| The presbytery,
rather than placing Williamson on “inactive status,”
instead opted to designate him a “member at-large”
thus preserving his voice and vote in the presbytery.
The presbytery’s Committee on Ministry (COM) had recommended
inactive status for Williamson. After the amended motion passed
by a vote of 150-106, Williamson, who had argued against the “at-large”
designation, said, “Mr. Moderator, it aggrieves me to have
to do this, but we have to do this: We’re going to be going
to court.”
The debate constituted a referendum on The Presbyterian Layman.
Like all presbytery meetings, this one started with worship,
during which the approximately 250 voting members and 200 visitors
prayed for “a double portion of courage” and for protection
from “the storm that batters and bruises,” and asked
God to “guard our tongues today, that we may not wound.”
The level of mistrust was palpable. Williamson’s group
had brought a court-certified stenographer to make a record of
the proceedings, and Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International
(PRMI) intended to get it all on video.
However, the presbytery decided that only an audio tape would
be made, by two elders from the host church, First Presbyterian
of Asheville. Video was ruled out, because, as one speaker warned,
“there is editing that can be done.”
Tom Philips of Banner Elk Presbyterian Church, a member of the
presbytery’s COM, said the committee “brings this
recommendation with sorrow and regret,” but because of the
“tone of insult and innuendo” and “slanting
of reporting” that are characteristic of The Layman,
had had no choice but to recommend against revalidation. He said
Williamson must be “accountable, as every one of the rest
of us is accountable.”
“When fellow Christians … are belittled, undermined
and continually demeaned … when a publication seems bent
on destroying a fellow Christian, how do we stand idly by?”
he asked. “How can we validate a ministry that does not
validate the ministry of the entire church?”
The latter was a reference to the “Declaration of Conscience”
the PLC issued last October, in which it said, “We no longer
believe that either the General Assembly per-capita budget or
the unrestricted mission budget of the PC(USA) is worthy of support.”
Rejecting “any compromise with proponents of a false gospel,”
the PLC urged sessions to “prayerfully consider” redirecting
per-capita assessments and undesignated mission funds “to
ministries at home and abroad that are demonstrably faithful to
the gospel.”
Cynthia Williams, another COM member, listed some of the transgressions
of The Layman: suggesting that former Moderator Syngman
Rhee was a Communist and an agent of the government of North Korea;
dismissing the Confession of 1967 as “not a valid confession
of the church”; ridiculing the leadership of the PC(USA)
for “counterfeit faith” and for “tolerating
evil”; referring to the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick as “His
Holiness the stated clerk”; and all but promoting “gracious
separation” as a viable alternative for dissenting congregations.
When it was his turn to speak, Williamson said he was a victim
of “14 persons huddled behind closed doors” who had
“proceeded in secret to malign this ministry.”
He said The Layman has been examined by no fewer than
five General Assemblies, most recently in 1995, and in every case
commissioners “overwhelmingly” refused to censure
the publication.
But other speakers quoted from the report of a “reconciliation
committee” to the 1995 Assembly: “It is time for the
Lay Committee to end its destructive tactics and unending attacks
upon women and men who are seeking to do God’s work through
the offices of the PC(USA).”
Peggy Hedden, the chair of the PLC, said the COM had looked
at just one issue of The Layman, and had turned down an
invitation to come to Lenoir, NC, where the PLC has its headquarters,
and meet its staff. She said the COM quoted “no single word”
from any PLC publication in making its “unsubstantiated
charges.”
George Saylor, of First Presbyterian Church of Lenoir —
where Williamson served as pastor before taking over The Layman
— defended him as “a man who stands up for the denomination
and for the faith” and opposes “infidels and threats
to the purity of the faith.” He called the PLC’s “Declaration
of Conscience” a “rather benign and non-controversial”
statement.
Another speaker said of Williamson, “As far as I know,
he is not only a valid man, he has done an exemplary job …”
Robert L. Howard, a former chair of the Lay Committee, said
“a terrible injustice” was being done “to the
Lay Committee and to our brother Parker Williamson.” He
said the “burden of proof” was on the presbytery to
support “these serious charges,” and he insisted that
Williamson deserved a hearing before a “fair-minded and
unbiased judge.”
He rejected the charge that he and Williamson and the PLC “do
not support the missions of this church. The undesignated mission
money of this church and unrestricted per-capita does not go to
missions,” he asserted, adding: “I take very personally
a charge that we don’t support missions in the world on
behalf of the Presbyterian church. It’s absolutely false;
you cannot document it; and it is a false and fraudulent charge.”
Williamson followed up by criticizing, among others, the PC(USA)’s
Washington Office and abortion policy. “And yet, because
I tell you these things — these true things — some
of you… now seek to mute my voice, abolish my vote, and,
if I will not move to a more malleable ministry, revoke my ordination,”
he said, deriding “the paltry so-called evidence”
and “blatant falsehoods” presented by the COM and
calling the proceedings “a kangaroo court.”
The Rev. Pete Peery, who proposed the “at-large”
compromise, told his colleagues that he’d “really
been in prayer about this.” He said the presbytery could
confer “member at large” status on Williamson “whether
Parker wants it or not — he’s under the authority
of the presbytery.” Peery said it was a way for the presbytery
“to make a judgment about the ministry, but not then sanction
… a faithful member for 32 years.”
Williamson said it would make him “a sort of a man without
a country. I rise to speak against this amendment,” he said.
“You do me no favor by passing this amendment. … To
suggest that a person can be separated from that person’s
ministry is to suggest that you can unscramble an egg.”
The Book of Order defines a member at large as a previously
active member “who now, without intentional abandonment
of the exercise of ministry, is no longer engaged in a ministry
that complies with all the criteria” of a valid ministry.
It says such status is granted in cases of “family responsibilities
or other individual circumstances which the presbytery recognizes
as important,” and “may be granted … upon the
minister’s application.” |
