Nominating committee says incumbent stated clerk 'has served Christ well'

[1-30-04]

by Jerry L. Van Marter , Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE -- January 29, 2004 -- The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) since 1996, has been renominated for a third four-year term.

The Rev. Sandra Peirce, of Placerville, CA, the moderator of the Assembly's Stated Clerk Review/Nomination Committee, said: "Through our process of evaluation, reflection and prayer, we have concluded that the Rev. Dr. Kirkpatrick has served Christ well, ministering to the whole church. Looking to the future, we believe the PC(USA) will be well-served by his continuing leadership."

The committee's unanimous vote came on Jan. 28 during a meeting in Berkeley, CA.

Commissioners to the 216th General Assembly, which begins on June 26 in Richmond, VA, will elect a stated clerk, the top ecclesiastical officer in the denomination.

Kirkpatrick will be opposed by at least one other candidate. The Rev. Bob Davis, of Escondido, CA, the executive director of the Presbyterian Forum, a PC(USA) renewal group, announced his candidacy earlier this month. The Rev. Linn "Rus" Howard, of Venetia, PA, reportedly has told friends that he intends to run, but has not formally announced.

Both have criticized Kirkpatrick for what they characterize as unwillingness to "uphold" and "defend" the PC(USA) constitution, particularly its ban on the ordination of sexually active gay and lesbian Presbyterians.

The nomination committee said Kirkpatrick has acted "with competence, with much pastoral sensitivity, with appropriate firmness and with tact, with a large measure of common sense and uncommon wisdom, with obvious Christian faith and conviction."

Kirkpatrick, who directed the PC(USA)'s Global Mission office for 15 years before becoming stated clerk in 1996, accepted the renomination.

"It continues to be a great honor to serve this church as its stated clerk," he said, "and to work closely with so many other faithful Presbyterians in seeking to build up our church as the body of Christ in accord with the wonderful core values of our Constitution."

Kirkpatrick, noting that he and John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council (GAC), have visited 115 presbyteries and synods in the past three years, outlined six "common themes" that he said have emerged during those visits:

· A consensus that evangelism is the first calling of the church;

· A "passion" for revitalizing congregations;

· An emphasis on the importance of making the PC(USA) multicultural;

· A focus on developing a new generation of church leaders;

· Belief in the value of Presbyterian polity, which put a premium on "collective and shared leadership of ministers and elders"; and,

· A hunger for the peace, unity and purity of the church.

·

The full text of the statement of the Stated Clerk Review/Nomination Committee:

January 29, 2004

The Stated Clerk Review/Nomination Committee is pleased to declare its intention to nominate the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick to serve a third four-year term as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

At a November 24-25, 2003, meeting, the committee conducted an end of term evaluation of Kirkpatrick's work, having sought and received input from throughout the PC(USA) and from ecumenical partners. During this meeting, Kirkpatrick was interviewed in relation to his performance during his last term.

The conclusion of the Committee was that the Rev. Dr. Kirkpatrick has fulfilled the responsibilities of General Assembly Stated Clerk with competence, with much pastoral sensitivity, with appropriate firmness and tact, with a large measure of common sense and uncommon wisdom, with obvious Christian faith and conviction. The Committee strongly affirmed his job performance during the term of office which will end with the 2004 General Assembly.

In compliance with General Assembly Standing Rules Section G-1c(1)(f)(1), on December 19, 2003 the Rev. Dr. Kirkpatrick wrote to the Committee declaring his sense of God's call to seek re-nomination to another term as Stated Clerk. In his letter Kirkpatrick stated that if nominated and elected, he would "look forward to the great privilege of continuing to serve this church for another four years as its Stated Clerk. As I am sure you know, I have a deep love for Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, and for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which is called to be a living expression of the body of Christ in the world."

Speaking for the Committee, moderator Sandy Peirce said, "Through our process of evaluation, reflection and prayer, we have concluded that the Rev. Dr. Kirkpatrick has served Christ well, ministering to the whole church. Looking to the future, we believe the PCUSA will be well-served by his continuing leadership."

Meeting in Berkeley, CA, on January 28, 2004, the Stated Clerk Review/Nomination Committee voted unanimously to declare its intention to nominate the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick to serve a third four-year term as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly.

