That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS)
On Not Being Weary in Well-Doing:
Discerning and Representing the Will of Christ,
Who Alone is the Peace, Purity, and Unity of the Church
September 5, 2005
TAMFS’
Response to
“A Season of Discernment:
The Final Report of The Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity
of the Church”
Preliminary Statement: In the Spirit of Appreciation
The National Board of That All May Freely Serve presents the following
statements of foundations and purpose and as reflections on the
recommendations of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of
the Church. We owe a debt of gratitude to Elder Scott Anderson, who has
served faithfully as an openly gay member of the Task Force. Scott’s
generosity in an extended conversation with members of That All May Freely
Serve has made it possible for us to present our statements with insight and
appreciation for his work and that of the other members of the Task Force.
We commend Scott for his service, dedication, and witness. His modeling of
the infinite hospitality manifest in the radical love of Jesus is a model we
seek to follow. Along with Scott, we name here all the members of the Task
Force who have presented us with this opportunity for prayer and dialogue
together as we move toward a truly just and fully inclusive church:
The Rev. Mark Achtemeier, Elder Scott D. Anderson, Dr. Barbara Everitt
Bryant, Dr. Milton J Coalter, The Reverend Victoria G. Curtiss, Dr. Gary W.
Demarest, Dr. Frances Taylor Gench, Dr. Jack Haberer, Dr. William Stacy
Johnson, Elder Mary Ellen Lawson, Dr. Jong Hyeong Lee, Dr. John B. (Mike)
Loudon, Mrs. Sue Mallory, Elder Joan Kelley Merritt, Dr. Lonnie J. Oliver,
The Reverend Martha D. Sadongei, Elder Sarah Grace Sanderson, Elder Jean S.
(Jenny) Stoner, The Reverend José Luis Torres-Milán, Elder Barbara G.
Wheeler, Dr. John Wilkinson
II. Press Release: Response to the Report and
Recommendations of the
Theological Task Force on Peace, Purity, and Unity of the Church
Essential to the work and core values of That All May Freely Serve is the
belief that there can be no second-class membership for Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people in the full work and worship of the
Presbyterian Church (USA).
The National Board of That All May Freely Serve is sincerely grateful for
the efforts of the Theological Task Force as it has thoughtfully and
prayerfully written its report. Our response to the Theological Task Force
and its work offers respect and appreciation for their achievement but
disappointment for what was left unsaid and undone.
That All May Freely Serve holds up the Task Force's affirmation of the
constitutional provisions of G-6.0108 a. and b. These provisions are firmly
rooted in "The Adopting Act of 1729" and the "Plan of Union of 1758." The
principle and practice of "scruples" is steadfastly based on the right and
responsibility of the governing body that ordains and/or installs a
candidate. That governing body is the ultimate deciding body in judging
whether or not the candidate has departed from the essentials of Reformed
faith and polity and thus worthy of being ordained and/or installed to an
ordained office.
Our polity makes it clear that the General Assembly establishes the
ordination standards that are to be held in common across the denomination.
In alignment with that fact, we uphold the principle of Presbyterian polity:
presbyteries and sessions are given responsibility and authority, as
succinctly summarized in G-6.0108, to decide what candidates may or may not
be ordained and/or installed by that particular governing body. That All May
Freely Serve cites Amendment G-6.0106b as an aberration set within the
context of this rich and historical principle of Presbyterian polity. For
this and many other reasons G-6.0106b must be deleted without delay.
What disappoints us is that the exclusionary practices of this church
continue to be tolerated as part of a timeline for the promise of peace,
purity, and unity. Such a position at any level of our government or in any
recommendations is tantamount to accepting the inherent violence in the
exclusion of the LGBT faith community as an acceptable price to pay. That
All May Freely Serve can never acquiesce to any recommendation, amendment,
or other provisions that prolong marginalization of our LGBT family. We work
and pray for an awakening in our church that finds its prophetic voice with
a resounding "No!" to any practice that continues the oppression and
dehumanization of our LGBT brothers and sisters.
Still, we stay and work tirelessly for a season of justice sooner, rather
than later. We welcome and invite full and open dialogue with our brothers
and sisters who may share different views. However, we ask all to hear us
when we say there can be no pause in our work until G-6.0106b is deleted
from the Book of Order. We are bound by our conscience, our calls, and the
lives of those we serve to reject any moratorium in the furtherance of this
mission.
There can be no rest for us until our LGBT family worships and works in this
church with the same rights as our heterosexual sisters and brothers. Peace,
purity, and unity can only be achieved when the doors in this church are
taken off their hinges opened widely so that all may freely serve. Only then
will we be able to embrace one another in the wonderful diversity of our
Creator and be faithful servants to the baptism we share as members of the
Body and Church of Jesus Christ.
