The Synod PJC Said What . . .?

The occasion for beginning this blog was the completion of the Appeal Hearing before the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) in the matter of Parnell et al v. San Francisco Presbytery. The GAPJC rendered its Decision and Order on August 2, 2011, and the response of the Complainants’ legal team followed.

By way of review, what the GAPJC did was to dismiss all allegations of error that applied the previously encoded standard for church officers, the requirement “to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness” (the former G-6.0106b). Since this provision was replaced in the Book of Order by “Amendment 10-A” which contains no ordination standard at all, the Commission declined to interpret the constitutional provision “that no longer exists.” It returned the case to the Synod PJC, though, to rule specifically on the question of whether the Presbytery’s approval of the Candidate constituted an abuse of discretion or doctrinal error. By declining to take up the doctrinal question itself, the GAPJC seemed to avoid any direct judgment in the matter. One would have been left to wonder if indeed ordination standards had changed, as the Presbytery was claiming, or continued to stand on the basis of scriptural and confessional evidence. And if Parnell had been the only case that day, the church would still be wondering what the GAPJC’s mind was on the matter.

However, on the same day, the Commission did interpret the Scriptures and the polity of the church by declaring the case Caledonia v. Twin Cities Area Presbytery moot, thus removing all impediments to the ordination of open gay candidate Scott Anderson. If the GAPJC were awaiting a ruling from the Synod PJC on the doctrinal integrity of such a decision, it would have put Anderson’s ordination on hold. Instead, the Commission declared by its action—not in a written opinion— that a “fidelity-chastity” standard is no longer binding in the church. This action communicated that scriptural and confessional provisions forbidding homosexual practice and presuming a male-female requirement for marriage are irrelevant, unclear, or non-binding.

In the last week, the Synod PJC reviewed the record and re-read the trial testimony. Its Decision and Order can be found at the link to the right, under Pages. The Commission came to this astonishing conclusion: because Presbyterian scholars disagree on the interpretation of biblical texts referencing homosexuality, one particular interpretation cannot be lifted up as an essential of Reformed faith and polity. In the Commission’s own words:

Presbytery did not commit doctrinal error in its decision to accept the departure and to ordain the candidate. The record and trial testimony make clear that interpretations of scripture and the confessions, and the conclusions that result from those interpretations, have not been uniform in the history and practice of the Church. . . .This range of interpretations reached through thoughtful and prayerful discernment is, in itself, evidence that the candidate’s departure cannot be from an essential of Reformed faith and polity. . . .This Commission holds that in the case of this particular candidate and her particular departure, the Presbytery of San Francisco’s ordination decision did not constitute a doctrinal error, nor was it an abuse of discretion. . . . Having determined that Presbytery’s decision to ordain the candidate was neither doctrinal error nor an abuse of its discretion, this Commission finds the decision to ordain the candidateis constitutionally valid in both its process and its content.

Did we read correctly? The existence of diverse opinions about what the Scriptures mean in a doctrinal area precludes the GAPJC from enforcing its designation as an essential of Reformed faith and practice?

We are doomed as a Presbyterian people, if it takes only two scholars to disagree on a doctrinal point to disqualify an orthodox doctrine as non-essential. For all practical purposes, this negates the concept of  theological essentials at all. Since many of the elements of our faith are under discussion—the person and work of Jesus Christ, the meaning of the atonement, the resurrection, for starters—can we be sure of nothing at this point? If we have no essentials, our Confessions are meaningless. If we have no confessional orthodoxy, there is no basis for discipline. In one fell swoop, the Synod PJC wipes out the hallmarks of the Presbyterian faith in San Francisco Presbytery.

So what would the GAPJC say to that?