08048
January 18, 2008
Lesbian’s bid to become minister moves forward
San Francisco Presbytery first in PC(USA) to apply 2006 Authoritative Interpretation to openly gay candidate
 Lisa Larges LOUISVILLE — San Francisco Presbytery has made way for an openly gay candidate for ministry in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to take the first steps in the ordination process under a controversial Authoritative Interpretation approved by the 2006 General Assembly.
After three hours of debate in closed session, the presbytery voted 167 to 151 on Jan. 15 to approve as “ready for examination, with departure” Lisa Larges, a lesbian who has been blocked from ordination for more than 20 years.
Larges’ case marks the first time a presbytery has approved action to consider a candidate who declared a conscientious objection — or “scruple” — to the denomination’s ordination standards involving sexual practice.
“I wasn’t surprised but still it was quite a moment,” Larges told the Presbyterian News Service on Jan. 17, referring to the vote. “It just makes me proud of the presbytery.”
The vote, which took place at First Presbyterian Church in Richmond, CA, focused on Larges’ statement of conscience and is only the beginning of her ordination process.
If extended a call, Larges, 44, could now move onto the trials of ordination, an oral examination by the presbytery that all candidates must pass. As part of the examination, she would be required to answer questions about her faith, theology and character.
The presbytery must also validate any call Larges might receive.
That procedure could come as early as April — when the next stated meeting of San Francisco Presbytery is scheduled — but is likely to be delayed by legal challenges, amid warnings by opponents that the presbytery action violated the church’s constitution and would quickly be appealed.
Larges, who is blind, is a deacon at Noe Valley Ministry Presbyterian Church in San Francisco.
She is also minister coordinator for That All May Freely Serve, which works for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) Presbyterians in the life of the church, including their ordination as officers.
While the ordination attempt represents a third try for Larges, it is thought to be the first test of the controversial Authoritative Interpretation adopted by the PC(USA)’s 217th General Assembly in 2006.
The policy, enacted in response to a report by the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church (PUP), made way for actions such as San Francisco’s, despite a long-standing church law — G-6.0106b of The Book of Order — that requires clergy and lay leaders to practice either “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”
Though it maintains current ordination standards for church officers, the policy gives ordaining bodies greater leeway to ordain candidates who declare conscientious objections to specific Presbyterian teachings, as long as the ordaining body does not consider them “essentials” of church belief.
The Assembly amended the PUP report to require ordaining bodies, when considering a candidate’s “departure” to determine “whether the (ordination) examination and ordination and installation decision comply with the constitution of the PC(USA).”
“The particular issue now before us is whether or not a presbytery has a right to suspend what I consider to be an essential of polity in the case of a specific person,” said the Rev. Mary Holder Naegeli, a minister member of San Francisco Presbytery, who argued against the ordination during the meeting on Jan. 15. “I just think that the presbytery took an unconstitutional action and the fact that the disagreement about that assessment requires judicial review.”
Larges, in her written objection, known as a “statement of departure,” wrote that she would not concur with the church’s requirement that she be married to a man or be chaste in order to become a minister.
She called the provision a “mar upon the church and a stumbling block to its mission” and said it did not express essentials of Presbyterian faith.
Larges graduated from San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1989. In 1985 she became a candidate for ministry in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area in Minnesota, where she grew up.
Following her graduation from seminary, Larges notified the presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry (CPM) of her sexual orientation. However, her candidacy in Twin Cities Area Presbytery went forward until it was turned down in 1992 by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the highest court in the PC(USA).
Larges transferred her membership to San Francisco Presbytery and tried again, beginning in 1997. She met annually with that presbytery’s CPM, which eventually voted against recommending her for ordination in 2004. But, with a view toward a possible shift in denominational policy, also let her continue as a candidate.
The Rev. Jon M. Walton, a co-moderator of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, which advocates for the full inclusion of homosexuals and transgendered people in the PC(USA), said he was pleased with San Francisco’s action.
Walton told the Presbyterian News Service that he believes it was in-line with the intentions of the General Assembly and the PUP report.
“I think this represents exactly what the task force report and the General Assembly intended when it adopted the task force’s report to consider people on the basis of their call and gifts for ministry,” said Walton, who is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in New York City. “The kind of departure Lisa discussed with her presbytery is exactly the kind of thing the presbyteries should be considering.”
Meanwhile, another case prompted by the General Assembly’s action in 2006 is expected to be considered soon.
Paul Capetz, a professor at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and an openly gay man, set aside his ordination in the PC(USA) in 2000 based on the denomination’s policy at the time.
Now Capetz is asking Twin Cities Area Presbytery to allow him to declare a scruple regarding the denomination’s ordination standards on sexual practice, and to be reinstated to the ministry. He is scheduled to go before the presbytery on Jan. 26.
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