The Stated Clerk Review/Nomination Committee, elected by the 2003 General Assembly, consists of ministers Sandy Peirce, El Dorado Hills, CA, chair; Thomas Are, Jr., Prairie Village, KS; Karen Dimon, DeWitt, NY; John Goodman, Elizabethtown, NC; and Charles Heyward, Charleston, SC; and elders Cynthia Joe, San Francisco, CA, vice chair; Stephen Grace, Midland, MI; Suzanne Souder, Mechanicsburg, PA; and Kathy Walker, St. Petersburg, FL. Staff to the Committee is Katherine Runyeon, stated clerk of the Presbytery of San Francisco, Berkeley, CA.

The full text of Kirkpatrick's statement:

January 29, 2004

Dear Presbyterian Friends and Colleagues:

I am extremely grateful for the affirmation of my ministry by the Stated Clerk Review/ Nomination Committee elected by the 215th General Assembly. I am pleased and honored to learn of their intention to re-nominate me for another term as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly.

It continues to be a great honor to serve this church as its Stated Clerk and to work closely with so many other faithful Presbyterians in seeking to build up our church as the body of Christ in accord with the wonderful core values of our Constitution that have been and continue to be at the heart of my ministry:

· that Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church and the Word of God

· that the Great Ends of the Church are our common calling

· that we uphold a generous orthodoxy growing out of scripture and the confessions that affirms the great themes of the Reformed faith

· that we hold to an ecclesiology built on covenant community and a commitment to Christian unity.

In partnership with my colleague, John Detterick, I have spent much of the last three years in consultation with 115 of our presbyteries and synods. A number of common themes have emerged in those dialogues and conversations:

· A growing and widespread consensus that evangelism is our first calling and that justice is God's great intention for humankind

· A passion to revitalize our congregations

· A priority for reaching out to the rich multicultural reality of God's people that are among us

· A focus on building a new generation of leaders for the life and mission of the PCUSA

· A valuing of our polity with its emphasis on discerning the will of God through the collective and shared leadership of ministers and elders

· A hunger for the peace, unity and purity of our church.

I share these passions and, if re-elected by the 216th General Assembly, look forward, with a great deal of enthusiasm, to joining those in our congregations, presbyteries and synods in being faithful to God's call to build up our church as a faithful expression of the body of Christ.

The Rev. Robert Davis, Director of the Presbyterian Forum, seeks election as Stated Clerk

 Press release from the Presbyterian Forum

  January 5, 2004

San Diego, Calif.- The Rev. Robert "Bob" Davis, Executive Director of the Presbyterian Forum, announced today that he is seeking election as the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) at the 216^th General Assembly (2004) in Richmond, VA. 

Davis said, "It is time for a new direction in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). We need to be intentional about our responsibility as a faithful part of the Church historic in a dynamic world."

"We need to equip the people of the church to do the work of the church. The ways by which we build our covenant life together must be clarified so that we give witness to the saving grace found only in Jesus Christ. Our understanding of ecumenism must be broadened and must seek to encourage the proclamation of Christ across denominational bounds at the local level."

"Pursuing this call is not a decision I've entered lightly. It was made only after a year-long journey of extensive prayer and lengthy conversations with people of discernment," said Davis.

Davis is a lifelong Presbyterian. He is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Presbyterian Forum, a renewal organization within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Since 1997, the Forum has worked for reformation and renewal by providing information, training, updates and analyses of the events taking place within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Davis also serves as an associate pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Escondido, Calif. He is 39 years old.

Within San Diego Presbytery, he is Moderator of the Ecclesiastical Committee and is a member of the Permanent Judicial Commission.

Before coming to San Diego, Davis served as intern and assistant to the pastor at La Crescenta Presbyterian Church from 1996 to 2000 (La Crescenta, Calif., San Fernando Presbytery, Synod of Southern California and Hawaii). In 1996 and 1997 he was a staff member of the Genevans, an organization within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) dedicated to helping commissioners to General Assembly understand the process. He graduated with an M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2000. From 1989 to 1995 he was an attorney in Indianapolis. He served as an attorney for the Indiana Department of Insurance under then-governor Evan Bayh before entering private practice as a trial lawyer focusing on plaintiff's medical negligence law.

Davis grew up in Westminster Presbyterian Church in West Chester, Penn. (Donegal Presbytery, Synod of the Trinity), and was confirmed and professed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior as part of 9^th grade confirmation class. He joined as a member of Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, Indianain 1989 (Whitewater Valley Presbytery, Synod of Lincoln Trails).

Davis received a J.D. degree from Indiana University School of Law -- Indianapolisin 1989 and a B.A. in American Studies from Dickinson College in 1986.

