Modus Operandi, PCUSA Version (UPDATED)

Two years ago, the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly sent a proposal to the presbyteries to include the Belhar Confession in the denomination’s Book of Confessions. You can argue whether it should be, and you can also argue with whether Belhar is a good confession of faith. What you can’t argue is that the PCUSA’s presbyteries rejected it.

Denominational liberals are not people to take “no” for an answer however. According to the Presbyterian News Service:

The 220th GA Church Confessions Committee voted on Tuesday (June 3) to recommend the confession for inclusion in The Book of Confessions. This is the second round for Belhar to be considered, having narrowly failed to receive the 2/3-majority vote needed by presbyteries following the 219th GA.

This is what they do. “Don’t agree with us? We’ll come back over and over again until you get sick of discussing the subject, and give us what we want just to shut us up. We’ll do that on a range of issues, decade after decade, until your institution no longer resembles the one you thought it was, and we own it.”

In one sense, this is inconsequential–the Belhar Confession will have no more practical relevance to the life of the PCUSA than any of the other 11 confessions that supposedly guide denominational life, but which are in fact dead letters to be ignored whenever they get in the way of what activists for whatever cause want. But in another, it says everything about why the mainline churches have been in decline for almost 50 years now–liberals never stop pushing, pulling, insulting, accusing, propagandizing, denigrating, pontificating, and emoting, while conservatives eventually get sick of fighting the same battles over and over, and either quit the field or leave the denomination. At which point, having won, liberals declare that all further discussion is beyond the pale, divisive, even schismatic.

It is what they do.

UPDATE: UPDATE: The move to send this back to the presbyteries was approved, 395-264-6. (Hat tip: GA Junkie.)

 

PCUSA to Vote on Changing Marriage Definition

The Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly will soon consider the following amendments to its Book of Order, passed last night by the Committee on Civil Union and Marriage Issues, which will change the definition of marriage:

1. Amend W-4.9001 as follows: [Text to be deleted is shown with a strike-through; text to be added or inserted is shown as italic.]

“Marriage is a gift God has given to all humankind for the well-being of the entire human family. Marriage is a civil contract covenant between a woman and a man two people, and according to the laws of the state also constitutes a civil contract. For Christians marriage is a covenant through which a man and a woman two people are called to live out together before God their lives of discipleship. In a service of Christian marriage, two people make a lifelong commitment is made by a woman and a man to each other, publicly witnessed and acknowledged by the community of faith.”

2. Amend W-4.9002 as follows: [Text to be deleted is shown with a strike-through; text to be added or inserted is shown as italic.]

“a. In preparation for the marriage service, the teaching elder shall provide for a discussion with the man and the woman two people to be married concerning” [The remainder of this section remains the same.]

3. Amend W-4.9004 as follows: [Text to be deleted is shown with a strike-through; text to be added or inserted is shown as italic.]

“The service begins with scriptural sentences and a brief statement of purpose. The man and the woman two people to be married shall declare their intention to enter into Christian marriage and shall exchange vows of love and faithfulness. The service includes appropriate passages of Scripture, which may be interpreted in various forms of proclamation. Prayers shall be offered for the couple, for the communities which support them in this new dimension of discipleship, and for all who seek to live in faithfulness. In the name of the triune God the teaching elder shall declare publicly that the woman and the man they are now joined in marriage.” [The remainder of this paragraph remains the same.]

4. Amend W-4.9006 as follows: [Text to be deleted is shown with a strike-through; text to be added or inserted is shown as italic.]

“A service of worship recognizing a civil marriage and confirming it in the community of faith may be appropriate when requested by the couple. The service will be similar to the marriage service except that the opening statement, the declaration of intention, the exchange of vows by the husband and wife two people,and the public declaration by the teaching elder† reflect the fact that the woman and man they are already married to one another according to the laws of the state.”

Translation: The PCUSA will, if this amendment is passed by the General Assembly and approved by the presbyteries, will no longer hold to a Christian definition of marriage, and will instead adopt that of a minority of state governments. Way to speak truth to power, folks.

