No Ordination Essentials “For All Time and All Persons”?
Ten Reasons Why the Achtemeier Overture Is Extremist and Invalid
Dr. Robert A.J. Gagnon has completed an analysis of the Achtemeier overture to General Assembly from John Knox Presbytery. Of particular interest to New Wineskins are these two final points regarding Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith. This series of papers were posted on Presbyweb.com starting on February 26, 2008. For the sake of the Peace, Purity, and Unity of the PCUSA, the adoption of essential tenets is a first step to theological integrity and sanity.
Reasons 9-10
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
gagnon@pts.edu, www.robgagnon.net
Feb. 24, 2008
Author’s note: This is the fifth of five installments addressing ten reasons why the Achtemeier overture is extremist and invalid.
9. The Overture Rationale’s Appeals to Unity as a Basis for Eliminating Identifiable Churchwide Essentials Are Self-Serving, Irrelevant to Constitutional Obligations, and Inaccurate
A ninth problem for the overture’s validity is that its Rationale’s ultimate appeal to unity is unpersuasive and misplaced. The final point of the Achtemeier overture contends that the unity of the PCUSA can be maintained only by adopting its peculiar perspective that there are no identifiable churchwide essentials in the Constitution of the PCUSA or Scripture (point 7; also point 3). Needless to say, such an argument is self-serving: Only by agreeing with the view of Achtemeier et al. that persons should not be refused ordination on the grounds of homosexual practice can the whole church unite. It is also a bit abusive. Unless the “Covenant Network,” “More Light” Presbyterians, and others of that persuasion are allowed to circumvent the clear word of Scripture and the Constitution of the PCUSA they won’t allow the church to have any peace. So, they contend, give us what we want and then we will promote the unity of the church. If they were really in favor of promoting unity, then they would drop their anti-scriptural and unconstitutional agenda.
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The realities of the past two years also have not verified the claim that getting rid of identifiable churchwide essentials in the Constitution will bring peace and unity. This past year has witnessed increasing conflict in the church, certainly at the presbytery level. The PUP A.I. has increased court action significantly. The 2008 General Assembly will continue to be a battleground for this issue. The PCUSA General Assembly Council has just projected the largest membership loss in a year since the PCUSA was formed in 1983: nearly 100,000 members (twice that of the average annual loss since 2002). A number of churches have left and disputes about property persist. I see no evidence that the debate on homosexual practice has become less “polarized” or draws less of the church’s energies. A good case can be made for the opposite. All that the PUP A.I. has done is bring greater confusion to the issue of PCUSA policy on homosexual behavior practiced by candidates for church office and provided a transitional stage for the full acceptance of homosexual unions among its ordained officers. No sooner had the GAPJC clarified the whole mess with its Bush decision than along came the Achtemeier overture to introduce the mess all over again.
The Achtemeier overture isn’t going to bring more unity to the church. It is going to lead to the marginalization of the majority within the PCUSA who faithfully hold to a male-female requirement for marriage. Furthermore it will make a mockery of the constitutional process by effectively invalidating three successive actions, by ever-increasing majorities of the presbyteries from 1997 to 2002, to prohibit in all circumstances the ordination of anyone who is sexually active outside of a man-woman marriage. If it would be such a unifying measure to go the route that Achtemeier et al. propose, let them submit their overture as a constitutional amendment in order to give the presbyteries throughout the country a vote. The reason why the overture was brought forward as an “authoritative interpretation” is that Achtemeier et al. know that they don’t have the votes nationally to push forward their views. At most they can only secure approval at the General Assembly level, whose delegates on the whole are more left-of-center than the rank-and-file of the church, especially on sexuality issues. The fact that Achtemeier et al. can’t win on a national vote of presbyteries confirms that his measure is not the tool for unification that they claim it to be.
