Ever since G-6.0106b was added to the Book of Order, I have been working with other Presbyterians to remove or replace it because — I am convinced — it is Biblically, theologically, and legally unsound. In June, the General Assembly placed before the church as Amendment 08-B a beautifully-crafted alternative. Grateful as I am to the framers from Boston Presbytery and the commissioners who recognized the value of their work, I do not think that it will benefit the church to act on this constitutional amendment this year.

Before any reader cheers this statement or protests it, I need to add an immediate qualification. I still think that G-6.0106b must be removed. It is a blot on the Constitution. It was tortuously worded to create the appearance of fairness  — the same standard for gay and straight officers — as cover for its discriminatory intent, the exclusion of gays and lesbians. It promotes misuse of the church’s great confessions of faith as catalogs of sins. By specifying only one kind of behavior that “demonstrates the Christian gospel in the church and the world” (G-6.0106a), it elevates the sexual dimensions of the Christian life over those that receive equal or greater emphasis in Scripture.

Most seriously, G-6.0106b assumes and anchors certain teachings of the church, not only about sexual identity and behavior but also about God, creation, redemption, and other central themes of the faith — teachings that are, I deeply believe, distortions of the gospel. This is not the place to offer a detailed account of this claim, but this much must be said: my views about acceptance and ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons are grounded not in secular principles of equality or even in theological principles of justice for all, but in the Reformed doctrine of God. I cannot believe that the God who is “most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Larger Catechism, C-7.117) would make virtually identical needs (for love and companionship), impulses (to seal a covenant with another person with sexual love), aspirations (to work out the call to discipleship and social responsibility in a family setting), and capacities (for faithfulness to a partner and commitment to children) a means of grace for one group of persons and the route to condemnation for another. God’s ways are mysterious and we cannot, as the confessions also remind us, understand all of them, but the God we know in Jesus Christ is not capricious or cruel.

Yet countless LGBT persons have heard from the Presbyterian Church that God who blesses most people’s vocations of partnership and service arbitrarily rejects theirs. Unless they have been given the rare gift of celibacy, they are stranded, without either the support many Christians find in relationships celebrated by the church or the church’s affirmation of their call to leadership. Doctrines that leave a whole group of people helpless, more distanced from God than the rest of us, do not bespeak the one God who is most wise, most holy, most just, and most merciful and gracious. Thus I cannot see how that teaching could be true. G-6.0106b is rooted in such teaching. That is the most important reason to remove or replace it.           

So why not get rid of G-6.0106b right away and approve the more-than-adequate proposed replacement? Here are reasons that Presbyterians should not pour their hopes and energy into a pitched battle this year to replace, or retain, G-6.0106b.

The door to ordination is open. G-6-0106b was added to the Constitution to try to prevent the ordination of partnered LGBT persons, and the primary motive for removing it has been to clear the way to ordination. Various judicial decisions and actions of the General Assembly have clarified and confirmed that G-6.0106b does not have the legal force to prevent governing bodies from ordaining qualified persons of their choosing.

This year’s General Assembly affirmed the intent of the Authoritative Interpretation (AI) passed by the 2006 General Assembly, by approving an AI proposed by John Knox Presbytery that makes clear that ordaining bodies have the right to make determinations about the essential character of any part of the Constitution, including G-6.0106b. Another action of this year’s Assembly, the removal of earlier AIs based on the 1978 Definitive Guidance, protects governing bodies from many judicial challenges when they make careful decisions about departures from standards. A session or presbytery that decides, after a process of discernment focused on a particular case, to ordain or install a partnered gay or lesbian person has the legal means to do so, whether Amendment 08-B passes or not.

On the other hand, the removal or replacement of G-6.0106b will not widen the path to ordination. Even if Amendment 08-B is approved, G-6.0106a will remain in place. Some governing bodies will no doubt use it to deny ordination to partnered gays and lesbians, on the premise that those persons’ state in life does not “demonstrate the Christian gospel in the church and the world.” Possibly G-6.0106a will also be used as the basis for disciplinary charges against those whose partnered status was not known and approved at the time of ordination and installation.

In short: the removal or retention of G-6.0106b is no longer the key to determining who does or does not get ordained or installed.

A yes-no vote on Amendment 08-B will not accomplish what remains to be done: reaching a theological consensus about norms for human sexual behavior. As I wrote above, I believe that the church is called by its own Biblical, theological and confessional traditions to reexamine and change its teachings about the vocation of LGBT persons and the moral status of same-gender relationships. I do not think that these are optional or incidental matters. Not only does the full affirmation of the lives and leadership of LGBT persons depend on that change, but the truth of the church’s teaching about God is at stake. Therefore, I have been deeply engaged, in my presbytery and elsewhere, in serious “struggles for the Gospel” with colleagues whose views are different from mine.

My hope that the church will hear different implications of core gospel truths than it has in the past rests on these conversations — the kind of conversations that were spreading in the church even before the Theological Task Force began to encourage them. Often these groups operate under covenants that protect the participants from public exposure and thus permit a level of candor that formal public debate does not invite. LGBT persons can testify candidly about their faith and experience. Church officers can explore ideas and express doubts that might alarm their congregations. A community forms in which the members holding divergent opinions are nonetheless valued as persons and Christians. Faith is encouraged, respect deepens, and — sometimes — minds change as participants hear the gospel proclaimed in different ways.

