wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Metherell, Jensen have their day in court

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Note #7629 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Metherell, Jensen have their day in court
03143
March 19, 2003

Metherell, Jensen have their day in court

PJC to decide whether moderator should have called special Assembly

by John Filiatreau

KANSAS CITY, MO - A St. Patrick's Day trial before the Permanent Judicial
Commission of the General Assembly gave two high-profile evangelical critics
of the Presbyterian Church (USA) an opportunity to take center stage for a
day.
	
The star witness in the case was Dr. Alex Metherell, a California engineer,
physician and and self-professed "student of the Book of Order" who wants
General Assembly moderator Fahed Abu-Akel to call last year's 214th Assembly
back into special session to address what he calls a "constitutional crisis"
in the denomination.
	
The lawyer representing Metherell was Paul Rolf Jensen, a Virginian who
personally has filed disciplinary charges against a score of officials and
governing bodies that he contends have caused the aforesaid crisis by defying
or failing to enforce a disputed provision of the PC(USA) constitution.
Metherell and Jensen are both members of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in
Newport Beach, CA.
	
Not at issue in the 10-hour trial, but nonetheless at its heart, was the
so-called "fidelity/chastity" provision of the constitution, G-6.0106b, which
says candidates for ordination must "live either in fidelity within the
covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness." 
	
The measure, which has been upheld in three contentious church-wide votes of
the PC(USA) presbyteries, is invoked to refuse ordination to unrepentant gay
and lesbian candidates for ordination as deacons, elders and ministers.
	
Jensen claimed defiance of G-6.0106b has "run rampant" in the church.
Metherell said it is "like a disease spreading through the church ... a very
widespread problem."
	
The question before the PC(USA)'s "supreme court" was whether Abu-Akel should
have called the 554 commissioners to the 214th General Assembly back into
session.
	
Metherell and Jensen contended that the moderator "subverted" the
constitution by failing to call the Assembly even though Metherell had
apparently done all the Book of Order requires to force such a meeting.
	
They said Abu-Akel and Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick "put a heavy thumb on
the scale" through their lobbying, misled the commissioners about the timing
of a special session, in effect required a "re-vote" on the matter, and
dragged their feet "until they had the number of negative votes that they
desired."
	
Attorney Judy L. Woods, representing the moderator, said he made "an honest,
good-faith, expeditious attempt" to comply with the constitution.
	
The dozen members of the PJC didn't immediately rule in the matter. Their
decision is expected on March 20 or 21. They still could order Abu-Akel to
re-convene a special meeting of the 214th Assembly, although time is running
short because the 215th Assembly gets under way in Denver on May 24. The
214th Assembly goes out of existence that day.
	
On Jan. 14, Metherell showed up at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville and
gave Abu-Akel a petition in which 57 commissioners to the 214th Assembly
requested that he re-convene the Assembly.
	
Abu-Akel eventually wrote two different letters in which he urged the 57
commissioners to remove their names from the petition. In one, he wrote, "I
implore you in the name of Christ and for the good of the Presbyterian Church
(USA) to reconsider your decision." He argued, among other things, that a
special meeting would cost more than $500,000 that could better be spent on
PC(USA) mission.
	
Jensen argued during the one-day trial here that Abu-Akel was required to
call the meeting upon establishing that the commissioners' signatures were
genuine. "If you will look at The Book of Order in its plain meaning, there
is no room for doubt. ... There is no 'wiggle room.'"
	
"The only relevant issue is whether the written requests were made to the
moderator and if they were genuine," he contended.
	
Woods argued that there was never a time when the requisite number of
commissioners was party to Metherell's request. "There were not 57
commissioners of like mind on Jan. 14," she said.
	
The Book of Order says that the moderator "shall" call such a special meeting
"at the request or with the concurrence of 25 elders and 25 ministers,
representing at least 15 presbyteries, under the jurisdiction of at least
five synods."
	
The complainant in the case, the session of Westminster Presbyterian Church
in Canton, OH, contended that Abu-Akel was required to call the meeting when
he received Metherell's papers bearing the signatures of 31 elders and 26
ministers representing 26 presbyteries in 16 synods.
	
Abu-Akel, testifying by videotaped deposition, said he fully intended to
convene the meeting after confirming the genuineness of the signatures and
the true intent of the 57 signing commissioners.
	
Woods pointed out, however, that church officials quickly started receiving
messages from signatories claiming that they actually did not favor a called
assembly. She said several such objections were raised before Abu-Akel even
expressed his view that calling a special assembly was not a good idea.
	
Some of the commissioners who signed but later changed their minds were
witnesses in the hearing.
	
