Re.:  Why not replace (or retain) G-6.0106b? by Barbara Wheeler:

It is not my practice to abstain from voting.   On any given issue, having heard the arguments, for and against, pro and con, rarely am I unable to make a choice between yea and nay.   I respect the right of people to abstain, and I’m glad Maj. Henry Martyn Robert* made that option available to us, but it’s an option I don’t often employ.

            But of late, I’ve been toying with the option of asking my Presbytery (New Hope) to officially abstain from voting on the overture to replace the language of Amendment B with the language proposed at the General Assembly meeting in San Jose.  It’s not that I don’t have an opinion on the matter before us.  It’s that I don’t think we’re ready to vote.

            This became obvious to me at our most recent Presbytery meeting.    During the course of the meeting, we were invited to participate in an exercise which allowed us to express our opinions on one of the divisive issues of the day, but to express that opinion using an instrument called “A Gradient of Agreement”.   Thus, instead of being asked to agree or disagree with the given proposition, we were invited to place ourselves at a point along a spectrum, on the assumption that while some of us stand at polar extremes on these issues, there are others of us scattered along the various points in between.

            Once the ballots were distributed, we were asked to consider the following statement: Resolved--The Presbyterian Church (USA) should ordain practicing homosexuals to the office of Minister of word and sacrament, Elder and Deacon.  Then, we were to indicate, along a “gradient of agreement”, our response to that statement.   While you might want to Google “gradient of agreement” to learn more about this strategy for decision making,  for now, what you need to know is that we had eight (8) options from which to choose. 

            And so when our Presbytery gathered at the Vance-Granville Community College on a sunny day in October, the 205 commissioners placed themselves along the spectrum in the following way:

            Political candidates, of course, are all about winning and losing, and sadly, this denominational debate seems to have been mostly about that, too.   But when I look at the spread of numbers, what it tells me is that my Presbytery is not even close to being ready to vote on the issue at the center of this exercise, not when 59 and 62 (approximately 60% of us), have drawn our line in the sand at opposite ends of the spectrum.   As the moderator of a Session, if I sensed this level of division over a matter of any importance at all, I’d suggest that we are not yet ready to move forward, and that we need to spend more time in prayer and Bible study, in consensus building, and in discovering why brothers and sisters in Christ see things so very differently.

            I have long contended that we Presbyterians are a much better deliberative body than we are a legislative body.   We have the capacity to think deeply, to ponder the intricacy and nuance of sensitive issues, to appreciate the insights and observations of others, to learn and grow together as we discuss and debate.   But at meetings of the General Assembly, the clock ticks, and adjournment looms, and even when we have reached no consensus on matters that threaten to divide us, commissioners are asked to vote, yea or nay, up or down, and depending on the vote, and your point of view, there are winners and losers.

            Then, of course, these matters are sent to the Presbyteries, where we are asked to do the same thing, to vote yea or nay, up or down, whether we are ready or not.  And from where I sit, often on the back row of my Presbytery meetings, I don’t think we’re ready.

            Granted, the overture we are being asked to consider is not written in the stark terms used in our exercise.   But that is how it will be interpreted, by the advocates and the opponents of our current ordination standards.  Actually, I wish the language we are being asked to consider had been the language of the original Amendment B.   But it wasn’t.   And so here we are again, being asked to be legislators, when a legislative solution will only yield another crop of winners and losers.

            Thus, my inclination is to abstain, mostly because I don’t think either result will do a thing to bring health and vitality to the body of Christ, partially as an expression of weariness over a debate that cannot be legislated away, and also because I know that in my own little corner of the Presbyterian world, we’re not ready, not by a long shot.  And that, I think, is something on which my neighbors in the Presbytery might agree.

  
*of Robert’s Rules fame. 

Submitted by Ed McLeod, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Raleigh, NC.