| MEMO to the celebrants |
| Written by Jack Haberer, Outlook editor | ||||||||||
| Monday, 13 June 2011 20:10 | ||||||||||
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As editor of a magazine that speaks to the whole church, I feel compelled to talk with Presbyterian friends in particular groupings of conviction – while allowing the rest to overhear the conversation. I begin with those celebrating the adoption of Amendment 10-A. In the next issue, I’ll write to those grieving its adoption. Finally, I’ll address those who stand in the middle. In the world of politics, “to the victor belong the spoils.” So explained New York Senator William L. Marcy in 1832 after President Andrew Jackson replaced all White House staff members of his predecessor and foe John Quincy Adams. However, as Jackson and every subsequent president discovered, to the victor also belong the obligations of leadership. The adoption of Amendment 10-A, the “joyfully submit” amendment, produced a different kind of victor and vanquished. Those of you who have sought the freedom to ordain lesbian and gay persons to the offices of deacon, elder and minister of Word and Sacrament have prevailed over those whose opposition has held sway till now. The “fidelity-chastity” ordination obligation will soon be replaced. Congratulations go to you who celebrate this action. If “perseverance” were listed as a fruit of the Spirit (uh, it is!), then to you belongs a whole orchard. Ever since 1978/79, when General Assemblies adopted the Definitive Guidance that homosexual practice is not compatible with ordained service, you have pressed, pleaded and prayed for that to change. After repeated, failed attempts to eliminate the prohibition, your persistence has brought about this change. Since that breakthrough, most of you have been muting your celebrations in deference to those across the aisle — also to your credit. Nevertheless, your harvest-joy is palpable. Do take note that among those grieving adoption of 10-A are many who also have persevered. Yes, some have left for pastures green, but the vast majority have hung in with you while disagreeing with you. What’s more, they’ve not been naïve. They have known of nearby congregations disregarding the rules, ordaining lesbian and gay members as elders and deacons. Yet most of them have elected, in the spirit of forbearance, to forego filing disciplinary charges. To you belongs credit, also, for learning along the way. The 1991 GA received a task force’s study report that suggested that all sex between consenting adults is acceptable in the sight of God, as long as it is marked by “justice-love.” The GA repudiated the report by a well-deserved 95 percent. In 1999, most of you also repudiated unbridled hedonism by adopting your own Statement of Sexual Ethics: “More Light Presbyterians envisions that Christian sexual ethics marked by covenantal fidelity shall be the standard for all Presbyterians, irrespective of sexual orientation.” To you also belongs the cost of victory. Earning the right to follow your consciences means that the consciences of many others now are being violated. Will you try to leverage your new freedom to produce a mandate to which they must now subscribe? Or will you respect their convictions when it comes to choosing their leaders? Will your freedom to say yes defend their freedom to say no? To you belongs the need to jettison arguments poorly presented. Face it. While some biblical and theological scholars have shaped credible cases for allowing greater latitude in discerning individuals’ callings, some foolish arguments have been advanced, too. “God doesn’t care what goes on in bedrooms.” Nonsense. “If only you’d get to know us, you’d support us.” Flimsy. “The rest of you are just homophobes.” Unfair. Neither minimizing nor sentimentalizing nor demonizing has won over the opposition. In fact, the recent voting margin change has come primarily via attrition of voters on the other side (some have left; others have lost the heart to fight). Lest you rest on your laurels, keep in mind that the church’s most intense debates over Christology came after the Nicean Council (of 325 A.D.) “settled” the question. So too, now is the time to make your case to the church and to do so intelligently and graciously. To you belongs a new season of leadership. Please exercise it with intelligence and grace, yea, with energy, imagination and love – to the glory of God. —JHH Your Responses (5)
David McCann
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Ada, Oklahoma Reuel Howe, your definition for Word of God may be larger than scripture, however, nFOG clearly defines teh Word of God as scripture as it bears witness to Jesus Christ. We would all do well to read nFOG carefully, since we will soon be guided by it. |
Reuel Howe Jr.
