They (Presbyterian Welcome) Were All Together In One Place

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” (Acts 2:1 NRSV) The “they” refers to the earliest followers of Jesus.

Last Sunday, May 31, was Pentecost according to the western calendar. Late in the afternoon “They were all together in the chapel of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.” The “They” refers to Presbyterian Welcome, a community of congregations and individuals in the New York area whose mission is to build up and repair the Body of Christ by working for the full inclusion of all disciples, without regard to sexual orientation and gender identity. “They” were gathered for a service of Celebration, Grief, and Hope, and I was there, with camera (photos available at Picasa), as part of the “They”.

I do not recall if what we were celebrating, grieving and hoping for was ever made explicit. If not, it was implicit. We celebrated because so many presbyteries flipped-flopped during this round of voting on amendments and supported 08-B. We grieved because not enough presbyteries voted in the affirmative on 08-B and therefore we are still left with the exclusive and unjust language of G-6.0106b. We were hopeful because we know that the Spirit’s winds of change are blowing our way and that it is only a matter of time before the restrictive language of G-6.0106b is either amended or removed from the Book of Order.

I was sitting in a front pew and was not able to see how many attended the service but I estimate between fifty and a hundred. The chapel was festively adorned with red helium balloons, various red cloth, and dozens of candles. The liturgy was a little wordy (our Presbyterian fault) but creative and punctuated by accompaniment on piano and bass guitar. The outstanding vocals of the Lafayette Avenue Inspirational Ensemble had the congregation clapping and a few even rocking and rolling to their rhythm and blues. In other words, this was not your typical staid, frozen chosen Presbyterian Worship service and offered a vision of what worship in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition can be like.

Liturgical leadership for the Service of Celebration, Grief and Hope was shared by many, including the Lafayette Avenue Inspirational Ensemble, The Reverend David Dyson, the Reverend David Cockcroft, Elder David Richardson, the Reverend Anna Taylor-Sweringen, Deacon Takako Terino, The Reverend Mary Spears, Elder john Bradley, The Reverend Chris Shelton,The Reverend Mieke Vandersall, and others. From my perspective, the most memorable parts of the service were the musical offerings of the Lafayette Avenue Inspirational Ensemble (they rock!) and the Sermon by the Reverend Chris Shelton (an interesting interpretation of the choosing of Matthias over Joseph Barsabbas to replace Judas.)

I attended this service of Celebration, Grief and Hope for several reasons. Since I lead worship most Sunday mornings I do not usually have the opportunity to worship with others free of any liturgical responsibility and I need that on occasion. I have learned from experience that any worship planned and led by LGBT Presbyterians and their allies tends to be creative, uplifting, inspiring, and offers really good music. I think it is important to show solidarity with my brothers and sisters in Christ who have had their gifts for ministry ignored or dismissed simply because they choose to responsibly live out their God given sexuality within committed, covenantal and responsible same sex relationships.

I know clergy are often busy on Sunday and even my half-time schedule does not always give me the time to attend Presbyterian Welcome events. Nevertheless, I wonder why many more straight allies of Presbyterian Welcome were not all together in the chapel of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church last Pentecost.

Oh yea, after the Service we recessed to a lower room for refreshments organized and in part provided by the Reverend Mary Spears, which just goes to prove that all Presbyterians, gay, lesbian, or straight, love to eat.

Has San Francisco Lost Its Heart?

Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Francisco, but I wondering if it is still there.

I was on the campus of UnionPSCE in Richmond Virginia Wednesday morning when I learned that San Francisco Presbytery had become the first presbytery to flip-flop from having historically supported the full inclusion of all God’s children in the leadership of the church to rejecting that possibility by failing to approve 08-B with a 167-177 vote. A member of Redwoods Presbytery, the presbytery just to the north of San Francisco Presbytery, was sitting nearby and was not a bit surprised by the vote, saying that SFP has always been a divided Presbytery.

Thanks to Presbyweb one can easily review Tuesday's results. National Capitol Presbytery maintained its supportive progressive record, approving 08-B with a vote of 222-102. Salem flipped-flopped into the progressive column by a mere seven votes, approving 08-B with a vote of 156-149. Wabash Valley also flipped flopped by approving 08-B by sixten votes, 76-60. And San Franscisco Presbytery . . . well . . . disappointing from my perspective, and perhaps a bit symbolic, and instructive.

In an earlier version of this post I had credited The GA Junkie for some astute observations regarding the possible symbolism of this flip-flop by San Francisco Presbytery but the credit really belongs to John Shuck at Shuck and Jive. To paraphrase and add to John, San Franscisco Presbytery is . . .

where PCUSA Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow is a minister member;

where Out Lesbian and Minister Coordinator for That All May Freely Serve Lisa Larges is a candidate;

where The Covenant Network of Presbyterians maintains its office and some of its staff; and

where there areapparently numerous bath houses editor emeritus of The Layman Parker T. Williamson believes will erupt in jubilation if the PC(USA) approves 08-B.

