You are currently subscribed to the PCUSANEWS
email list of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
This story available online: http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2007/07221.htm
07221
April 14, 2007
Given the choice
GA task force will submit two versions of polity revisions
by Jerry Van Marter
LOUISVILLE - A task force charged with revising the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)s Form of Government (FOG) has backed away from its proposed rewrite of the PC(USA) Constitutions theological underpinnings (chapters 1-4 of The Book of Order).
The task force was authorized by last summers 217th General Assembly to revise the FOG to make it more flexible for presbyteries and congregations. Some members of the task force had drafted a new section to replace the first four chapters.
But instead of recommending this new section entitled The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity, the nine-member Form of Government Task Force [http://www.pcusa.org/formofgovernment] tentatively decided at its April 12-14 meeting here to submit both Foundations and the existing first four Book of Order chapters to the 2008 assembly and let commissioners decide which they prefer.
The first four chapters are already widely perceived as foundational, said the Rev. James H.Y. Kim, a task force member and pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in suburban Dallas. So any change is perceived as threatening in evangelical circles where I travel, he said, adding that hes heard opposition to the revision on the other side as well.
The Rev. Steve Smith, stated clerk of Pacific Presbytery agreed. I dont think people will buy the rest of the document if they cant get past the foundational revisions, he said.
The task force voted 6-3 to submit both versions and let the assembly decide. The Rev. Mark Tammen, director of constitutional services for the Office of the General Assembly called the approach unusual but not unprecedented.
Most task force members seemed willing to concede their Foundations version for the sake of the overall FOG revision.
The 2006 assembly asked the task force to create a new FOG that shall provide flexibility at all levels, granting authority while permitting governing bodies to develop the structures to carry out their respective missions.
It specifically excluded G-6.0106b (the fidelity and chastity requirement for church officers) and G-8.0201 (which declares that all church property is held in trust for the denomination and is not owned by the local congregation) from the process.
The current FOG is 18 chapters and 148 pages long, including the first four foundational chapters. The task forces revision reconfigures the Book of Orderk into the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity plus six chapters of polity:
The Particular Congregation * covering material contained in chapters 5 and 7 of the current FOG;
Officers, Ordination, Commissioning and Certification * chapters 6, 11 and 14;
Governing Bodies * chapters 9-13;
The Church and Civil Authority * chapters 6-8;
Ecumenicity and Union * chapters 13, 16 and 17; and
Interpreting and Amending the Constitution * chapters 13 and 18.
Little criticism has been received regarding the six polity chapters. The entire document is built upon missional polity the concept that the church does not have a mission, but that its very essence is mission. In a companion document to the FOG revisions, the task force states: Mission lies at the heart of the Churchs identity. The Church is called into being and is an expression of the mission dei, Gods ongoing engagement with the world to reconcile, transform, and finally fulfill the divine creative intent in it.
Borrowing from renowned Presbyterian missiologist Darrell Guder, the task force posits five characteristics of missional polity:
Biblical * "there should be explicit biblical foundations for what we believe about the church";
Historical * polity must acknowledge that "we come to the church as the latest in along tradition of Christians who have struggled with what it means to be faithful and from whose struggles we can learn";
Contextual * "the Church is not an abstraction but exists in particular* settings" so polity "must provide the flexibility to enable the church to adapt*";
Eschatological * "polity must have at its core the conviction that the Church is moving toward God's promised new creation and should bear witness to that new reality in all that it does";
Practicable * "what the polity envisions can be put into regular and effective practice by the Church."
The purpose of re-organizing the existing first four Book of Order chapters as Foundations of Presbyterian Polity, said task force member Neal Lloyd, a retired pastor from Rochester, MN, was to undergird this missional polity, support flexible patterns of authority and order and reflect a greater theological and literary unity.
In this reorganization, we have further sought to retain the vast majority of the present text of G.1.000 G.4.000, Lloyd insisted, albeit in a somewhat different structure.
Though he said he could go either way, Kim argued for the preservation of Chapters 1-4. They (the two options) are of equal weight to me, but theres so much resistance, its a practical matter, he said. Were a victim of the climate of the times every change is perceived as having an agenda.
The Rev. Paul Hooker, a task force member and executive presbyter/stated clerk for St. Augustine Presbytery, pressed for Foundations. Hooker, a member of the Advisory Committee on the Constitution (ACC), said of the task forces revision, If its going to fail, then I want to fail with the best thing we can do.
To aid the church in comparing and contrasting Foundations and the current Chapters 1-4, Doska Ross, the Office of the General Assemblys manager of polity guidance and training, said the two proposals will published in a side-by-side format.
The revised Form of Government will be first sent to the ACC for its feedback. The entire proposed revision, which is still being worked on by the task force, will be released to the public, along with advisory handbooks, by Sept. 1.
======================================= You are currently subscribed to the PCUSANEWS email list of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
To unsubscribe, send a blank message to
mailto:PCUSANEWS-unsubscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org.
To update your email address, send your old email address and your new one to mailto:PCUSANEWS-owner@halak.pcusa.org.
For questions or comments, send an email to mailto:PCUSANEWS-owner@halak.pcusa.org.
To learn more, visit http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 100 Witherspoon Street Louisville, KY 40202 (888) 728-7228