wfn.org | Confessional test stricken down (revised)

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

Note #7081 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

06-March-2002
02088

(Note: In an earlier version of this story, the Presbyterian News Service cited language from the complainant's brief as though it were part of the PJC decision. The PJC did not write its own decision, but affirmed the complainant's brief.)

Confessional test stricken down

PJC: Church can't require leaders to endorse theological statement

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - The Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) of a Florida presbytery ruled last week that a church session may not require its ordained leaders to subscribe to the specific theological tenets of a confession drafted by the session.

Central Florida Presbytery's PJC ruled unanimously that the session of First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian does not have the authority to amend confessional statements or to bind church officers to theological standards apart from the ordination vows in the denomination's Book of Order as a prerequisite for ordination or installation.

The commission unanimously sustained all but one of the complaints of Norman Blessing, an elder on the session of 240-member First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian, FL, whose session approved a confessional statement last May 22 urging sessions and presbyteries to refuse to ordain, install or employ anyone who would not affirm four theological tenets.

The PJC issued no written decision, but in a letter dated Feb. 20 said it had unanimously sustained all but one of Blessing's complaints. On that issue - his objection to being excluded from a session meeting -  the Rev. Dale Heaton, of Titusville, FL, moderator of the PJC, said no ruling was necessary because it has long been "taken for granted"  that a session member may not be excluded from a session meeting. 

"The brief is a part of the decision," said Heaton. "All the things in the brief were sustained except what was noted."

The decision probably will be appealed to the PJC of the Synod of the South- Atlantic. A protest was filed yesterday by some members of the presbytery.

J. Christy Wilson III of Orlando, the attorney representing the Sebastian church, is recommending that it seek a review of Heaton's participation on the PJC. 

The PJC's decision is eliciting outrage from some in the Confessing Church Movement (CCM), a loose coalition of conservative churches whose sessions have adopted confessional statements typically affirming three beliefs:  that Jesus Christ is solely Lord and the only agent of salvation; that the Bible is infallible; and that sexual activity is appropriate only within heterosexual marriage.

The Sebastian church added a fourth: that church leaders "are called to uphold these confessions and to be people who are chaste in singleness and faithful within the covenant of marriage."

The commission ordered the church to rescind the confessional statement, citing two sections of the constitution (G-18.0201 and G-14.0207b). The first lays out a national process for amending confessional documents; the other lists questions that must be asked during ordination.

It said a session may not require affirmation of the statement as a prerequisite for ordination or for installation of members, nor may it make the demand of ministers seeking employment.  "This requirement could result in discrimination against non-ordained employees in ministry positions," the PJC's statement reads.

It also ordered that the decision be printed in the Sebastian church's newsletter in an article enumerating the ordination questions specified in G-14.0207b.

In an interview with the Presbyterian News Service, Blessing said the session's confession was less a theological statement than a political gesture directed at the 2001 General Assembly, which was to take up the question of the ordination of homosexuals. He did not attend the meeting at which the confession was adopted. He was excluded from a subsequent meeting after he refused to affirm the statement.

"If you want to make a statement of faith, no problem," Blessing said shortly after the Feb. 20 decision was handed down," but if you want to make a confession, this is not the way to go about it."

His lawyers argued - and the PJC agreed - that confessions must approved by two General Assemblies and by a two-thirds vote of presbyteries. 

Blessing told PNS that the document adopted by the Sebastian church was a paraphrase of a few historic statements in the PC(USA)'s Book of Confessions, which comprises half of the constitution. "Why couldn't the session have used what the church has already included in its authentic teachings?" he asked.

David Coventry Smith, John Coventry Smith and Alan Pickering, Blessing's attorneys, specifically objected to the second item in the Sebastian document, which describes Holy Scripture as "the revealed Word of the triune God, and the church's only infallible rule of faith and life."

They argued that the 1969 General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America replaced the phrase, "only infallible rule of faith and practice," with this language: "unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church Universal, and God's Word to you." The revised language was retained in the ordination vows when the United Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in the United States reunited in 1983.

They said the constitution ascribes "infallibility" only to Jesus Christ, and that the witness of Scripture is always to Christ, the "living Word."

Blessing maintained that Presbyterians have a right to freedom of religious belief within the bounds of the Reformed faith, and that his religious beliefs are consistent with the vows he "undertook on becoming a church officer."

Wilson - who represented the Sebastian church and has recommended that it appeal this decision - argued that the PJC overlooked two things: that "Confessing" churches like Sebastian are not trying to adopt new confessions or amend existing ones, but to witness to the essential truths of the church's historic confessions; and that the constitution contains criteria for ordained leadership other than those addressed by the ordination questions. He specifically cited G-0106.b, the clause requiring fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness.

"The church is called upon to confess in conformity with our confessions," he said, referring to the Confessing Church Movement. "And this issue is very important to a large percentage of our churches, who are attempting to call the church back to its historical roots, the tenets of the Reformed tradition, which they believe have been obscured as of late.

"The General Assembly has refused to define the essential tenets, which is why it is up to individual churches - or groups of churches - to say what is important for them. That is what the Confessing Church Movement has done."

Wilson noted that bodies making ordination decisions traditionally are treated with "great deference" in church cases.

David C. Smith, one of Blessings' attorneys, said the crux of the case is the intent of those who draft statements independent of the wider church and ask members who do not agree to withdraw from the congregation.

"In this particular case, the confession was used as a means of exclusion, to exclude people not only from the session, but from the membership of the church," he said, noting that Blessing and another church member were told to endorse the statement's four tenets or "peaceably withdraw," which is language that is drawn from a footnote attached to G-6.0108b which addresses the freedom of conscience of church officers.  The provision applies specifically to matters judged "indispensable in doctrine or Presbyterian government."

On March 5, some members of Central Florida Presbytery signed a formal objection to the PJC's decision. It charges that the Sebastian church's statement is not in conflict with the constitution, because it makes no attempt to amend the confessional documents of the church; that in G-9.0102b, the constitution grants governing bodies, including sessions, the right to "frame symbols of faith, bear testimony against error in doctrine and immorality in life (and) resolve questions of doctrine and discipline"; and that qualifications for ordination or installation go beyond affirmative answers to the nine questions set forth in G-14.0207.

The protesters also argued that the Sebastian resolution contains no doctrinal errors and does reflect the session's dedication to its task.

A protest requires no response from the PJC.

The Rev. Howard Edington, the pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Orlando, FL, the largest church in Central Florida Presbytery and one of the nation's first to adopt a "confessing" statement, said the First Church session intends to stand in solidarity with its counterpart in Sebastian. He said First Church may redirect its financial resources from the presbytery to the Sebastian church's legal defense - although the synod PJC could enjoin such action.

The Rev. Eleanor Lea, the pastor of the Sebastian church, said its session probably will file an appeal of the PJC decision, but the session has not yet voted.
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