Laying the Groundwork
The Politics of Consensus
Commentary and analysis by Alan F.H. Wisdom
September 28, 2009

Additional Commentary: Presbyterian Committee Following Lutheran Lead on Same-Sex Relations - Ignores Confessional Teachings, Urges ‘Forbearance’ for All Views

At the September 13-17 meeting of the General Assembly Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Union and Christian Marriage, it took more than 36 hours before the committee had any substantive discussion of “issues of civil union and Christian marriage” in an open session. This delay in dealing with the assigned topic continued a pattern of reticence evident in the committee’s earlier meeting.

What happened during those 36 hours? Undoubtedly, there were topical conversations among the committee’s small writing groups, which closed their sessions to observers. But what happened in the larger group was very important too. As the committee worshiped together, adopted a “covenant” to guide its work, and established its procedures for doing business, it laid the groundwork for its later decisions regarding marriage and same-sex relations. The effect was to nudge the committee toward a consensus result that would cover over disagreements with a broad tolerance. Any affirmation of controversial church doctrine, or any expression of dissent from the committee majority, would become more difficult in such an atmosphere.

Worship, celebrated several times each day through the meeting, was a powerful part of the committee’s experience. The major theme of the worship was the unity that the group found in Jesus Christ. Vividly symbolizing that unity, a communion cup and loaf were placed on a small table in the center of room where the committee met. The cup and loaf remained in place throughout the meeting.

The committee opened with a service of communion and reaffirmation of the baptismal covenant. Members heartily sang great hymns of unity, such as “The Church’s One Foundation,” “Blest Be the Tie that Binds,” and “In Christ There is No East or West.” The Scripture reading was the passage in Ephesians 2 that proclaims Christ as “our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall.” The original passage addressed differences between Jews and Gentiles in the early church; however, committee members applied it to opposing convictions regarding marriage and sexuality in the church today.

Rather than a sermon, the opening service featured a time of “reflection and discussion.” Three committee members—the Revs. Clay Allard of Dallas, Emily Anderson from East Tennessee, and Earl Arnold of Syracuse, NY—took the lead. Allard spoke of communion as “a witness to the powerful love that holds us together when we cannot agree.” Anderson quoted, with approval, something one of her early mentors had told her: “I would rather err on the side of pastoral compassion than being doctrinally correct.”

A Covenant of Unity

In a move that this observer has never seen before, the biblical reflection in the midst of the worship service included the presentation of an item for committee action. Allard, Anderson, and Arnold offered the group a covenant to guide its work. The covenant, later proposed for adoption by the whole denomination, is entitled “Those Whom Christ Has Joined Together, Let No One Separate.” This phrase is borrowed from Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:6/Mark 10:9 declaring the sanctity of marriage and warning against divorce.

These words would seem to be quite pertinent to the topic addressed by the special committee. But its report never quotes them in relation to marriage. Instead it quotes them, repeatedly, in relation to a topic that Jesus was not addressing in Matthew 19/Mark 10: Christian unity.

Some committee members expressed discomfort with this handling of Scripture. The Rev. Bill Teng of Alexandria, VA, objected that the phrase was “quoted out of context.” The Rev. Derrick Weston from Pittsburgh worried that “there are many who will see this as just misquoting Scripture … and dismiss everything else we’ve done.” But the committee kept the phrase at the top of its covenant. Indeed, it was apparently so pleased with the phrase that it repeated the same words on three other occasions in its report.

The covenant opens, “We acknowledge and confess that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) displays Calvin’s marks of the true Church (the gospel is rightly preached and heard, and the sacraments are rightly administered).” The hubris of this unqualified assertion—that the PCUSA, a sliver of the Church regularly afflicted, like all others, with heresies and abuses, fully satisfies Calvin’s standard—is astonishing.

The covenant, by going back to Calvin, bypasses the PCUSA constitution, which gives a slightly different version of the marks of the church. The Scots’ Confession adds a third mark: “ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God's Word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished” (3.18). It would be difficult for any Presbyterian to claim that today’s PCUSA administers church discipline in any serious fashion. And it is hard to see how the special committee’s proposals would strengthen discipline in the denomination.