III. On Not Being Weary in Well-Doing; Discerning and
Representing the Will of Christ, Who Alone is the Peace, Purity, and Unity
of the Church:
TAMFS’ Response
to
“A Season of Discernment:
The Final Report of The Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity
of the Church”
That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS) affirms with thanksgiving the modeling of
growth in trust and gracious forbearance among the members of the
Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church. Their
growth in Christ-like charity and community with one another, in spite of
their diversity and conscientious disagreements, is evident in their final
report.
At the same time, we recognize that their growth as a community of faithful
Christians is the result of the intimacy of their life together seeking to
discern with responsible integrity the will of Christ Jesus (G-4.0301 d.)
for themselves, and they hope by extension, for the Presbyterian Church
(USA). In responding to their final report, TAMFS, no less than the members
of the Task Force, must do so with responsible integrity as we seek to
discern the will of Christ Jesus for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
(LGBT) members of the Body of Christ, which is the church.
As we seek to discern the will of Christ, we, no less than the Task Force
members, affirm that we must do so with a self-critical humility
acknowledging our own propensity toward the self-righteous idolatry of our
own systems of thought and action whenever we presume to possess all truth.
However, responsible integrity leads us to speak that truth by which the
Holy Spirit binds us to Christ’s authority as the sole Head of the Church
and thus frees us “…to live in the lively, joyous reality of the grace of
God.” (G-1.0100 d.)
Obedience to Christ Alone
It is in recognition of our need for humility that we affirm with the Task
Force members that Christ Jesus is the sole source of our peace, unity, and
purity within the church universal, and the PC(USA) in particular. Our
response to the final report of the Task Force is therefore rooted in the
following affirmations.
“Obedience
to Jesus Christ alone identifies the one universal church and supplies the
continuity of its traditions.” (BOC, 9:03)
“God…has
made Christ Head of the Church, which is his body.” (G-1.0100 1.a.)
“It
belongs to Christ alone to rule, to teach, to call, and to use the Church as
he wills.” (G-1.0100 1.b.)
“Jesus
Christ is the living God present in common life…” (W-1.1003 c.), the living
“Word of God” to whom the Scripture, the preaching and the sacraments bear
testimony (W-1.1004), such that “insofar as Christ’s will for the Church is
set forth in Scripture, it is to be obeyed.” (G-1.0100 1.c.)
This obedience to Jesus Christ alone “…is the ground of the church’s duty
and freedom to reform itself in life and doctrine as new occasions, in God’s
providence, may demand.” (BOC, 9:03)
Biblical Witness to Justice
In discerning Christ’s will for us we take seriously the warning and
admonition of our Directory for Worship that “there is no peace without
justice and that wherever there is brokenness, violence, and injustice the
people of God are called to be peacemakers….” (W-7.4003). For this reason we
humbly and conscientiously disagree with the conclusion of the Task Force
members that “God refuses to live on one side or the other…” (Report, p. 6.)
of the great social conflicts of humanity involving national, racial, class,
ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation boundaries. The words of Reinhold
Niebuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society help us discern the will of
Christ contained in the Scriptural witness and the confessions of God’s
covenant people. “…A social conflict which aims at greater equality has a
moral justification which must be denied to efforts which aim at the
perpetuation of privilege.” (Niebuhr, p. 234.)
Scripture, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ, the living
Word of God, contains an astonishing volume of material that undeniably
focuses on the questions of hunger, justice, and the poor. This biblical
witness leads us to affirm that God exercises a preferential option on
behalf of the poor, the oppressed, the powerless, and the disinherited. From
the formative liberating act of God, who sees the affliction and hears the
cries of oppressed slaves and takes action to free them (Ex. 3:7-8a); to the
powerful prophetic tradition demanding that “…justice roll down like
waters…” (Amos 5:24); to Jesus’ parabolic praise for the incessant
persistence of the poor widow demanding justice (Lk. 18:2-7); we discern
Christ’s will for us.
“Let
us not grow weary in well-doing for in due season we shall reap, if we do
not lose heart.” (Gal. 6:9)
Commitment to Changing Discriminatory Standards for
Ordination/Installation
Consequently, we consider conscientious and passionate advocacy calling the
church to acts of justice as neither detrimental to the peace, unity, and
purity of the church nor legitimately characterized as a strategy that
offers a win-lose option only. (Report, p. 6.) Rather, it is persistent
acquiescence to injustice that abandons the peace of Christ and deprives the
church of unity with Christ, who alone supplies the church’s purity of
intention and action. Agreement that is achieved out of weariness of
conflict is a false, often coerced, peace. “…Peace within the church at the
expense of faithfulness is the peace of a corpse….” “Agreement is not always
a sign of obedience, but may more likely be a sign that we do not care very
passionately about a particular issue.” (“Historical Principles, Conscience
and Church Government,” p. 9.)
