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July 20, 2005   

Task force releases drafts of report

Recommendations due out next month

by Jerry L. Van Marter

DALLAS —The Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church (TTF) released the outline of its final report and draft texts of three of the report’s four sections late Tuesday afternoon.

     Notably missing was the fourth and concluding section — the TTF’s recommendations.

     That section will be released at the task force’s Aug. 24-25 meeting. Also at that meeting, the 20-member group will approve the final version of its report, which is to be formally released on Sept. 15 and acted upon by next summer’s 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, AL.

     The TTF was authorized by the 2001 General Assembly “to lead the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in spiritual discernment of our Christian identity in and for the 21st century.” Specifically, the group was instructed to address issues of Christology, Biblical authority and interpretation, ordination standards and power.

     In discussions of the report that were more editorial than substantive, the task force reviewed sections on “The Plan and Progress of the Work of the Task Force,” “Issues Before the Task Force,” and “Resources for Peace, Unity and Purity.” It also reviewed the prologue, “The Theological Basis of This Report.”

Reaffirming the triune God

     The theological basis rests on three “bedrock convictions” on which the drama of human salvation rests: “God loves us,” “God saves us” and “God empowers us with a commission and calling.”

     Because Christian identity “is centered in the love of the triune God” which “runs through the confessional tradition of the church,” the report urges the church “to continue to renew this core commitment of the faith.”

     That identity is rooted in God’s adoption of believers through grace; expressed in the proclamation of God’s word; sealed in Baptism; nurtured in the Lord’s Supper; and strengthened in discernment and service, the report says.

     God’s grace is too often denied, it says, leading to idolatry and “the temptation to substitute our own ideologies and forms of thought for the reality of God.”

     The result, TTF members say, is conflict and pain in the church, with far too much stereotyping and alienation on all sides. “We have searched our hearts to determine how each of us may have contributed to the church’s problems,” the report says.

     The group freely admits that it has not overcome all its differences, but members say they have found a way forward without compromising deeply held convictions.

     “It is enormously important that we not communicate that the task force has been about finding middle-ground compromises,” said task force member Mark Achtemeier, a professor at Dubuque Theological Seminary. “Our deepest convictions have been affected, but we haven’t given them up in order to get along.”

     Jack Haberer, a Houston pastor, agreed. “We haven’t given in to the pressure cooker to compromise, to mush everything together,” he said. “We haven’t fundamentally changed our convictions, but are living in the tension of holding our convictions but staying together.”

     The rest of the TTF report offers resources to the rest of the church to do the same.

Reaffirming church traditions

     The report states that the TTF “decided to approach Christology first from the standpoint of historical tradition.” That led the group to “affirmations that the church has made through its history about Jesus Christ, the one in whom we receive life and salvation.”

     Their understanding was “expanded and deepened,” the report says, “by the power that the affirmation ‘Jesus is Lord’ … has to shape faith and discipleship in our day.” It says the group was “chastened by our own tendencies to oversimplify our claims about Jesus Christ in contemporary debates,” and “encouraged by the witness of Reformed Christians in … other parts of the world.”

     That growing awareness of common faith in Jesus Christ, it says, “gives us hope, indeed assurance, that we should hold on to each other and bear with each other as we grapple with the other difficult issues before the church.”

     The task force, which spent much of each meeting in Bible study, affirmed the traditional guidelines for interpreting scripture that have led Presbyterian and Reformed Christians for centuries and were reaffirmed by both PC(USA) predecessor denominations in the early 1980s.

     They include the recognition that Jesus Christ is at the heart of scripture; that the focus should be on the plain text of the Bible, dependence on the interpretive guidance of the Holy Spirit and the doctrinal consensus of the church; that all interpretations should be in accordance with the two-fold commandment to love God and neighbor; that right interpretation requires earnest study using the best available resources; and that particular passages need to be interpreted in light of all the Bible.

