RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — The Presbyterian Church (USA) rejected a recommendation July 2 that would have made it easier for non-celibate homosexuals to be ordained in the church.
Delegates to the denomination's meeting also agreed to enter into a period of “discernment” on the issue of the proper role of gays and lesbians in the church's life. The period would last until the group's national
assembly in 2006.
A church court's official interpretation of two parts of the PC(USA)'s constitution currently bars practicing gays from being ordained as ministers or elders in the denomination. The first provision bans ordination of “self-affirming, practicing homosexuals,” and a 1996 amendment requires church officers — such as ministers and elders — “to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.”
The PC(USA) Committee on Church Orders and Ministry discussed five resolutions that repealed either the interpretations or the provisions themselves during the church's general assembly meeting in Richmond, Va. The committee agreed 35-30 to present the general assembly with a recommendation that overturned the interpretation.
However, delegates replaced the recommendation — on a 259-255 vote — with a minority report. The report insisted on keeping the interpretation in place while enlisting a task force to lead the church in the discernment period. At the end of it, the task force will give their final report and recommendations.
Delegates then approved that measure, 297-218.
Although the votes were relatively close, a leading Presbyterian voice opposed to the ordination of gays told Associated Baptist Press that it did not reflect the church's broader membership. Jim Berkley, director of issues for Presbyterians for Renewal, said that the general assembly does not represent the majority of members filling Presbyterian pews.
The issue of homosexual ordination has divided the church into unequal camps, he said — and the group advocating for it is much smaller than the majority, but vocal and politically well-placed.
But a pro-gay-ordination Presbyterian disagreed. “I would argue the opposite,” Donna Riley, co-moderator for More Light, told ABP. “We have a skew in the other direction.” The Presbyterian policy disallows the ordination of non-celibate gays, and general assembly delegates must be ordained, Riley said — so, by eliminating entire groups of people from voting, the results are distorted.
More Light is composed of Presbyterian individuals and congregations that work for the full participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the life of the church.
Presbyterians for Renewal, a broad-based evangelical caucus in the church, has been fighting homosexual ordination efforts for the last 25 years, Berkley said, and he predicts the 2006 meeting will be a major debate.
“I would think the church would want to retain the standards it's had through the course of Christianity. If one wants to follow the Bible, it's very obvious what it says about sexual immorality,” he said. “The opposite side will tell us why the culture around us tells us not to listen to the Bible — that it's social, political — but we believe it's biblical.”
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