Sexuality and Ordination Standards

            Once again, overtures regarding sexuality and ordination standards were before the assembly. This year, the committee on Church Orders and Ministry responded to several requests from presbyteries to address the matter by proposing to leave G-6.0106b in the Book of Order (the current provision prohibiting the ordination and/or installation to church office of persons who are sexually active outside marriage) but recommending the removal of all previous statements of prior general assemblies leading up to the adoption of G-6.0106b in 1997. These statements, called “definitive guidance” or “authoritative interpretation,” were written prior to the adoption of G-6.0106b and therefore are not intended to be interpretations of our current Book of Order language. However, they are also the sources for some of the language of the current Book of Order provision, and they serve as the interpretive context for sessions and permanent judicial commissions to determine whether an action by a session, presbytery, or synod violates the provisions of G-6.0106b.

            Proponents of the committee’s recommendation argued that the language in some of the statements, particularly the older ones, represented badly outmoded sociological and psychological assumptions about the nature and origin of homosexuality, and should be removed so as not to convey the impression that the church still understood homosexuality as it was understood in the 1940s and 1950s. Opponents argued that, despite the outmoded language, the statements still provide needed guidance to interpret the somewhat broad language of G-6.0106b. They further argued that changes to any aspect of the church’s stance regarding the ordination standards at this time would undermine the ongoing work of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Purity, and Unity of the Church, the body appointed in 2002 to think creatively about addressing the great issues that divide Presbyterians from one another.

The committee’s proposal was opposed on the plenary floor by a minority report in the form of the following comment:

We, the 216th General Assembly (2004), recognizing the church’s commitment to a churchwide process of discernment with the leadership of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church, call upon the church to pray for the task force and to engage faithfully in the processes of discernment as led by the task force. After extensive but dignified discussion, the question “shall the minority report become the main motion?” was put before the body, and the minority report was substituted for the committee’s action by an extremely narrow margin (4 votes). The minority report was then approved by a slightly larger margin. The effect of this action is that the Assembly proposed no change to the Book of Order in the matter of ordination standards, and also did not remove any of the historical and interpretive documents that led up to the creation of the present Book of Order language.

My own sense is that the assembly acted wisely here. Even though the proposed action of the committee would not have involved any change to the Book of Order, it would have created greater latitude and thus somewhat greater uncertainty about what the Book of Order means. At a time when we are all – on every side of this issue – eagerly awaiting whatever guidance the Theological Task Force may offer us about how to create room for disagreement and debate without losing our fellowship, it hardly seems wise to act in a manner that might further erode our patience with each other. I think the Assembly did the right thing here, however painful it may be to those who yearn for the day when gay and lesbian members might hold office in the church. 

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