wfn.org | Hearings Focus on Continuing Sabbatical or Deleting G-6.0106b

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

GA99035 
21-June-1999 
 
           Hearings on Fidelity and Chastity Provisions 
      Focus on Continuing Sabbatical or Deleting G-6.0106b  
 
 
FORT WORTH-Open hearings on overtures relating to the fidelity and chastity 
provisions of the Book of Order (G-6.0106b) focused on whether to continue 
the sabbatical and perhaps hold unity and diversity conferences in 
presbyteries, or to send an amendment to the presbyteries to delete G- 
6.0106b from the constitution.   
     The hearings were held Monday in the Church Orders and Ministry 
Committee meeting at the 211th General Assembly. 
     Seven persons spoke in favor of deleting G-6.0106b, nine against. 
Among those speaking for deleting G-6.0106b was Janie Spahr, lesbian 
activist, who on Sunday received a Woman of Faith Award. Among those 
speaking against deleting was Jack Haberer, former moderator of The 
Coalition, which has opposed the ordination of practicing gays and 
lesbians.   
     Spahr, a member of Redwoods Presbytery, told the committee, "Amendment 
B (as G- 6.0106b was originally called) is killing lesbian, gay, bisexual 
and transgendered people.  The church is participating in our deaths.  What 
I mean by that, is that Amendment B is an exclusive policy.  It says that 
we cannot serve.  In doing that, is says that we are less than.  Saying 
that people are less than promotes violence.  We ask children, why did you 
go into San Francisco and New York or Chicago and beat up lesbian and gay 
people, and they say, because our church tells us they are bad, that they 
are promiscuous, that they're terrible people.   
     "Thirty-three percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered 
children commit suicide.  The church is about life and Christian living. 
It is about gathering people into the body of Christ." 
     Haberer, who said he was one of the six framers of the call to 
sabbatical, said the two years of debate about the fidelity and chastity 
provisions "have caused us to hear and speak a lot but also to learn a 
lot."  But, he said, while in those years, "we were always under the 
specter of counting votes.  We asked the denomination to take a time out. 
But we thought that could become an open door for further conversation and 
learning."  He said the Unity and Diversity Conference held at the end of 
April in Atlanta, "helped us do that," and he urged the committee to 
continue the sabbatical and the dialogue. 
     Susie Smith, a minister alternate commissioner from Foothills 
Presbytery, said she pastors a church formed in the seventies as an 
alternative church for walking wounded .  "Our church has a tremendous 
ministry to these people," she said.  "Today the walking wounded are gays 
and lesbians. They do everything in the church--except serve as elders and 
deacons."  She said she held a confirmation class.  "I had to look at one 
lesbian couple with a daughter.  I had to say, your daughter can serve as 
an elder or deacon but you cannot."  She said she knew what it must have 
been like to serve as a pastor during slavery and have to say to blacks, 
"You can sit in the balcony, but you cannot come down." 
     Bruce Powell, a minister from the Presbytery of Charlotte,  spoke 
against deleting G- 6.0106b from the perspective of the church's mission 
partners.  He said they ask, "Why are we debating something that the 
Scriptures speak so clearly on?  Why are we not engaged in the mission of 
the church?"  He said to the committee, "Don't embarrass us on a world wide 
level again" by sending an amendment to the presbyteries to delete 
G-6.0106b. 
     On the two overtures to amend G-6.0106b, all six speakers were against 
the issue.  Julius Poppinga, an elder from New Jersey, said in part, "I 
wish I could see an answer to it.  Amendment B does not exclude anybody. 
Repentance is the key.  That means some have to confess something they 
don't consider sin, but that's a matter of theology." 
 
Bill Lancaster 

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