The Rev. David Ryan Rodriguez, of Hollister, CA, said he had "second
thoughts" in the three months between the time he signed Metherell's petition
and Jan. 14, when it was presented to the moderator. He said he does believe
"there is a constitutional crisis in the church," but he expected "the
meeting to take place soon after I signed the card."
	
The "decisive factor" in his change of mind, he said, was seeing that "some
groups were using the call to further alienate people and governing bodies"
in the church.
	
Another of the change-of-mind commissioners, the Rev. William Clyde
Duckworth, of Orlando, FL, said he didn't realize Metherell's gathering of
the requisite signatures would prove to be "such a very long and drawn-out
process." He said he found himself wondering "how many people would it really
represent," and whether the effort "was still as meaningful as it might have
been." By the time Metherell presented the names to the moderator, he said,
"I was beginning to doubt it was a worthwhile activity."
	
Duckworth added that he hadn't anticipated the "amount of time and energy it
would take" from his ministry, and found it "overwhelming to even read all
the communications" about the call that he received "from people who were in
favor, or were assumed to be." He said he didn't favor calling the
commissioners together "on the day before the next General Assembly, or
something."
	
The Rev. Nancy Gillard, a pastor from Jackson, MO, said she'd signed a
postcard Metherell had sent her, but wasn't aware that she'd thereby joined
an effort to force a called meeting. "The first time I heard about this was
in January, when I got a postcard saying, 'Congratulations, we have enough
votes to proceed,'" she said. 
	
Gillard said that, when she sent in the postcard, she thought she was merely
saying that she "wanted to continue to be involved in that conversation"
about the gay ordination issue. She said she'd been "confused," and told the
PJC that it was "never my desire" to support a call for an assembly.
	
The Rev. Andrew W. Jacob, of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, OH,
admitted that a signature on one commissioner's letter of revocation wasn't
genuine. He said he signed Angela A. Davis's name, at her request and with
her permission, and gave no indication that her name was written by him, not
her. Under questioning, he conceded that he'd exercised poor judgment, but
said he'd been "in a hurry," and there was no effort to deceive. He said
Davis, a former member of his congregation, had been asked to appear for the
hearing but had refused, saying she was "thoroughly disgusted with the
process and she intends to leave the church."
	
Another key witness in the case was the Rev. William Pawson, the pastor of
Westminster Presbyterian Church in Canton, OH, whose session filed the
complaint. He said his elders decided to take action because it appeared that
Abu-Akel "was delaying and working with the stated clerk to find some way to
justify not calling a meeting."
	
Pawson conceded that his session had obtained its information about the
matter through the news media, and had no first-hand knowledge of the
moderator's actions.
	
The complaint was filed less than a week after the petition was presented to
Abu-Akel.
	
Metherell testified that he has been "increasingly concerned about acts of
defiance that had gone unchecked in the denomination," and that's why he sent
an email last September to about 60 commissioners, asking them to join in an
effort to get the moderator to call a special meeting of the Assembly. He
said he decided to go ahead after getting "an amazingly positive response"
and discovering that "my feelings were shared by many other commissioners."
	
He said he sought the special assembly because he "was aware about 20
different accusations had been made" concerning defiance of the constitution
and that "no action was being taken by any of the presbyteries involved."
	
Metherell said he thought Abu-Akel and others, including Kirkpatrick, "put a
heavy thumb on the scale by telling the commissioners things that were false
and that they knew were false," notably that commissioners would have to be
given 120 days' notice before the convening of a special meeting.
	
In his summation, Jensen told the PJC: "This is the most important case you
will ever decide. Throughout the country, two and a half million
Presbyterians are holding their breath." He said the church is in serious
trouble "if the specific words of the Book of Order can be ignored and
subverted."
	
"I can't predict what will happen out of a special session," he said, "but I
can predict what will happen if you say the Book of Order doesn't have to be
upheld - and that is a fierce prediction."
	
Woods countered that Abu-Akel "was right to verify the status of these
commissioners, in light of the seriousness, the gravity, the expense of
calling a meeting, right to make sure that everything was proper and in
order." She said the Westminster session filed its complaint during "a
hastily called Sunday morning meeting, and there wasn't even a good-faith
attempt to see what was being done" in response to Metherell's petition.
	
Under the circumstances, she said, Abu-Akel "had a positive obligation not to
call an Assembly." 
	
"We could always sit here and second-guess it," she said of the moderator's
decision. "There is no single right way to deal with a situation like this."
Ultimately, she concluded, "It's about trust. Who do we trust? ... The
moderator trusted the process, and the question now is whether you too will
trust the process, trust the (215th) General Assembly to deal with the
moderator, hold the moderator accountable for his own actions."

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