wfn.org | "Fidelity and Integrity" Amendment Opponents Meet

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

7-October-1997 
97390 
 
     "Fidelity and Integrity" 
    Amendment Opponents Meet 
 
    by Julian Shipp 
 
DALLAS--Strategizing to defeat passage of Amendment A, opponents of the 
commonly called "fidelity and integrity" amendment met here Sept. 29-30 for 
"Gathering of Presbyterians II," a meeting sponsored by the Presbyterian 
Coalition. 
 
    Composed of approximately 1,000 registered participants and observers 
from more than 136 of the denomination's 173 presbyteries, the Gathering 
was convened by the Rev. David L. Dobler, moderator of the 205th General 
Assembly (1993), as well as the Rev. Roberta Hestenes, chair of the 
Assembly Committee on Ordination and Human Sexuality of the 208th General 
Assembly (1996), which proposed Amendment B -- the commonly called 
"fidelity and chastity" amendment that is now G-6.0106b of the "Book of 
Order" -- and the Rev. Thomas W. Gillespie, president of Princeton 
Theological Seminary. 
 
    Presbyteries will be deliberating and voting on Amendment A from early 
winter until the General Assembly meets next June in Charlotte, N.C. This 
vote is the latest salvo in a more than 20- year interdenominational 
conflict over whether or not to ordain sexually active homosexuals and, 
more recently, whether or not to ordain sexually active but unmarried 
heterosexuals. Passed last spring, the present G-6.0106b _ familiarly 
called the "fidelity and chastity" amendment (Amendment B) -- distinctly 
prohibits both. 
 
    But opponents of Amendment A say the debate this time is not just about 
sexual fidelity but about a spiritual obligation to further the peace, 
unity and purity of the Presbyterian Church. They say Amendment A 
trivializes the processes of the church and the deliberations of its 
presbyteries. Additionally,  they argue, Amendment A undermines the 
institution of Christian marriage, sets aside biblical standards of sexual 
morality (including chastity in singleness) and encourages people to do 
what is right in their own eyes -- in other words, moral relativism. 
 
    Regional groups met during the Dallas session to plan how to make those 
points in their presbyteries. Seminars at the gathering covered many 
topics, including how to teach, preach, and support biblical sexual ethics 
in a morally confused culture, how to prayerfully support the Word and the 
Holy Spirit at work among Christians and how to participate in God's 
reformation of the church in the 21st century. 
 
    "There is so much wrong with Amendment A, there is sufficient reason 
for everyone to vote no," said the Rev. David L. Dobler, keynote speaker 
during the opening plenary Sept. 29. 
 
    Yet, while clearly critical of Amendment A, Dobler cautioned against 
giving credence to those who would split the church over the ordination 
issue, likening their reaction to "waking up in the middle of the night and 
smelling smoke. 
 
    "There are likely people in that house [the church] you could hardly 
run away from," Dobler said. "If you know that down the hall in the other 
bedroom there is another family member in it, do you just leave then and 
run away? Heavens no! If there are people to be saved, we save all those 
folks at the risk of our own lives. And there's no sense and no honor and 
no holiness in smelling smoke, not caring about the rest and cutting out." 
 
    Dobler said a recent Presbyterian Panel survey indicates 75 percent of 
PC(USA) elders oppose the ordination of self-affirmed, practicing 
homosexuals. However, Dobler condemned the practice of congregations 
withholding either per capita or mission funds as a means of impacting 
denominational policy, going so far as to call for the destruction of a 
resolution on per capita withholding that was included in a resource 
booklet distributed during the Gathering. 
 
    "We do not need a formula for withholding funds," Dobler said. "There 
is no holiness from withholding. The desired effect will not be achieved by 
withholding funds. And there is absolutely no reason for anybody to doubt 
where their mission money is going and how it is going to be used." 
 
    Theresa Latini, executive director of  One By One, a PC(USA)-affiliated 
ministry designed to address the needs of those  "in conflict with their 
sexuality," said she is a former lesbian who "abandoned her lifestyle after 
she accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior." Latini said she believes 
the current homosexual struggle in the life of the church can in fact 
become a blessing for the entire denomination -- but only if members remain 
open to God's will. 
 
    "There are those in our congregations who have been cruelly wounded and 
who need to know the healing touch of our loving Heavenly Father," Latini 
said. "Some of those individuals battle homosexual desire and temptation. 
Because of what they have seen and heard, they may feel that God has 
abandoned them in their struggle. We need to minister both the grace and 
truth of Jesus Christ to encourage them on their journey toward wholeness." 
 
    Speaking during the evening plenary Sept. 29, the Rev. Thomas W. 
Gillespie cited James 1:19 and urged his audience to "be doers of the word 
of God and not hearers only," regarding the ordination debate. He said God 
is calling people to bear a faithful witness in the midst of a confused 
secular society, one where "truth has become just an opinion and morality 
just a preference. 
 
    "I admire a church that witnesses to its culture out of a deep 
confessional conviction," Gillespie said. "And I desire to be part of a 
church that can do the same. Yet we are drowning in a sea of sexual 
liberalism in our culture. And in the midst of all this, what do we get? 
Amendment A. Let's call it what it is -- amoral A." 
 
