| LOUISVILLE —
After six and a half years of cyclical debate and revision,
a controversial PC(USA) policy paper on the ever-changing American
family is nearing completion.
The current draft of what is now titled “Transforming Families”
— the 14th major reworking of the ever-controversial document
— comes to 77 pages, meaning that it has been written at
a rate of about one page per month.
The group charged with writing the document for the Presbyterian
Church (USA), the Advisory
Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), met in Louisville
for three days last week to continue wrestling wearily with the
language of the report.
The meeting, at the Presbyterian Center, took place in an atmosphere
of mounting urgency because “Transforming Families”
must be in its final form by Feb. 27 if it is to be submitted
to this summer’s 216th General Assembly in Richmond, VA.
(ACSWP also was looking at several other reports being readied
for the Assembly.)
In its present, almost-final form, the paper seems to have the
tepid support of all parties and the enthusiastic backing of none.
During last year’s Assembly, a 43-page version of the report
caused a furor. Critics said its authors had sidestepped Biblical
teachings and placed families headed by same-sex couples on the
same moral plane with those headed by married heterosexual couples,
in violation of scripture and Presbyterian belief.
One of ACSWP’s responses to the criticism was inviting
one of the leading critics to join the writing team. The result
was a version with a more evangelical bent, more Biblical and
confessional language, and an unequivocal definition of marriage
as “a union of one man and one woman,” in keeping
with PC(USA) doctrine.
Last week’s meeting was devoted to a word-by-word toning
down of that language and a softening of the paper’s evangelical
tone.
The ACSWP chair, the Rev. Nile Harper, a retired minister from
Ann Arbor, MI, complained on several occasions that committee
members, by removing or softening language conveying the traditional
Presbyterian opposition to such practices as cohabitation and
same-gender parenting, were trying to revise the paper to make
it resemble the version rejected by last year’s GA.
Alan Wisdom, who wrote much of the contested language, said the
revisions were stripping the document of its moral and ecclesiastical
foundations and making him feel a bit like a “token evangelical”
on the writing team.
The outcome was a draft that affirms traditional Biblical attitudes
about marriage and family without saying directly that other domestic
arrangements, such as single-parent households and families headed
by same-sex couples or divorced parents, are necessarily inadequate,
inferior or sinful.
Last year’s General Assembly, after rejecting both the
original version of the paper and a hastily prepared one-page
substitute drafted by opponents, asked ACSWP to bring a new, improved
draft — with a more Biblical and Reformed perspective —
to this year’s Assembly.
The main topic of discussion during last week’s meeting
was a new six-page section listing “affirmations and recommendations,”
authored by Wisdom, a representative of Presbyterians in Faith
and Action who helped write the one-page “minority report”
presented to last year’s GA.
Wisdom’s organization, a Presbyterian “think tank”
and advocacy group, is part of the Institute on Religion and Democracy,
an organization headquartered in Washington, DC, that describes
itself as “an ecumencial alliance of U.S. Christians working
to reform their churches’ social witness in accord with
Biblical and historic Christian teachings.”
Discussions of Wisdom’s work turned on nuances and shadings
of grammar and meaning.
An example:
Wisdom wrote: “God can and does work through persons in
all kinds of families, even those established contrary to God’s
will. We envision a society that welcomes and nurtures all persons,
regardless of their family circumstances.”
The Rev. Leslie Klingensmith of Silver Spring, VA, an ACSWP member,
objected to the phrase “even those established contrary
to God’s will,” calling it “an oblique and underhanded
reference to same-gender parents and families” that “invites
us to be judging.”
ACSWP Coordinator Peter Sulyok objected to the same phrase on
other grounds, arguing that it “weakens our own (Reformed)
affirmation that God is sovereign.”
Wisdom said he’d included the phrase to address “one
of our bottom-line concerns” and “to affirm that God’s
grace did reach all families.”
The phrase was deleted, with Wisdom’s reluctant agreement.
The paragraph now reads: “God works in and through persons
in all kinds of families. We envision a society that welcomes
and nurtures all persons, regardless of their family circumstances.”
Another example:
Wisdom wrote: “Marriage is a form of family life that provides
a suitable context for the nurture of children. We envision a
society in which parents or guardians work together in caring
for their children. The best context for this cooperative venture
is a loving, lasting, egalitarian marriage of the mother and father,
where such a marriage is possible.”
Klingensmith said calling traditional marriage “the best”
circumstance for the nurture of children “just seems so
‘schoolyard-bully’ to me.”
The final version: “Marriage is a form of family life that
provides a suitable context for the nurture of children. We envision
a society in which parents or guardians work together in caring
for their children. One appropriate context for this cooperative
venture is a loving, lasting, egalitarian marriage of the mother
and father.”
Some committee members said they thought Wisdom had placed too
much emphasis on the procreative aspects of marriage as a “context”
for raising children, giving the paragraph a tone more Roman Catholic
than Reformed, but Harper pointed out that concern for children
was one of the General Assembly’s principal reasons for
asking ACSWP to produce such a paper.
