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Provisional Advice on Examining Officers
The Constitution of the PCUSA changed again this year. Most changes each year hardly register with most Presbyterians; this is true of the majority of changes again this year. Some changes, some years, have been quite controversial and even eventually reversed; that may happen with a change or two this year. Eventually. More to the point and to the moment, two changes this year baffle many on just what now is newly required. Wanting to act faithfully, both wisely and innocently, all in accordance with the revised constitution, this essay hopes to offer some provisional advice that may help.
Newly added are two categories which name two bases on which there is to be no discrimination against baptized persons––their “gender identity” and/or “sexual orientation.” The Advisory Committee on the Constitution (ACC) recognizes that lists in the constitution are exclusionary, that is, if it is not listed it is not included. Thus, the continual need for additions. Who else is still excluded, one may be forgiven for asking. The need is endless. We have not seen the end of this effort. This calls into question the wisdom of making a list of categories at all, especially while trying to eliminate considering people in categorical terms. This may all be self-defeating. Sufficient for clarity and following Christ is to say there is to be in the church no discrimination––that vice of prejudicially considering anyone based on a category to which they may belong. Instead, the reach of Christ to the brutal and corrupt tax collector and to the violent zealot is, to the best of our ability, is to be our reach as well. God help us. Adding categories is no help.
Good advice is to think less in terms of categories and more of the image of God in all humanity and the commission to proclaim the gospel to all that all may come. All. Thinking in those terms will help us all.
Newly added also is the requirement to examine all candidates for office on matters of the Historic Principles of Church Order, which famously affirm that Christ alone is Lord of the conscience and thus it is to be free of any coercion, and also to examine on the matters of participation and representation, which has lately added two new categories.
The repeated advice and counsel of the Advisory Committee on the Constitution has noted the redundancy created by this change. Already all candidates are to be examined on the Constitution. The new mandate calls attention to two parts of the Constitution. While highlighting any particular part of the Constitution in the examination may serve to reflect a desire to emphasize some part, no part can be lifted above another and this new mandate adds nothing new. It is redundant. Asking the constitutional questions for ordination and hearing an informed and sincere answer covers the whole constitution. As noted by both the advocates and opposition to the change, and by the Advisory Committee on the Constitution, no new questions are named as required; no new answers mandated.
Good advice is any examining body may determine that a sincere answer to the constitutional questions for ordination and installation, as traditionally asked, has covered the whole constitution, including any recent changes to it.
In Christ’s name reach out to all humanity, and especially discriminating against none of the baptized, and ask and answer the constitutional questions with thoughtfulness and sincerity. These two pieces of advice may suffice for guiding the examining processes in your presbytery and session.
Politics is local. And there is much potential mischief in the changes. Some presbyteries––it appears that Olympia which first proposed this change is among them––deny candidates for articulating the conviction that traditional marriages alone are instituted and blessed by God. With these changes they may very well continue what they are doing, though there is no new permission to do this in these changes. These presbyteries are very few. May their number dwindle.
Some presbyteries may now, and quite erroneously, think that if they are required to examine on these matters, they are required to exclude because of these matters. They are not. Though this is where new trouble is most likely to begin, may their number be zero.
Some presbyteries will know better than to exclude, and will continue to examine on the whole of the Constitution not on selected parts, and will in doing so maintain the unity of the church. May all their number be blessed.
Good advice is speaking with the leadership of your presbytery––the chairs of COM and CPM, the Stated Clerk and Executive Presbyter––and offering your hopes and concerns with these changes, and offering to help lead. Most places, most times, that is welcome.
Good advice is documenting for the whole church what is the practice of your presbytery and especially what, if any, changes begin because of these changes to the Constitution. Openness tends toward truth. Help the whole by sharing what has been wrought by these changes.
Good advice is that if these changes intending to include have the opposite effect of newly excluding, then removing them from the Constitution will be in order. Until then, examine with grace, confer with presbytery leaders, note any changes.
Other advice is offered. The Constitution of the PCUSA requires every ordaining/installing body––presbytery and session––to examine those soon to serve in one of the offices of the church––teaching elder, ruling elder, deacon. Presbyteries do this regularly whenever a candidate is to be ordained as a teaching elder and whenever a teaching elder transfers into the presbytery to be installed to a new call. Sessions do this less regularly, though the requirement is that it be done in every church after officers are elected, and before they are ordained and installed.
My own practice was ten hours of instruction of every officer elect––ruling elder and deacon––between the time of their election by the congregation and their installation by the Session. Four hours in the Book of Confessions tracing the Christological teachings of each creed, confession, and catechism; one hour of testimony of relationship with Christ; four hours in the Book of Order learning the matters of historic principles, mission and membership, officers and ordination; one hour assigning and reviewing the new duties to begin upon installation. I would report to the Session that their examination was complete; the Session would record the fulfillment of the mandate to examine.
This investment by the pastor in them then, and the continued investment in them––no less than a half hour at each Session meeting––in matters of faith and practice, was valued highly by the officers. (In the interests of full disclosure: when it was first announced that ten hours in November––two, five-hour Saturday mornings––were given to start this project, some were not sure they liked their pastor anymore). The deacons were equipped to serve and the elders apt to teach because of this investment, begun by their examination, which was taking them, and the faith and practice of the church, seriously. They were, they say, deeply grateful for the investment.
