NEWS ANALYSIS: Presbyterians end contradictory assembly, reject gay ordination

c. 1996 Religion News Service (UNDATED) It was a telling moment Friday (July 5) at the General Assembly meeting of the Presbyterian Church (USA) when an emotional Rev. James Brown, who just a day before had been effectively fired as head of the denomination’s General Assembly Council, addressed his colleagues. The vote to approve Brown, […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) It was a telling moment Friday (July 5) at the General Assembly meeting of the Presbyterian Church (USA) when an emotional Rev. James Brown, who just a day before had been effectively fired as head of the denomination’s General Assembly Council, addressed his colleagues.

The vote to approve Brown, who was running unopposed for a second term as the denomination’s chief management official, was expected to be rubber-stamped. But in a sign of grassroots disaffection with the national leadership of the PCUSA, the assembly refused to authorize another term.


Choking back tears and speaking with what he acknowledged was”some very deep pain,”Brown spoke briefly to the General Assembly Council (GAC), which functions as the 2.7 million-member denomination’s board of directors.”We are sort of out of focus in the structure of the church,”he said.

Brown was speaking of himself and the GAC, but his observations accurately described the eight days of deliberations of the 208th General Assembly, which concluded in Albuquerque, N.M., Saturday (July 6).

The 586 commissioners, as delegates to the General Assembly are called, struggled through a mountain of paper and a river of balloting to bring some measure of focus to a denomination torn by deep-seated theological and social disputes.

In many respects, Brown, the denomination’s top national bureaucrat, had become the scapegoat for the frustrations, divisions and contradictions that ripple through the membership not only of the PCUSA, but also in other mainline denominations, smaller evangelical denominations and other religious bodies.

Nowhere in the eight days and 900 agenda items was this more telling than on the volatile issue of homosexuality, an issue that has dogged the denomination and American public life for two decades.

At issue for the Presbyterians was a proposed amendment that would change the church’s rulebook, known as the Book of Order, to deny ordination as pastor, elder or deacon to practicing homosexuals.”Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church,”the amendment reads.”Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage of a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of Word and Sacrament.” After 90 minutes of debate and two minutes of prayer, the amendment was approved by a 313 to 236 vote. While it represented a solid victory for opponents of gay ordination, the fact that 57 percent of the assembly voted to approve the measure versus 43 percent opposed, also dramatically demonstrated how closely the church is divided on the issue. The amendment will now be sent to the church’s 171 presbyteries _ or local clusters of churches _ where a majority must vote their approval for the amendment to become church law.

However the delegates also voted to have the church go to court in support of”committed same-sex”partners who”seek equal civil liberties in a contractual relationship with all the civil rights of married couples.” The disparity between the two measures on homosexuality led one Albuquerque observer to say that the meeting would be remembered as the”However Assembly.” In another apparently contradictory decision, while rejecting Brown and the national bureaucracy he symbolized, the delegates reached into that same bureaucracy to overwhelmingly elect _ on the first ballot _ the Rev. Clifford Kirkpatrick as the church’s new Stated Clerk, or top ecclesiastical officer.


Kirkpatrick received 386 votes, or 71 percent of the ballots cast, in a field that included four other candidates.

Kirkpatrick, director of the denomination’s international ministries division since 1981, will serve a six-year term. He succeeds the Rev. James Andrews, who is retiring.

Delegates also voted to send to the presbyteries amendments to the Book of Order to implement Presbyterian participation in the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), the effort by nine Protestant denominations to bring about increased cooperation among the churches.

However, the decision to go ahead in COCU was made only after amendments were stripped of language, backed by some ecumenically-minded church members, that would have created a Presbyterian office of”representative bishop”to sit on COCU councils. Traditionally, the office of bishop is anathema to Presbyterian identity. In the end, tradition won out.

Instead, the amendments will create a commission of ministers and elders to represent the church.

It is uncertain whether the Presbyterian solution will be acceptable to other churches involved in COCU such as the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church, both of which have bishops.


The delegates also adopted a major social policy statement,”Hope for a Global Future: Toward Just and Sustainable Human Development,”which has been in the works for five years.

The 100-page document examines the social, economic and ecological effects of U.S. economic policies on the world’s poorest nations. It also includes a sharply-worded criticism of American over-consumption and a bevy of recommendations aimed at bringing about just economic relations between rich and poor nations.

However, while the document was approved, delegates rejected spending any money to implement the paper’s policies in the life of the church and the nation. They voted down a proposal to spend $133,286 over four years for a full-time staff position but did approve spending $22,550 for printing and distributing the document.

In the end, the 208th General Assembly may have seemed unfocused. But in seeking to chart a middling, moderate way through factional demands, it very closely resembled American society, which itself is deeply riven by ideological absolutes of every persuasion.

MJP END ANDERSON

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