We affirm and commend to all who seek justice and full inclusion for LGBT
members in the church the wise use of Presbyterian polity that provides a
means for redress of grievances and reform of injustices through the
democratic legislative “process of overture, amendment, and vote of the
presbyteries.” This process is one of the limited ways whereby LGBT people
and our straight allies can access power in order to challenge the church in
obedience to Jesus Christ “…to reform itself in life and doctrine as new
occasions … demand.” The long persistent legislative struggle to secure for
women full access to the ordained offices of the church is a clear example
of church reform through the legislative process. We believe it would be
negligent and unfaithful of us if we were to abandon this legislative
process and did not continually encourage presbyteries to make the General
Assembly aware of the need to be just and fully inclusive of LGBT people by
calling for the deletion of G-6.0106b.
Twenty-seven Years of “Discernment”
The Task Force chose as the title for its final report “A Season of
Discernment.” The Task Force indicates that “a season of discernment” is due
in the church concerning the wearisome conflict involving ordination
standards and the status of LGBT people in the church. We believe many
within the LGBT faith community perceive this title and its seemingly
implicit endorsement of a moratorium on legislative action seeking to delete
an unjust discriminatory section from the church’s constitution to be
insensitive to the lived reality of LGBT people within the church. We
believe the church has had ample opportunity for discernment during the past
twenty-seven years.
From the time “definitive guidance” was promulgated by the 190th
GA (1978) to the time of the 1997 ratification of G-6.0106b, the PC(USA) has
consistently refused to be engaged in discernment about the issues that the
presence of the real lives of faithful LGBT Christians raises for the
church. The arbitrary legalism of G-6.0106b, rooted as it is in cultural
fears and hostilities toward LGBT people, fails to seek the will of Christ
for the church to be rooted in covenantal grace. This failure to engage in
discernment about the destructive effects of the church’s treatment of its
LGBT members has ruptured the peace, unity, and purity of the church.
Because there is an inseparable link between practice and faith, the
church’s embrace of G-6.0106b, much more than being simply an embrace of
aberrant polity, is an embrace of a distorted theology that damages the very
soul and conscience of the church. Embedded in the detrimental impact
G-6.0106b and “definitive guidance” have on our polity and our understanding
of ordination is the violent systematic stigmatization of LGBT members of
the church as a category of second class people dehumanized under the rubric
of “unrepentant practicing homosexual.” The PC(USA) as an institution has
become oblivious to and thus adjusted to its abuse of power that violates
the full equal humanity of its LGBT members. This abuse of power in turn
distorts the whole church’s ability to act humanely and it becomes the enemy
of the very people it is called to serve.
In the midst of the atmosphere of fear and hostility that “definitive
guidance” and G-6.0106b have engendered toward LGBT members of the church,
it has been LGBT members who most often have demonstrated extraordinary
forbearance and selflessness in seeking to promote reconciliation within the
church. Attempts at dialogue and interaction with those in the church who
fail to recognize our full humanity have brought many of us face-to-face
with cruel cutting remarks, inhumane and mean-spirited character attacks,
threatened or actual disciplinary complaints and charges of heresy, as well
as destruction of careers. At the same time, those within the church who
have engaged in some of the most egregious attacks against our humanity have
experienced no repercussions from the larger church for their actions. We
regret the omission in the final report of the Task Force of these facts. We
have a grave concern that the Task Force’s proposed “season of discernment”
does not mention any plan to hold anyone accountable for inhumane and
inhospitable treatment of LGBT people.
“In
the long-term,” writes Paul E. Capetz, “the church needs to reconcile itself
with the fact that gay people require full equality and will not – should
not – settle for…” second class status. “Gay people will never be reconciled
to the church until the church is reconciled to gay people.” (“The Gospel
According to Matthew Shepard,” Church & Society, May-June 2002, pp. 92, 93.)
An unjust abuse of power is the cause of the rupture in the peace, unity,
and purity of the church not LGBT members who are often accused of being the
problem and disrupters of the peace. True reconciliation that seeks to
restore peace, unity, and purity to the church is possible only between
equals who mutually share access to power and work together to dismantle the
abusive systems symbolized by the presence of G-6.0106b in the constitution.
