Editor’s note:  Three decisions handed down by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission on Tuesday, February 12, have generated much debate in the church.  Leslie Scanlon, the Outlook national reporter, presented an overview of the report.  The Constitutional Services Department of the Office of the General Assembly published an interpretation of the ruling.  Joan Gray, the Moderator of the General Assembly, has offered her own reflections.  In our continuing coverage of this action, we offer this and other guest commentaries prepared by some of our readers.

On February 11, the General Assembly Presbyterian Judicial Commission issued a pair of decisions addressing questions about the Authoritative Interpretation of G-6.0108 that was adopted by the 217th General Assembly in 2006.  These decisions have important implications in the life of the church, and have already generated many questions.

         The case of Buescher v. Presbytery of Olympia (Remedial Case 218-09) arose when Olympia Presbytery adopted a policy that “any violation of a mandate of the Book of Order (2005-2007) constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of reformed polity and thus presents a bar to ordination and installation.” 

         The GAPJC held that this policy was unconstitutional. In doing so, it strongly affirmed several core principles of G-6.0108 and the 2006 Authoritative Interpretation:

               Ordination standards are set by and for the whole church, and no session or presbytery can add to or ignore them (in the GAPJC’s words, “no lower governing body can constitutionally define, diminish, augment, or modify standards.”) An examining body must make a good faith effort to apply all of the standards of the church, honestly acknowledging any area in which an officer-elect departs from them.

                In their application of standards, sessions and presbyteries must examine each officer-elect on an individual, case-by-case basis, to determine whether any departure constitutes a failure to adhere to “essentials” of Reformed faith and polity (thus barring the candidate from office). This determination must be made in light of each candidate’s statement of faith, answers to questions during examination, demonstrated manner of life, experience under care, and the like. Declaring standards to be “essential” outside the context of a particular examination violates candidates’ freedom of conscience (G-1.0307) and the examining body’s duty to show forbearance in non-essentials (G-1.0305). 

The case of Bush v. Presbytery of Pittsburgh (Remedial Case 218-10) arose when Pittsburgh Presbytery adopted a statement similar to the policy struck down in Buescher. In Bush, the Synod PJC ruled that the policy was unconstitutional, but suggested that freedom of conscience is respected only in matters of belief (not behavior). On appeal, the GAPJC held that the SPJC correctly found the policy unconstitutional but erred in ruling out behavioral departures from standards.

         Had the GAPJC stopped there, the actions of the 217th General Assembly would have stood undisturbed. However, the GAPJC went on to hold that while behavioral departures may be permitted as a general matter, one standard is different — namely, the second sentence of G-6.0106b, which posits “the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness.” The GAPJC held that the church “has decided to single out this particular manner of life standard and require church-wide conformity to it for all ordained church officers.”  

         The Bush case has raised numerous questions about the nature of behavioral departures from standards, and the proper status of G-6.0106b.  These are discussed below.

Behavioral Departures from Standards

G-6.0108 makes clear that when a person is being examined for office, he or she may declare a principled objection to, and refusal to comply with, various ordination standards. In all cases, the examining body (session or presbytery) must give good faith consideration to such declarations (called “scruples”), showing respect for freedom of conscience. However, an examining body is not required to accept a person’s scruple; the body may reject it if it believes that the matter at issue is so important — that is, “essential” — it renders the candidate incapable of communion with the church (Adopting Act of 1729). 

         The GAPJC emphasized in Bush that determining whether a candidate has departed from “essentials” does not rest on any distinction between belief and behavior. Rather, “the church has required those who aspire to ordained office to conform their actions … to certain standards in those contexts in which the church has deemed conformity to be necessary or essential” (emphasis added). Moreover, in holding that the second sentence of G-6.0106b should be treated as an “essential,” the GAPJC noted that that sentence “stands in contrast to” G-6.0106a (which requires that candidates have a manner of life that is a demonstration of the Gospel) and the remainder of G-6.0106b (which requires that candidates lead a life in obedience to Scripture and conformity to our confessional standards). 

         The GAPJC’s recognition that behavioral departures may be permitted is nothing new; as discussed further below, it is consistent with centuries of Presbyterian practice. Indeed, it is consistent with the declaration in the Westminster Confession that “synods and councils … are not to be made the rule of faith or practice” (Book of Confessions § 6.175).

         Regrettably, the GAPJC’s decision contains some ambiguity in this regard that creates possibilities for misunderstanding. As noted above, the decision contains numerous, unequivocal statements that behavioral departures from standards do not necessarily disqualify a candidate for office. The decision cannot be read as prohibiting all behavioral departures unless these sentences are simply ignored. At the same time, however, the GAPJC quoted approvingly a passage from the SPJC decision in Bush suggesting that behavioral departures are not permitted:  “Under our polity, violations of behavioral standards are to be addressed through repentance and reconciliation, not by exception or exemption ...  G-6.0108 allows candidates to express disagreement with the wording or meaning of provisions of the Constitution, but does not permit disobedience of those behavioral standards.”

