Mission Presbytery Overture on Membership Vows

October 26, 2007 by
Filed under: Religion 

This week, Mission Presbytery passed the following overturn to the 218th General Assembly by 30 votes (out of a few hundred).  I post it here because it doesn’t appear online anywhere.

My comments will follow the overture.

Mission Presbytery overtures the 218th General Assembly (2008) to direct the Stated Clerk to send the following proposed amendment to the presbyteries for their affirmative or negative votes:

Shall G-5.000 be amended as follows: insert the following as G-5.0200 and renumber the remaining items in G-5.000. *

G-5.0200 Membership Vows

At the time member-candidates present themselves to the session for reception into membership, whether by profession of faith, transfer of letter, or reaffirmation of faith, the following questions shall be addressed to the member-candidates for their answer as indicated. Sessions may make the determination, on an individual basis, to exempt certain persons from answering these specific questions due to physical or mental disability. In such a case, appropriate alternative questions and their presentation should be devised, still meeting the requirements of G-5.0101a.

Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce
evil and its power in the world?

I do.

Who is your Lord and Savior?

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.

Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love?

I will, with God’s help.

Will you be an faithful member of this congregation, share in its worship and ministry through your
prayers and gifts, your study and service, and so fulfill your calling to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?

I will, with God’s help.

*Should the assembly send a revised Form of Government to the presbyteries for their positive or negative vote, the vows contained here should be inserted and included in the
appropriate membership section.

Rationale:

Chapter XIV, G 14.0000, of the Book of Order lists the constitutional questions prescribed for those being ordained or installed to service in the offices of the church. In contrast, the Book of Order does not presently contain a corresponding set of constitutional questions for those wishing to enter into active church membership.

It is desirable that the Book of Order be amended to include constitutional questions for those seeking active membership since

(1) having common, standardized, questions for use throughout the denomination will emphasize the fact that membership is not solely in the local church, but in the larger, connectional, whole as well;

(2) it will provide a resource of readily accessible, doctrinally sound, and well-constructed questions for use by the local churches;
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(3) it will provide guidance and clarification to member-candidates in the step they are taking as outlined in G-5.0101a (“One becomes an active member of the church through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and acceptance of his Lordship in all of life.”); and

(4) its placement in G-5.000 appropriately emphasizes the promises and responsibilities of membership along with the meaning and privileges of membership.

————————————————————————-

I am opposed to this overture.

Here are the reasons.

1.  It is duplicative of baptismal vows.

When I rejoined the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville last fall, I re-recited the baptismal vows.  That is a common formula for confirmation vows and for adult profession or reaffirmation of faith.  It’s also convenient in the case of a membership class that may include people who need to be baptized.  These vows are similar but different to the baptismal vows that we used (not different in any substantial way).

2.  It is subscriptionist in two ways:

A.  It uses specific words.  The current Book of Order allows variation in the vows for baptism (W-3.3603).

B.  It establishes new requirements for membership:
1.  Turning away from sin and renouncing evil
2.  Obeying the Word
Currently, only ordained officers are required to make these vows (and others).  They are part of the baptism ceremony, but in the case of infant baptism they are only promises made by the parents and not the adult-to-be.  You can’t become a member through adult baptism (and profession) today without making those vows, but you can if you were baptized as an infant.  The requirement to submit to the Word is completely new – it’s not even part of the baptismal vows.  Take a look at the current chapter G-5 and you will not see that vow for membership.  (It isn’t in the Directory for Worship either.)

The provided Rationale mentions the requirements for membership, but fails to point out that the vows go beyond the current requirements.

3.  The vows are unnecessary.

The session should make this determination before accepting the prospective member.  The session is required to sense a profession of faith.  Honestly, I believe that these vows would reduce rather than increase the quality of the profession of faith – in my experience confirmands and adult prospective members go much farther than these vows when explaining their faith to the session.

