05601
Nov. 8, 2005  

Taking the task force to task

Neither Covenant Network nor Coalition
is entirely happy with TTF recommendations

by Jerry L. Van Marter

ORLANDO, FL — The report of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church (TTF) did not fare well during recent back-to-back meetings of the denomination’s two predominant “affinity groups.”

     Last week, in Memphis, the board of directors of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians — a nine-year-old group committed to the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Presbyterians in the PC(USA), including as ordained officers — defended its "neutral" stance on the report, which it said offers "not justice, but progress.”

     Yesterday, in Orlando, the Presbyterian Coalition — an umbrella group of renewal organizations that oppose gay ordination — condemned the TTF report, calling its recommendations “unconstitutional” and accusing the task force of trying to make an “end run” around the PC(USA)’s prohibition of the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians.

     The report, four years in the making, will be presented to the 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, AL, next June.

     Primarily at issue are two key recommendations: 1) a proposed “authoritative interpretation” of section G-6.0108 of the PC(USA) constitution that would allow candidates for ordination or installation to declare “scruples” (or conscientious objections) to confessional or constitutional standards, and still be ordained — if the ordaining body decided that such “scruples” did not concern “essential” elements of Presbyterian doctrine or practice; and 2) a proposal that the current ordination standards not be debated or changed during the upcoming General Assembly.

     Two task force members — Barbara Wheeler and the Rev. John Wilkinson, both members of the Covenant Network board — presented the report during that group’s annual conference last week.

     The presentation during the Presbyterian Coalition’s national conference this week was made, not by members of the TTF, but by the Rev. James Berkley, interim director of Presbyterian Action, an agency of the Washington, DC-based Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a group that aims to reform American churches while promoting democracy and religious freedom.

     After Berkley’s presentation, a task force member, the Rev. John “Mike” Loudon, participated in a question-and-answer session with him and Presbyterian elder Alan Wisdom, IRD’s interim director.

     Berkley, a former “issues analyst” for Presbyterians for Renewal who attended the task force meetings as an observer, attacked the TTF report, especially the proposed authoritative interpretation.

     He said the proposal “would permit behavior that would have scandalized Jesus,” and denounced it as a “recycled amendment to the constitution that has been rejected by increasingly large margins three times in the last 10 years.”

     “A standard is no standard if it is not standard,” Berkley said. “Non-essential requirements are a mockery of language and morals.”

     The Covenant Network likes the proposed AI. Wheeler, the president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, said it would make the PC(USA) safer for gays and lesbians.

     Wheeler said the TTF proposals are “not large leaps, but they’re better than the all-or-nothing wars.” She said it is her opinion that it will be at least 10 years before the church will be ready to lift its constitutional ban on the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians.

     Tricia Dykers Koenig, the Covenant Network’s national organizer, said the proposed interpretation “would be a huge step forward, because a lot more ordinations would be happening.” The Rev. Tim-Hart Andersen, a member of the network’s board, said he hopes “every candidate for ordination or installation will declare a ‘scruple’ with G-6.0106b.”

     That provision of The Book of Order limits ordination to those who practice “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”        

     The Covenant Network continues pressing for overtures to next year’s Assembly that would delete G-6.0106b — despite the TTF’s recommendation that the standard be retained for the time being.        

     Some members asked how the Covenant Network can be neutral on a recommendation that would keep the ordination standards as they are. Jenny Stone, a Witherspoon Society board member, told the group: “Saying ‘wait’ makes it increasingly morally acceptable (to exclude gays and lesbians from ordination), and exclusion should never be morally acceptable. We work, not for comfort, but for engagement.”

     The Rev. Jane Spahr, a well-known Presbyterian lesbian activist, said: “We’re looking at a power game — power and privilege — in which prejudice and violence are perpetuated, because the church somehow says it’s OK.” Urging the group to reject the task force recommendation to leave G-6.0106b alone, she said, “It’s time NOW for justice, because it’s the right thing to do; and there’s an urgency because there’s hundreds of us already serving.”

     It’s clear to the Presbyterian Coalition that the ordination standards must be retained. That means not only fending off efforts to repeal G-6.0106b, but also resisting the recommended AI, which the Coalition believes would do irreparable harm to the peace, unity and purity of the church.

     “Homosexuals would be ordained wherever there’s a majority,” Berkley said, “which would result in the ‘Balkanization’ of the PC(USA)…with myriad battles everywhere all the time…. God will not be thwarted. This is not about church politics. This is about life.”

     So, at least for the partisans, the battle lines are more clearly drawn than ever, despite the TTF’s efforts to make peace. What remains to be seen is how more moderate Presbyterians will react to the group’s recommendations.

     Both affinity groups devoted a lot of time to girding their loins to do battle in Birmingham.

     One comment was especially revealing.

     The Rev. Jin S. Kim, an evangelical pastor from Minneapolis and a former president of the Coalition-aligned Presbyterians for Renewal, said during the Covenant Network gathering: “Every year, my suffering grows — because my gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters grow in suffering. I am open to the possibility that I might be wrong on (opposing) gay ordination, so I have to keep my counsel with great fear and trepidation, with humility. That’s what it means to be Christian.”

     Calling the ordination debate “a white issue,” Kim added: “Both the Covenant Network and the Coalition are almost all-white. Racial-ethnics’ concerns are very different; they’re about justice. If ordination is a justice issue, why aren’t the racial-ethnics present at either conference?”