Here are the Moderator (Rev. Deborah Cooper) and Moderator Elect (yours truly) of New Covenant Presbytery after our installation at yesterday's presbytery meeting.
The meeting went extraordinarily well. The plan to repay the Million Dollar problem was overwhelmingly adopted and a second vote is now scheduled for February 27. Thank you for your prayers and comments which were a great support for me.
The meeting went extraordinarily well. The plan to repay the Million Dollar problem was overwhelmingly adopted and a second vote is now scheduled for February 27. Thank you for your prayers and comments which were a great support for me.
Dr. Craig Barnes preached an incredible sermon on the subject of "Pastor as Minor Poet." There's no way I can summarize this, but fortunately I am told that this is part of his next new book. Reverendmother, I kept thinking how much you would have loved it!
We voted on 68 pages of amendments to the Form of Government portion of the Book of Order. Wait, you say, what about the FOG Task Force and its work? That was a concern of many in the presbytery as well as a concern for moving portions of that section out of the BOO and into advisory handbooks. Results of the voting were mixed but clearly reflected reluctance to make any changes before the FOG made its report. For you Presbypolity types keeping score, New Covenant defeated amendments 06-A, 06-B.1, 06-B.2, and 06-C by large margins and approved 06-B.3, 06-D, 06-E and 06-F.
UPDATE, CORRECTION AND APOLOGY: Dear Readers, Please accept my apologies for erroneously attributing the formation of the EPC to disagreement with the ordination of women in the PCUSA in the first version of this post. Jim Loughlin has correctly pointed out in a comment that this was the reason for the PCA split not the EPC. I am embarrassed to have made this mistake and am revising the rest of this post accordingly to avoid continuing to contribute misinformation to this debate. I really do know my history better than that. Thanks, Jim, for calling me on my mistake and thanks to Will Spotts for questioning it as well.
When I got home from the meeting, news that Presbyterians assembled in Orlando this weekend at the New Wineskins meeting voted to accept the formation of a transitional NW presbytery in partnership with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and to establish a covenanted network of NW churches within the PCUSA was on the internet. Time will tell how significant this event will be in the life of the PCUSA.
Although the EPC allows local congregations to ordain women, there are congregations that will not ordain women pastors or elders in the denomination. Little wonder the EPC wants to keep departing PCUSA congregations segregated in a non - geographical presbytery while it determines whether it can absorb them without a lot of disruption to its own congregations.
About 1990, the church where our daughters was baptized split over national PCUSA issues. El Jefe and I had already transferred our membership to Suburban Presbyterian Church before this occured. There was a big debate among those who left about where to affiliate and they went with the EPC because it permitted, although it did not insist upon, the ordination of women. I just checked the website of the church that formed out of this and it does not have any ordained women on staff nor any women elders but does have women deacons.
This is why many women in the PCUSA who might otherwise be sympathetic to the theological positions of the New Wineskins and the EPC are skeptical about the position of the EPC on women and church leadership and ministry.
Although the EPC allows local congregations to ordain women, there are congregations that will not ordain women pastors or elders in the denomination. Little wonder the EPC wants to keep departing PCUSA congregations segregated in a non - geographical presbytery while it determines whether it can absorb them without a lot of disruption to its own congregations.
About 1990, the church where our daughters was baptized split over national PCUSA issues. El Jefe and I had already transferred our membership to Suburban Presbyterian Church before this occured. There was a big debate among those who left about where to affiliate and they went with the EPC because it permitted, although it did not insist upon, the ordination of women. I just checked the website of the church that formed out of this and it does not have any ordained women on staff nor any women elders but does have women deacons.
This is why many women in the PCUSA who might otherwise be sympathetic to the theological positions of the New Wineskins and the EPC are skeptical about the position of the EPC on women and church leadership and ministry.
17 comments:
I'm not sure if this issue will prove significant or not - but it IS clear that the EPC cannot easily absorb that many PC(USA) churches without changing it dramatically. I wonder how much thought has been given to this - i.e. was this the point of the NWAC presbytery idea?
Are you sure that was the cause of the EPC split? If so, then its policy of local option makes no sense. I thought this came about because of the acceptance (in the UPCUSA) of a UCC minister who didn't hold trinitarian views.