Pennsylvanian has called for PC(USA) to split into two churches

by John Filiatreau and Jerry Van Marter, Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE -- November 17, 2003 -- One of five ministers who taped a "Call for Confession and Repentance" at the entrance to the Presbyterian Center here in a dramatic protest in October 2002 has announced that he is running for stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The Rev. Linn "Rus" Howard, the pastor of Peters Creek United Presbyterian Church in Venetia, PA, is expected to formally announce his candidacy after Thanksgiving, according to his friend and associate, the Rev. Robert Kopp.

Howard, contacted by telephone, declined to discuss his candidacy, saying only, "No comment."

Next summer's 216th General Assembly (GA) will elect a stated clerk, the top ecclesiastical officer of the PC(USA). The incumbent, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, is completing his second four-year term, and is expected to seek a third.

A GA -elected Stated Clerk Review/Nomination Committee is expected to announce its nominee in April 2004.

In their 2002 protest, the five ministers were hearkening to Martin Luther's nailing of his "95 Theses" to a cathedral door in 1517 to protest corruption in the Roman Catholic Church -- the first salvo in what became the Protestant Reformation.

The group declared the PC(USA) "irretrievably apostate under current management" and contended that the denomination is "decaying and dying in the belly of the beast" (Revelation 13:1-8).

Their main complaint was that PC(USA) officials, including Kirkpatrick, had failed in their duty to enforce the provision of the denomination's constitution that forbids the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians.

The statement also urged PC(USA) congregations to "refrain from giving undesignated mission money to governing bodies" and divert per-capita gifts "to ministries faithfully engaged in God's ministry of compassion."

Howard's own church has withheld its per-capita payments to the General Assembly for the past two years.

Last week, Howard presented to Washington Presbytery an "Overture for Gracious Separation" for forwarding to the 2004 General Assembly in Richmond, VA.

He charges in the overture that the PC(USA) "has become primarily a political institution devoting much of its time, talent and treasure to secular and unbiblical agendas," and that the current moderator and stated clerk "by their actions undermine the will of the overwhelming majority of church members who have repeatedly upheld the historic and biblical constitutional standards of chastity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between one man and one woman."

In a personal note affixed to the overture, Howard wrote: "I pray that Bob Howard's plan for Gracious Separation will become an Overture, which will be approved by an overwhelming majority at the General Assembly and in every presbytery during the next year."

Attorney Bob Howard, a former chair of the Presbyterian Lay Committee (no relation to Rus Howard), called on conservatives and evangelicals to split from the PC(USA) and form a separate church during last month's annual meeting of the Presbyterian Coalition.

Rus Howard claims the PC(USA) already has become two churches -- "one consisting of individuals and congregations committed to the exclusive Lordship of Jesus Christ, the authority of the Scriptures, and the power of the Holy Spirit to actively transform sinners into saints; and the other consisting of individuals and congregations committed to a 'progressive theology' that affirms multiple ways to salvation, the shared authority of Scripture and human experience, and the belief that polity can bring unity among sinners and saints who do not share a common understanding of the Gospel."

Howard added that the division is "irreconcilable because we no longer share a common understanding of the authority of scripture, the person, work, and lordship of Christ, and the commitment to holy living that discipleship requires."

Washington Presbytery has appointed a six-member committee to prepare "an even-handed presentation" of Howard's overture during the presbytery's regular meeting in January.

Howard has been among the opponents of the PC(USA)'s participation in a national boycott against Taco Bell restaurants and their parent company, Yum! Brands.

In a commentary published on the Web site of the Confessing Church Movement, he wrote that the rationale behind the boycott: "is that one of the suppliers from which Taco Bell periodically buys tomatoes does not, in the eyes of the Assembly, pay its tomato-pickers enough money for their labor."

"For an organization that historically has underpaid its employees, this call for a boycott of Taco Bell puzzles me," he wrote. "Would it not have been more appropriate for the General Assembly, in light of Matthew 7:3-5, to call for a boycott against itself? You would think that we would clean up the litter in our own yard before calling the cops about our neighbor's litter."

Howard said national leaders of the denomination should return gifts to the church, enclosing a note: "Thank you for sending the enclosed check. However, we are returning your generous gift because we think you should pay your secretary, custodian, youth minister and pastor a living wage."

Howard is a co-host of a public-access cable TV program in Pittsburgh titled "Real People," which combines religion and humor, often having to do with his baldness, which rivals that of Kirkpatrick. "We're trying to put a human face on Christianity," he told the Associated Press, referring to himself and his co-host, Kopp. "We want to break through the 'exclusive' image of the church. I think there are just so many Christians who do not have fun. You can have fun and still be serious about your faith."