I believe that the bar for membership should be set VERY low.  As low as the requirements for taking communion, which are:

The invitation to the Lord’s Supper is extended to all who have been baptized, remembering that access to the Table is not a right conferred upon the worthy, but a privilege given to the undeserving who come in faith, repentance, and love. In preparing to receive Christ in this Sacrament, the believer is to confess sin and brokenness, to seek reconciliation with God and neighbor, and to trust in Jesus Christ for cleansing and renewal. Even one who doubts or whose trust is wavering may come to the Table in order to be assured of God’s love and grace in Christ Jesus. W-2.4011a

Membership should be the beginning of a new phase of commitment to Christ, not a hurdle.  Membership is not subscription to beliefs, it’s a public recognition of joining a community.

Would I allow a person who does not subscribe to the overture’s vows to run Sunday School or serve communion?  No.  But I would allow them to be a member.

Now, if the GA were to adopt these vows I would make the following changes:

1.  Move them to the Directory for Worship, probably in the current W-4.2000 area.

2.  Make it optional for the vows to be taken before the session or congregation.  I feel that they are more appropriate before the congregation, and are a natural replacement for most congregations’ tradition of asking all new members to repeat their baptismal vows when joining a new congregation.  Alternately, making them before both would be a compromise.  (My brother was sworn in as a police officer the night before the formal ceremony in order to allow him to take his gun home and be dressed in full dress uniform for the ceremony.)

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Comments

6 Comments on Mission Presbytery Overture on Membership Vows

  1. pligg.com on Fri, 26th Oct 2007 3:52 pm

    2. Mark Time: Mission Presbytery Overture on Membership Vows

    An overture from Mission Presbytery regarding standardized membership vows (proposed as an amendment to the Book of Order), and my comments.

  2. jodie on Sat, 27th Oct 2007 1:36 am

    3. It looks like a move towards Congregationalism. It will not have been enough to have made those vows when joining the Denomination or when being baptized or making a public profession of faith?

    Next they will ask married couples to take their marriage vows again every time they join a new church, just to makes sure they made them right the first time, or to make sure there are witnesses, I don’t know…

    Sure seems weird. Why are they making this overture?

  3. Douglasah on Sat, 27th Oct 2007 2:53 pm

    4. I suspect this is a new way to exclude people from membership (as they are now excluded from service to the church and participating as clergy). “Sin” has come to mean “People who have been divorced and/or been remarried, but mostly people who live together without being married or people who are in relationships that aren’t heterosexual”. Thankfully, we still include “sinners” like inmates in prisons and ex-convicts. We are a people of sinners. As sinners, where else should we go to learn how not to sin? When others sin, who would we trust to help them learn how not to sin? Who would we wish to give comfort to the sinners and their victems if not our church?
    I take some small comfort that this overture would allow those of us who suffer or have suffered with mental illnesses or accidents of birth to join. Perhaps this is meant as a loophole – if “Sin” can be considered a “Mental Illness” etc. Yet in such a case, wouldn’t that have us be lead by “insane” people?
    In either case, it is still an attmept of GA to dictate to local churches who is to be allowed in, how, and why – which runs contrary to a presbytery form of church government – where the local Session has the final say, not an excusionary body elsewhere (no matter how well intended). This “Standardization” weakens the church, and places unusual burdens on Sessions and individual members as well.

  4. Jon on Tue, 30th Oct 2007 1:19 am

    5. Hmmm… I’m not sure what the rational is. If I were to look on it charitably, I would say that it is because membership should involve the same level of commitment as office. (I.e, ministers are elders are not “superchristians.”) In this understanding, we should all take essentially the same basic vows, with a few others clarifying the specific responsibilities of office.

    However, it may also be related to the debate a while back over the atheist that joined a Presbyterian Church in Texas. I do remember a church where someone wanted to join, but was still an avowed Buddhist, and so was not willing to make the membership vows.

    I sometimes think that we should get rid of the whole concept of membership. What does it offer? It is a kind of ecclesiastical citizenship. I know it helps with logistics, but for most churches membership is more like a club membership than member-ship in the body of christ.

  5. Christianity on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 7:08 am

    6. These words in your article is heart touching and its a great article on Overture Membership and I like your answers for why oppose overture and thanks for this article.

  6. So what’s going on at General Assembly? : Mark Time on Tue, 20th Jan 2009 2:34 pm

    7. […] than Confirmation will also make a public profession of faith.  This replaces the overture that I wrote about previously that would have required specific membership […]

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