GA08087

‘Our children are already there,’ says Buchanan

by Duane Sweep

SAN JOSE, June 25, 2008 — While the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is not fully inclusive today, the denomination will eventually include all God’s people, according to the Rev. John M. Buchanan, who addressed the Covenant Network of Presbyterian’s Luncheon at the church’s General Assembly meeting here Monday.

Buchanan was the moderator of the 208th General Assembly (1996) that saw the passage of the addition of G-0106b to the Book of Order that requires ordained church officers to practice “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.” It’s a section that would have “disqualified everyone I know” from ordained office, Buchanan said.

A founding co-moderator of the Covenant Network, Buchanan offered a litany of sins, from lewd glances to premarital sex, that would prevent ordination, but he pointed out that only one group was affected by the amendment.

Those affected by the amendment were the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered, Buchanan said. “They were, of course, the target. Everyone knows that now.”

Buchanan, however, offered hope to that group which he called “marginalized by their church.”

Saying that the PC(USA) would become inclusive, Buchanan said, “We’re going to get there, brothers and sisters, because our children are already there.” When Buchanan added, “California is already there,” he received applause from the audience, recognizing that California recently legalized gay marriage.

Buchanan, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, celebrated the 45th anniversary of his ordination Sunday. He said that inclusion will come in the PC(USA) because “the arc of the gospel is inclusion ... Change will happen because it’s his church not ours — the church of Jesus Christ.”

Noting that Jesus never turned anyone away, Buchanan added, “We’ll get there — to a church as generous and just as God’s grace.”