Conscience Unbound

In their covenant, committee members pledged to work constructively: “to listen to one another,” support and pray for each other,” “struggle together with perseverance to find God’s will,” and “love one another even when we disagree.” More questionable was their last promise “to honor who we are as Presbyterians by respecting the fallible discernment of the body, bearing in mind that individual conscience cannot be thus bound.”

Teng was concerned about the phrase exalting conscience: “My understanding of individual conscience is not absolute,” he said “By lifting it up, we are almost saying that anything goes.” Later in the meeting, the Rev. Tracie Mayes Stewart of Greenville, SC, reminded her colleagues of the full text of the famous Book of Order passage: “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his Word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship” (G-1.0301). “We’re always bound by the Word,” Stewart maintained. “Our consciences can’t go anywhere. They are bound by what binds us together.”

Regarding church officers, moreover, the Book of Order states that “in becoming a candidate or officer of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) one chooses to exercise freedom of conscience within certain bounds. His or her conscience is captive to the Word of God as interpreted in the standards of the church so long as he or she continues to seek or hold officer in that body” (G-6.0108). Nevertheless, the flat assertion that “individual conscience cannot be thus bound” remains in the committee’s covenant that is now being offered to the whole church.

Other worship services also became occasions to influence committee business. The Rev. Margaret Aymer Oget of Atlanta led a devotional centered on the repeated singing of a chorus by gospel singer Hezekiah Walker entitled “I Need You to Survive.” The chorus begins: “I need you./You need me./We’re all a part of God’s body./Stand with me./Agree with me.” Later, those singing Walker’s chorus vow, “I won’t harm you with the words of my mouth.”

In the context of the special committee, the singing of the Hezekiah Walker chorus sounded like a plea for consensus.  Anyone tempted to dissent from the committee majority might be dissuaded by the urging to “agree with me.” Anyone inclined to criticize drafts written by others might think twice in view of the pledge not to “harm you with the words of my mouth.”

A Coming Out Hymn

In another devotional time, Elder Tony De La Rosa from Los Angeles had the group twice sing a contemporary hymn by Thew Elliot entitled “Spirit, I Have Heard You Calling.” The hymn tells of the Spirit “speaking through my longing,” “speaking through my pain.” It rejoices, “Now I feel you moving in me, feel you burning like a flame.” After the first round of singing, De La Rosa explained, “Thew Elliot wrote this song as a coming out hymn” and had it published in a resource produced by the United Church of Christ’s pro-homosexuality “welcoming” ministry. Thus De La Rosa forced his fellow committee members to make a tough choice: either they could join him in celebrating homosexual desire as a gift of the Holy Spirit, or they could refuse to participate in the group worship. It appeared that all chose to sing along, although perhaps not with equal enthusiasm.

The stress on unity carried over into the committee’s actual mode of doing business. Early on, it established a pattern of making most decisions by consensus. Suggestions were assumed to be approved unless someone objected or offered an alternative proposal. In discussing the covenant, the committee chair, the Rev. Jim Szeyller from Charlotte, NC, voiced his hope: “I would humbly request that we would be able to be more than simple [majority] … that we would be able to go by consensus.”

The late Marianne Wolfe, in her classic “Parliamentary Procedures in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),” warned:

Recent moves to adopt consensus decision-making are antithetical to this principle [of majority rule] and also to the basic rights of the individual as listed above and should neverbe used except in the most routine of parliamentary transactions. At its worst, consensus decision-making is manipulative and overpowering to the rights of the minority because it compels the minority to “break the unity of the body” in order to disagree. Most church members will choose to suppress their disagreement rather than risk this, and, if forced into this dilemma very often, will begin to harbor resentment toward the body. This latter is far more destructive to unity than open disagreement and the freedom of the right to disagree. (emphasis in original)

Wolfe’s advice very much applies to the current situation in the General Assembly Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Union and Christian Marriage.