LOUISVILLE — With
hours to spare, a controversial paper on changing families was
finished Wednesday, on time for submission to this summer’s
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Facing a Feb. 27 deadline, the committee writing the “Transforming
Families” paper for the denomination approved the document’s
highly debated, and often-revised theological section during a
conference call on Feb. 25.
The Advisory Committee
on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) also approved changes to
the paper’s recommendations section, completing the revisions.
The document will be submitted to the Assembly, which will begin
on June 26 in Richmond, VA.
“The long, slow process of crafting a policy statement
on families now moves to the General Assembly,” the Rev.
Peter Sulyok, the ACSWP coordinator, said after the committee
met by telephone. “Today’s vote demonstrated the ACSWP’s
ability to grapple with complex issues involving justice concerns
and model for the church new ways of listening and dealing with
potentially divisive issues.”
The meeting was a continuation of a Feb. 18 conference call in
which the committee members wrestled with nuances of language
and ordered more revisions to the theological section and the
report’s recommendations.
Committee members had referred the theology section and recommendations
to a writing team to develop a transitional section between the
two. The revisions centered on a collection of “affirmations
and recommendations” introduced by a committee task group
in January.
Alan Wisdom, a representative of Presbyterians in Faith and Action,
a “think tank” and advocacy group that is part of
the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, DC, was
a principal author of the affirmations and recommendations section.
ACSWP members made minor changes to the new transitional section
before approving it along with the theological section and the
recommendations. Portions of the paper were revised 19 times,
mostly the theological section.
The paper sparked controversy at last year’s Assembly when
critics claimed it was flawed theologically 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 Christian morality.
Sulyok said he believes the retooled paper will have broad support
at the Assembly and in the PC(USA).
He said the finished document is “broad enough to include
all the families in the church, and wide enough to create the
space for the church to reach out, both within its own walls and
beyond its walls into society, to seek opportunities for ministries
with families.”
The 209th Assembly in 1997 asked ACSWP to conduct “an examination
of changing families and social structures that support families,”
focusing especially on their impact on children, “to strengthen
the church’s ministry to contemporary families.”
“I think this is a significant moment for all of us,”
said the ACSWP chair, the Rev. Nile Harper, a retired minister
from Ann Arbor, MI. “We are some six and a half years into
the thoughtful and prayerful and serious consideration and work
on this document. So many people have contributed to this over
a period of more than six years that we lift them all up with
our sense of thanksgiving and gratitude.” |