    "I believe the strength of the PC(USA) is its cultural awareness," said 
the Rev. Roberta Hestenes. "I value that. I am not a separatist who 
believes that by withdrawing we will accomplish what God wants us to do. 
But the danger in a culturally sensitive church ... is that it is always in 
danger of becoming a culturally compromised church. Our church is very 
sick. But I don't believe it's fatal." 
 
     On Sept. 30, the format of the Gathering changed significantly. Event 
organizers told the Presbyterian News Service that a significant number of 
participants, particularly 20 to 40-year-olds wanted an opportunity to 
openly air their comments regarding Amendment A, the ordination issue and 
the future of the church. To that end, Hestenes moderated such a discussion 
during the Gathering's final hours. 
 
    Options cited by Hestenes for the future of the PC(USA) regarding the 
ordination issue were "defend, withdraw, mobilize, confess, separate and 
reinvent." After a period of reflection in small groups, speakers at the 
microphones were given two minutes to explain their choice from among the 
possibilities. 
 
    "I believe everything needs to be on the table," said the Rev. Mark 
Toone of Gig Harbor, Wash. "We need to talk about financial sanctions; we 
need to talk about schism. We need to talk about the options rather than to 
continue to try to keep a lid on this. There has been much talk of unity 
this week, and I hate to say it, but I believe that it is at best arrogant 
and at worst idolatrous to equate the unity of this particular organization 
-- which is, after all, a human construct -- with the unity of the body of 
Christ. They are not the same thing." 
 
    "We essentially agree that there are two opposing positions in the 
church which are irreconcilable and we feel ultimately it might be good to 
separate, but only as an amicable divorce so that we could have two 
separate denominations dividing assets in a way that would be agreeable to 
both," said the Rev. Allen J. Meenan of Hollywood, Calif. "We felt that by 
taking the position of being a confessing church initially, that might give 
us time to build infrastructure so that in the event that we might have to 
separate, we would do it together." 
 
    "The group that I was with felt very strongly that the one thing we 
absolutely cannot do is withdraw," said the Rev. Larry Pittman of Concord, 
N.C. "The one thing that we pretty much had a consensus on was to mobilize. 
A lot of the problem we have is that some of the liberal folks in our 
denomination who have not been all that acceptable to the congregations as 
pastors have gone into the bureaucracy of the church, and that's what's 
wrong. We need to promote conservatives within those positions in the 
church." 
 
    "We believe being a confessing church within the larger church is the 
next step because we need to draw a distinction on how we are being 
represented by the denomination and what we believe as Christians," said 
the Rev. Cynthia Reyes-Fillmore of Monrovia, Calif.  "Then beyond that, 
it's whatever you think God wants us to do. There is still room in that 
option for people to continue to fight and mobilize as they feel led. But 
we also need to be open to the new thing God is doing. In my prayer time 
over the last few years I have seen consistently a butterfly coming out of 
the cocoon. I believe God wants to do a new thing and we don't know yet 
what that is. But we must be open." 
 
    Following approximately two hours of sub airing, the Rev. Jerry Andrews 
of Chicago, a Presbyterian Coalition spokesperson, said in his closing 
remarks that Coalition members desire "to soundly defeat Amendment A next 
year." 
 
    "If you want to take a slogan home with you to your session with regard 
to Amendment A, `Ninety-seven in '97, Ninety-eight in '98,'" Andrews said, 
referring to the number of presbyteries that affirmed Amendment B this year 
and the number the Coalition hopes for next year to defeat Amendment A. 
 
    Proponents of Amendment A argue the present debate is not about sexual 
fidelity as much as it is about fidelity to a theological tradition that 
places grace before verdict and about the preservation of a growlingly 
segmented church. Amendment B, they say, deviates from Reformed 
understandings of sin, particularly sexual sin, scriptural rule and the 
role of the confessions. They also maintain it is divisive to order a 
solution now to an elemental debate that is so uncertain for many 
Presbyterians that the previous two General Assemblies have suggested 
virtually opposing amendments. 
 
    "We cannot live as a denomination if we have to resolve this one way or 
another," said the Rev. John Buchanan of Chicago, co-convener of the 
Covenant Network of Presbyterians (CNP), a group organized exclusively to 
support passage of Amendment A. "And in the long run, Amendment A gives us 
a better chance of holding together, of not driving people out of the 
church." 
 
    The Rev. Jack Haberer of Houston, Presbyterian Coalition co-moderator, 
said approximately $20,000 has been raised so far for the group's efforts 
since the 209th General Assembly (1997) in June. Haberer estimated a total 
budget of $200,000 to $300,000. 
 
    Andrews said that in addition to providing supporters with information 
booklets, Presbyterian Coalition officials will seek out leaders to 
continue the discussion in the years ahead. He said the Coalition also 
intends to engage in a "church-by-church, presbytery-by-presbytery and 
network-by- network process of seeking God's will for the denomination. 
 
    "It is premature to announce a strategy or even settle in on one," 
Andrews said. "We do not know it now. But it is not too soon to begin to 
think and to talk and to address others in peace and commitment so that we 
may hear God's voice." 

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