2 July 2008

Presbyterians Week – Special Focus

Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) 2008

218th General Assembly --- 21-28 June 2008


[1] PCUSA Membership Declines 2.6% in 2007
[2] GA Committee on Church Orders Votes to Delete Fidelity and Chastity Requirements for Church Officers
[3] Committee on Theological Issues and Institutions Approves Changes to 1962 Heidelberg Catechism Translation
[4] Belhar Confession Study Approved by Committee on Theological Issues and Institutions
[5] Gradye Parsons Elected GA Stated Clerk
[6] GA Calls for Tolerance in Relations with Jews and Muslims


[1] PCUSA Membership Declines 2.6% in 2007

On the opening day of the 218th PCUSA General Assembly, Sharon K. Youngs reported that active, confirmed PCUSA membership declined in 2007 by 57,572 from 2,267,118 in 2006 to 2,209,546, a drop of 2.6% from the 2006 total. Twelve PCUSA congregations were dismissed to other denominations, and 71 other churches were dissolved.

The PCUSA reached its highest membership level in 1965 when it had 4,254,597 members. The 2007 membership total represents 52% of its 1965 membership total, and represents 71% of the 1983 membership total of 3,121,338 reached the year the United Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbyterian Church U.S. (PCUS) reunited to form the PCUSA.


[2] GA Committee on Church Orders Votes to Delete Fidelity and Chastity Requirements for Church Officers

Jerry L. Van Marter reports that by a vote of 41-11 Tuesday Evening 24 June, the Assembly Committee on Church Orders and Ministry recommended to the 218th General Assembly that it send an amendment to the presbyteries to delete G-6.0106b — which requires “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness” for church officers — from the PCUSA’s Book of Order.

A number of committee members, knowing the inevitable vote was coming, didn’t return to the committee’s meeting room after the dinner break.

The overture approved by the committee came from Boston Presbytery.

Committee member David Reimer predicted the fallout would be heavy. “I have a fear that the ramifications will be severe,” he said. “Churches won’t wait for the ratification votes [by the presbyteries] but will leave immediately, though I hope they won’t.”

Committee member the Reverend Emily McColl agreed with Reimer, saying “many churches will no longer consider us Reformed in their understanding of biblical interpretation and theology.”

Since G-6.0106b was put in the Book of Order in 1996, two
General Assemblies—in 1997 and 2000—sent out amendments to
delete it. On both occasions, the presbyteries rejected it.

On 11 February, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission rejected two appeals that sought to permit presbyteries to consider ordaining men and women whose behavior did not conform to the Book of Order G-6.0106b fidelity and chastity ordination standards.


[3] Committee on Theological Issues and Institutions Approves Changes to 1962 Heidelberg Catechism Translation

Ben Daniel writes that on 23 June, the Committee on Theological Issues and Institutions approved Overture 13-06 from Newark Presbytery, voting by a margin of 33 to 26, with two abstentions, to ask the 218th General Assembly of the PCUSA to make five changes to the 1962 translation of the Heidelberg Catechism which since 1967 has been used in The Book of Confessions of the PCUSA.

Most of the committee’s deliberations focused on proposed changes to Question 87 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which contains a reference to “homosexual perversion” that is not found in the original German text or in any subsequent translation in any language published prior to 1962.

Those against the motion appealed to the church’s longstanding condemnation of homosexuality and a sense that the Heidelberg version currently used in The Book of Confessions is biblically faithful, as it exchanges the original text in Question 87 with a direct quote from 1 Cor. 6:9-10. “It’s Scripture,” declared Assembly observer Kermit Oppriecht, associate pastor of Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas. “How much more faithful can you get?”

Those for the motion appealed to questions of historical accuracy and of faithfulness to gays and lesbians within the Presbyterian family. “We must rely on accurate translations of the confessions because most of our pastors are not trained in German or Latin,” John Vest, associate pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, told the committee. “It is an affront to our Reformed heritage to have so faulty a translation in our confessions.”


[4] Belhar Confession Study Approved by Committee on Theological Issues and Institutions

Vicki Fogel Mykles reports that the General Assembly Theological Issues and Institutions Committee approved a recommendation 24 June from the Advocacy Committee on Racial Ethnic Concerns (ACREC) to “initiate the process described in G-18.0201b [Book of Order] by appointing a committee to consider amending the confessional documents of the PCUSA to include the Belhar Confession in The Book of Confessions and to report to the 219th General Assembly (2010).”

The Belhar Confession emerged out of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and speaks to the persistent reality of racism. It calls the church to unity and reconciliation as marks of faithfulness, the unity of God’s people in a prophetic witness of the gospel by confronting the sin of racism and the work of justice in church and society.

According to the rationale of the recommendation, the Belhar Confession speaks to the worldwide realities of racism and calls the church to a deeper appreciation of the values of unity in diversity in relation to the divisions of race, culture and other facets of the human condition.


[5] Gradye Parsons Elected GA Stated Clerk

Jerry L. Van Marter reports that on 27 June, the Reverend Gradye Parsons, associate stated clerk and director of operations for the Office of the General Assembly (OGA), won a first ballot victory Friday to succeed the Reverend Clifton Kirkpatrick as GA stated clerk for the PCUSA.

Kirkpatrick is stepping down after three four-year terms. Parsons has served in OGA for eight years after serving as executive presbyter and stated clerk of Holston Presbytery in his native Tennessee.

Parsons received 405 votes, or 57 percent. He was the choice of the Stated Clerk Nomination Committee and defeated three other applicants who also stood for election.


[6] GA Calls for Tolerance in Relations with Jews and Muslims

Mike Ferguson reports that the 218th GA on 25 June approved with amendments a resolution “On Calling for Tolerance and Peaceful Relations Between the Christian and Muslim Communities.” The vote was 547-149.

The Assembly found common ground with interfaith groups in the concept that Christians, Jews and Muslims may hold different understandings of how God has been revealed to humankind, but all three groups are called to love God and neighbor and care for the poor. That means Presbyterians ought to be in conversation with Jews and Muslims, celebrate religious holidays together and even set aside days to worship together — all to promote understanding, respect and goodwill.

Commissioners voted to strike language in the original overture that would have the PCUSA affirm “that Jews, Christians and Muslims worship a common God, although each understands that God differently” and a section that acknowledges Abraham “as an expression of our common commitment to one God.”

Instead, commissioners inserted language that acknowledges that the three religions hold “differing understandings of how God has been revealed to humankind.”

Commissioners debated whether the overture from meant that all three groups worship the same God. The Reverend Jay Rock, PCUSA coordinator for Interfaith Relations, told commissioners that “we understand the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ himself to be present as we enter into dialogue with people of other faiths.”

Rather than saying that all worship the same God, the overture “points to our understanding that how God is revealed in those three faiths is quite different.”

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