Thanks for your dear prayers while I was representing the Presbytery of North Central Iowa as a minister-commissioner at the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA, in Minneapolis the last ten days. I surely needed your prayers, as it was a physically and mentally and spiritually taxing time. I found a great number of people who saw the Bible as our guide, who were committed to following God's Word as the primary way the Spirit leads us -- in accordance with God's Word.
Unfortunately, from our viewpoint, there was a larger number who saw things differently from us, and that was emotionally draining at times, as I found myself several times in a sea of rainbow scarves, deluged with posters and pamphlets calling for "justice now!"
Try as the Renewal network, which included myself, attempted to put forward the traditional view God's Word as a guide, as reflected in our Confessions, the folks on the other side seemed to turn a deaf ear to our pleas. claiming that their way of interpreting the Scripture was equally viable and had "more light" for our times. I strive to love these folks in Christ, and I tried to show them the greatest measure of respect at the assembly, but, after continued prayer and meditation. I cannot agree with that view of Scripture.
In my opinion, the best thing the Renewal network was able to do was to help keep the definition of marriage at "one man, one woman," which is the traditional view and what is now in the Book of Order of PCUSA. Sadly. the Committee on Civil Union and Marriage Issues launched toward plenary four difficult items, each propelled by the momentum of large committee affirmative votes:
A special committee report on same-sex unions and marriage that confessed an inability to agree on Biblical standards for sexual expression, but just wanted everyone to get along.
A set of amendments to the Directory for Worship that would substitute “two people” where “couple” or “a man and a woman” are now used in marriage services.
An Authoritative Interpretation that would immediately permit Christian marriage for “two people” rather than a man and a woman.
Recommendations to disapprove overtures that simply affirmed the Biblical marriage morality Presbyterians have always considered as bedrock teaching.
All was bleak for Biblical traditionalists at the weary hour when the General Assembly finally turned its attention to these matters. But a tortured 90 minutes later, things looked much brighter, thanks to a remarkable bit of parliamentary wrangling that the Renewal network fully supported:
The potentially troublesome report on same-sex unions got itself married to a rock-solid minority report that traditionalists, including myself, consider to be quite well done.. Both reports will be “commended” to the churches and sessions to read and study. Let us hope this study will be fruitful for the PCUSA.
The “two people” constitutional amendments were never even discussed, much less approved.
The “two people” Authoritative Interpretation likewise never got considered and never was approved.
While affirmations of Biblical marriage were disapproved—by a 2:1 margin, the current definition of marriage was NOT CHANGED.
The motion to let the action on the reports stand in answer to all proposed action passed by a narrow margin and then withstood a motion to reconsider the next day. Later on that day there was protest against the assembly's action on this issue, as a number of people blocked the platform and refused to leave until police arrested them and took them away from the meeting hall. The assembly sang a hymn as the moderator and stated clerk asked the protestors to leave, but the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) protestors apparently wanted to be arrested so the sight of it all could be placed on the evening news. Yes, they came into the hall with television cameras following. Such is the politics of our day.
Still, the bottom line is that the traditional view of marriage remains our standard. That radical transformation of the "two persons" language never happened. Pastors and sessions will not have to manage the crisis of explaining to their congregations the immediate introduction of same-sex marriage.
Church leaders will receive a dual set of study papers and recommendations to sort out. But half of the material will be nearly guaranteed to be to the liking of one side or another. Still, I hope all sessions will read both documents and much time in prayer. I sincerely hope that the Minority Report, a remarkable, Bible-based document, will be read by both sides,as well as the majority report. I feel that the Minority Report may put forth the Biblical point of view in a new way and vibrant way for those who may have never heard it, or meditated upon it.
There were other things that were passed that I had problems with, but we can deal with them in the presbyteries. We could not have changed the Authoritative Interpretation, so this was a great victory for the traditionalists. Still there is much to consider and much to pray about. This issue WILL return in two years, you can be certain of that.
I will write more later, when I have had time to ruminate upon all the happenings. It was not all bad news -- this is still a great church in many ways -- I was assigned to the committee on Mission Coordination and we expanded the mission outreach and budget to $82 million and much good is being done in missions. We also reinstated the Office of Collegiate Ministries, putting youth work at a high priority (this measure originated in our Presbytery). We also had some amazing worship services and great speakers like Dr. Steven Hayner, President of Columbia Seminary, amd Message author Dr. Eugene Peterson.
There was a lot of good in Minneapolis. But there were also things that will trouble many of us for some time to come.
On the joyous side, I saw Rev. Matt Glasgow, son of the Burt church and son of Dick and Nancy, who was a minister-commissioner from his presbytery. After my image was shown forty feet high on the big screens of the giant auditorium on the first night of the assembly business meetings, Matt came over and gave me a hug and introduced himself! His two little girls made the GA paper with a very cute picture of them on an escalator. I am sure grandpa and grandma will be proud!\
I also found that Chelsea Mills, a young woman of 17 from Kake, Alaska, was a Youth Advisory Delegate (YAD). Chelsea was in the Sunday School when we were in Kake. Her late father Rick and her mother Judy were outstanding elders and friends in Kake, so it was a delight to see her and to witness the wonderful young woman Chelsea has become!
Thanks again for your prayers. Keep Praying! I will write more later.
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