The Reformed Pastor

The Human Rights Campaign, which is a secular gay rights organization that also has an outreach to like-minded people in the mainline denominations, weighs in on the Lisa Larges decision:

“The decision today sets up another roadblock of confusion for lesbian and gay candidates for ministry,” said Harry Knox, director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion & Faith Program. “The Church needs these gifted ministers and it is time to make the denomination’s policy plain. All should be welcome to serve God and humanity through the Presbyterian Church USA.”

As I indicated in my previous post, this decision is nothing more than a procedural item that delays Larges from moving ahead in the ordination process until the next presbytery meeting. Apparently the HRC thinks that Christian churches following their own procedures is a “roadblock” to their political goals. Of course, they are probably just taking their cue from Ms. Larges, who writes at That All May Freely Serve today:

Last week, I sat all day observing the proceedings in a Presbyterian Church trial on whether I could be moved forward in the ordination process as an out lesbian. The decision that came down yesterday was a mixed bag, but the reality is that I am looking at a longer struggle that includes advocating for a change in church policy to include LGBT people, not just ongoing individual fights where candidates for ordination struggle in a system that blocks them at every turn.

Once again I saw little of the Jesus or church I know in the proceedings. No out queer voices were heard at that trial, including mine. Opponents of LGBT equality in the church are rightfully wary of the personal testimonies of queer people of faith, and likewise wary of conversation, dialogue, and any live-and-let-live compromise.

The reason the court didn’t hear any “queer voices” was, as the court made clear in its decision, because they were irrelevant. They weren’t deciding the future of the gay rights movement in the PCUSA, they were deciding a narrow procedural issue. Larges sounds like she wanted to turn the trial into a bathos-soaked, emotionally-driven civil rights rally rather than a judicial process, in order to get what she wanted without any delay. What she needs to do is get a grip, recognize this as nothing more than a delay in achieving an inevitable result in the presbytery, and stop acting as though the SPJC is the modern-day equivalent of George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door.

(HRC quote via TAMFS.)

I’ve had a chance to review the Synod of the Pacific’s Permanent Judicial Commission’s decision regarding Lisa Larges’ ordination process in the PCUSA’s San Francisco Presbytery. I think I can with full confidence report that there is absolutely nothing substantial about this decision.

The Commission rejected all of the complaint’s substantive with the same response: “The SPJC has no jurisdiction to review the actions of a committee of presbytery.” They all hinged on the fact that the recommendation to certify Larges for ordination came from the Committee on Preparation for Ministry. All of those elements of the complaint started, “The Presbytery erred when its CPM,” and that was apparently the SPJC’s out.

The last three elements had to do with the actual vote, and the heart of the issue was item 12:

Specification of error 12. In voting to advance the Candidate as “ready for examination” the Presbytery erred because it improperly granted the Candidate an exception to the mandatory behavioral ordination standard of G-6.0106b.

This specification is sustained. The Presbytery erred when it voted to certify the Candidate as “ready for examination … with a departure” because the examination for ordination is the proper time for Presbytery to determine whether or not a candidate’s departure constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity (Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church, Recommendation 5, c. 1-2, (Minutes 2006, p. 514). The debate and vote on January 15, 2008 was not an examination for ordination. The language of the motion on the floor was to certify the candidate as “ready for examination … with departure”, thus an examination could not yet properly take place in advance of such certification. Moreover, discussion of the motion could not properly constitute an examination for ordination because it did not conform to G-14.0482, including the requirement that “the candidate shall appear before the presbytery and shall make a brief statement of personal faith and of commitment to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament.” Neither the candidate nor the candidate’s Statement of Faith was presented or made available to the Presbyters at their meeting of January 15, 2008.

Translation: The Presbytery didn’t receive Larges’ statement at the correct time. They should take it when she is actually examined, and decided on it then.

So that’s it. That’s what all the fuss is about. Which is to say that the sum total effect is to simply push the matter back to the next meeting of the Presbytery. That’s what’s called much ado about nothing.

(Hat tip for sending me the decision: Ken.)