Presbyterians first addressed the issue of ordination of practicing homosexuals in the late 1970s. But in 1993, the end of the debate seems nowhere in sight.
Last month in Orlando, the issue dominated the 205th annual meeting of the Presbyterian Church USA’s (PCUSA) General Assembly, the 2.8 million-member denomination’s highest lawmaking body. Despite passionate appeals from both sides to settle the issue once and for all, representatives ultimately approved a plan for three years of study on ordaining active homosexuals.
“Presbyterians congenitally cannot resist studying something,” quipped Thomas Gillespie, president of Princeton Theological Seminary and an outspoken opponent of homosexual ordination.
The action taken by commissioners, however, put the weight of the general assembly behind the church’s current stand by affirming the ban on homosexual ordination as an “authoritative interpretation” of the church’s constitution. Prior to the vote, newly elected moderator David Lee Dobler claimed “personal privilege” in granting proponents of homosexual ordination time to address commissioners. In the wee hours of the morning following the vote, homosexual advocates took over the stage, interrupting the assembly with taunts and singing.
“To be told that we are sinful and immoral is not only painful, but also violent to us,” said Jane Spahr at a news conference later in the day. Spahr is a lesbian whose call to copastor a church in Rochester, New York, was overturned last year by the denomination’s Permanent Judicial Commission.
An impromptu group, The Coalition, drafted a pastoral letter to the PCUSA. Signed by 200 of those in attendance at this year’s meeting, the letter affirms the denomination’s ban on homosexual ordination.
At least one congregation already has taken matters into its own hands. The 27 ruling session members of Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of Newport Beach, California, in April voted unanimously to withhold all general mission support funds ($250,000 annually) from the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii until all ties with the Lazarus Project are severed. Senior pastor John A. Huffman says the Lazarus Project is a prohomosexual organization. Church authorities are now reconsidering support for the Lazarus Project and are in dialogue with Huffman.
In other actions taken in Orlando:
• Commissioners passed a major restructuring plan in response to the denomination’s financial problems. The plan reduces the church’s ministry structure from nine units to three divisions. In addition, the PCUSA national staff has been reduced by 25 percent. PCUSA has also cut its budget by $5 million this year. Yet, there is a projected deficit of $7 million for 1994.
• The prolife caucus in the church failed in its effort to stop official denominational support for the Religious Coalition on Abortion Rights. In fact, commissioners passed a resolution supporting the Freedom of Choice Act.
By Randy Frame in Orlando.
