Here's a round-up of actions taken by GA committees in the past couple of days, as reported by the Presbyterian News Service (cross posted with the GA Newsblog):
New Covenant Overture Approved: By a 67-4 margin, the Social Justice Issues committee voted to approve the PNC overture to urge Congress and the President not to saddle future generations with any more debt. The overture asks the GA to “declare that federal government practices and policies that create ever-increasing debt and unfunded or underfunded obligations for future generations of Americans are a grave moral concern as well as a clear danger to the republic” and calls upon public leaders “to have the courage to address this economic and moral crisis while there is still time.”
Revision of the Authoritative Interpretation Regarding "Scrupling" Ordination Standards: The General Assembly Committee on Church Orders and Ministry has voted to recommend that the 218th General Assembly adopt a supplementary authoritative interpretation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) constitution that applies the historical practice of “scrupling” — the declaration of conscientious objection by candidates for ordination coupled with discernment by the ordaining body whether the declared objection is disqualifying — equally to all ordination standards of the denomination. See the full story here.
Fidelity and Chastity: The GA Committee on Church Orders and Ministry voted to recommend the deletion of 6.0106b of the Book of Order. Here's the link to the story.
Definition of Marriage: The GA Committee on Church Polity rejected an overture from the Baltimore Presbytery to define marriage as between "two people". Read the full report here.
Form of Government Task Force: The FOG report will be revised by an expanded task force, which will be instructed to take the comments received so far into consideration in making its revisions. Then the revised FOG will go to presbyteries for a period of discussion and consideration. PNC formed its own study group this year which produced a very thorough analysis of the present FOG proposal, which was distributed at the last presbytery meeting. Go here for the full story from the GA.
Fidelity and Chastity: The GA Committee on Church Orders and Ministry voted to recommend the deletion of 6.0106b of the Book of Order. Here's the link to the story.
Definition of Marriage: The GA Committee on Church Polity rejected an overture from the Baltimore Presbytery to define marriage as between "two people". Read the full report here.
Form of Government Task Force: The FOG report will be revised by an expanded task force, which will be instructed to take the comments received so far into consideration in making its revisions. Then the revised FOG will go to presbyteries for a period of discussion and consideration. PNC formed its own study group this year which produced a very thorough analysis of the present FOG proposal, which was distributed at the last presbytery meeting. Go here for the full story from the GA.
Thank you for posting these updates--they are so helpful to me, at least, who doesn't have the energy right now to seek out all the news. I really appreciate your work on this!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Teri. I'm glad it's helpful to you. I plan to keep cross-posting this week from the GANewsblog I'm editing for our presbytery, so check back!
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