PPL News - Spring/Summer 2003

Presbyterians Pro-Life NEWS
Spring/Summer 2003

Top issues before the 215^th G.A.

Because each year there are hundreds of pieces of business before the General Assembly, G.A. offices and other groups make a practice of identifying key issues. There is general agreement among the several lists this year. Presbyterian News Service recently headlined sexuality, abortion, and AIDs as major agenda items. Theirs, along with most lists, also includes the denomination's budget crisis and a policy proposal on family.

Sexuality
Des Moines Presbytery (Ovr. 03-7) wants to remove the fidelity and chastity requirement for ordination. Redstone Presbytery (Ovr. 03-8) expresses wide-spread frustration in the church over defiance of this constitutional requirement and seeks guidance from the General Assembly to aid synods in improving and speeding up the process of bringing compliance. Other overtures on issues of sexual misbehavior reveal how troubling this matter of sexual behavior is to the church (Ovrs. 03-1, 03-6 and 03-12).

Abortion
Overtures from Huntingdon (Ovr. 03-18), as well as Lackawanna, Sacramento, and San Gabriel Presbyteries all seek protection for mothers and their viable babies late in pregnancy. Flint River Presbytery (Ovr. 03-4) would exclude coverage from the denomination’s medical benefits plan for abortions about which the General Assembly has expressed grave moral concern. Eastminster Presbytery (Ovr. 03-21) would remove rape and incest from a list of reasons for giving moral approval to late term abortions.

Families
The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) will be bringing a proposal for General Assembly policy called Families in Transition. It includes a long set of recommendations, many of which ask the General Assembly to reaffirm former policies which they will not have seen or read. The recommendations are followed by a much longer rationale paper, the whole of which can be accessed only on the denomination’s web page. In a nutshell, the policy dismisses the significance of marriage as the basis of family life and holds all forms of family, including unmarried and homosexual couples, as valid for a healthy society. It finds biblical teaching on marriage outmoded for our time. Some are referring to this policy as "Justice-Love" all over again, referring to the attempt to reverse the church’s teaching on sexuality in a policy paper delivered to the G.A. in 1991. (See also "Restoring a Healthy Society through a Recommitment to Marriage:
The policy recommendation from ACSWP won't get us there" by Terry Schlossberg, April 2003 -- includes link to denomination's web posting of proposed policy.)

The denominational budget crunch
The PC(USA) is experiencing a serious financial crisis. The General Assembly last year approved a cut of 34 missionary positions, thus further reducing the denomination’s commitment to mission.

That Assembly nevertheless approved funding for a staff position to join the Socialist Workers Party in organizing a boycott of Taco Bell ($35,550).

The 2002 Assembly also declined to approve a move to give financial independence to the Presbyterian Health, Education, and Welfare Association (PHEWA), an independent organization with networks that historically have lobbied for the normalization of homosexual behavior and abortion rights. The price tag for their special gifts of mission money from the denomination is at least $87,000 annually. They will be back seeking a higher level of support from this year’s General Assembly. The G.A. in 1998 asked them to work toward financial independence and report their progress toward that end to this Assembly.

Many Presbyterians are concerned about the appearance that General Assembly officials give little attention to priorities in making financial decisions. Last year’s G.A. refused to set priorities for budget-cutting decisions.

The financial picture has not improved. The General Assembly Council has announced that further cuts are necessary and will involve cutting more staff positions. John Detterick, Executive Director of the GAC, said that, "these cuts were not made with a strategic focus." Lack of priorities that reflect the mission interests and concerns of the majority of Presbyterians remains a serious problem.

San Diego Presbytery (Ovr. 03-35) seeks clearer and more accessible information about the denominational budget so that commissioners can exercise a greater degree of their steward-ship responsibility when they meet.

Restore annual Assemblies
Last year’s General Assembly voted to stop meeting annually and to initiate biennial assemblies in the year 2004. The Office of the General Assembly will bring a huge number of constitutional and rules changes to this Assembly in preparation for that change. But at least three presbyteries are seeking a return to annual assemblies. The overture from National Capital Presbytery (Ovr. 03-15) has concurrences from Shenandoah and Peaks Presbyteries. The overture cites unnecessary narrowing of decision-making by placing more of the burden in the General Assembly Council and staff, an unwieldy number of commissioners in the plan for biennials, and insignificant cost savings.

Election to the PC(USA) highest court
This year’s General Assembly will elect a class of five persons for a six year term on the sixteen member General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC), the denomination’s highest church court. The GAPJC is nominated by the General Assembly Nominating Committee, a body appointed by G.A. moderators. Preserving the integrity of the courts is essential to preserving our common life as Presbyterians.

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