Badpuppy Gay Today

Friday, 06 June 1997

"I am outraged at what we've done, and I think we've made a huge mistake," says the Reverend Robert Craig, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, the house of worship attended by Abraham Lincoln during his presidency. Craig is talking about the recent vote by the governing bodies of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., disallowing leadership positions to sexually-active gay men and lesbians.

"It's tough enough being a downtown urban church to attract people, in particular young adults...but this action has done damage to the name Presbyterian to the point where our process of evangelization and outreach has been impeded."

Eight other Presbyterian churches in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area feel likewise and have registered their dissent in equally strong terms. Presbyterians in Milwaukee, Wisconsin comprise the church's first regional body to openly scorn what they see as anti-gay bigotry at the national level.

The controversial policy, shaped as an amendment, is called a "Fidelity and Chastity Amendment" and was recently decided upon by a majority of the church's 172 regional bodies. A popular uprising against the decision clearly gained momentum this spring as more than 60 Presbyterian churches signed a "Covenant of Dissent," a signal they will ignore the majority's anti-gay dictation. This signal puts them in jeopardy should they be hauled into an ecclesiastical court and charged with defying church law.

Presbyterian ministers nationwide are now speaking out about their dissatisfaction with the policy, telling of anguished deacons and elders considering leaving their positions and, perhaps, resigning from the church. The Reverend Timothy Hart-Anderson,, pastor of the Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco says that the resignees are not gay, but heterosexuals--often married with children-- who deplore the exclusion of "good gay people" from leadership positions.

"The chair of our stewardship committee, the chair of our homelessness task force, the chair of our capital renovations campaign, all of them came to me and said they wanted to resign," said the Reverend Hart-Anderson. The minister said he convinced the unhappy members to stay and to fight the entrenched bigotry from within.

In Milwaukee, by a 2-1 margin, 51 Presbyterian churches catering to 15,000 members, approved the Covenant of Dissent, disputing "Amendment B" as it was approved in March. The Reverend Carl Simon, parliamentarian of the Milwaukee regional body, says that his region's decision to dissent is "unprecedented."

Amendment B in the church constitution, the Presbyterian Book of Order, has furnished Presbyterians with a long, unhappy dispute since certain leaders introduced it. All church leaders, it says, must :"lead a life in obedience to Scripture" by living "either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage of a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness." The Amendment also says that "persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament."

The Covenant of Dissent says that gay men and lesbians must be allowed to lead if they have "suitable gifts" and are "called to the ministry." They must also be "persons of strong faith, dedicated discipleship and love of Jesus Christ, and whose manner of life if a demonstration of the Christian Gospel in the Church and in the world, without additional requirements or restrictions."

The Reverend Al Nichols, who serves as the pastor of two Presbyterian churches in the Milwaukee area, said he believes that Amendment B "leads to a redefining in a judgmental and an unbiblical way who can and cannot be ordained in the Presbyterian church, and that, in turn, undermines our own Book of Order."