wfn.org | Lawyer accuses 2 more ministers

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7132 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

18-April-2002
02150

Lawyer accuses 2 more ministers

Jensen castigates PC(USA) moderator, vows to keep up pressure

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - A Virginia attorney has alleged that two more Presbyterian Church (USA) clergy have violated their ordination vows by defying a constitutional ban on ordinations of non-celibate gays and lesbians.

Paul Jensen, of Reston, VA, now has filed 16 such cases, against 15 ministers and one elder, in at least nine different presbyteries. Each presbytery is required by church polity to appoint an investigative committee to consider the charges.

Jensen's latest allegation was lodged against a minister member of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities for having announced on the floor of last year's General Assembly that she is "a practicing homosexual," in violation of her ordination vows.

In a separate action, Jensen filed a complaint with the Presbytery of New York City alleging that a clergyman published an article in his church newsletter in which he said that the church would ordain gays and lesbians in violation of a provision of the PC(USA) constitution, section G-6.0106(b), that prohibits such ordinations. Jensen also charged that the minister made the same announcement from the pulpit.

In both cases, Jensen challenged those he accused to "have the courage of (their) convictions" and to "save much time and effort on the part of the committee(s)" by waiving their rights to preliminary investigations and proceeding directly to trial.

Jensen argued, as he has in other cases he has filed in recent weeks, that the accused have made their defiance public and have renounced the jurisdiction of the church by failing to abide by its ordination standards.

Jensen has acknowledged that he doesn't know the people he has accused. He says he has found their statements of defiance on the Internet or in some other public form.

"As in the past, I am acting entirely on my own behalf in this matter, and no one had any advance notice of my actions," Jensen told the Presbyterian News Service (PNS).

Jensen is a member of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Newport Beach, CA, but he said no one on its staff or session had knowledge of his intentions.

He said he will continue filing such charges.

"I am absolutely going to pursue these as far as I can," he said, adding: 

"If our constitution means anything, then those who persist in defying it must (suffer) the consequences of the disciplinary process. Absent such consequences, anyone can freely ignore his or her ordination vows at leisure, and our constitution, not just G-6.0106.b, will be meaningless.

"This is why I have brought these accusations, and will continue to bring accusations in the future, against anyone I come to learn is actively defying, or actively encouraging the defiance of, our constitution - up to and including the (General Assembly) moderator."

Jensen said he has sent a letter to the Rev. Jack Rogers, the moderator of the 213th General Assembly, reprimanding him for visiting allegedly out-of-compliance churches and for being sympathetic to those who support the ordination of homosexuals. He gave a copy of the letter to PNS.

Rogers, an evangelical scholar, has been all but ostracized by the church's conservative wing because of his views on homosexuals' participation in the life of the church.

"You have an absolute duty to uphold our constitution, particularly in the face of such outright defiance, yet have said nothing," Jensen wrote in his letter to Rogers. "The time is thus well past for you to fulfill your duty to ... condemn in unequivocal words any conduct that defies our constitution, or encourages others to do so.

"If you fail to do so, you will have grossly derelicted (sic) and abandoned your duty ... for which you will certainly find yourself accused in a disciplinary accusation. I urge you to wait no longer, and to speak plainly and forcefully in fidelity and obedience to our polity."

Jensen said his communication with Rogers is not a threat, but a statement of his own resolution to oppose church officers who defy the constitution.

In a letter dated March 4, Rogers and the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the denomination's stated clerk, informed Presbyterians that "those called to office in the church and all ordaining bodies are responsible to uphold (G-6.0106.b) ... for ministers, elders and deacons."

They wrote the letter after an amendment that would have eliminated the clause prohibiting ordination of gays and lesbians was defeated by a vote of PC(USA) presbyteries.

Efforts to reach Rogers for comment on Jensen's letter were unsuccessful.

Jensen is a lifelong Presbyterian from a wealthy family in Laguna Beach, CA. He has worked as a consultant on national-level Republican political campaigns.

In the 1970s, he worked for right-wing California Rep. John G. Schmitz, and later was on the campaign staff of Schmitz's wife when she made an unsuccessful run for Congress. In 1986, he was a campaign advisor to conservative Alabama Sen. Jeremiah Denton, a Navy officer who came to public attention as a prisoner of war in Vietnam when he blinked out the word "torture" in Morse code during a TV interview - the first confirmation that POWs were being abused by the North Vietnamese.

In the early 1980s, Jensen was legislative director of the American Defense Foundation in Washington. The 1990 graduate of the law school at Duke University practiced law in California for several years and now works for the federal government.

He joined St. Andrew's in 1979 but has not served as a church officer. He has worked as a volunteer reporter for The Presbyterian Layman during several General Assemblies. 

He said no other group or individual is involved in his pursuit of the disciplinary cases.

On April 5, the Presbytery of Los Ranchos wrote in a letter to PNS: "This is to inform you that neither Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr., pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, CA, the staff of the church, nor the session of St. Andrew's had any prior knowledge of the complaints filed by Paul Rolf Jensen. Although Mr. Jensen's name appears on the membership rolls of St. Andrew's, he moved to Vienna, Virginia, in February of 2001."

The letter was signed by Jane F. Odell, the presbytery's interim executive, and by Huffman and the clerk of the St. Andrew's session.
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