"No" outcome was an accretion
of narrow losses
In presbyteries, votes on sex issues are
usually 50-50 (more or less)
by Alexa Smith, Presbyterian News Service
LOUISVILLE - March 23, 2001 - Although the recent
''no'' vote on Amendment O was decisive, it may not have accomplished
much.
In 45 percent of the presbyteries that have voted so
far, the winning side prevailed by 25 votes or fewer. In 43 presbyteries
(27 percent), the winning margin was 10 or fewer votes. In four -- Grand
Canyon, Yukon, Eastminster and Northumberland -- a single ballot was the
difference between victory and defeat.
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by the narrowness of
the vote. After all, the 212th General Assembly's decision to send the
proposed amendment to the presbyteries for approval or rejection came on
a vote of 268 to 251 -- a margin of just 17 votes, in a body of 558
commissioners.
Proponents of Amendment O said its purpose was to
outlaw Presbyterian ministers' participation in ceremonies of blessing
for homosexual couples. Opponents of the measure said it was worded so
broadly that it would interfere with other pastoral duties of pastors
and sessions. Ultimately the presbyteries rejected the proposed
amendment of the Book of Order; but the voting was very tight
in many presbyteries.
The split was consistent with research conducted by
the Presbyterian Panel indicating that 57 percent of PC(USA) members, 61
percent of elders and 50 percent of clergy men and women think
Presbyterian pastors should not be involved in same-sex union
ceremonies.
Two questions arise:
Does a decision made by a wafer-thin majority
represent a mandate of any kind?
Should a vote that's virtually 50-50 be sufficient to
effect a significant change in the constitution?
"Both sides want to be able to get this changed
by 51 percent," one pundit observed.
Fifty-one percent may be the only possible winning
score on an overture having to do with sexuality. The denomination has
split right down the middle on such issues in recent years; and besides,
a simple majority is all the PC(USA) constitution requires.
The 1997 vote on Amendment B wasn't quite as close as
the vote on "O," but it was close.
The battle over "B," which amended the
constitution to forbid the ordination of sexually active gays and
lesbians (and sexually active unmarried people of any description), was
bitter.
That vote -- 98 to 78 to approve the amendment -- was
decisive. But the vote was closer than those numbers would suggest.
Those numbers didn't reflect the balloting in the
presbyteries, where many of the votes were very close. In 39 percent of
the presbyteries, the decision on "B," up or down, was made by
25 votes or fewer. In 15 percent of presbyteries, the margin was 10
votes or fewer.
A look at these numbers makes it easy to see why,
after a three-year ban on debates of issues of sexuality (the "Call
to Sabbatical"), the upcoming General Assembly in Louisville will
consider at least 22 overtures and 24 concurrences that favor modifying
or deleting all or parts of what now is the constitutional clause
G-6.0106.b.
That's about 95 percent of overture-related business
on the agenda so far.
April 25 is the deadline for overtures. Feb. 9 is the
final date for proposing constitutional changes.
Any overture the GA approves will once again go to the
173 presbyteries for an up-or-down vote; that will be the fourth time in
six years that presbyteries have considered amendments of G-60106.b. In
recent years, three related judicial cases have involved interpretations
of this embattled clause; a fourth case is still pending.
Presbyterians on both sides of the debate complain
that they're stuck in an expensive and emotional legislative bind. Each
side laments the pain of division in the denomination, but both are
gearing up for more combat in June, when the General Assembly convenes.
Liberals will try to change or delete G-6.0106.b., and evangelicals and
conservatives will try to stop them. Each side will be working to get 51
percent of the votes, because that's how the system works.
Both sides are experiencing a sense of resignation.
"This may say to us that we ought to quit trying
to 'win,' and accept (that) the church is not of one mind," said
the Rev. Wayne Yost, the executive of Kiskiminetas Presbytery.
Yost said that is why he helped to write a statement
in which a majority of the denomination's presbytery executives have
called the church to a "third way" through the divisiveness --
a way that is neither legislative nor judicial.
He admitted that he has no idea what such a
"third way" might be, but said he believes it will be found
where the Holy Spirit leads.
Yet, he still holds, "In the Presbyterian Church,
no issue is settled once and for all. Anything may always be
reconsidered or rescinded by the next meeting of a governing body."
That's how it seems.
Jean Snyder, of Florence, KY, the convener of Voices
of Sophia, a liberal group that lobbies for the open ordination of gays
and lesbians, also laments the disunity in the church. But she too is
revving up to ask the 213th GA to get rid of G.60106.b. She said she has
no choice.
"It is very divisive to keep this going,"
she said, "but we need to bring our gay brothers and sisters into
full membership. It is hypocritical and un-Christian to not do it."
The Rev. Joe Rightmeyer, of Louisville, the executive
director of Presbyterians for Renewal, an evangelical group that has
opposed the ordination of unchaste gays and lesbians, agreed with Snyder
that Presbyterians on both sides of the divide are suffering from
"battle-fatigue." He said his constituency is feeling
"depressed," "weary" and "subdued," and is
tired of the relentless voting.
What next?
"That's the question everybody is asking,"
Rightmeyer said. "If there is any kind of consensus going on, it is
that none of this is going to be resolved through our polity. If the
Assembly makes a decision one year, it will be challenged the following
year. It's like a ping-pong ball."
In a debate made even harder by the parties'
intractable faith commitments, proposed remedies range from collective
therapy to turning to a different question -- whether or not it ought to
be harder to change the constitution.
"For one side, this is a justice issue; when I
listen to their language, it sounds like civil rights again," said
the Rev. Jerry Andrews, of Glen Elyn, IL, a spokesperson for the
Presbyterian Coalition, an organization created to oppose the ordination
of sexually active gays and lesbians. "For me and most of my side,
it is a matter of truth: You cannot twist what Scripture says."
