Deep divisions over human sexuality have resurfaced in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Some conservatives accuse two top executives of undermining efforts to call a special session of the current 214th General Assembly to enforce a ban on gay clergy who are not celibate.

In 1996 the assembly amended the PCUSA constitution to require that pastors and elders live in "sexual fidelity or chastity," which local presbyteries ratified a year later. Since then, the assembly has voted down two attempts to remove the ban.

Clifton Kirkpatrick, PCUSA stated clerk, vetoed the proposal, saying not enough names were on a petition calling for a special session. Kirkpatrick said 13 petitioners withdrew their names, bringing the total to 44, six short of the required 50. Backers claim Kirkpatrick and Fahed Abu-Akel, PCUSA moderator, pressured petitioners to withdraw their names.

"That is simply not true," Kirkpatrick told Christianity Today. "The morning after we received the petition, four people, totally unsolicited, contacted me and said they did not want their names on the petitions." During signature verification, others withdrew their names.

"The time, energy, and money (as much as $500,000) that we would spend on a special assembly would be that much less that would be spent on mission," Abu-Akel wrote in a January 24 letter to commissioners of the 214th General Assembly. Some PCUSA evangelicals agreed that the approach taken by conservatives was not advisable.

Critics of that approach include Victor D. Pentz, an evangelical pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, which at 12,000 members is the largest church in the denomination. "Some of us think the effort to call a special session was a confrontational approach and, in the ...