wfn.org | New Stated Clerk Seeks to Bring "Vision and Perspective"

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

12-February-1997 
97077 
 
     New Stated Clerk Seeks to Bring "Vision and Perspective" 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-- Offering a vision of how Presbyterians can gain a broader 
perspective on the issues that confront the denomination is the key task 
the new General Assembly stated clerk sees for himself. 
 
     That kind of synthesis -- tying the past, present and future together 
in ways that enhance understanding -- is laid out in Kirkpatrick's "Vision 
for the Office of the General Assembly," a document he prepared shortly 
after his election last summer that was endorsed by the Committee on the 
Office of the General Assembly (COGA) last fall.  
 
     Kirkpatrick believes providing vision and perspective to Presbyterians 
is central to the ongoing work of the Office of the General Assembly, which 
offers a wide range of services to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  Those 
services include preserving the church's history,  interpreting its 
constitutional questions,  organizing -- and now reshaping -- it's annual 
General Assemblies,  supporting its ecumenical relationships and expressing 
its public stands for human rights, religious freedom and justice. 
 
      Kirkpatrick is concerned that there is so much focus on Amendment B 
(the so-called "fidelity and chastity" amendment) and not enough attention 
to two other amendments that he believes have far more potential impact on 
the life of the church and its ministry. 
 
     "What worries me is that there is so much focus on Amendment B," said 
Kirkpatrick, shortly after his first 100 days in office, "that folks may be 
missing the other two amendments [C and I] -- amendments that are 
pioneering fundamental new directions for the life of the church.  We need 
to give spiritual and emotional energy to these." 
 
     Amendment C, if passed, would commit the PC(USA) to implementation of 
the Church of Christ Uniting (COCU).  Under the COCU "covenanting" plan, 
the eight member churches would officially recognize each other's pastors 
and would open their celebrations of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to 
each other's members.  In the most controversial aspect of the agreement, 
the Presbyterian Church would be represented by a commission of ministers 
and elders rather than by a single designated "bishop" in representative 
COCU events. 
 
     Amendment I (actually a package of proposals), if passed, would 
broaden the responsibilities and rights of commissioned lay pastors to 
include duties only previously given to ministers of the Word and 
sacrament, such as performing weddings and baptisms, moderating session 
meetings and having a vote at presbytery meetings. 
 
     "What is not at stake if Amendment B fails is the church favoring the 
ordination of gay and lesbian persons.  We still have authoritative 
interpretation," said Kirkpatrick, referring to a 1978 General Assembly 
policy statement that  prohibits the ordination of gay and lesbian 
Presbyterians.  "And if it passes, we have not changed our basic policy. 
 ..." 
 
     But, he added, "People are making this a life-and-death struggle by 
interpreting more into the amendment than what it means, than it actually 
means in the life of the church." 
 
     Kirkpatrick concedes that codifying the prohibition of ordination of 
gays and lesbians in the denomination's "Book of Order" does make it harder 
to change in the future.  But he points out that the PC(USA)'s stance on 
the ordination of homosexuals has not changed since 1978 -- and that the 
vote on this amendment will not change it either.  "The church has not 
supported the ordination of gays and lesbians," he said, referring to 
consistent reaffirmations of the "authoritative interpretation" by 
subsequent General Assemblies, most recently in 1993.  "But the 
Presbyterian Church also believes that the Church of Jesus Christ needs all 
people -- heterosexual and homosexual -- within its membership." 
 
     The crucial task for the church,  he said, is to take care of those 
who will be hurt and angry when the final vote on Amendment B is 
determined.  "There will be people who will be deeply hurt ... and it's 
going to take an extra measure of grace [to care for them], whichever way 
[the vote] goes," he said. 
 
     That "extra measure of grace" is something Kirkpatrick has drafted 
into the OGA's vision statement.  He wrote about -- and talks frequently 
about -- building community and restoring trust.  And the new clerk insists 
those ideals are part of what he calls his "passion," or his "covenant with 
the church," what he has expressed in the OGA paper in a section called 
"Caring for the Whole Church." 
 
     "We need to be affirming the role of the Presbyterian Church at every 
level," Kirkpatrick said, "to get people excited ... about the fundamental 
vision behind our calling." 
 
     And that's where Kirkpatrick sees the multiple functions of the OGA as 
critically important, whether the need is constitutional interpretation or 
reminding Presbyterians that the Department of History in Philadelphia may 
be useful in drawing lessons from the church's past.  For instance, he 
doesn't hesitate to point out that a feud about standards for the training 
of lay pastors -- what's currently being debated  in Amendment I -- was 
central to the denominational split in the 1800s that produced the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 
 
     Another element of  the clerk's "covenant" is "building an organic, 
reconnected church" with a  "strengthening of the bonds between the various 
governing bodies," a building of "new and positive relationships between 
Presbyterian organizations not accountable to a governing body and the 
wider church," an encouragement of "trust and cooperation among General 
Assembly entities" and an effort to educate the church about the "biblical 
vision of the body of Christ." 

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