March 24, 2009

GA special committee on Heidelberg Catechism is set to hold its first meeting

Group will be commissioned on March 27

Members of the General Assembly Special Committee on Correcting Translation Problems of the Heidelberg Catechism will gather for their first meeting later this week.

The committee will begin its two-day meeting on Friday morning, March 27, at the Presbyterian Center.

The 218th General Assembly (2008) proposed changes that revolve around correcting “translation problems in five responses of the Heidelberg Catechism as found in The Book of Confessions and to add the original Scripture texts of the German Heidelberg Catechism.”

The Book of Order (G-18.0200) calls for a special committee of no less than fifteen individuals to be formed when a General Assembly proposes any changes to part of the PC(USA) Constitution. The Heidelberg Catechism is in The Book of Confessions, part of the Constitution.

The special committee will consider the proposed changes to the catechism and report back to the 219th General Assembly (2010) in Minneapolis. At this first meeting, members plan to consult with Newark Presbytery, which sent the original overture to last year’s assembly.

The committee will be commissioned for its work in a worship service at the Presbyterian Center on Friday morning.

Members of the special committee are the Reverends Heidi Husted Armstrong (Olympia Presbytery), Warner M. Bailey (Grace Presbytery), Shelly Barrick Parsons (West Virginia Presbytery), James R. Edwards (Inland Northwest Presbytery), Christopher Elwood (Mid-Kentucky Presbytery), Gary Neal Hansen (John Knox Presbytery), Neal D. Presa (Elizabeth Presbytery), Lorna A. Shoemaker (Redwoods Presbytery), David L. Stubbs (Lake Michigan Presbytery), and Floretta L. Watkins (Charlotte Presbytery), and elders Dawn DeVries (James Presbytery), Sylvia Dooling (Plains and Peaks Presbytery), Susan N. Haskell (Sheppards and Lapsley Presbytery), Patrick Hunt (San Francisco Presbytery), and David Mulford (South Louisiana Presbytery).