Harper also urged the committee to consider “the political
question” of how the final report will be received by General
Assembly commissioners — a group that he said will be far
more diverse than ACSWP itself.
Wisdom also commented on “the political context,”
noting that his evangelical friends had been of two minds “about
whether it was wise or not” for him to accept ACSWP’s
invitation to join the writing team. “There were people
who felt I should turn it down because I would be used,”
he said.
Wisdom said these friends warned that “the (committee’s)
strategy was to put a token evangelical on the writing team to
tone (the criticism) down somewhat.”
Wisdom said he doesn’t believe the changes made in the
manuscript justify a charge that ACSWP is “supporting sex
outside of marriage,” but he said they will make his evangelical
colleagues’ questions about his involvement “even
more acute.”
Wisdom said some of the latest revisions tend to “undermine”
the report’s moral foundations and “seem to create
loopholes.”
Jim Berkley, who attended the meeting as a representative of
Presbyterians for Renewal, said he thought the revisions amounted
to a serious weakening of what he had thought was “an excellent,
very strong” position paper. Berkley had warned during previous
ACSWP meetings against a tendency to “dance around”
controversial issues and to “leave doors open, kind of cleverly,”
to too broad a range of interpretations.
Harper commended Wisdom for his contributions, saying: “If
we don’t have Alan’s participation, it won’t
pass” the Assembly. The committee’s vice chair, the
Rev. Sue Dickson of El Paso, TX, encouraged the group to offer
its thanks to all who contributed to the report, “especially
Alan, who has created a whole new document for us.”
The current draft asks the 216th General Assembly to approve
“Transforming Families” for churchwide study and to
instruct ACSWP to prepare and promulgate a “related study/action
guide.”
In addition to the “affirmations” already quoted,
the report says:
- “Families are called to live by the grace of God, for
the love of God, and in the communion of the Holy Spirit”;
- “Family is not to be an ultimate identity or loyalty.
Families are called, in authentic Christian discipleship, to
turn outward in lives of love and service to God and neighbors”;
- “The Church is a new kind of family, with all its members
related mutually (rather than hierarchically) as sisters and
brothers in Christ”;
- “Marriage is a gift God has given to humankind for the
good of all humans”;
- “Adoption is a metaphor for human relationship with
God and a model for the extension of familial commitments beyond
the ties of birth and marriage”;
- “Sin is a pervasive reality in all human relationships,
producing destructive behaviors that are symptoms of ‘alienation
from God, neighbors and self’ (Confession of 1967)”;
- “Prevalent values of materialism, consumerism, individualism
and hedonism distort and deface family life.”
The section on recommendations begins with the observation, “The
challenge of strengthening and transforming families seems overwhelming.
... It is hard to know where and how to begin.”
Among the proposed recommendations:
l “All church members are called to extend the bonds of
kinship beyond their own marital-biological families. Each is
encouraged to undertake at least one family-extending relationship.”
- “All church members can seek to practice family-strengthening
virtues and habits in their own lives”;
- “Local congregations can commit themselves to a program
of comprehensive support for loving, lasting, egalitarian marriages”;
- “Presbyteries, clusters of churches within presbyteries,
or particular congregations can approach local church bodies
of other denominations about the possibility of joining in a
community marriage policy consistent with the values affirmed
in this policy statement”;
- “General Assembly entities, synods, presbyteries, congregations
and individual Presbyterians can ‘bring the church’s
influence to bear so that the media will act to strengthen moral
values’”.
One major ACSWP response to its assignment from last year’s
GA was to include a new theological review prepared by the Rev.
Charles Wiley of the Office of Theology and Worship.
It says that, “While the basic marital-biological form
is not the only acceptable form of family, it ... exemplifies
in a basic way God’s ordering of the interpersonal life
for which he created humankind.”
During the committee’s last meeting, in December, Wiley’s
work didn’t seem to stir much controversy or opposition.
But during last week’s meeting, ACSWP member Ronald Stone,
a retired professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and an
elder at East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, objected
to the emphasis Wiley had put on Baptism as a context for a Christian
understanding of family.
“I would abandon this whole discussion of Baptism,”
he said. “I don’t think putting it into connection
with one of our two sacraments is a gain. We were not asked to
do a theology of Baptism.”
The Rev. Jack Terry, a member from Portland, OR, agreed, saying:
“I think the mandate is to talk about the social-cultural
context.” Terry also suggested moving the theological section
from the front of the report to the back.
Stone also criticized as “unrealistic” the revised
paper’s claim that single people are called to “chaste
and disciplined lives.”
“I would substitute ‘responsible’ for ‘chaste
and disciplined’ every time it appears,” he said.
“I raised four children. I would never teach them to be
chaste; that means a virgin. I always taught them to be responsible.
“Every pastor I talk with tells me the people who are not
married are not virgins.”
Sulyok said he is confident that “Transforming Families”
will be finished and polished by the Feb. 27 deadline and will
be approved by the Assembly. |