If the pattern of past votes on constitutional amendments holds for this one, the process of deciding by ballot whether to replace G-6.0106b while the church is still sharply divided will not help many people, on any side, to understand God’s word in fresh and illuminating ways. Thoughtful conversation tends to stop when adversarial debate begins, especially in the two-minute-pro-and-con-prepared-statement format (not really debate at all) that has become standard in presbyteries. Each side claims that it is right — and righteous — without remainder and that the other is entirely wrong. Regular habits in homegrown dialogues — intense listening, speaking with humility, openly appreciating the strength and goodness of opponents — are rarely evidenced in parliamentary debate. After the vote, when the smoke of battle clears, winners crow and the losers threaten either to leave or to raise the level of combat in the next round. Both sides feel themselves to be victims of the triumphalism or retributive tantrums of the other. More often than not, the result is anger, bitter feelings, and disrupted relationships. 

The goal of full acceptance for LGBT persons in the church and wider society will be furthered only by searching Biblical study and loving theological conversation in which Presbyterians feel free to explore views different from those the majority now holds. Other Presbyterians have a similarly far-reaching goal: to deepen the church’s commitment to Biblical faithfulness as they understand it.  Neither my aims nor theirs will be well-served by hand-to-hand combat over Amendment 08-B. As the movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn once said, “If the people won’t come, you can’t stop  ‘em.” People cannot be forced by vote to open their minds and hearts and to examine and change their deep beliefs.

The costs of the battle over constitutional change may be greater than the benefits of deciding to replace or retain Amendment 08-B.  One lesson from past clashes over constitutional amendments is that the side effects can be costly. Presbyterian fights over sex attract media attention, and the church loses the capacity to communicate the meaning of its actions to its members. Conservative pastors report that many of their congregants get their Presbyterian news via talk radio, on the way home from work. Their opinions are formed before church leaders have a chance to interpret and explain. Evangelical pastors loyal to the denomination fear that significant numbers of poorly-informed conservative Presbyterians will defect if Amendment 08-B passes — some whole congregations, but many more individual members.

If they do walk out, the loss will be great, not only because every break in Christ’s body is painful, but also because, almost inevitably, departing members will gravitate to religious and social groups that are far more unfriendly to LGBT persons than the PC(USA). Those who compare the drive for LGBT acceptance in the church to movements for equality in the nation forget this. Winners and losers in our national struggles are still related to each other as citizens of the same country. They will encounter each other again. But those who leave a denomination are lost to those who stay. Any chance that those who depart might seriously explore the views and perspectives of their former colleagues in faith is gone. In the future, they are likely to be far more adamant opponents of LGBT rights in society and acceptance in religious settings than they would have been if they had remained part of the PC(USA).

The fact that some conservative evangelicals might leave the PC(USA) if Amendment 08-B passes is widely discussed. The consequences of the vote going the other way get less attention. From my perspective, they are very serious. Liberal Presbyterians also get much of their church news from the secular media, who rarely get it right. The press will portray this as an up-down vote on “gays.” If the amendment is defeated by negative votes, the headlines will scream, “Presbyterians Vote Against Homosexuals.” LGBT persons in the church and beyond will be devastated. Many gay people, especially youth who are struggling to come to terms with their sexuality, will hear this as a rejection of their humanity and their faith. The media will not mention that the way to ordination is clear in some jurisdictions, and is unchanged despite the defeat of this amendment. The fact that hundreds of thousands of their fellow church members are eager for their full inclusion in the life of the church will not be communicated. Some LGBT members and candidates will leave, and many, many more hearts of LGBT persons and their families and friends will be broken — and all because of a vote that will have little practical effect.    

What might presbyteries do if they, like I, believe that a vote now on Amendment 08-B will gain little and exact a high price?

One approach is to vote not to take a vote, but instead, to make a commitment to on-going engagement and discernment, toward a day when the church can vote together, confidently speaking to the world what most of its members believe to be the will of God and the mind of Christ. Yes, not voting will count against the replacement of G-6.0106b. As I have said, that replacement is a goal I fervently seek. Attempting it now, however, with the prospect of, at best, a narrow victory, will not advance the important cause of LGBT acceptance. Instead, voting will short-circuit the conversations that might accomplish that goal. Nor will those who disagree with me accomplish much by an all-out effort to defeat the amendment. Even if they succeed, they will not bring about the theological agreement they seek. And whichever way the vote goes, substantial numbers of Presbyterians will be alienated. 

By contrast, a decision not to decide now, which would be the clear message if presbyteries choose to take no action, would keep Presbyterians together to wrestle a blessing from this important issue that God has set before the church. Going forward, Presbyterians’ engagement with each other will be graced by the presence of increasing numbers of LGBT officers whose ordination is now possible. All will have to listen and speak more carefully because those previously excluded will be able to witness for themselves in the governing bodies of the church. I am certain that the theological conversation will be richer, deeper, and more productive as a result.

This tense and difficult moment in the life of the church may, in fact, be a rare opportunity for it to show the world that the church is, indeed, Christ’s own body, not just another organization divided by the culture wars. However passionate our opinions about sexuality and however powerful the political groups we have created to promote those opinions, Christians may still find the grace to behave in ways the world does not expect. Around the world, religious zeal fuels violence. In many churches, it creates bitter conflict. In such a context, imagine the gospel power of a community whose members have opposing deep convictions about an issue but still model gentle, respectful treatment of each other, put the interests of others ahead of their own, regard others as better than themselves, and stop short of humiliating their opponents, even when they have the few extra votes necessary to do so — all possible because the One who took human form chose humble obedience and generous service as the way to victory and glory. His body, his church, can live that way too.

Barbara G. Wheeler is president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, New York. The legal interpretations were informed by the counsel of attorney Douglas Nave.

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