The First Reversal:

Reflections on a Difficult Presbytery Vote on Amendment 08-B

Commentary by Rev. Carolyn Poteet, First Presbyterian Church, Hendersonville, N.C.

Posted on the Layman Online, Tuesday, February 3, 2009

A while back, I received a collection of quips from evaluations as only the British military could write them.  One said, “He lives his life as an example – if only as a warning to others.”

Our January 31 vote by the Presbytery of Western North Carolina may serve that way for others seeking to oppose the proposed Amendment 08-B from the General Assembly. When the dust cleared, the vote stood at 108 wanting to uphold the fidelity and chastity standard for ordained leaders versus 144 wanting to remove it from the Book of Order. 

With this result, we had the auspicious honor of being the first presbytery to reverse our vote from the 2001 decision about this issue.  That vote was 187-100 for keeping the fidelity and chastity clause. Perhaps Saturday’s result was because we have lost several of our brothers and sisters to the greener pastures of the EPC. Perhaps it was because the heart of our presbytery, Asheville, N.C., is living up to its title of the “San Francisco of the East.” Perhaps God is at work in ways we can’t understand right now.

Many of us will be pondering the process and the outcome for weeks to come. But I wanted to share a few initial thoughts, not necessarily to serve as a warning, but to serve as lessons learned as so many other presbyteries prepare for their upcoming debates.

I do want to applaud the way the debate was handled. Two ministers, one from each side, were allowed seven minutes each to present their cases. This was followed by a time of silent prayer.

The debate that followed was to be an hour long, with two minutes per speaker, alternating between pro and con sides. All was decently and in order. Both sides had excellent moments and awkward moments.

Following the debate, we had another silent prayer and then we voted by secret ballot. They asked that no one applaud when the results were announced. We continued on to the rest of our docket, interrupted briefly by the moment when the counters returned with the news, then back to our regularly scheduled meeting reports. We were deeply disappointed, but having a fair hearing did make the results a little easier to take.

The pro side consisted of those wanting to remove the current G-6.0106b and its fidelity and chastity clause, and put in its place new language approved by the General Assembly last June. The single most effective point they made was this: the new language called for obedience to Jesus Christ first and foremost, while the old language doesn’t mention Jesus at all. They have a point.

If only we could have amended the language of G-6.0106b ourselves, I would have loved to insert the name of our Lord. The con side argued that the way the new language is phrased, it separates Jesus from the revelation of Scripture (as the Mormons have done, separating Jesus from the true gospel). In the pro side rebuttal, someone read the ordination questions which list Jesus first, Scripture second and the confessions third.

Jesus was big on the pro side. Jesus hung out with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus was about grace, not the law. Jesus would have loved my daughter, nephew, cousin, best friend.

On the con side, we saw a different Jesus – the one that said, “Go and sin no more.” The One that blessed the marriage of man and woman. The One who created all things, male and female He created them. The One who is the Bridegroom, waiting for us, the church, His bride, when we can finally celebrate the wedding feast of the lamb.

Both sides used Scripture. The main pro speaker began with a salvo against every passage that mentions homosexuality. He argued that they were either irrelevant or misunderstood. It is hard to apply scriptural standards written 2,000 years ago to our culture today. The con side addressed each of these passages too, but the comments seemed to be shrugged off.

Listening more closely, though, it seemed like the pro arguments sought to mold Jesus and Scripture into the image of today’s world. If anyone in history was ever counter-cultural, it was Jesus – followed closely by Paul. Neither of them was afraid to tell the culture that what they were doing was wrong. Within the pro side’s language of “God is love,” there was hiding a disdain for being judged intolerant, or perhaps not sufficiently forward-thinking enough. Perhaps it was a pride of moving beyond an old, irrelevant religion that might offend the young people of today (reaching out to young people was another theme that repeated itself frequently).

Many of the pro arguments centered around civil rights. Repeatedly, people brought up the ordination of women and the inclusion of African Americans. The most powerful counter-argument to this came from an African-American pastor. She reminded the assembly that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Reverend first and a Doctor second. She pointed out that he, as a minister of God’s Word, would have not supported the distortion of his words on this issue. It is not a civil rights issue, she said, it is a sin issue.

The debate also had an interesting battle of metaphors. Parker Williamson started a long line of comments about traffic lights. We currently have proscriptive language, he said, where red lights mean stop and green lights mean go. Soon we will have descriptive language, which simply says, “this is a traffic light.”

His comment was followed up by someone saying we shouldn’t single out one traffic law, we should agree to obey all the traffic laws.

On my way home I thought of another comeback to that (one of those great thoughts you always have long after the debate is over …) We used to have a four-way intersection, but people knew the intersection so well, you always slowed down to check for other cars and let your neighbors through. But then some people started ignoring the intersection and flying right through it. So they put up a warning light (in our case, the Definitive Guidance and the Authoritative Interpretation). People kept speeding right past that, so they put up a stoplight (G-6.0106b). And now people want to say, let’s take down the stoplight and replace it with a sign that says, “Drive Sincerely.” People know how to drive and they promise they won’t run into anybody, right? Wrong! We can imagine what kind of chaos is going to happen when the stoplight is removed!

My favorite metaphor of the day came from Bill Serjak, a pastor in Sylva, N.C. He brought up the new language and how it calls for the “sincere efforts” of the candidate to abide by the standards of the church. “How do you judge sincere efforts?” he asked. He went on to tell the story of dear Linus, forever searching for the Great Pumpkin. He knew the Great Pumpkin existed, but it would only appear in the most “sincere” pumpkin patch. The problem was, he could never figure out which pumpkin patch was the most sincere. I have a feeling we may be looking for a lot of Great Pumpkins if this amendment passes.

A few months ago, I asked Paul Detterman, from PFR, how we might confront the niceness factor of the pro side. Their arguments seem so nice, so why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along. Paul told me, “We need to give people something to move toward, something meaningful. We need to give them hope. We need to regain the positive side of this debate, not just staying on the negatives.”

As I listened to the arguments of my brothers and sisters across the aisle from me, I heard language accusing us of fear. On their side, I heard language of how God called for loving acceptance. I heard brokenness and mourning for those who had been hurt by all of this. 

And oddly enough, what started to well up in me was a sense of joy. “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” I stood up to the mike and shared about the joy of being forgiven. We are all forgiven. I quoted I Cor. 6:9, 10, not to point to the Greek exegesis of the two words for homosexuality, but rather to point out the words at the end: “And so some of you used to be.” There were all kinds of miscreants and sinners in Paul’s church, but they were, as you and I are, saved through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We used to be those things, but Christ has set us free! And God calls us to offer that freedom, that forgiveness to everyone no matter what their background or behavior. We as leaders are called to offer and model the hope of transformation through the work of the Holy Spirit. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

The last person to speak, in the pro-side line, said, “I came into this meeting planning to vote for this amendment. But after hearing many good things from the con side, I may change my vote. Actually,” he said sheepishly, “I should probably be at that other microphone.”

And then we voted. And we lost.

When it came down to it, the line at their microphone was longer than ours. They had more people with prepared, precisely-timed, two-minute speeches. And their arguments fit well into the strong current in which our whole culture has been drifting.

But this is just one battle, an early battle. As I’m writing this, 22 presbyteries have voted to uphold the current standard. Including ours today, 11 have voted to amend it. We have 140 more chances for presbyteries to stand up for Biblical standards on sexual morality. We pass the baton to all of you who now go into battle. As Shakespeare wrote in Henry V, “Once more dear friends, into the breach!”