GA Summary - Day Three

On Monday of "General Assembly Week" the mood of the gathering gets serious. We are well into the "legislative" Assembly with a healthy dose of the "power" assembly taking effect. Committees convened at 9:30 a.m., and except for lunch and dinner breaks, worked until 9:30 or 10:00 at night.

Committee work is where the real politicking of the Assembly takes place. This year, the 380 or more items of business are parcelled among 17 committees, each of which has 55-60 members. Commissioners and Advisory delegates have equal standing in committees, which makes recommendation to the Assembly on each item of business. Since it is much easier to bring about amendments and to affect the vote of committees than it is to do so on the floor of the Assembly, where the committee recommendation will have significant influence, committees are where the most important debate happens. What is more, members of the public, overture advocates, and other some resource people have access to the floor of the committees, but not the plenary session.

On this first full day of committee work, there are some real controversies brewing. In the Theological Issues Committee, several attempts to authorize a new translation of the Heidelberg Cathechism were answered with a single action that flies in the face of the Constitutional advice given that any change in the text would require using the process for Amendment spelled out in the Book of Order. The committee simply recommends changing the language by Assembly vote. The action as posted on PC-Biz (the business tracker) does not even require the positive or negative votes of the Presbyteries, much less the formation of a Committee of 15 and the approval of two different Assemblies and the concurrence of 2/3 of the presbyteries (G-18.0200). Of course, the action is made all the more controversial in that it eliminates the only specific condemnation of homosexual activity found in the Book of Confessions.

The GAC-Presbyterian Foundation battle rages on. I understand "highly sensitive" conversations with the leadership of Committee Eight (Mission Coordination and Budgets) were taking place late tonight. Meanwhile, the Committee handling Board of Pensions and Foundation business recommended approval of new Foundation by-laws that eliminate the rights of the General Assembly Council (acting for the Assembly) to consent in the election of officers and board members. Chapter eight of those by-laws require the consent of the GAC to the substance of the changes before they can be approved. In the current climate, I would be surprised to learn that such consent has been given.

In other, less arcane matters, the Polity Committee is recommending the Assembly adopt an authoritative interpretation (AI) that would make official the position of our own Presbytery that it is out of order for a congregational meeting to be held to vote to withdraw from the denomination. The question arose in a question for constitutional interpretation from the Presbytery of Eastern Virginia asking if the Presbytery can set higher quorums for such meetings. The Advisory Committee on the Consitution's recommendation was that such meetings were out of order and could only be held as "hearings" conducted by the Presbytery in its required consultation with congregations considering dismissal. Those familiar with our conversations with Greeley First Church last fall may recognize the advice.

Reports from the Peacemaking and International Issues committee indicates that our Presbytery's overture on Human Trafficking passed easily with a minor editorial change (it still requires Assembly adoption). Also, discussion in the committee considering the new Form of Government has been largely negative, while the "PUP II" committee (Church Orders and Ministry) seems to be leaning toward undoing the work of the last Assembly by adopting yet another Authoritative Interpretation that could invalidate the express prohibition in G-6.0106b against the ordination and installation of "persons who refuse to repent of any practice the confessions call sin." Whatever your feelings are about the ordination of sexually active homosexuals, it is destructive to the denomination when mandatory provisions of the Constitution are amended by a process other than through the vote of the presbyteries, as required in G-18.0000. An attempt to run this through the Assembly, if not opposed as unconstitutional by the outgoing stated clerk, could result in a vote shift to a strict constitutionalist like Ed Koster in the upcoming Stated Clerk election.

That's as much as I can fit in tonight. Committees wind up their work tomorrow. As someone called to serve as a resource to TWO committees for the Advisory Committee on the Constitution, I will be glad when I no longer have to wear a path in the carpet of the convention center shuttling between meeting rooms!