The Achtemeier overture plays the unity card in order to distract attention from the extremist, unscriptural, and unconstitutional character of its proposal. Whatever Achtemeier et al. believe about unity and how it is best produced (i.e. by agreeing with them), it can have no bearing on the question of whether ordaining homosexually active candidates is scriptural and constitutional. Unity is not a mere sociological phenomenon. It is first and foremost a christological concept steeped in fidelity to the teaching of Jesus and the apostolic witness to that teaching. Unity that is not based on obedience to this, whether in the area of sexuality or some other area, cannot promote any kind of unity that is worth preserving. The scriptural case for viewing a male-female requirement in marriage as foundational is overwhelming. Nothing to date has been produced by scholars in the PCUSA that makes a persuasive case otherwise. As we have shown here, in partial agreement with the GAPJC, the constitutional case against the Achtemeier overture is also very strong. Therefore, the unity arguments used in the Achtemeier overture are not only incorrect but also irrelevant.
10. The Claim That There Are No Essentials of the Christian Faith “for All Time and Persons” Has the Theologically Insane Effect of Giving Any Examining Body the Right to Ordain Candidates Who Deny Even the Most Basic Christian Beliefs and Engage in the Most Unethical and Immoral Behaviors
A tenth problem for the overture’s validity is that denying the existence of any identifiable and predetermined churchwide essentials for ordained office produces theologically absurd outcomes. We have already noted at the start of this article that such a view requires the church to concede that examining bodies have a right to permit departures from the requirement to have faith in Christ as Savior and Lord or from the prohibition of adultery. To accomplish this all the examining body needs to do is to declare any constitutional standard of its choice a nonessential standard. It is as simple as that. If the claim that there are no ordination essentials that are valid “for all time and persons” is accepted, then, logically, exceptions should be permissible for every single explicit and implicit constitutional standard, up to and including ordaining persons who are not Christians or persons who are active, unrepentant adulterers or racists. Can anyone who makes such a claim any longer be taken seriously?
But why stint oneself only to the confession of Christ as Savior and Lord or sexual fidelity to one’s spouse? There is whole bucketful of practices and ideas to which one could apply this theological insanity. An examining body in any individual case, indeed in as many individual cases as it chooses, would have the option of ordaining a candidate even if that candidate declared an intent to commit one or more of the following sexual misbehaviors:
• Pursue an unchaste sexual relationship with the church secretary or with the spouses of fellow parishioners.
• Participate in a sexual “threesome.”
• Have sex with his or her parent or sibling, persons of the same sex, prostitutes, or even children and animals.
By the same token, according to the logic of Achtemeier and the John Knox Presbytery, a presbytery or session could ordain, and indeed should have the right to ordain, an individual candidate who declared any or all of the following beliefs or opinions:
• God is not sovereign and does not predestine anything.
• Salvation is based on human merit and not on God’s grace.
• Jesus did not rise from the dead in any meaningful sense.
• There is no afterlife for anyone.
• Jesus did not atone for anyone’s sins.
• There is no such figure as a “Holy Spirit.”
• The idea that anyone is “in Christ” in any meaningful sense is a crock.
• Women, persons of African descent, and the poor are inferior beings.
• God is a cosmic sadist and masochist.
• God has no real existence.
So long as candidates go through the motions of performing their distinct “constitutional functions” like baptizing infants or putting out the bread and wine for communion, everything is fair game, regardless of how the Constitution highlights things to make a special point of compliance. And since there are, allegedly, no identifiable churchwide essentials for office, the church as a whole could do nothing about such developments, apart from passing another authoritative interpretation or a constitutional amendment stating otherwise—something which Achtemeier et al. do not want to see happen.
Conclusion
At no level does the Achtemeier overture make sense—not theologically, not constitutionally, and not historically. It is difficult to envision that such an irresponsible overture could pass the 2008 General Assembly. However, strange things have happened before at GA so it is important to get the word out about just how bad and how extremist this overture is.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:38 am
The whole debate about homosexual pastors would be moot if the PCUSA and New Wineskins had not opened up for women pastors. A truely NEW wineskins innitiative would acknowledge that fact and would return to the fold that, for example, the PCA has preserved inside the worldwide Presbyterian family. Why do the New Wineskins insist on this futile path, to repeat the very same series of mistakes that has led them to where they are now? The gate of theological confusion has been identified, it’s name is: The Ordination of Women Pastors. Don’t go through that port, or return and save yourselves.