Although at this writing the voting on Amendment 01-A has only begun, major media--the Washington Post for example--are already reporting that the amendment is in trouble. It doesn't take an astute prognosticator to observe that winning this change to the Presbyterian constitution is already an uphill battle.

In some respects, both those who favor Amendment 01-A and those who are working for its defeat regard the amendment as superfluous. Many of those who support it may be deciding to ordain anyway. The Stamford and the Redwoods cases, which are the result of charges brought against governing bodies that have heard direct evidence of self-affirming, practicing candidates for elder and minister and proceeded to ordain anyway do not a trend make. But there have been many more churches in very recent years that have declared themselves unwilling to obey G-6.0106b (the fidelity and chastity paragraph of the Book of Order). Any number of them, acting on their statements of defiance, could appear to be a trend.

A desire to raise the stakes
Among those who oppose this amendment are those who do not want to continue what they regard as an endless tug of war. Some of them talk of quitting and starting over. But others of them talk, not about quitting, but about raising the stakes.

Attempts to challenge historical understanding of Scripture have failed
It is now clear, if it hasn't been before, that attempts to persuade Presbyterians that the Bible approves sexual relationships outside marriage, or that the Bible's regard for marriage is a non-essential matter in Christian faith, have failed. This year's attempt to move the debate from Scripture to polity is evidence of that. Those representing the overture that became the amendment, on a video distributed by the Covenant Network, state emphatically that the amendment is neither about the Bible nor about sexuality--it is about our polity. But that argument is not faring well either.

The next field of encounter may be the courts
Those in the denomination who see the exhaustion of attempts to change the constitution may see the next field of engagement as the courts of the church. On the other hand, the Presbyterians who obey the constitution willingly have paid little attention to the courts. They have not engaged in nominating qualified constitutionalists for the court, and they have not had much heart for pursuing cases in the courts except in clear and open cases where the constitution is being flaunted. But that may be changing.

The constitution must be upheld or there is no PC(USA)
It is our constitution that declares our corporate understanding of the place of Scripture in the life of this denomination. It is clear now that our denomination cannot hold together as a church if the constitution does not hold. If the next field of engagement is the courts of the church, those who value the Presbyterian constitution as instrumental in preserving our unity in Jesus Christ, will have to pay more attention to who serves on our courts and how they get there. They also will have to make a commitment to taking disciplinary action in more cases than would ordinarily be desirable or necessary.

Today, it is not an exaggeration for Presbyterians to see their constitution tottering on the brink of a great chasm. But no one should think the constitution is a dead letter or that its fall into a chasm is inevitable.

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