The members of the Task Force, we believe, recognize that this atmosphere of
fear and hostility must give way to a new atmosphere of mutual trust based
upon openness that recognizes the full humanity of LGBT people and non-LGBT
people within the church.
“…Having
been forgiven by God, we are committed to forgive those who have wronged us
and seek the forgiveness of those we have wronged. Because controversies
over sexuality and ordination have been a special focus of the task force’s
work, the task force has become aware of how much alienation and contempt
many have experienced. The task force has heard a call to seek God’s
forgiveness for our sin and our hurtful attitudes and actions.” (Report,
lines 238-244.)
“Many
of us came to understand how alienating it is for gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender persons to be regularly identified as a major threat to the
peace, unity, and purity of the church.” (Report, lines 367-369.)
Even as we pray that the Task Force’s hope that this new vision be the
groundwork of engaging in constructive discernment might permeate the
church’s heart and soul, we lament the missed opportunities of the past
twenty-seven years that have caused damage to so many of our LGBT sisters
and brothers and have caused many of them to leave the PC(USA) or to dismiss
the church as irrelevant and hostile to their lives.
Power
Because abusive power is the underlying, often covert, dynamic at the root
of the unjust discriminatory standards of G-6.0106b and “definitive
guidance,” we consider it very disappointing and regrettable that the Task
Force chose not to deal with the issue of power openly and head-on. Instead,
power is contained in the Task Force’s discussion of polity in such a
“nuanced” manner that it is not obvious that the issue is even being
addressed. Such a low key and less than forthright discussion of power does
not adequately take into consideration how insidiously LGBT people perceive
that power is used to leverage privilege in order to deny us equal access to
power.
The expressions of anger and outrage that many within the LGBT faith
community have articulated toward the final report of the Task Force was in
many ways predictable.
In the absence of any real acknowledgement of how the church has used power
to keep LGBT people on the margins of the church’s life, recommendations 5
and 6 of the final report have been perceived as the use of power to
leverage a position of privilege in order to short circuit the legislative
process to change unjust ordination standards through overtures to delete
G-6.0106b.
Analysis of Recommendations #5 and #6
Recommendation #5:
We find absolutely no fault in the content of the constitutional provisions
that are listed in the Task Force’s recommended authoritative interpretation
(AI) to the 217th GA. In essence the Task Force’s AI is being
used to remind the whole church of long unbroken constitutional provisions
that are already present and readily available for use by governing bodies
and their candidates. However these provisions have often fallen out of view
and lain dormant for many years. The Task Force readily admits that there is
nothing new in the elements of their recommended AI. (Report, p. 33.)
The provisions of G-6.0108 a. and b. derive from the Adopting Act of 1729 by
which a candidate for ordination might declare a scruple and the presbytery
would determine if the scruple was in error or if it was not “essential and
necessary in Doctrine, Worship or Government.” The process of deciding
essentials of Reformed faith and polity would not surface again in any
significant way until the fundamentalist controversy of the early twentieth
century. In the final report of the Special Commission of 1925 on the
purity, peace, unity and progress of the church to the 1927 GA, this
constitutional provision took front and center again as a means of dealing
with the question: “What authority, if any, does the GA possess for
declaring any article to be an essential and necessary one in a sense which
renders its statement mandatory and applicable in all cases?” (Minutes of
1927 GA or PC(USA), p. 78.)
While the GA establishes the ordination standards that are to be held in
common across the denomination, we believe that it has always been a firm
principle of Presbyterian polity that presbyteries and sessions are given
responsibility and authority, as succinctly summarized in G-6.0108 b., to
decide what candidates may or may not be ordained and/or installed by that
particular governing body. G-6.0106b is an aberration set within the context
of this rich historical principle of Presbyterian polity. G-6.0106b is
antithetical to this long historical precedent.
What was surprising to us was not the content of the recommended AI but the
fact that the Task Force was recommending any type of legislative action to
GA regarding ordination standards. Our understanding of the 212th
GA’s (2001) mandate for the Task Force was that it should seek ways to
assist the church to discern its identity in the 21st century in
order to assist the church to deal constructively with the many changes that
it would experience in the next one hundred years. It is important to
remember that the same GA that created the Task Force also called upon the
church to delete G-6.0106b in the full expectation, we believe, and that the
acceptance of the full humanity of LGBT people in church and society would
be one of the significant changes with which the church must deal in the 21st
century.
