The
Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church (PUP)
released its final report last summer, dropping a huge bomb of surprise
on Presbyterians. The report can be found at www.pcusa.org/peaceunitypurity.
Recommendation
5 permits constitutional standards to be set aside
With no
prior warning, the task force members agreed in closed meetings just
prior to issuing their report to propose a new Authoritative Interpretation
(AI) of the Church’s constitution. The proposed AI permits ordinations
to occur that the constitution and current AIs forbid. It is a de
facto change to the constitution without the due process of votes
by our presbyteries.
The
proposal of the PUP task force in recommendations 5 & 6 is not
a viable means of producing their goal of unity. It can’t. Those
who proposed, established, and voted to keep the ordination standards
in the constitution are now uniformly and publicly opposed to allowing
those standards to be made nonessential.
The proposed
AI is Recommendation Five of the report. If it is approved, ordaining
and installing bodies will be expected, as they should be, to determine
whether a candidate “has departed from scriptural and constitutional
standards for fitness for office.” However, the body is then
empowered to go further and judge whether the departure from the standard
“constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed
faith and polity….”
This
proposed provision permits each ordaining and installing body to judge
whether a requirement for ordination that has been agreed upon by
the whole church— which means a majority of our 173 presbyteries—may
be set aside as nonessential.
In its
rationale section, the task force removes any ambiguity about its
intent:
…If
an ordaining or installing body determines that an officer-elect
has departed from G-6.0106b, a manner-of-life standard, the ordaining/
installing body must then determine whether this departure violates
essentials of faith or polity. If so, the candidate may not be ordained.
If the departure is judged not to violate the essentials of Reformed
faith and polity, after the ordaining/installing body has weighed
the departure in the full context of a candidate’s statement
of faith and manner of life, then there is no barrier to ordination
(though there also is no requirement that the person be ordained).
During
a Q&A session in Shenandoah Presbytery, Pastor John Sloop asked
task force member Frances Taylor Gench: “Is it your understanding
that the Book of Order currently prohibits the ordination
of self-affirming, practicing, unrepentant homosexual persons?”
Gench answered, “Yes.” Sloop then asked, “Am I correct
that should the PUP report pass, it will be possible to ordain self-affirming,
practicing, unrepentant homosexual persons?” Gench answered,
“Yes.”
PUP
report recommendation is “local option”
The PUP
report, if it is adopted, will change our ordination process significantly
and negatively. Task force members assert that it is not the “local
option” that our presbyteries have rejected. But maintaining
standards that any ordaining body may bypass with impunity is local
option, and it makes a mockery of our constitution. We will not be
able to anticipate every “departure” that ordaining bodies
will decide is nonessential.
Stated
Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick is publicly supportive of this report. When
questioned, he says he does not mean to imply that he supports all
the recommendations.
The PUP
Task Force was unanimous in approving their report and recommendations.
The
members of the task force are traveling the presbyteries promoting
their report in hopes of creating a groundswell of support in preparation
for the General Assembly meeting in June. But the unanimity experienced
among the 20 members of the task force is not reflected in the responses
to the report by Presbyterians. Critics are legion.
Renewal leaders issue statement in support of the votes of our presbyteries
and the position of the worldwide church
Renewal
leaders issued a statement of critique of the PUP report at an October
meeting in Chicago. The statement says that by giving permission for
the ordination of those in homosexual relationships, the report breaks
unity with the worldwide church. “The report promotes radical
change while claiming to make no change,” the statement says,
permitting the “disregard of clear standards of Scripture and
the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA).” Those standards
reflect the repeated votes of our presbyteries. It notes that the
proposed AI will “reverse the will of the church without consulting
the church through constitutional amendment.” It concludes that
the PUP report will have the opposite of its intended effect: it will
further endanger our fragile unity. The Chicago statement has hundreds
of signers, including individuals, sessions, and organizations. Add
your name at www.presbycoalition.org/pupstatement.htm.
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