QG - This is the most disappointing post on your blog that I have read. It is incorrect on the facts and wholly speculative without reasonable substantiation. The PCA was formed on the issue of women's ordination - not the EPC. Yes, the EPC is local option on women's ordination, but your scenario would only occur if you and your husband chose to join a church in a male pastorate presbytery. Also, the proposal is for a five year transitional presbytery where churches can decide if the fit is right. I can't speculate on what will happen five years from now. I do know that if your church decided to go to the EPC and later decided the fit was not right, there would be no problem if your church wanted to move on. No property threat, no threat of removing sessions or ministers, etc.
I began a response ~ but it became so long that I'm moving it to my own blog, where it will probably have wait for completion until after church.
Jim and Will,
I am grateful for your correction and have revised this post accordingly. I must have been more tired than I thought when I wrote this, as I know better.
I changed my mind. This is not my battle. I have no affinity for the rhetoric or goals of New Wineskins and no sympathy for the theological positions of New Wineskins or the EPC at issue in this situation, so I have no reason to argue about their internal situations. I don't consider the off-the-cuff remarks about women to be a small thing, but I don't consider the rejection of the gifts of any of the people of God to be a small thing, which brings me full circle, and to the conclusion that there is plenty to keep me occupied in my own church.
QG, sorry, but Christ the King is a PCA church, not EPC, so of course they list no women staff or elders. There are a couple of other EPC churches in the area--a fairly small one in Katy that seems to have no women elders and an interesting multicultural church inside the Loop that has a number of women deacons but no elders. I went to the EPC website and looked up the presbytery that Texas is in, and there seem to be no female pastors in this several-state region(I am not sure there are ANY, anywhere in the denomination), nor are there any female candidates under care. I find much to admire and agree with in the EPC's theological and mission-related outlook, but as I said on Toby's site, if I were a pastor (or even now, as an elder), women's ordination is not a battle I would care to fight all over again.
Thanks QG. I had no idea before this about the EPC's position on ordained women in ministry. Changes my perspective a good bit. It would be a step or several backwards to go there again, though I really like a lot of what New Wineskins is trying to do. Dang it! I gotta go think some more again.
Zorra,
Thanks. I've removed the reference to Christ the King church. Like you and Presbyterian Gal I don't want to fight the women's ordination battle again. I'll quit commenting now and wait and see what develops.
QG: Just thought I'd try to bring a little bit of clarity for your readers. I'm an EPC pastor, and I can tell you that a female pastor (recently retired) is a member of my congregation here in northern Virginia, and a yearly participant in the General Assembly. I think there are two others in the EPC, but I don't know whether that's because there are presbyteries who won't ordain them, or because women have simply chosen not to be ordained as pastors (this obviously needs clarification for us to go forward). There are a good number of churches that ordain women as ruling elders, though in accordance with the local option provision in our BOG, there are those who don't, though they have no problem working with those of other churches in presbytery or GA settings. Hope this helps.
David Fischler
http://reformedpastor.wordpress.com
Thanks, David. It is helpful to hear from someone in the EPC who does know what he is talking about.
Grace, thanks for thinking of me today!
And congrats in the installation---take good care of my New Cov peeps.
Congrats on the installation!
As to the EPC stuff, I can't see myself affiliating with a denomination that makes the full inclusion of women in leadership optional. Yet other denominations I know of that officially include women have few women in actual leadership. There aren't are a lot of good options for Evangelicals who believe strongly in women's ordination.
QG - thanks for reconsidering and updating your post. I apologize for being rather terse in my comments.
At the risk of flogging a dead horse, I think fairness requires a further comment on "the" cause of the PCA split. We had a PCA congregation up the road from where I used to live, and their organizing minister still served there. Once I mentioned in an offhand way the ordination of women being "the" reason for the split, and he corrected me.
For that congregation, the introduction of the property trust clause was the precipitating reason for the split. Not that they supported toe ordination of women, but that was only a piece of the puzzle. The property clause signaled a concentration of power in the higher governing bodies that they weren't prepared to support.
Like lots of historical currents, the split that created the PCA can't be summarized in a single sentence. Though I can see why some in the PCUSA have an interest in playing down the polity aspects and focusing on the ordination aspect.
Wait, if the EPC can live, relatively peaceably it appears, with a local option on a controversial matter related to ordination, then why can't the PCUSA . . .oh, never mind.
QG - Just an observation: you are unfailingly gracious, and your commitment to accuracy is very much appreciated. I share the concern you raise here - though I don't know how much of an issue it will turn out to be.
"Dr. Craig Barnes preached an incredible sermon"
Funny story. Barnes is the pastor who performed William Vanderbloemen's second marriage to a member of his ex congregation - the one that took place less than a year after his divorce and sudden, unexplained resignation from his pulpit.
Post a Comment