 

PCUSA GA Committee Joins Anti-Israel Campaign (UPDATED)

The web site of the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly isn’t updating on controversial committee actions, but I’ve got my sources. So I can report that Committee 15 on Middle East and Peacemaking Issues appears to be buying the anti-Israel campaign hook, line, and sinker.

First up, resolution 15-11, which came from the denomination’s governing Office of the General Assembly and General Assembly Mission Council. Together, they passed along with a positive recommendation the proposal of the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI), which proposed:

The Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment has been seeking to engage companies profiting from non-peaceful pursuits in Israel-Palestine since the directive of the 216th General Assembly (2004) and the reaffirmations and actions of each subsequent assembly. This process of engagement has, in the case of three companies, produced no substantive change and, in the judgment of this assembly, is likely not to do so in the future. Under the church’s regular process of corporate engagement (approved by the 116th General Assembly (1976) of the PCUS and reaffirmed as policy after reunion), the final step is to recommend divestment from companies where engagement is not resulting in any change. Therefore, in accordance with the actions of prior assemblies, we direct that Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions be placed on the General Assembly Divestment List until such time as they have ceased profiting from non-peaceful pursuits in Israel-Palestine, as defined by prior General Assembly actions.

This now goes to the full Assembly, which gets to decide whether it is more important to make a public statement that will endanger relations with Jewish dialogue partners in the U.S. and put the denomination firmly on one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while accomplishing nothing practical, or not. It passed the committee 36-11-1.

Then there’s resolution 15-2, which is from San Francisco Presbytery and calls on the denomination to boycott Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories and Hadiklaim (an Israeli Date Growers Cooperative) products:

1. Condemn the production and sale of Israeli products that come from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
2. Call for the boycott of AHAVA Dead Sea Laboratories Beauty Products.
3. Call for the boycott of all date products of Hadiklaim, the Israel Date Growers Cooperative, Ltd., often marketed by the brand names: King Solomon Dates and Jordan River.
4. Direct the Stated Clerk to communicate this action to all other PC(USA) councils and entities and invite and strongly encourage those groups and organizations to endorse this boycott.
5. Direct the Stated Clerk to inform our ecumenical partners of this action, both nationally and globally, and call upon them to join in the boycott of these companies.

The reason given is that Ahava and Hadiklaim use resources from the West Bank as well as settler products. In the rationale, the authors make an interesting admission:

4. Does boycotting the Israeli occupation harm Palestinians?

Yes, it can have an economic impact. Any kind of economic pressure is bound to harm first and foremost the Palestinians, who are already economically vulnerable because of the restrictions that the Israeli occupation imposes on their ability to study, work, and move people or goods. Despite Israel’s exploitation of Palestinian labor, Palestinian natural resources, and the captive Palestinian consumer market, Palestinians themselves have asked for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions because they see them as effective tools to express international solidarity to oppose the Israeli occupation.

Makes you wonder: did they speak to the Palestinians who would be hurt by a boycott? Or did they just speak to the activists who are playing politics with other people’s livelihoods? Is the Pope Catholic? This move to punish the Palestinians who make the mistake of actually working with Israelis passed 37-6-2.

Next up for the committee: is the Israeli occupation “apartheid”? Even more than the previous two, their vote on this issue will reveal whether they have bought entirely into the anti-Semitic agenda of the Israel Palestine Mission Network. More later.

UPDATE: According to tweets from the noted Presbyterian organization Jewish Voice for Peace, which has representatives at the General Assembly and particularly in this committee, a commissioner posed the question of whether the murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany would be considered apartheid. This is an easy question to answer (no), but what’s troubling is that the committee apparently is getting guidance from Anna Baltzer, a far left Jewish activist with the anti-Zionist organization U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. She is, according to the tweets, using the opportunity afforded by the question to cite a variety of sources (including an unnamed “report” commissioned by the government of South Africa that supposedly found that Israel practices apartheid. Why is a non-Presbyterian being allowed to essentially lobby a General Assembly committee for a political viewpoint most Presbyterians would not hold? Appalling.

UPDATE: A small measure of sanity has prevailed in committee–the resolution to declare Israel’s actions “apartheid” has failed 19-28.