The PCUSA is wise to mandate such an examination. The whole church is blessed by officers well examined and trained for their callings.
Good advice is for every Session to prepare and invest in their officers elect for the sake of the faith and faithfulness of the church. If you do this now, recommit and continue with the confidence that your efforts are bearing fruit. Perhaps this is good time to review your practice and strengthen it. If you do not yet examine this now (I think less than half of our Sessions are currently examining officers elect) begin now with the courage that this is not a rigor in excess of the rewards gained. You, your officers, your congregation, and the whole PCUSA will be blessed by your efforts.
Let us all take this ill moment in the church and pray and work that it become a good. That’s always good advice.
Provisional Advice on Being Examined
Changes to the Book of Order this year include both a revised mandate for examining bodies when they examine candidates for office (see Advice on Examining Officers on this), and revisions in the Constitution on which candidates are to be examined. Each time the Book of Order or Book of Confessions is amended, the basis on which the examination is made changes. The General Assembly’s Advisory Committee on the Constitution has repeated its determination that the current ordination questions asked of all candidates include the whole constitution including any recent changes. Thus, no new questions or answers are required because of these changes. This is, perhaps, the best advice offered to examining bodies.
Additions have been made to the list of categories on which there is to be no discrimination––“gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” This is troublesome for three reasons.
One, the ACC has said that it has “expressed its aversion to unnecessarily creating lists of requirements …” These recent additions do not add to the clearly stated and repeated constitutional conviction that all believers in Christ are unified in Christ and none are to be discriminated against. It is redundant says the ACC.
Two, and perhaps more importantly, there is a lack of consensus in both church and society as to what these undefined referents refer. Indeed, the referents are in a near constant state of change and are not settled yet to anyone’s satisfaction. Asking any candidate to determine what they mean while being examined by a body that has not, and probably cannot, itself made such a determination is troublesome.
Three, and perhaps most importantly, most delicately, and most troublesome, because so indetermined, matters of conscience in the candidate may be triggered––a candidate that wants to answer knowingly and truthfully.
The Constitution has been long been interpreted (Maxwell v. Presbytery of Pittsburgh, 1975) to require the candidate, not the church, to make a judgment, whether in good conscience and with an understanding of Scripture and the Constitution, if the candidate can accept or abide by a constitutional provision.
Matters of conscience are sometimes very difficult. They can be difficult because knowing the good, the right, and the true may itself be difficult. On these matters on gender and sexuality, it is fair to say that the PCUSA has been divided for a long generation and does not offer a single voice to help the individual candidate. Matters of conscience may be difficult because other matters vie with the conscience for supremacy. These can include desires and fears, some of which may very well be present during examination.
Good advice for any candidate is to know, in both heart and mind, as best as one is able, what does the Scripture teach and what does the Constitution require. Being prepared to articulate to an examining body that conviction and the commitment to act in accordance with it, with both courage and humility, is good work.
Good advice for any candidate that concludes that Scripture and the Constitution are not aligned in these matters, or on others, is to be prepared to name the scruple and to suggest how one’s ministry may yet be sufficiently ordered by our common governance, and to promise as much. Honesty is required and is rewarded by the Lord of the Conscience.
In either case, while only the candidate can determine if one can accept and abide by constitutional provisions, it is the examining bodies who alone have the responsibility to approve or deny ordination and/or installation to one who has so promised. While not only the candidate but the examining body may err in its determination, both are to offer to each other the best chance to be at their best and to accept the determinations.
Good advice in preparing for the examination on matters of the Constitution regarding identity and orientation is to quiet all the conflicting noises of culture and society. They are not authoritative in our deliberations whether individual or corporate. Their definitions are not a substitute for the work and conclusions of the candidate. Further, no candidate or examining body for that matter, is obligated to any opinion or definition or interpretation offered by the advocates of the new amendments, whether in the rationales of sponsoring presbyteries or arguments of organizations. Neither are they authoritative. Simply put, they have no say; do not give them one. The candidate is well advised, with prayer and with the help of others, to seek to know what the Constitution requires, if one can accept and abide by it, and to be prepared, if asked specifically, to give answer.
Good advice is to remember that in these amendments the Church, in its wisdom, did not choose to define the additions, choose to prescribe questions, or choose to propose correct answers. These were intentionally left to the candidate who forms the conscience and the council which make determination. No other may usurp their opinion––definition, interpretation, conviction.
Good advice on the formation of the conscience may include the following. In matters of discrimination generally, the best starting point for reflection is: “God created humanity in his own image, in the image of God created he them” (Gen. 1:27),which continues through Jesus declaring “for God so loved the world” (John 3:16). In matters of “gender identity,” the best starting point is: “in the image of God created he them; male and female created he them (Gen. 1:27) and continues through Paul writing: “neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28). In matters of “sexual orientation,” the best start-ing point is: “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh,”(Gen. 2:24) and continues through our Savior reaffirming this saying: “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said ‘For this reason a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh’” (Mark 10:6–8). Many other passages will help explore them with others.
Good advice is to remember that the constitutional provision is that no candidate can be outright discounted or ineligible unless the Constitution states otherwise. This includes you. May your presbytery remember this also.
Good advice is to remember that the constitution has in its troublesome list of protected categories, “theological convictions.” This includes you and yours. Know your convictions and be prepared to articulate them for the sake of the church.
