overture round-up

This year's General Assembly will consider an exciting variety of overtures. Some are the usual suspects: overtures to delete G-6.0106b, overtures about marriage. Some are quite different.

This is a round-up of all the overtures so far that support LGBT equality. A list of all the overtures, together with their full text, is also available at More Light Presbyterians' web site, and it will continue to be updated until the Assembly.

(Note: this post contains a lot of Presbyterian jargon. Here's a short explanation. The General Assembly is the nationwide Presbyterian assembly which is much like a meeting of a legislature. It meets for a week every two years. Presbyteries (local governing bodies) suggest legislative actions to the Assembly by sending overtures. Some overtures can be adopted directly by the Assembly, while others cannot become law until they are sent back to all the presbyteries for their subsequent votes. For more information on the legislative process, click here. An overview of all the business before the Assembly is available at http://www.pcusa.org/ga218/business.htm. If any of the jargon here is confusing, leave a comment and I or another reader will explain as best we can!)

1. Restore the Heidelberg Catechism
from Boston Presbytery and Pittsburgh Presbytery

When a new translation of the Heidelberg Catechism was prepared in 1962 from the German and Latin originals, an unscrupulous translator inserted a phrase about "homosexual perversion" into question 4.087 which does not exist in the originals. When questioned, the translator (Eugene Osterhaven) said "it would be well to be more specific [about sexual practice]… than [the author of the Heidelberg Catechism] had been in his day." (Monday Morning, vol. 62, no. 4)

The change was not noticed by other scholars on the committee that prepared the 1962 translation, until it was too late. In the 90s, Dr. Johanna Wijk van Bos noticed the problem, almost by happenstance--she memorized the catechism in Dutch as a child, and when she encountered the English translation she noticed the discrepancy right away. She, Dr. Christopher Elwood, and former moderator Jack Rogers have written about the problem. Other scholars from the translation committee have since gone on record admitting their mistake.

This ought to be offensive to anyone who cares about the integrity of original texts. So the overture to restore the catechism is very important. Of course it's important to remove an anti-LGBT slur that didn't even exist in the original. However, the overture also identifies several other discrepancies in the 1962 translation. (If we're going to restore it, we'd better restore it right.) It's a testament to the importance of our Confessions that this overture came from Pittsburgh Presbytery, which is hardly a bastion of pro-gay activism, but where the historic texts are held in high regard.

Full text:
Pittsburgh Overture
Advisory opinion for Pittsburgh Overture
Boston Overture
Background information for Boston Overture

2. Delete B
(Hudson River Presbytery with concurrences from Genessee Valley, Albany and National Capital)

This is yet another round of something that we really do need to keep doing. Paragraph G-6.0106b in the Book of Order is anti-LGBT, it is bad law, and it is used exclusively as an instrument of harassment, not a true ordination standard. It prohibits the ordination of anyone who is not (a) faithful within a monogamous heterosexual marriage, or (b) single and "chaste" (whatever that may mean.)

All charges brought under G-6.0106b since it was added in 1996 have been against lesbians and gays. Not one charge has ever been brought against a heterosexual pastor who is adulterous, or who is intimate within a dating relationship. Unless this means that no heterosexual pastor has had an extramarital affair since 1996, and all the single-but-dating heterosexual pastors have been saving themselves for marriage, we can safely say G-6.0106b is not an ordination standard but a tool of harassment.

Additionally, it contains a clause that prohibits the ordination of anyone doing anything that the Confessions call sin. That means we currently prohibit the ordination of anyone who uses images of Jesus in Sunday school, puts images of anything in their stained glass windows, and allows women to baptize.

That's why this paragraph has to go, plain and simple.

Full text (includes the full text of G-6.0106b):
Hudson River Overture

3. Improve b
Cincinnati Presbytery, Boston Presbytery, National Capital Presbytery

I love these three overtures because they treat G-6.0106b with a hermeneutic of trust. They assume that b is there because the church wants some good solid ordination standards in force. They're just trying to make it better law (no one really intended to criminalize pictures of Jesus, did they?), to stop it from being an instrument of harassment, while not going so far as to require anyone to ordain gays and lesbians. Here are the three suggestions for substitution:

CINCINNATI
b. Those who are called to ordained service in the church are to lead lives of obedience to Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures and guided by the Confessional standards of the Church. Suitability for the offices to which they have been elected is determined by the governing bodies where the examinations for ordination/installation take place. By their assent to the Constitutional questions for ordination and/or installation, officers declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Whether the examination/installation decision complies with the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (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.

BOSTON
b. Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by their assent to the Constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards.
(This overture also inserts additional language elsewhere in the book to make it more important for candidates to adhere to the Constitutional Questions for ordination.)

NATIONAL CAPITAL
b. Those who are called to ordained service in the church are to lead lives of obedience to Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures, and interpreted by the Confessions of the church. Their suitability for the offices to which they have been elected is determined by the governing bodies where the examinations for ordination and/or installation take place, subject to review by the next higher governing body. By their assent to the Constitutional questions for ordination or installation, officers declare their fidelity to the standards of the church.

4. Marriage
Baltimore Presbytery

Since 2003 our Book of Order has been out of date regarding marriage. It calls marriage "a civil contract between a man and a woman." (W-4.9001) Marriage is in point of fact no longer only a civil contract between a man and a woman, now that same-sex couples can get married under the same civil contract. At the very least we need to update this text. (Conservatives, especially, need to revisit what they believe about marriage as a civil contract.)

The Baltimore overture is an elegant update to W-4.9001. It replaces "civil contract" with "covenant," and "a man and a woman" with "two people."

Full text


Short Rant

Some progressive voices say it is not time to create change through legislation. I say it is time. It's past time. We're not going to solve anything in our denomination with vague statements, attempts at false unity, and invitations to be silent or dishonest. Instead, let us all approach the Assembly with the desire for the Presbyterian Church to do the right thing.

What Do You Think?

What do you think about these various overtures?
Do any win your support in particular?
What approach would you like to see in the struggle for LGBT equality in the Presbyterian Church?