Note #9207 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:
06170 March 17, 2006
Pittsburgh minister under scrutiny for performing same-sex marriage
Presbytery investigating committee has until August to file its report
by Evan Silverstein
LOUISVILLE - Pittsburgh Presbytery is investigating one of its ministers, a descendant of a legendary Puritan theologian, for officiating at a same-sex union last year.
The Rev. Janet Edwards, 55, came under presbytery scrutiny last August after she married Brenda Cole, 52, and Nancy McConn, 65, who live near Wheeling, WV.
McConn is a lifelong Presbyterian and longtime member of Dallas Presbyterian Church in Dallas, WV. Cole was raised Methodist but now is a practicing Buddhist.
Edwards acknowledged that she married the women in a Pittsburgh-area ceremony on June 25, 2005. She said the rite was called a "wedding" and integrated the couple's Buddhist and Christian traditions.
Edwards said she doesn't think she violated her ordination vows or the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Order by performing the same-sex union.
"Marriage is a sacred union between people who are committed to each other, without regard to gender," said Edwards, who advocates the full inclusion of gay persons in the Pittsburgh Presbytery, which serves 156 congregations in Allegheny County.
Edwards said she's scheduled to meet with the presbytery's investigative committee on March 29 to discuss the accusations.
In the meantime, no charges have been filed and no church trial date has been set.
"It's an investigative committee at this point," said the Rev. Daniel Merry, acting pastor and head of staff at Pittsburgh Presbytery. "They have up to one year to report. This August is the one-year anniversary."
Merry, who said the investigative committee is "moving at a cautious rate," said he was aware of plans for the panel to meet with Edwards and her accusers, but did not know when.
The PC(USA) is among several Protestant denominations embroiled in a bitter debate over what roles gay people should be permitted to play.
The Book of Order (W-4.9001) states that marriage is and can only be a covenant between a man and a woman.
The highest Presbyterian court - the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly - ruled in 2000 that ministers may bless same-sex unions, but cannot confuse or equate them with marriage.
If Edwards' case makes it to church court, it would go before a Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) of Pittsburgh Presbytery. She could face anything from a rebuke to being removed from the ministry.
Edwards, who was ordained by Pittsburgh Presbytery in 1977 and served as its moderator in 1987, is assigned as an "at large" minister.
She works primarily as a parish associate through the Community of Reconciliation, an interracial and multi-denominational congregation that is open to sexual minorities.
Based in urban Pittsburgh, the reconciliation church is a combination of five Protestant denominations: Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and American Baptist.
Edwards said she was aware of five written complaints registered with Pittsburgh Presbytery. She said the investigative committee gave copies of the grievances to her defense team, in accordance with the Book of Order, although the names of the accusers were redacted for confidentiality purposes.
"The investigating committee has been very proper and has proceeded in good order," said Steve Paschall, a Pittsburgh lawyer who represents Edwards. "Their role is to examine all of the facts and the circumstances in connection with the complaints, to determine whether there is a basis for bringing charges."
Edwards said two Pittsburgh pastors are among the complainants. One, she said, sent her a copy of his complaint, and the other approached her during a presbytery meeting to tell her that he'd taken up the matter with the middle governing body.
Edwards, who declined to name her accusers, said she believes an elder from a Pittsburgh-area church also filed a complaint. She was uncertain about the origins of the other two complaints.
The complaints came about after a local newspaper announcement informed readers of the union of the two women and Edwards' role in presiding over the nuptials.
The announcement in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette appeared three days after she conducted the same-sex union at Pittsburgh's Cathedral Hall, a former Catholic basilica near downtown that has been converted into an elegant upscale banquet and meeting facility.
McConn and Cole were married legally in Vancouver, Canada, several days later.
McConn, who grew up worshipping at Dallas Presbyterian Church, a small country church near the couple's Wheeling home, said she and Cole desired a religious ceremony because spirituality is important to both of them.
McConn said that most of the 50 to 100 members of the Dallas church have been accepting of her relationship with Cole. The retired employee of Xerox Corp., who also has lived in California, called the presbytery's scrutiny of Edwards an indication of how slowly the Presbyterian Church moves to embrace change.
"I think that they will change," she said. "I think that they'll be slow to change, because the church is always slow to change. I do think they're wrong. I think they know they're wrong."
The couple said they were not naive about the possible repercussions for Edwards if she officiated at their same-gender wedding, and explored the issue closely with her before going forward with the ceremony.
Cole, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said she felt personally affronted by the accusations of wrongdoing against Edwards.
"It was striking to me how emotional this has made me feel, to have the spiritual words of our marriage called into question by Nancy's church and by Janet's church," Cole said. "It was extremely painful."
Edwards, a Pittsburgh native, is a distant descendant of Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest and most influential American evangelical theologians in history.
Jonathan Edwards, born in 1703, is best-known for his fire-breathing sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," which roars from start to finish with the threat of hellfire and eternal anguish for the unrepentant: "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over a fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath burns towards you like fire."
Janet Edwards said she concurs with her ancestor.
"I agree," she said. "There is no 'but' in 'all.' We're all sinners in the hand of an angry God. So why pick out a few?"
Edwards is one of at least three Presbyterian ministers in recent years who could face charges for marrying same-sex couples.
The Rev. Jane Adams Spahr, a Presbyterian lesbian activist, was found not-guilty of misconduct on March 3 after a trial on charges that she violated the denomination's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage by performing weddings for two lesbian couples.
In a 6-1 decision, a Permanent Judicial Commission of Redwoods Presbytery found that Spahr of San Rafael, CA, acted within her rights as an ordained minister when she married the couples in 2004 and 2005.
Because the section of the Book of Order that reserves marriage for a man and a woman "is a definition, not a directive," Spahr "was acting within her right of conscience in performing marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples," the tribunal said in a written ruling.
Spahr, 63, was ordained in 1974, also in Pittsburgh Presbytery. She is minister director of That All May Freely Serve, which works for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) Presbyterians in the life of the church, including their ordination as officers.
Edwards said she could not say how the ruling in Spahr's Redwood's Presbytery case would affect her own, especially in the more conservative Pittsburgh Presbytery.
"It's unpredictable, as I see it right now," she said.
The Pittsburgh minister has retained one of Spahr's attorneys, Sara Taylor of San Francisco, as a consultant in her case.
In another church-court trial, the Rev. Stephen Van Kuiken, a former pastor of Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, OH, lost his job and membership in the PC(USA) when the Presbytery of Cincinnati voted to remove him on June 16, 2003.
Van Kuiken appealed the decision to the PJC of the Synod of the Covenant, which ruled that the presbytery had erred in removing him while he was appealing a previous presbytery decision. However, he never applied for reinstatement.
Edwards has been married for nearly 25 years to her husband, Alvise, and is the mother of two sons aged 19 and 21.
She earned a bachelor's degree in government and international studies from Harvard University in 1972 and her M.Div. from Yale Divinity School in 1976. She has served on various presbytery committees, including a committee on preparation for the ministry, and another on worship and theology. From 2003 to 2005 she was coordinator of a presbytery task force on ministry with sexual minorities.
Edwards is also a board member of More Light Presbyterians, which works for LGBT participation in the church, including ordination as officers. She served three different small churches in Pittsburgh Presbytery during the 1980s.
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