         This quotation is difficult to reconcile with all of the other statements in the decision that clearly permit behavioral departures from standards. However, these passages can be reconciled if we remember that examining bodies must consider two different types of departures from standards.

         In the first case, a candidate declares a “scruple” — that is, a principled objection to, and statement of intentional non-compliance with — a standard. In such cases, the examining body must determine whether the matter at issue is “essential” and, if it is not, must respect the dissenter’s freedom of conscience. A second, very different case arises when a candidate departs from a standard out of sheer human fallibility, while acknowledging that the standard is right. This is very common — none of us follows the Scripture and confessions fully, however much we might aspire to. In such cases, repentance or discipline (not exception or exemption) are the only proper responses. 

         That the SPJC meant the language quoted above to address the second type of case, rather than the first, is shown in the fact that it expressed this principle quite clearly in a decision that it handed down only three months later, in First Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of Washington — a decision that the GAPJC affirmed on the same day it issued its decision in Bush. In the Washington case, the SPJC made clear that it is impossible to apply all behavioral standards without exception, and that departures under G-6.0106b (relating, for example, to Sabbath observance or the charging of interest on loans) may be permitted. The SPJC used language very similar to its statement in Bush, with slight but meaningful revisions making clear the distinction noted above.  Given the fact that the SPJC issued both decisions within three months, and that the GAPJC affirmed the relevant passages from both cases on the very same day, one can reasonably conclude that the principle more carefully expressed in Washington is what our PJCs understood as the import of Bush as well.

         One wishes that our PJCs took greater care in writing their decisions (though their ability to do so is compromised by the requirement that they complete their decisions in the same few days they actually hear cases). Inartful or ambiguous drafting can too easily generate needless controversy. However, a fair reading of these decisions in their entirety permits only one conclusion: Our rules accept departures from behavioral standards when a candidate declares a principled objection and the examining body finds that it is not “essential” — but not when the candidate simply fails to live up to a standard that he or she acknowledges is right.

The question of “Essentials”

The Adopting Act of 1729, by which Presbyterianism in North America was firmly established, provided that ministers would have the freedom to depart from all but “essential and necessary” articles of the Westminster Standards.  That this freedom encompassed practice, as well as belief, is made clear in the fact that immediately upon adoption of the Act, several candidates were admitted to ministry after declaring that, contrary to the Westminster Standards, they would not follow the direction of civil authorities in ensuring that “all the Ordinances of God [were] duly settled, administered, and observed.”  This also was affirmed by the Plan of Reunion of 1758, when negotiations after a schism elicited repeated and emphatic recognition that “What is plain sin and plain duty in one’s account, is not so in another’s. … [W]e must not make terms of communion which Christ has not made, and we are convinced that he has not made every truth and every duty a term.”

         While the concept of “essentials” has long held a central place in Presbyterian polity, the church has consistently resisted efforts to define “essentials” in the abstract, outside the context of individual examinations. The few times this has been tried, the resulting divisions have led the church back to renewed appreciation for freedom of conscience — exactly as the 2006 General Assembly tried to do, in its Authoritative Interpretation of G-6.0108.

         In Bush, the GAPJC appears to have relied on a subtle, but critical, misunderstanding of Presbyterian law and tradition in this regard. In particular, the GAPJC turned what the Adopting Act of 1729 calls “essential and necessary” into something the church might deem to be “necessary or essential” — thereby suggesting that something might be found to be “necessary” even if it is not an “essential.” The GAPJC apparently felt that this would give meaning to the proviso in G-6.0108 that freedom of conscience is to be maintained so far as is possible “without infringing on the rights and views of others, and without obstructing the constitutional governance of the church.” However, the GAPJC plainly erred in this regard.

         While some have claimed that the “infringement/obstruction” proviso of G-6.0108 prohibits all behavioral departures from standards, that clearly isn’t true (and the GAPJC’s recognition that some behavioral departures are permitted should put the notion to rest). Our Historic Principles of Church Order (G-1.0304) declare “there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth and duty.” Because both belief and practice arise out of conscience and reflect our interpretation of Scripture, our constitutional guarantee of freedom of conscience necessarily applies to both. 

         The proviso in G-6.0108 makes sense only if it is understood as preventing a candidate from declaring a scruple with respect to the examination process itself — that is, declaring that he or she feels so strongly about a standard it will not be possible to consider anyone else’s scruples about it. Such a declaration would “infringe on the rights and views of others,” in denying them meaningful opportunity to declare matters of conscience, and would “obstruct the constitutional governance of the church” in denying our commitment to conscientious forbearance in future examinations.

         In giving the proviso of G-6.0108 broader scope, the GAPJC made a serious error, and undid much of the considered work of the 217th General Assembly. Two hundred years of Presbyterian history demonstrate that there will be no peace in the church until this error is corrected.

Making a non-essential “Essential”

While the GAPJC plainly held that behavioral departures from standards may be permitted, it also declared that the second sentence of G-6.0106b is different.  The GAPJC appears to have believed that this sentence is so specific, the church must have deemed it essential. However, that conclusion simply doesn’t follow. One can adopt a very clear standard without intending to dismantle the framework in which it is applied. 

