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08344
May 1, 2008
New leaders, new mission collaboration
to highlight 218th GA
Perennial issues — ordination standards, Middle East, abortion — also on San Jose docket
LOUISVILLE — Though a number of recurring social justice concerns will be on the docket — Middle East peace, abortion, the Iraq war, and others— the agenda of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seems top-heavy with issues related to the internal life of the 2.3 million-member denomination.
Those issues include the election of two top officers — the moderator and stated clerk — as well as a proposed revision of the PC(USA)’s Form of Government and steps toward greater cooperation among the myriad Presbyterian groups engaged in mission around the world.
Ordination standards and the role of gays and lesbians in church life and governance will also be considered.
More than 3,500 people are expected to attend the June 21-28 Assembly in San Jose, CA, including 752 voting “commissioners,” an equal number of ministers and elders elected by their presbyteries (regional governing bodies). There are 173 presbyteries in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
The General Assembly meets biennially and is the highest governing body of the church. This year’s Assembly will also be asked to adopt a 2009-12 Mission Work Plan, a detailed blueprint for the work of the church at the national and international level for the next four years, and General Assembly Mission Budgets of $110.3 million for 2009 and $107.6 million for 2010.
The budgets foresee no further staff cuts at the church’s Presbyterian Center in Louisville, restoration of an office of Environmental Ministry that was eliminated two years ago in a budget and staff reduction, and the first increase in the number of overseas mission workers in 50 years — from the current 196 to 215 in 2009 and 220 in 2010.
For the first time in 12 years the church will elect a new stated clerk, the PC(USA)’s top ecclesiastical officer. A search committee has nominated the Rev. Gradye Parsons to succeed the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, who has opted not to seek a fourth four-year term. For the past eight years Parsons has served as one of Kirkpatrick’s top deputies.
One other candidate has announced his intention to stand for election — the Rev. Ed Koster, who is currently the stated clerk of Detroit Presbytery.
Four candidates have been endorsed for moderator of the General Assembly — the Rev. Carl Matta of New Castle Presbytery; the Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow of San Francisco Presbytery; Elder Roger Shoemaker of Homestead Presbytery; and the Rev. Bill Teng of National Capital Presbytery. The moderator presides over the General Assembly meeting and then serves as the chief interpreter of the Assembly and the church’s work for the ensuing two years.
A Form of Government Task Force (FOGTF), created by the 217th General Assembly (2006) is bringing its recommendations for a revised PC(USA) polity to the Assembly. The FOGTF proposal substitutes a new section entitled “Foundations of Presbyterian Polity” for the current Chapters I-IV of “The Book of Order” and consolidates and simplifies the remaining Chapters V-XVIII into six chapters. Its intent is to transform Presbyterian polity from a “regulatory” to a “missional” model.
In addition to a few proposed amendments to the new document, overtures (resolutions) from 20 presbyteries seek a two-year delay to allow time for studying the proposal more carefully.
With more and more congregations, presbyteries and other groups engaging directly in world mission, Assembly commissioners will learn what has been done in response to a request from the 2006 Assembly that ways be found to enhance cooperation and collaboration among all Presbyterians in the global arena.
A Jan. 16-18 consultation in Dallas entitled “Renewed Call to Presbyterian Mission in the World! A Dialogue for Our Shared Future,” brought together leaders from the PC(USA)’s World Mission office and a host of other Presbyterian-related groups that do mission. The gathering produced a shared set of core values, practices and mission strategies — “An Invitation to Expanding Partnership in God’s Mission” — that has been endorsed by virtually every mission-related group in the PC(USA).
Ordination standards and the role of gays and lesbians in the church will again be front-and-center. The 2004 Assembly deferred action on the issue until after a Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church (PUP) attempted to address it along with a number of divisive issues confronting the PC(USA).
The task force’s report, which was adopted by the 2006 Assembly, urged intentional dialogue and mutual forbearance between various factions in the church. On the issue of ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians, the report included an “authoritative interpretation” of the constitution calling for a return to the historic practice of “scrupling.” It said candidates for ordination could declare their conscientious objection (or “scruple”) to any portion of the church’s Constitution, and the ordaining body would then determine if the scruple disqualified them from ordination.
Traditionalists called the authoritative interpretation a license for presbyteries to ordain gays and lesbians. But church courts subsequently ruled that declaring a scruple does not grant license to disobey behavioral mandates in The Book of Order — particularly G-6.0106b, which requires church officers to practice “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”
Ten presbyteries have submitted overtures calling for the rescinding or modification of all or part of the PUP report, and 12 presbyteries are calling for amending G-6.0106b or removing it from the Constitution. Another nine presbyteries are calling for the Office of the Stated Clerk to develop or collect effective models for examining candidates for ordination.
Among the social/political issues on the docket for the 218th General Assembly:
- Social Creed: A new ecumenical Social Creed was requested by the 2004 General Assembly to mark the centennial of the original Social Creed of 1908, which addressed working conditions, child labor and workers’ rights in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. The new creed, which is also being considered by the member churches of the National Council of Churches, adds global economic and environmental concerns to the issues raised by the 1908 document.
- Social policy: The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy will bring eight papers to the Assembly addressing such issues as Iraq, homelessness, the church’s continuing response to the post-Hurricane Katrina Gulf Coast, pay equity for women, the church’s ministry with those with serious mental illness, energy and global warming, and voting rights and electoral reform.
- Iraq: Overtures from 12 presbyteries on the Iraq war call for actions ranging from U.S. withdrawal of troops to greater humanitarian outreach to the war’s victims;
- Middle East: Overtures on the Middle East from 16 presbyteries address issues ranging from encouraging Presbyterians to travel to Israel-Palestine to see conditions for themselves, to renewed calls for divestment, to greater efforts to foster interfaith dialogue.
- Same-sex relationships: Two presbyteries have submitted overtures calling for a change in the church’s constitutional definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, and two presbyteries are calling for the church to support equal rights for same-sex families.
- Abortion: Three overtures have been submitted by two presbyteries, seeking greater balance in funding and advocacy on the abortion question and annual reporting by the Board of Pensions on its “relief of conscience” program, which assures that medical plan dues paid by churches opposed to abortion will not be used to pay for abortions.
For the first time, two of the Assembly’s 17 committees will dispense with customary parliamentary business and will be charged with doing “generative thinking.” One will examine proposed revisions to the PC(USA)’s Directory for Worship. The other will take a comprehensive look at the denomination’s ministry with youth and youth participation in the church.
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