Like the members of the Task Force, we expect there will be changes in the
church’s ordination standards in the years to come. We believe that
responsible use of the democratic legislative process of the PC(USA) shall
result in the removal of G-6.0106b and “definitive guidance” from our
polity. It would seem more in keeping with what we perceived to be the Task
Force’s mandate if Recommendation #5 had simply been lifted up and commended
to the governing bodies for their consideration and possible use the already
existing constitutional provisions enumerated in the recommended AI.
We do see a slight danger in seeming to be asking permission in the form of
an AI to use an already existing constitutional provision. Although the
situations are not exact parallels, we remember that New York City
Presbytery asked the 1978 GA for “definitive guidance” about what it should
do with a qualified candidate who was a self-affirming practicing gay man.
The presbytery should not have asked for permission to do what the
constitution already allowed it to do. The presbytery should have ordained
its candidate if it decided it should do so. Then anyone who did not agree
with its action would have had to file a remedial complaint.
Recommendation #6
Although we found the Task Force’s recommendation of a particular
“legislative remedy” in the form of an AI to clarify traditional ordination
practices to be surprising, we believe that had they stopped with that
Recommendation and not proceeded to Recommendation #6 a., the final report
would not have been met with so much anger and dismay by the LGBT community.
Recommendation #6 a., when seen in the context of the absence of any
forthright discussion of power, was itself perceived to be an abuse of power
on the part of the Task Force. Their action was perceived as a use of
privilege in order to undercut the current efforts of presbyteries to pass
motions to send overtures or concurrences to overtures to delete G-6.0106b
and adopt an AI declaring “definitive guidance” to have no further force or
effect.
In fairness to the Task Force, they are only addressing their
recommendations to the commissioners of the 217th GA. The Task
Force is not addressing presbyteries and encouraging them to cease the
constitutional process of sending overtures and AI’s to the 217th
GA.
However, we have very distinct memories of GA commissioners or presbyteries
using any excuse close at hand not to consider the merits of acting on the
deletion of G-6.0106b, be it a long succession of calls for moratoriums on
legislation or waiting for the pending report of a Task Force. The
perception exists that now that the Task Force has said that it does not
want the 217th GA to consider passage of overtures or AI’s
dealing with ordination standards, other than the Task Force’s AI, that it
has used its power and privilege implicitly to encourage presbyteries not to
send overtures and AI’s to the 217th GA. Additionally the
perception exists that the Task Force’s Recommendation will cause
commissioners to the 217th GA not to give due consideration to
overtures and AI’s related to deletion of G-6.0106b and “definitive
guidance” from our polity.
Recommendations for the Now and Future Church
We stand steadfast in our encouragement of presbyteries to concur with the
Heartland Overture or to act on a similar overture that has the same
essential elements as the Heartland Overture. It is very important that
presbyteries continue to express their opinions that G-6.0106b needs to be
deleted from the Book of Order.
We remind presbyteries that choose to concur with the Heartland or similar
overtures that they must write a different Rationale if they want their
perspective to be printed in the Reports given to the commissioners.
However, a presbytery may simply concur without a different Rationale. All
presbyteries that are sending overtures or concurring with one are entitled
to send an Overture Advocate whether or not the presbytery chooses to write
a differently worded Rationale. The 120-day deadline date for submitting
overtures re: changes in the Book of Order or AI’s seeking an interpretation
of the constitution is February 15, 2006.
We are committed to working with our other progressive partners in
advocating at the 217th GA for the passage of an overture to
delete G-6.0106b and the adoption of an AI declaring “definitive guidance”
to have no further force or effect. If such an overture and AI are not
recommended for passage by the 217th GA but the Task Force’s AI
is recommended for adoption, we shall consult with our progressive partners
about how we can work together to make sure some positive action comes out
of the 217th GA. Since we affirm the elements of the AI proposed
by the Task Force to be appropriate constitutional provisions of which
governing bodies should be aware, we believe it would be positive to raise
them up to presbyteries and sessions for their consideration in dealing with
candidates for ordination and/or installation. However, since we strongly
believe that G-6.0106b and “definitive guidance” are unjust and
discriminatory, we shall not cease from encouraging presbyteries to send
overtures to every GA until they are eliminated from our polity. Responsible
integrity will not allow us to participate in a moratorium on doing what is
right and just.
In the event that the plenary of GA considers adoption of the Task Force’s
AI and it is not adopted, we encourage presbyteries and candidates to keep
these constitutional provisions in mind and to put them into practice if
they have the will to do so. These constitutional provisions are still in
the constitution even if the AI is not adopted.
“Let
us not grow weary in well-doing for in due season we shall reap,
if we do not lose heart.”
[Source: Lisa Larges, for That All May Freely Serve. 4-7-06]