UPDATE: The Presbytery of San Jose had submitted a grotesquely one-sided resolution, 15-09, that called for the following:

1. Commend the U. S. State Department for its annual published listing of incidents of religious discrimination by the State of Israel affecting the human rights and religious freedom of Arab Christians and other Palestinian citizens.
2. Commend the U. S. State Department for reporting on the failure of Israel to protect Christian Holy sites throughout Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.
3. Urge the Israeli government to end any and all religious discriminatory practices.
4. Urge the Israeli government to enforce its own legal obligation to protect Christian holy sites throughout Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.
5. Direct that the Stated Clerk contact President Obama and the Israeli ambassador to the U. S. asking them to assist in ending all religious discriminatory practices and to protect religious groups’ holy sites in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.

Essentially, passing this would have been saying that religious discrimination in the West Bank and Gaza (which is rampant, especially in the latter) is perfectly OK, and that Christians and their holy sites need no protection in Muslim-run and dominated areas. The committee rejected this one as well, 19-26-3. The St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, which is present in the committee, responded, “They voted to NOT urge the Israeli govt to end any and all religious discriminatory practices.” Actually, they voted not to condemn one while ignoring the other, but I wouldn’t expect the STPSC to grasp a nuance like that.

 

PCUSA General Assembly: An Interesting Election

If you read my previous post about the election of a new moderator of the PCUSA’s General Assembly, you know that his running mate had recently violated the the denomination’s Book of Order, yet was still running for the post of vice-moderator. (A more appropriate title is hard to imagine in this case.) On Sunday, she was elected, but as James Berkley reports for the Layman Online, it wasn’t easy:

Commissioners had serious questions for nominee Tara Spuhler McCabe, who had quietly performed a same-sex marriage ceremony recently in Washington, D.C. She did so knowing full well that she was violating the Book of Order, as clearly stated by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission. Also, she did so after being named vice-moderator candidate by Neil Presa. The same-sex wedding caught Presa by surprise. Some commissioners had been voicing great reluctance to electing to high office in the General Assembly a person unwilling to be governed by the constitution of the church.

Hay ruled that the Standing Rules stipulate an immediate vote on the vice-moderator, so to pose questions, the assembly would need to suspend the rules, requiring a two-thirds vote. Commissioners voted by a 55 percent margin to suspend the rules, falling short of the required 67 percent for suspension of the rules. Thus commissioners were given no opportunity to ask McCabe about her act of defiance.

Next commissioners voted on the confirmation itself, and McCabe received 60 percent of the votes. Thus, in a vote that is nearly always unanimous under normal circumstances, McCabe was elected without the support of two-fifths of the commissioners, hardly a mandate! A commissioner was overheard reasoning afterwards, “No pastor would accept a call with that much opposition.” McCabe, however, was duly commissioned—without ever having to respond in the affirmative to a question about actually obeying the constitution of the denomination she now serves.

As slim as the majority was for vice-moderator McCabe, it should be remembered that Moderator Neil Presca, was elected the evening before with an even slimmer 52 percent majority, and that slight margin after three previous inconclusive ballots. Ironically, Presa and McCabe ran with the theme of seeking unity, and yet their very election demonstrated a major divide in the church.

It was a slim margin of victory for McCabe, yes, but think about what that says about the denomination. It says that in the PCUSA, the Book of Order, the constitution of the church, the rules by which order is brought to a large organization, are of no consequence. You can ignore them at will, and still be rewarded with election ot high office.

Gee, sounds like the Episcopal Church….

 

PCUSA Elects New Moderator

In the first important action of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s General Assembly, the Rev. Neal Presa of New Jersey was elected Moderator yesterday. According to the Presbyterian News Service:

The Rev. Neal Presa, pastor of Middlesex (N.J.) Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth Presbytery, was elected moderator of the 220th General Assembly (2012) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Saturday evening (June 30) on the fourth ballot. It was the second consecutive Assembly that took four ballots to elect its moderator.

Presa said he is committed to the unity of our Presbyterian family and spoke very personally about his parents’ separation at the time of his engagement to be married 10 years ago. “I didn’t know if they would both be at the wedding,” he said, “but Presbyterians prayed them back together. God holds us all together in Christ – it’s called grace.”

