 21 letter to Synod and Presbytery Stated
Clerks. The Clerk writes that “a small, but very public, group of pastors and
sessions continues to struggle with provisions of the Constitution.” Stroud’s
actions appear to meet the criteria of Mr. Kirkpatrick’s letter.
The Stated Clerk’s letter says, “I strongly urge all
presbyteries to take seriously the requirements of the rules of discipline.” In
July, 2000, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GA-PJC) said, “A
formal declaration … not to comply with the express corporate judgment of the
Church in an explicit constitutional provision exceeds the constitutional bounds
of freedom of conscience and therefore requires a response on the part of the
governing body exercising oversight.” [Londonderry Presbyterian Church v
Presbytery of Northern New England, 213-2]
Mr. Kirkpatrick’s letter agrees with the GA PJC, “The
Constitution protects the right of dissention, but provides no right of
defiance.” He also writes, “The process must be honored if the integrity of the
judicial system is to be maintained.
As of the time of this writing, the process is not yet
complete in Baltimore Presbytery. What Baltimore Presbytery does with the
complaint against the Rev. Stroud is a matter of the integrity of our form of
government. The complaint brought by Mr. Paul Jensen, which Mr. Stroud made
public in Baltimore Presbytery, stems from statements Stroud made openly at the
2001 General Assembly. Mr. Jensen’s accusations were then sent by the
presbytery, as required by the Book of Order, to an investigating committee
chosen by the Presbytery’s Moderator. On June 27, 2002 the investigating
committee reported that they did not choose to forward the complaint against Mr.
Stroud’s those previous statements of non-compliance for trial before the Synod
PJC. The effect of their report would have been to drop the matter and allow
Mr. Stroud’s defiance to stand unchallenged.
On the occasion of the investigating committee’s report,
Mr. Stroud made the statements reported in the first paragraph above. They
remain posted on the web site of the organization for which he works—That All
May Freely Serve (TAMFS) (www.tamfs.org/new/baltimore).
The refusal by the presbytery’s investigating committee to forward formal
charges to a PJC for trial has been appealed as permitted by the Book of Order
to the PJC of Baltimore Presbytery. The church is waiting for their decision.
Whatever happens regarding the allegations brought by Mr.
Jensen, these new statements by Mr. Stroud, made subsequent to Mr. Jensen’s
complaint, would appear to be a challenge to Baltimore Presbytery, and indeed to
the whole church. They challenge the integrity of our constitutional form of
government. These new statements actually constitute a new “offense” against
the order of the PC (USA). And these new statements may well become the grounds
for allegations against Mr. Stroud in order to give the Presbytery of Baltimore
and the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic opportunity to address the “integrity of the
judicial system.” |
