General Assembly Reactions – it’s too early

June 30, 2008 by · 6 Comments
Filed under: Religion 

Dear blog readers,

This past weekend, and even into this week, many bloggers will be writing about what happened at General Assembly.  A significant number will write or have written about how upset they are or how joyful they are about what happened.

I want to make one recommendation – wait.  Don’t take these first emotional reactions too seriously.  As they say on Battlestar Galactica, “this has all happened before; it will happen again.”  The dust has not even begun to settle.

Let me use a fellow blogger as an example.  (Toby – if you object let me know and I’ll delete this from this post.)

On Friday evening, an upset blogger wrote that he would suspend blogging.

On Sunday, he recanted and started blogging again.

Many others are posting the blog equivalent of tearing hair and rending garments.  Let’s be real – many people have been hurt by this sea change in the denomination.  Others will be hurt in the future by either the events now set in motion or the backlash against them.
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Still others are failing to be good winners, and are insulting their conservative opposition either before or after the emotional reaction of the folks on the losing side.  Come on, folks.  We don’t do this.

A few important reminders:

  1. Most of the changes are simply a reminder of what our polity has traditionally been, and how it has worked.  For too many years we took the ordination decisions out of the hands of the presbytery or session, and put them in the hands of the text of a rule book.  These actions return us to the days when people made individual judgments about people.
  2. The presbyteries have to approve the removal of G-6.0106b.  Some say that the removal of the old Authoritative Interpretations makes that clause moot – I don’t think so.  It seems to me that fidelity and chastity are STILL the law of the land.  Others say that the ability to scruple makes that clause moot – this idea may have more merit but will require a test case.
  3. Nobody will be required to ordain a gay person against the will of the ordaining minister.  One quietly passed interpretation points out that a session moderator (pastor, or some temporary replacement or supply) is obligated to ordain whoever the congregation elects as long as the session approves their examination.  This interpretation ALSO points out the session’s requirement to understand the conscience of the moderator and to make arrangements for someone else to perform ordinations where necessary – ironically under the “outdo one another in honoring one another’s decisions” clause of the PUP report.  I find this situation unlikely in the extreme – I really can’t see a session forcing a minister to ordain a gay person against their will.  In that case, the church is ready for the COM to take a look at the whole congregation/pastor relationship – it’s probably broken in many ways.  Any session that cares about their pastor would make alternate arrangements in this situation, and any pastor would do well to reconsider their call if they are in a congregation that elects someone that they disapprove of to such a degree that they will not ordain them.

I urge my fellow progressives not to celebrate too loudly.  Your cheers and in some cases jeers are painful to conservatives.  Be a good winner.

I also urge my conservative peers not to give up.  You are doing what you believe to be the most faithful thing right now (as are the progressives).  Don’t take any hasty actions.  Take time to hear God’s call for you.  Then do what you need to do.

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