By a vote of 145 for, 75 against, and 4 abstentions, the Presbytery of New Covenant (Houston, Texas) approved the following policy at its August 22, 2006 stated meeting:
"The Presbytery of New Covenant in its discernment of the essentials of reformed polity and for the sake of preserving the peace, unity and purity of the church does adopt the principle that compliance with the standards for ordination adopted and held authoritative in the Book of Order shall remain essentials of reformed polity and any departure from said standards for ordination set forth in the Book of Order will disqualify a candidate for ordination or installation by the Presbytery of New Covenant. Those provisions of the Book of Order deemed to be standards and therefore essentials of polity include those statements using "shall," "is/are to be," "required," "requirement," or equivalent expressions.
This discernment of the essentials of reformed polity shall remain in effect until removed by a majority vote of the Presbytery of New Covenant."
By a vote of 145 for, 75 against, and 4 abstentions, the Presbytery of New Covenant (Houston, Texas) approved the following policy at its August 22, 2006 stated meeting:
"The Presbytery of New Covenant in its discernment of the essentials of reformed polity and for the sake of preserving the peace, unity and purity of the church does adopt the principle that compliance with the standards for ordination adopted and held authoritative in the Book of Order shall remain essentials of reformed polity and any departure from said standards for ordination set forth in the Book of Order will disqualify a candidate for ordination or installation by the Presbytery of New Covenant. Those provisions of the Book of Order deemed to be standards and therefore essentials of polity include those statements using "shall," "is/are to be," "required," "requirement," or equivalent expressions.
This discernment of the essentials of reformed polity shall remain in effect until removed by a majority vote of the Presbytery of New Covenant."
Rationale The 217th General Assembly meeting in Birmingham, Alabama approved an authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order, G-6.0108, permitting presbyteries to qualify certain requirements of the Book of Order as non-essentials of polity for ministers. Yet this authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order, G-6.0108, also states "Whether the examination and the ordination and installation decision comply with the Constitution of the PC(USA), and whether the ordaining/installing body has conducted its examination reasonably, responsibly, prayerfully, and deliberately in deciding to ordain a candidate for church office is subject to review by higher governing bodies." There is quite a bit of discussion about what this AI really means for the life of the church, and in some sense we will not know for sure until the GA Permanent Judicial Commission issues rulings in the future. But we do know these things: A. The Authoritative Interpretation (AI) of G-6.0108 gives the Presbytery of New Covenant the right to declare in its own life, ministry and practice that all statements in the Book of Order using shall, all requirements, and all mandates are essentials of reformed polity. B. Earlier the Presbytery passed by a strong majority an overture to the 217th General Assembly which would have altered recommendation 5 of the Theological Task Force Report on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church by affirming that all mandates, statements using "shall," and all other requirements of the Book of Order shall remain for all governing bodies mandatory and therefore not eligible to be classified as non-essentials of polity. While this overture was not adopted by the Assembly, and in no way binds the presbytery at this time, it may now show us a way forward in our own life that is entirely consistent with what we are allowed to do under the new AI (Authoritative Interpretation) of the 217th General Assembly. The motion was brought to the presbytery by the session of First Church of Pearland, Texas, with concurrences by the following sessions: Trinity Church of Port Neches; First Church of Lake Jackson; Waverly Church of New Waverly; Formosan Church of Houston; Gulf Prairie Church of Jones Creek; First Presbyterian of Houston. In the debate of this overture before its passage, it was mentioned that passage of this overture would insure ministers received into the presbytery would be willing to abide by Book of Order provisions such as the requirement that they perform baptisms in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that ministers live in fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness. With 39,416 members the Presbytery of New Covenant is the sixth largest presbytery in the PC(USA). It contains 107 congregations and 11 new church developments spanning Southeast Texas. It is probably the only presbytery in the PC(USA) to contain three congregations with over 3,500 members each -- First, Grace, and Memorial Drive--all in Houston. But it also contains many small membership congregations and many racial ethnic congregations. Among those who spoke in favor of this overture were the pastor of one of the presbytery's smallest churches, Waverly Church, the stated clerk of one of its racial-ethnic churches, Formosan Church, and the senior pastors of its three largest congregations. which together contain nearly a third of its congregants.
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Mr. Van Valkenburg's letter jumps into the middle of the
intersection between parts I and II of our Constitution, the Book of Confessions
and the Book of Order. In this letter he raises a red herring about the Book of
Confessions in an attempt to argue about our presbytery's attempt to give
guidance as to what are the essentials of Reformed polity contained in
our Book of Order.
The specific language in the ordination/installation vows
for officers in the Book of Order make clear that it is impossible to treat
essentials of Reformed polity and essentials of Reformed faith in
an identical way. That is because officers pledge to be governed by our
polity (Book of Order), and "to be governed" means one obeys shalls and
requirements. On other hand, with respect to our confessions, officers pledge
less--only to be instructed, led, and guided by them (and to
receive and adopt the "essential tenets" contained in them.) But since the
essential tenets of Reformed faith contained in the eleven confessional
documents are not specified at this time, it is understood that governing bodies
must determine them. Generally, one criterion for determining whether a doctrine
contained in a confession is essential would be its strong appearance in
many if not most of the other ten confessions!
It may be possible for Mr. Van Valkenburg to make the
argument he is trying to make, but I doubt it. To even try to make it, he must
first of all look carefully at the deliberate language of G-6.0106 b rather
than at what he seems to imagine it to say.
G-6.0106 b says, "Persons
refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged actions which the confessions
call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed..." Mr. Van
Valkenburg's letter is written as if G- 6.0106 b said officers need to repent of
any action "a confession (singular) calls sin," but of course it
says they must repent of actions "the confessions calls sin."
The second sentence of G-6.0106 b is clear that there is a
very specific named requirement for officers in the Book of Order to "live in
fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness."
However, as to other practices which the confessions call sin, the third
sentence of G-6.0106 b obviously calls for governing bodies to decide which sins
mentioned in a confession are also mentioned in enough other confessions
to qualify as practices the confessions call sin.
Before someone is too dismissive
iscerning the witness of our confessions as a
of this confessional hermeneutic, let's remember that since at least the time
of Augustine, this has been exactly how we read the Bible. Christians
have been taught to compare scripture with scripture and to discern the witness
of scripture as a whole.
whole is analogous.
To summarize, the Book of Order
is one document, and officers promise to be governed by it. To say that being
governed by our polity includes obeying shalls and requirements in the Book of
Order is self-evident. It is arguing anything else that is a stretch.
On the other hand, Part I of our
Constitution, the Book of Confessions, contains eleven documents written over a
period of almost 1800 years in many languages. In some areas, such as the role
of women in leadership, the confessions actually contradict one another. Hence
the need for governing bodies to decide the witness of the confessions as a
whole. Likely beliefs which could be seen as essentials of Reformed faith --like
the divinity of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the Trinity, and
justification by grace alone through faith alone (just to name a few)--are
strongly emphasized over and over again in these confessional documents. But if
a governing body decided they were essentials, they would be "essentials of
Reformed faith," and the decision of the Presbytery of New Covenant http://www.presbyweb.com/2006/...ndards.htm
refers to essentials of Reformed polity.