Strategies leading to the ordination of those in homosexual relationships were the overwhelming concern of the sixth annual Covenant Network conference that concluded Saturday, Nov. 8 at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Network speakers made it clear that they wish to achieve this goal without a split.

Authoritative Interpretation (AI) must go
The plan for accomplishing both was stated several times during the conference--by the Covenant Network’s co-Moderators, Eugene Bay and Joanna Adams, and by other members of the board of directors. They want to "prepare the church for the change that is coming." In a statement called "Time for Change," issued September 29 and distributed during a workshop at the conference, the Network laid out five strategies. At the top of their list is their determination to "Remove all the authoritative interpretations [that relate to sexual standards for ordination]."

A workshop leader said this action is simply a "housekeeping" task. However, Eugene Bay remarked in plenary that "not much is accomplished by removing Amendment B" if the authoritative interpretations remain. While G-6.0106b requires "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness" one authoritative interpretation of the constitution says explicitly that "A self-affirming, practicing, and unrepentant homosexual person may not be ordained." (General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission decision in Hope PC v. Central PC, 1994)

The removal of authoritative interpretation can be done by an action of a single General Assembly and does not require a vote of presbyteries. Workshop leaders handed participants a model overture for this action.

The leaders of a workshop on "Redeem the Time: Strategies for the Meantime" distributed a Covenant Network booklet called "Examination of Officers-Elect: A Resource for Sessions." On the subject of G-6.0106b the booklet says,

Another handout published by the Covenant Network is called "Interpreting Book of Order G-6.0106b." It provides creative interpretation of the "fidelity and chastity" paragraph of the Book of Order that allows churches and individuals to continue in same sex relationships while professing to abide by the constitution, much as Christ Church in Burlington, Vermont has done.

Develop friendships that change people’s attitudes
A second major aim of the Network is to get Presbyterians on both sides of this debate talking to each other. New resources emphasize "personing the issue," as Jane Spahr has been expressing it for years. The resources are designed to express the pain experienced by those in same sex relationships when the church will not ordain them.

There is a major disagreement in the Covenant Network community over whether they should press every year for removal of G-6.0106b. That debate permeated this conference. The Network leadership notes the increasingly larger vote against removing G-6.0106b from the constitution each time it has gone to presbyteries for vote. They believe another presbytery-wide vote should not come until 2006. They recognize the need for grass roots organizing in presbyteries before another vote on an amendment. They have hired a person to concentrate on building support for change in the Southeast presbyteries where they have never won a vote.

Covenant Network leadership expressed a lot of confidence in the work of the Theological Task Force and included two workshop sessions in which participants were invited to have conversations with six of the task force members present at the conference. They seem to expect help in accomplishing their goals from the task force’s final report.

The Covenant Network does not want to see the denomination disintegrate. Their strategy is to do what they can to hold Presbyterians together in tense and uneasy fellowship based on friendships, while working for acceptance of what runs counter to the Scripture and the Confessions.

This organization is made up of people whom plenary speaker Barbara Wheeler, President of Union Seminary in New York, said don’t like the labels attached to them, like "liberals" or "progressives." But, she said, "we know who we are because we hang out together." This crowd of the unlabeled includes the More Light Network, That All May Freely Serve, lots of General Assembly moderators and staff. They like to think of themselves as the "middle of the church." But even they know that when the Church votes, it rejects the direction the Covenant Network wants to take the Church.

The goal is change by any possible means
The Covenant Network has made their objectives and their broad tactics known. Presbyterians should be alert to their determined effort to eliminate the biblical standard for sexuality from our constitution. Removing the authoritative interpretation of the constitution is integral to that plan.

But Presbyterians also should be aware that invitations to "talk" are less about understanding each other than about persuading church members that those in same sex relationships are nice people. The hope behind this is that church members will come to see that the Bible, the long unbroken testimony of the Christian Church in history as well as around the world today, the Confessions and the Book of Order, really cannot, after all, oppose this behavior. It is "Time for Change." They want to relate to us outside the context of presbytery votes, so that we will vote with them when the time comes to vote.

Presbyterians should be aware, too, that virtually every instance of non-compliance with the constitution that is taking place in our denomination is receiving or at least is offered legal counsel from the Covenant Network. Their leaders have written the book on redefining the prohibition against same sex relationships to twist the Book of Order into support of those relationships. They write, for example, that "chastity" doesn’t necessarily mean abstaining from sexual practice—the context of "singleness" in G-6.0106b notwithstanding. They are working hard to be sure that no case of defiance is left undefended. Nowhere at this conference, either from Covenant Network people or from the Theological Task Force members, did I hear even a whisper that our unity might be grounded in the vows we take to uphold Scripture and our Constitution, both Confessions and the Book of Order.

At this conference, there was an effort to cast this issue as a debate between those who attend Covenant Network conferences and those who attend Coalition Gatherings: an argument between progressives and evangelicals, if you will. But that is erroneous. Presbyterian evangelicals did not create the standard for sexual behavior. God did. It is a standard revealed in Scripture. Evangelicals did not put that standard in the Book of Order. The General Assembly and the presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (USA) did. The Covenant Network’s quarrel is with the Church, not with the Coalition or any of its renewal partners.