There's the bind: It isn't realistic to expect either
side to relinquish its deeply held convictions.
"It is an unreasonable expectation …… for
half to give up justice, and the other half to give up truth," said
Andrews. "So what is the way forward?"
Andrews, unlike many of his younger Coalition allies,
doesn't entertain the notion that the way to solve the problem is to
split the denomination. But he does think that smaller, increasingly
decentralized fellowships of believers may be the wave of the future.
For the moment, Andrews is musing about a therapeutic,
or confessional, approach: Let the GA confess that the church is deeply
divided and the future isn't clear -- the sort of acknowledgement
pastors sometimes seek from unhappily married couples.
"We've just never sat down and said, 'This is not
working and we need to recognize that,'" Andrews said.
"Presbyteries can't do it. The Covenant Network can't do it. The
Coalition can't do it. Only the General Assembly can say, 'This is not
working and we need to attend to it.' And maybe we need to stop some
other things, as painful as that might be ……
"But there's the fear that once that is admitted,
the possibilities for solutions are frightening," Andrews said,
alluding to the furor around a controversial proposed amendment from
Beaver-Butler Presbytery, which will ask the GA to allow congregations
that cannot comply with G-0106.b. to leave the denomination, keeping
their church property.
Robert Bullock, the editor of the independent news
weekly, The Presbyterian Outlook, is one who would like to
toughen up Presbyterian polity.
"The amendment process has gotten totally out of
control," Bullock said. "This is a constitution, not a manual
of procedure."
In a March 19 editorial, Bullock advocated a change in
the PC(USA)'s decision-making process -- requiring two-thirds approval
of the presbyteries, rather than a simple majority, to change the
constitution, and also requiring a two-thirds vote of the Assembly to
put an amendment on presbyteries' dockets. He also would like to see the
constitution simplified.
Both the former northern and southern churches
required simple majorities to approve amendments to their constitutions.
An assortment of pundits are considering Bullock's
idea of requiring a "super-majority," including liberal Eugene
TeSelle, of Nashville, TN, a church historian at the Vanderbilt Divinity
School, and evangelical Jack Haberer, of Houston, TX, a minister who
once was chair of the Presbyterian Coalition.
Haberer's book about the convictions that divide
Presbyterians, GodViews, is due out next month.
"The problem is, we're trapped into writing laws
for everything," said Haberer, who contends that de facto
congregationalism is happening across the PC(USA) as a response to
matters on which people cannot agree.
The effort to make a consensus by legislation, he
said, has turned the constitution into a manual of regulations.
"We need to re-think the whole idea of our
constitution, trim it down," Haberer said, "and like the U.S.
Constitution, make it only amendable by a super-majority." Haberer
said that's a switch in perspective for a former backer of Amendment B.
TeSelle said that idea is worth considering, but it'll
never work.
"If you require a two-thirds majority … whoever
is behind at the moment won't want to do that," he said. "If
'B' is on the books, and it takes a two-thirds vote to overturn it, a
lot of people aren't going to vote for that.
"But the Book of Order is getting too
complicated. When you have a narrow majority, you just slosh from one
extreme to the other. One side wins one year, the other side, the
next."
TeSelle said the solution is "somehow learning to
live with our diversity better. That's easy to say, but when we begin
spelling it out, it scares everybody."
Learning to live with diversity is easier said than
done.
Byers, the executive director of the Covenant Network,
the most visible liberal lobby in the church, which opposed
"O" and "B," insisted that, even if "B" is
removed from the constitution, ordaining gays won't be mandatory for
every congregation -- as it was when legislation was passed requiring
Presbyterians to accept the ordained leadership of women. If
Presbyterians are so closely divided on the issue, she said,
decision-making ought to be left to sessions and presbyteries.
"When it is that close, it is going to stay that
close … and we need to trust our essential polity," Byers said.
"We've had 200 years of living together when we (didn't) agree on
everything. Ten votes one way or another in a presbytery is clearly not
reaching consensus. …
"So we have to find a way to agree to disagree,
instead of one side forcing an interpretation upon another side.
Byers said the rejection of "O" seems to
reinforce the suggestion that pastors and sessions ought to have more
leeway in making decisions.
For conservatives, the symbolic power of G.0106.b. is
too great to even talk about compromising. One of the key conservative
strategists, the Rev. Parker Williamson, of Lenoir, N.C., executive
director of The Presbyterian Layman, said the liberals are
promoting behavior that Scripture clearly calls sin -- and the
conservatives have no choice but to stop them.
"Unfortunately," Williamson said, "we
don't solve a theological crisis in the church by polity moves. That's
really not a solution."
Williamson said he blames the denomination's highest
ecclesiastical court, the Permanent Judicial Commission, for a faulty
interpretation of the constitution that prompted conservatives to
introduce "O" last year.
The court ruled last year that it could not forbid
same-sex blessings because they are not explicitly forbidden in the
constitution, which does specify that Christian marriage is between a
woman and a man.
Most clergy men and women who perform same-sex union
ceremonies insist that they do not consider them marriages.
But there is something of a marriage of the left and
right in the PC(USA): Each needs the other.
Williamson says the conservatives don't want to keep
proposing constitutional changes, but the liberals and church courts
have forced them to do so.
Byers said it was the conservatives who forced the
Covenant Network to get involved in the battle over "O."
"I don't know how we can extricate ourselves from
the mindset, 'I want to win, and I want to win big,'" said Yost.
"I guess it will take the majority of folks saying, 'This routine
is foolish, and we want it to stop.'"
"If we're going to live together," said
TeSelle, "we've got to move beyond stealth attacks."
"So," he said, pausing, "how do we live
together?"
