c. 2006 Religion News Service
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. _ Thousands of Presbyterians converged on Birmingham Thursday (June 15) to kick off an eight-day General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
It will be a series of business sessions and worship services for the nation’s largest Presbyterian body, which has 2.4 million adult members and 3.1 million including children, making it one of the 10 largest U.S. denominations.
More than 500 voting commissioners will debate such thorny issues as how to deal with churches that want to ordain openly gay clergy and whether to continue a controversial plan to divest church holdings in companies that do business with Israel.
A proposed “Peace, Unity, and Purity” report tries to defuse the church’s decades-long battle over whether to ordain openly gay ministers or bless same-sex unions. A task force issued the report to sidestep denominational controversy over homosexuality. It emphasizes each local church’s right to choose its leaders and determine qualifications.
“To me, it’s an attempt to say there’s not one way of looking at this issue, and we don’t all have to think the same way,” said the Rev. Tom Evans, top executive for the Presbytery of Sheppards and Lapsley, which covers north-central Alabama. “It’s an attempt to move forward in mission and ministry in the world in a way we don’t get stuck on one issue.”
The church’s exploration of divestment in Israel has riled many observers and Jewish groups. The last General Assembly, in 2004, passed a statement calling for the study of divestment in U.S. corporations that play a role in building Israel’s security barrier, such as Caterpillar. The denomination’s pension funds own about $3 million in stock in the company, which has sold earth-moving equipment to Israel. An investments committee identified five U.S. companies that it said played a role in assisting Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
The Rev. Ed Hurley, pastor of South Highland Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, has been leading an effort to rescind the decision to study divestment from Israel. South Highland joined other churches in a proposal to rescind the action.
“We need to back off that,” Hurley said. “There are huge political ramifications and it’s a complex issue” that has complicated Jewish-Christian relations. Some feel it makes it look as if Presbyterians are siding with terrorists, especially since church delegations met with Hezbollah leaders in 2004 and 2005.
Evans said he expects the church to try a new approach that looks for positive ways to achieve Middle East peace that don’t punish Israel.
“The original decision was well-intentioned but not well thought-out,” he said.
Two smaller denominations, the 80,000-member Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and the 30,000-member Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, will also have national meetings in Birmingham at the same time. The three denominations will have a joint worship service on Sunday in recognition of the 300th anniversary of American Presbyterianism, but will conduct business separately.
Some in the smaller denominations don’t like to be lumped in with the larger Presbyterian denomination. “We don’t want their controversies to go over and hurt us,” said the Rev. Mike Wilkinson, pastor of Rocky Ridge Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.
Still, the joint worship service will be a nice gesture of unity, he said.
“It’s a pretty sad day if Christians can’t join in worship together,” he said.
Another Presbyterian denomination is not involved in the meetings. The Atlanta-based Presbyterian Church in America, which broke away from the mainline Presbyterian denomination in the 1970s saying it had become too liberal, now has more than 300,000 members.
(Greg Garrison writes for The Birmingham News in Birmingham, Ala.)
KRE/JM END GARRISON
