Are the concerns from the grassroots being heard in the reunited denomination?
Born just two years ago by the reunion of two mainline Presbyterian bodies, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is at a crossroads. As it merges the streams from its predecessor bodies, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. and the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., there is evidence that the church is more open to evangelical concerns.
Representatives of the 3.1 million-member denomination met last month in Indianapolis to set the course for the church’s future and to hammer out its official stand on a wide array of moral and political issues, including homosexuality and abortion.
An evangelical presence clearly was in evidence. William Wilson, the church’s newly elected moderator (presiding officer), said evangelicals “have more access to the power structure of the church today than in recent history.” A major reason for this is the work of Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns (PUBC). One of some 20 unofficial caucuses in the church—called “Chapter 9 organizations”—PUBC consists of evangelicals working for spiritual renewal in the denomination.
Richard Lovelace, professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a consultant to PUBC, said the 1983 merger has given the church “an opportunity to refocus itself,” and that it is responding by hearing the concerns from the grassroots.
“There’s an evangelical resurgence in America, and we’re feeling it in the Presbyterian church,” said PUBC executive director Matthew Welde. Welde wrote the preface and introduction to the denomination’s “Statement of Life and Mission,” which is expected to play a key role in defining the church’s priorities.
As approved in Indianapolis by the general assembly, the statement affirms “the importance of evangelism as a ministry of congregations and as a denominational priority.” In addition, it states, “We affirm the need for missionary initiative to persons who have not yet heard the gospel.”
Partly because of a rapid membership decline in the denomination, Welde said, “evangelism is ‘in’ even for the most liberal people.… I’d like to believe that the church is finally hearing the people in the pews.” He was referring to extensive research conducted during the last year revealing that Presbyterians overall feel that evangelism has not been receiving the priority it deserves.
Although evangelicals were pleased with the church’s new interest in evangelism, they were disappointed that the general assembly reaffirmed its 1983 position on abortion. This happened despite a large number of overtures (petitions from presbyteries) recommending change. The abortion position is widely perceived as being prochoice. It holds that “Abortion can … be considered a responsible choice within a Christian ethical framework when serious genetic problems arise or when the resources are not adequate to care for a child appropriately.”
The committee that addressed the overtures on abortion recommended that they not be acted on. Instead, the committee upheld the church’s 1983 position and prepared a statement to summarize that position. The summary statement was amended during floor debate to include an affirmation of the “sanctity of human life” and an explicit statement that “abortion should not be used as a method of birth control.”
Ben Sheldon, immediate past-president of a Chapter 9 organization called Presbyterians Pro-Life, said the amended statement was an improvement. Still, Sheldon said he regarded the church’s position as prochoice. “The 1.5 million annual abortions in this country gained a great deal of support from the policy statement that our denomination has maintained,” he said. “… [Presbyterians Pro-Life is] seeking an affirmation that … the unborn child is a person worthy of the protection of the law … from the moment of conception.”
On the issue of homosexuality, the general assembly turned back an effort to prevent job discrimination based on “sexual orientation” at all levels of the denomination. The church’s personnel policy already prohibits such job discrimination at the denominational level. That prohibition is recommended but not binding at the synod and presbytery levels.
The failure to make the prohibition binding throughout the church came as a disappointment to Presbyterians for Lesbian/Gay Concerns (PLGC), a Chapter 9 organization that advocates full inclusion of homosexuals in the denomination. PLGC spokesman Dan Smith called the decision “a pity, because the church has always been served by very talented lesbian and gay people.” He said the church suffers from “heterosexism.… We have been wrongly taught that heterosexuality is 100 percent where it’s at.”
The general assembly did, however, urge formal dialogue in the coming year between PLGC and PUBC. A similar action was taken last year, but PUBC’s board voted not to comply. Welde said this year he will recommend that PUBC meet with the gay organization to honor the general assembly’s wishes. He emphasized, however, that “there will be no neutralizing of PUBC’s stand [opposing homosexual practice].”
Despite considerable opposition, mainly from PLGC, the general assembly approved Chapter 9 status for Presbyterians for Biblical Sexuality, a group supported by PUBC. One of the new group’s primary purposes will be to counsel gays in an effort to help them abstain from homosexual practice.
Another organization that had significant evangelical support, Presbyterians for Democracy and Religious Freedom, was denied Chapter 9 status. The group sought recognition as an organization that would represent conservative political views. The general assembly’s Committee on Confessionalism and Diversity did not object to the group’s purpose. But it deemed that the impetus for the proposed Chapter 9 organization came not from within the church, but from the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative political think tank. Supporters maintain that a group like Presbyterians for Democracy and Religious Freedom is needed to balance what they see as the church’s left-leaning political views.
In other action, the denomination’s general assembly:
• Approved a three-year study on pornography and obscenity, although it did not appropriate funds for it.
• Approved a grant of $100,000 to help provide legal defense for workers in the sanctuary movement.
• Declared its “firm conviction that current [U.S.] policy in Central America is not only ideologically misguided, politically mistaken, economically wasteful, and militarily risky, but also morally wrong and unjust.”
• Approved selective, phased divestment of church funds held in corporations that do business in South Africa.
• Declared its continuing prayerful support for Presbyterian missionary Benjamin Weir, who has been held hostage in Lebanon since May 1984.