It was that kind of grace and trust, Presa said, that caused him to retain his vice-moderator running mate, the Rev. Tara Spuhler McCabe of National Capital Presbytery, after she recently signed a marriage certificate for a lesbian couple in Washington, D.C., where same-gender marriage is legal.

“For me, same-sex marriage is not an issue – these are people,” he said. “As a church officer, I hold to the [PC(USA)] Constitution (which defines marriage as between a man and a woman), but I’ve known Tara for ten-and-a-half years and though we disagree, we live with this tension because of our relationship.”

So Presa, about whom I know nothing other than what is in this article, is apparently in favor of moral and ecclesial anarchy in his denomination in the service of “relationships.” That is presumably because it is impossible to remain friends with a ministerial colleague without a) allowing them to toss out the denomination’s governing policy, and b) having her elected to a high denominational position.

It is going to be a long week in Pittsburgh.

 

Evangelical Presbyterian Church General Assembly, Day 2

We’ve been meeting all day, and dealing with a wide variety of mundane and internal issues, as well as doing a lot of praying and beginning with an inspiring service of Communion. This afternoon, we took the first action that the rest of the world would be interested in, and that’s to go on the record as opposed to the so-called “preventive care mandate,” i.e., the contraception mandate, in Obamacare.

Yours truly had the opportunity in the discussion to make the same point I’ve been making here for months, which is that this has nothing to do with contraception, but rather is about religious liberty. “It will not stop with contraception,” I said in my best rabble-rousing voice. “The EPC, as a self-insuring agency, will eventually be required to pay for abortion. We dare not let things get to that point.” Though one person spoke against it, it was nevertheless passed unanimously. The EPC now stands with our Catholic brethren in defying Leviathan.

Since Steve Salyards of GA Junkie mentioned them, I’ll also cover three other items. One is that we wrapped up the work of our two five-year transitional presbyteries. In the course of their work, well over 100 former PCUSA were given a safe haven while they sought the Lord’s will for their congregational future. The vast majority of them went on to join the EPC. The presbyteries have now been formally dissolved, and from this point forward all churches that desire to come into the EPC will be asked to seek to be received directly into a geographical presbytery.

A second has to do with confidentiality in ministerial salaries. We agreed with the proposed approach, which while it would continue the practice of having terms of call (including salary) a matter of presbyterial record, would bring some privacy to future changes in salaries, at least at the presbyterial level. A third has to do with possible changes in presbyterial boundaries and/or creation of a new presbytery. A new policy regarding the formation of presbyteries was adopted, but no new presbyteries are being formed at this time.

 

Evangelical Presbyterian Church General Assembly, Day 1

The EPC, my denomination, is having its annual national meeting this week in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We meet for only three days of business, partially because we’re a smaller body (364 churches, approximately 125,000 members), partially because we have as a matter of policy a lot less overhead than the typical denomination. That being the case, we can get everything done in three days, while taking plenty of time for worship and fellowship.

We began this morning, mostly with reports, rules, and introductions of various kinds. The one thing we did that was particularly striking was to have read a list of those PCUSA congregations that have transferred to the EPC. It took a while, and was greeted with wild applause.

This afternoon, we took our first look at a proposed revision of our Book of Order, which has been under development for three years. The purposes of the revision are several: to update out-dated language, to clarify language that is not clear, to standardize a variety of terms and usages, etc. It was received, and will now be open for comment by all EPC members between now and the end of the year.

Stated Clerk Jeff Jeremiah, in his report, noted that five years ago, in June of 2007, the EPC had 182 churches, and has since doubled in the number of congregations that call it home. He also described a vision of his for the denomination to grow to 1000 churches. He had no specific plan or strategy, but described this as the future the Lord has for us, though he did say that the flood of transfers from PCUSA is bound to stop, and that most of this growth would come from church planting, both in the United States and around the world. This vision was enthusiastically received by the commissioners, who unanimously re-elected Jeremiah to a third three-year term as stated clerk.

More tomorrow.