     “We have guidelines (for interpreting scripture),” said New York pastor John Wilkinson, “but a lot of people don’t know that we have them, or what they are.”

     The task force apparently will not take an advocacy position on the thorniest issue facing the PC(USA) — whether or not “practicing” homosexuals should be eligible for church leadership.

     “The task force was not asked to take a position on human sexuality or ordination and we have not attempted to do so,” the report states.

     Instead, the group studied an exhaustive range of Biblical and theological perspectives, a processs that “yielded several major insights,” the report says:

• “The theological and Biblical literature on human sexuality in general and same-gender issues in particular is diverse, subtle and complex.”
  
  
• “Methods of Biblical interpretation, theological traditions and policy conclusions did not line up neatly,” and “opinions about ordination and sexuality did not always correlate precisely with particular theological positions.”
  
  
• “Amid all the rich complexity of these studies, all of us deepened our understanding of our own perspectives as well as others.”
  

     The task force concluded that beyond general themes — the Biblical model of “servant leadership,” the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, the particular responsibilities accruing to ordained leaders — “there is no thoroughly developed theology of ordination in scripture, and the theology of ordination has not been clearly and consistently articulated in the development of Reformed and Presbyterian doctrine.”

     The report affirms the TTF’s agreement on several points adopted by various General Assemblies:

• “It is a grave error to deny Baptism or church membership to gay and lesbian persons or to withhold pastoral care to them and their families.”
  
  
• “Those who aspire to ordination must lead faithful lives. Those who demonstrate licentious behavior should not be ordained.”
  
  
• “It is damaging and dangerous to teach that sexual behavior is a purely personal matter that is not relevant for Christian discipleship, leadership and community life.”
  
  
• “Sexual orientation is, in itself, no barrier to ordination.”

A balancing act

     Presbyterian polity is based on Presbyterian theology, the report states, which holds that the “foundational claim … about the governance of the church is that Jesus Christ is its head.”

     That said, the unity of the church is based on the indivisibility of Christ. The purity of the church is based on the belief that “truth, holiness and righteousness matter as pathways to discipleship, in both the life of the church as a body and the lives of its members.” And the peace of the church is to be found in “the pursuit of truth … where differing voices are not only respectfully engaged, but also honored as full partners in our common pursuit of God’s will for the church.”

     TTF member Milton “Joe” Coalter, a professor at Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, VA, outlined four pairs of principles, or “points of balance,” that have shaped the polity of the PC(USA):

• “Honoring communal discernment of God’s will and the Spirit’s leading, while also recognizing that God alone is Lord of the conscience under the authority of scripture.”
  
  
• “Adhering to essential and necessary beliefs and practices that bind the faithful into the body of Christ, while also respecting freedom in non-essential matters of belief, worship, piety, witness and service”
  
  
• “Maintaining a distinctive Presbyterian and Reformed witness to the world, while also engaging in mission with other Christians with whom they share a catholic identity.”
  
  
• “Upholding the rights and responsibilities of governing bodies that have original jurisdiction in church governance, while also sustaining the rights and responsibilities of governing bodies that have the power of oversight and review.”
  

     All is well, the report says, when these points of balance are held in “constructive tension,” but when equilibrium has failed, “disagreements have been difficult to resolve, and ruptures in our communion have sometimes resulted.”

     The report affirms that church government can be a “visible embodiment” of the church’s understanding of Christian community life, and that obedience to church polity is a condition of ordained leadership.

     But church polity has limits. Parliamentary procedures, the report says, “may exacerbate political infighting, and escalate conflicts rather than resolve them…. A church’s polity cannot live up to its calling unless it provides ways for conflicts within the church to be addressed theologically.”

     To that end, the report concludes: “The whole church at every level, including the General Assembly, would be well served by more regular use of communal efforts to discern the mind of Christ through the scriptures, nurturing communal attitudes and practices that allow us to live faithfully with difference while we seriously engage in the quest for common understanding.”