         “Standards” and “conscience” are not alien principles hostile to each other.  Rather, they work together. Our standards were developed in reliance on the fundamental understanding, going back centuries, that they would be applied with respect for freedom of conscience. Had we not guaranteed freedom of conscience in our Constitution, the standards we adopted might be very different. 

         The penultimate sentence of G-6.0106b demonstrates that the church did not intend to override its historic commitment to conscience in adopting that section. G-6.0106b bars ordained service only by persons “refusing to repent” of departures from standards — and the confessions define “repentance” as an inward conviction of the wrongfulness of one’s acts (Book of Confessions §§ 4.081, 5.093-5.094, 6.082, 7.087).  The concluding language of G-6.0106b therefore brings us squarely back to respect for the individual’s conscience.

         Moreover, the very sentence that the GAPJC ruled “essential” in Bush reflects the perils in such pronouncements. In 1996, when it adopted G-6.0106b, General Assembly departed from our confessional definition of marriage as a relationship between “one man and one woman” (Book of Confessions §§ 6.131 and 6.133) and referred instead to “a man and a woman,” in order to reflect our belief today that remarriage after divorce should not bar persons from ordained service. Such a recent departure from confessional norms shows the fallacy in declaring the current standard so “essential” that persons who disagree with it are incapable of communion with the church.

         In any event, the GAPJC’s decision that the second sentence of G-6.0106b must be treated as an “essential” — the only “essential” that is clearly defined in Presbyterian law — reflects a remarkable distortion of the church’s priorities. Jesus’ teachings about fulfilment of the law through love and the Great Commission to go out and make disciples find no place here. Indeed, these are stated in such non-specific terms the GAPJC’s decision would appear to preclude treating them as “essentials.” Perhaps it is good that these have not been defined as “essentials,” as our internecine debates — now fed by the GAPJC’s decision in Bush — have made it extraordinarily difficult for the church to focus on them. However, one wonders if this is really what God thinks is important, or wills for the church.

Essential?

Conscience has aptly been called “the authority of the indwelling Word,” which “demands … not merely external obedience but an inner obedience, an obedience from the heart.” The Apostle Paul urged the early church to respect the individual conscience (Romans 14:1-13, Galatians 5:1-6, Colossians 2:16-23). John Calvin declared, “The whole case rests on this: if God is the sole lawgiver, men are not permitted to usurp the honor.”  The Westminster Confession of Faith warns that “making men the lords of our faith and conscience” is idolatrous, and prohibited by the First Commandment (Book of Confessions § 7.215). 

         Respecting conscience in the application of standards is not mere compromise, or pragmatism — rather, it reflects deep theological convictions. In healing an early schism in the 1740s, we Presbyterians recognized that freedom of conscience — the very thing that makes us Reformed Christians — is “an important article with us which we cannot any way dispense with.”

         Freedom of conscience and the practice of forbearance mean nothing unless they are respected on issues about which faithful Presbyterians disagree.  In Bush, the GAPJC elevated one, very contentious standard above all others — making conscience irrelevant and forbidding forbearance precisely where they matter most. In so doing, it frustrated the efforts of the 217th General Assembly to end thirty years of polarized debate. It substituted the judgment of 14 persons, working three days, for five years of labor by the Theological Task Force and the determination of more than 500 commissioners to General Assembly that its recommendations mark the way forward for the church. Sadly, one must now anticipate that the national debate over ordination standards, which saps the will and depletes the resources of this church, will continue. One can only hope that the GAPJC listens, the next time General Assembly tries to move the church beyond intractable conflict through a return to the historic processes by which past schisms have been averted or healed. The only real question is when.

DOUG NAVE is an attorney from New York City and a member of the board of directors of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians. At the recent GAJPC hearing, he spoke regarding the case Buescher v. Presbytery of Olympia, arguing that the presbytery’s resolution be struck down.

Endnotes

[1] First Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of Washington (SPJC Case No. 07.02) (Aug. 14, 2007), affirmed, GAPJC Remedial Case 218-15 (Feb. 11, 2008).

[2] As the SPJC expressed this in the Washington case, “Mandatory standards are generally those that pertain without reference to a specific case and provide the general rule.  Disobedience to such standards is ordinarily addressed by repentance or disciplinary action, not by exemption or scruple.  Essential pertains to specific situations and must be determined specifically candidate by candidate” (emphasis added).

[3] Minutes of the Presbyterian Church in America 1706-1788, pp. 103-104 (Guy S. Klett, ed.) (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1976) (emphasis added).

[4] Minutes of the Presbyterian Church in America 1706-1788, p. 287 (emphasis added).

[5] Paul Grammont & Philibert Zobel, “The Authority of the Indwelling Word”, in John Todd, ed., Problems of Authority, pp. 79-80 (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1962).

[6] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559), Bk. IV, Ch. 10 § 8 (John T. McNeil, ed.) (Ford Lewis Battles, trans.) (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960).

[7]Minutes of the Presbyterian Church in America 1706-1788, p. 287.