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Lewisburg, WV The WORD of God is far too large to be contained only in the words of Scripture. The formative verse is "Look, I am doing a new thing, can you not see it?" We are to use the creative intellegent discerning minds with which God has blessed us, to try as hard as we are able to see the new things that God is constantly doing. God says, "Come follow me. Love as I love you. Trust me to lead into new lands and to be with you as you go; a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night." Let us live out God's life with all the love, justice and mercy that we can develop. |
David McCann
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Ada, Oklahoma Jack, I appreciate your wise words. But let me take the other side, for sake od discussioin, of whether 10-A does what many say it does. We are to "joyfully submit to Jesus Christ." I would emphasize the word "submit", which means we do Christ's will, not ours; we follow Christ's commands, not ours. The new FOG, makes it clear that Christ's commands are contained in scripture, the Word of God, and emphasizes we are to follow them. If not, then we are to be censured: "it is incumbant upon these officers, and upon the whole Church, in whose name they act, to censure or cast out the erroneous and scandalous, observing, in all cases, the rules contained in the Word of God." (F-3.0103) It seems clear to me that if anyone in the church violates God's commands as contained in scripture, then that person is to be censured, cast out of the church. If we were to follow the spirit and the letter of God's Word and nFOG, we would be compelled to censure and cast out those who ordain practicing homosexuals, since a part of God's Word commands against it, and there is nothing in scripture that condones or supports it. I seriously do not anticipate that anyone will be censured, because we have demonstrated in recent years that we Presbyterians do not and will not abide by the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church nor the Bible. And we are loathe to hold anyone accountable for un-Constitutional and un-biblical behavior. Of course, all of this begs the question why even have a Constiturion? |
Walter L Taylor
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Oak Island, NC Heresy is not free. It has a price, a cost. The victorious who have triumphed over fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness now get to see what that cost is. It will come in the form of churches leaving, funds not given to PC(USA) structures, and a general descent of the PC(USA) increasingly into the darkness of post-Christian cuture. At the next GA there will be a movement (probabaly triumphant, ultimately) to "redefine" marriage to allow for PC(USA) endorse of homosexual marriage. There is not nor will there be peace in the future. Only a continued descent into the culture and theology of death. May God preserve his faithful in the dark days ahead in the PC(USA). |
p.w. gregory
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lambertville nj A core fact of physics is that stuff, matter, things will always find the lowest center of gravity to settle and rest. The same is true as applied to human creations as well, religious denominations for example. After the stress, heat, flux, crises caused by 10-A, new FoG, and we have yet to get to the ticking bomb in the room, Board of Pensions and same-sex partner benefits, the institution will take time but will find a center of gravity, if you will, to rest. I think the center of gravity in the reconstituted PCUSA, post 2011, will be per-capita and church property dynamics, the give and take, dynamic tensions as these mattters get worked out. We will see how that those issues will work themselves out over time. I am on record in other posts that I believe the PCUSA, as well as other older mainline denominations will be going though what in the business world is called mergers and consolidation in the next decade, UCC, CC(DC) and maybe RCA as most likely destinations. This is due to socio-economic, cultural, demographic trends already in the culture and cannot be put back in the tube, sort of speak, and outside the PCUSA power to control or influence. That being said, my comments to my more conservative brothers is read the new FoG and 10-A, as much of a critic as I have been on both, and believe me, there is much to find lacking. I ask what can you not do now, or how are you inhibited in mission, practice, or behaviors, as you were prior to 11 July. Seems to me you can pretty much do as you have done in times past. To my more progressive or liberal friends, remember it is a Constitution, not a suicide-pact. The fact you may feel compelled to take great leaps of faith of the cliff into the great unknown in quest of the social-justice flavor of the month, does not imply, bind or compact that I, my church, or anybody else for that matter is so compelled to follow you off the cliff. In that case may you find that center of gravity. But remember how gravity tends to work. |
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