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Note #9013 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05601
Nov. 8, 2005

Taking the task force to task

Neither Covenant Network nor Coalition 
is entirely happy with TTF recommendations

ORLANDO, FL - The report of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Theological
Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church (TTF) did not fare well
during recent back-to-back meetings of the denomination's two predominant
"affinity groups."

	Last week, in Memphis, the board of directors of the Covenant Network
of Presbyterians - a nine-year-old group committed to the full inclusion of
gay and lesbian Presbyterians in the PC(USA), including as ordained officers
- defended its neutral stand on the TTF report, calling it "not justice, but
progress."

	Yesterday, in Orlando, the Presbyterian Coalition - an umbrella group
of renewal organizations that oppose gay ordination - condemned the report,
calling its recommendations "unconstitutional" and accusing the task force of
trying to make an "end run" around the PC(USA)'s prohibition of the
ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians.

	The report, four years in the making, will be presented to the 217th
General Assembly in Birmingham, AL, next June.

	Primarily at issue are two key recommendations: 1) a proposed
"authoritative interpretation" of section G-6.0108 of the PC(USA)
constitution that would allow candidates for ordination or installation to
declare "scruples" (or conscientious objections) to confessional or
constitutional standards, and still be ordained - if the ordaining body
decided that such "scruples" were not "essential" elements of Presbyterian
doctrine or practice; and 2) a proposal that the current ordination standards
not be debated or changed during the upcoming General Assembly.

	Two task force members - Barbara Wheeler and the Rev. John Wilkinson,
both members of the Covenant Network board - presented the report during that
group's annual conference last week.

	The presentation during the Presbyterian Coalition's national
conference this week was made, not by members of the TTF, but by the Rev.
James Berkley, interim director of Presbyterian Action, an agency of the
Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a group that aims to reform
American churches while promoting democracy and religious freedom.

	After Berkley's presentation, a task force member, the Rev. John
"Mike" Loudon, participated in a question-and-answer session with him and
Presbyterian elder Alan Wisdom, IRD's interim director.

	Berkley, a former "issues analyst" for Presbyterians for Renewal who
attended the task force meetings as an observer, attacked the TTF report,
especially the proposed authoritative interpretation. 

	He said the proposal "would permit behavior that would have
scandalized Jesus," and denounced it as a "recycled amendment to the
constitution that has been rejected by increasingly large margins three times
in the last 10 years." 

	"A standard is no standard if it is not standard," Berkley said.
"Non-essential requirements are a mockery of language and morals."

	The Covenant Network likes the proposed AI. Wheeler, the president of
Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, said it would make the PC(USA) safer
for gays and lesbians.

	Wheeler said the TTF proposals are "not large leaps, but they're
better than the all-or-nothing wars." She said it is her opinion that it will
be at least 10 years before the church will be ready to lift its
constitutional ban on the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians.

	Tricia Dykers Koenig, the Covenant Network's national organizer, said
the proposed interpretation "would be a huge step forward, because a lot more
ordinations would be happening." The Rev. Tim-Hart Andersen, a member of the
network's board, said he hopes "every candidate for ordination or
installation will declare a 'scruple' with G-6.0106b."

	That provision of The Book of Order limits ordination to those who
practice "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman
or chastity in singleness."
	
	The Covenant Network continues pressing for overtures to next year's
Assembly that would delete G-6.0106b - despite the TTF's recommendation that
the standard be retained for the time being.
	
	Some members asked how the Covenant Network can be neutral on a
recommendation that would keep the ordination standards as they are. Jenny
Stone, a Witherspoon Society board member, told the group: "Saying 'wait'
makes it increasingly morally acceptable (to exclude gays and lesbians from
ordination), and exclusion should never be morally acceptable. We work, not
for comfort, but for engagement."

	The Rev. Jane Spahr, a well-known Presbyterian lesbian activist,
said: "We're looking at a power game - power and privilege - in which
prejudice and violence are perpetuated, because the church somehow says it's
OK." Urging the group to reject the task force recommendation to leave
G-6.0106b along, she said, "It's time NOW for justice, because it's the right
thing to do; and there's an urgency because there's hundreds of us already
serving."

	It's clear to the Presbyterian Coalition that the ordination
standards must be retained. That means not only fending off efforts to repeal
G-6.0106b, but also resisting the recommended AI, which the Coalition
believes would do irreparable harm to the peace, unity and purity of the
church.

	"Homosexuals would be ordained wherever there's a majority," Berkley
said, "which would result in the 'Balkanization' of the PC(USA)...with myriad
battles everywhere all the time.... God will not be thwarted. This is not
about church politics. This is about life."

	So, at least for the partisans, the battle lines are more clearly
drawn than ever, despite the TTF's efforts to make peace. What remains to be
seen is how more moderate Presbyterians will react to the group's
recommendations. 

	Both affinity groups devoted a lot of time to girding their loins for
Birmingham.

	One comment was especially revealing. 

	The Rev. Jin S. Kim, an evangelical pastor from Minneapolis and a
former president of the Coalition-aligned Presbyterians for Renewal, said
during the Covenant Network gathering: "Every year, my suffering grows -
because my gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters grow
in suffering. I am open to the possibility that I might be wrong on
(opposing) gay ordination, so I have to keep my counsel with great fear and
trepidation, with humility. That's what it means to be Christian."

	Calling the ordination debate "a white issue," Kim added: "Both the
Covenant Network and the Coalition are almost all-white. Racial-ethnics'
concerns are very different; they're about justice. If ordination is a
justice issue, why aren't the racial-ethnics present at either conference?" 

	Kim, expressing the fears of many Presbyterians, including the
commissioners who established the task force in 2001, concluded: "My primary
concern is schism. If the PC(USA) splits, where are Koreans to go?  Many
Koreans do not favor ordaining gays and lesbians, but God forbid that we be
left alone with the conservatives - who have shown little heart for social
and economic justice."

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