Presbyterians Pro-Life NEWS
Fall 2001

Amendment A is not about sex?

Advocates of Amendment A claim that it is not about sex. Rather it is about rediscovery of life together before 1978 (the year the northern stream of a separated body of Presbyterians rejected a request for local option and adopted a churchwide "definitive guidance" prohibiting ordination of those in homosexual relationships; the southern stream of the Presbyterian Church adopted nearly identical wording the next year.)

It is a "middle way," they say: one that will unite us and bring us peace by neither requiring nor prohibiting ordination of those in sexual relationships outside the bonds of marriage. But this is the claim from hope that those who vote are unaware that when Alaska Presbytery ordains a minister of the Word and Sacrament, and when a tiny church in that presbytery, accessible only by boat or plane, ordains an elder, every church and presbytery in our denomination has participated in those ordinations. And those ordinations are recognized by our churches and presbyteries in Florida and Texas and Minnesota and New York. If we accept Amendment A, we as a church body will be deciding that sexual behavior outside marriage is not sinful. This is a most radical amendment that threatens to divide Presbyterians as they have never been divided before.

Amendment A is about who we are as the body of Jesus Christ in the world
A primary argument made in the powerpoint presentation being distributed by the Covenant Network, an organization advocating for the ordination of those engaged in homosexual relationships, is that Amendment A is not about sex. But, of course, Amendment A is about sex. And it is about much more than sex. Amendment A is about who we are as the Church of Jesus Christ. It is about what we believe and how we will practice what we believe. It is about the nature of the Gospel we proclaim: the message and the ministry.

If the church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on the biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Munich

Amendment A is about the nature of sin and the church's response to sin
From the very beginning of recorded time, sin has been the context for discovering the nature of God's relationship to human beings. The Old Testament accounts record the persistent rejection of God's commandments by his people, who continually sought to create gods of their own imaginings. The Bible is a saga of humanity's continual "no" to God's "yes," and God's continual mercy and grace toward a rebellious people.

The God revealed in Scripture has never changed his mind about sin. He has never tolerated sin and, from beginning to end in Scripture, he has been intolerant of toleration of sin by the Church. Toleration of sexual sin by the New Testament church in Revelation (2:20) was highlighted for Gods abhorrence. But it was our sin that brought about our discovery of the infinite love and grace of God in Jesus Christ.

As trite as it sounds, the biblical witness is clear: God expects us to abhor sin but love and extend mercy to the sinner. Scripture is consistent in showing that love and mercy are aimed at repentance, redemption, and restoration in the lives of all of us.

Amendment A asks us to abandon hope for those caught in sexual sin, and bless them in their practice
Amendment A asks us to become a church like the church of Thyratira in the New Testament: to tolerate sexual sin and give up hope for the transformation of those who engage in sexual sin. It asks us to go further and ordain as our leaders those who refuse to repent of their sin--to call evil good.

Amendment A asks us to give up being the church
Amendment A is not primarily about those who are caught in sinful sexual practices. It is about who we are as the Church. Wolfhart Pannenberg, professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Munich, spoke to the essential importance of the church's maintaining its historic witness on homosexuality:

If the church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on the biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

To decide that homosexuality is now an acceptable practice--indeed that the Church may ordain those in homosexual relationships to leaders and models for the whole world to see--is to become no church. Our vote on this amendment is truly just that serious.

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