In spite of some presbyteries voting overwhelmingly to approve 08-B and some others voting overwhelmingly to defeat 08-B, the vote in many other presbyteries, like San Francisco Presbytery, has been very close. Three presbyteries, in fact, have had tied votes and a tie vote does not count toward approval but rather defeat.

Why the flip flop in San Francisco Presbytery? Progressive turnout or lack thereof. In 2001 there were 186 votes against 01-A, nine more than this year. But in 2001 there 216 votes FOR 01-A, 49 more votes than this year! Where have the progressives gone? Could not eleven more have dragged themselves to Tuesday’s meeting? Every vote does indeed count.

ex nihilo redux: Three Months and Counting

Today marks the 3 month anniversary of my first blog post, ex nihlio, posted on Monday, January 5, 2009. In WWJB, posted on February 5, 2009, I reflected on a month of blogging. I allowed the second month anniversary to go by without comment, however. Not so the third month.

Though I started Summit to Shore on January 5 I did not begin using Google Analytics until January 25, so I have no traffic reports until starting then. Here are the numbers since January 25.

951 visits have come from 19 countries/territories. 918 visits came from the United States. The other 18 countries/territories with their numbers of visits have been:
Canada 6
United Kingdom 6
India 3
Philippians 3
Spain 2
Netherlands Antilles, Sweden, Nigeria, Ireland, New Zealand, Belgium, Poland, Panama, South Africa, France, Trinidad and Tobago, Jordan, and Australia each logged one visit.

Of the 918 visits from the United States, over half, 500, were from New York State, and over 80%of those, 411, were from New York City (thank you, home town folks).

Two visits from Alaska still stand out in my mind. Alaska’s two visits to Summit to Shore have been from Wasilla, home town of Alaska Governor and former Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin. Do you think? Nah! But just in case, and in the event of a return visit, HELLO SARAH! Thanks for visiting Summit to Shore. You betcha. Have you seen any Russian planes flying over Alaska lately?

To date I am still waiting for visits from nine states as no one from Vermont, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Dakota, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Montana or Hawaii have yet to visit Summit to Shore. If you have friends or relatives or know anyone else in those states, please ask them to visit my blog and be the first from their state to do so.

The most popular page view, with 80 views, has been my post about Western North Carolina Presbytery being the first Presbytery to flip-flop on their vote regarding G-6.0106b. The second most popular post has been my tongue-in-cheek parody masquerading as a Presbyterian News Service article about Amendment B showing a fourth quarter rally. I wrote that parody in response to two PNS articles, one posted March 11 and the other posted March 19 by Jerry L. Van Marter. The third most popular post, with half as many visits as the most popular, was my Letter to the Editor of the Presbyterian Outlook in response to their lagging coverage of the amendment 08-B vote. Thus, by far the most popular material on Summit to Shore has been related to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its voting on amendment 08-B.

The three next six most popular posts have all related to kayaking, and two of those related to Jones Beach. Page views after these most popular are pretty mixed with regard to content.

What has been your favorite post? Least favorite? What would you like to read more about? What I have I not written about between summit to shore that you like me to write about? Leave me a comment and give me some direction. Otherwise I might break out my GPS and ask it to send me to a randomly selected direction.

New York City Presbytery Meets on Staten Island - Approves 08-B 76-25

Members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) regularly come together on a regional basis to meet in regional governing bodies called Presbyteries. There are 173 Presbyteries in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) covering all fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. I and the church I serve as Designated Pastor, North Church Queens, are members of The Presbytery of New York City. The Presbytery of New York City includes churches in all five boroughs, the Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn.

The Presbytery of New York City met this past Saturday, March 28, 2009 at the Calvary Presbyterian Church on Staten Island. About one hundred voting Ministers and Elders attended the meeting as well as many other nonvoting observers.

For me the two highlights of the meeting were opening worship and the Report of the Task Force for the Ghanaian Fellowship. The low point was the Report on Standing Rules and Overtures when we became bogged down in process and more concerned about time rather than debating the substance of the many Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Proposed Ecumenical Statements and giving them the time they deserved. At least we passed 08-B 76-25!

Words alone, however, can never fully describe a meeting of any presbytery because before they are debates and votes, presbyteries are people. So here is a slideshow from the meeting. Most of the photos are of people, some are not.

Amendment B shows signs of fourth quarter rally

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March 22, 2009

Amendment B shows signs of fourth quarter rally: With nearly three-fourths of the votes in, the tally is 51-79, with plenty of time left on the clock
by Mary Sans Garter Presbyopia Views Surface

LOUISVILLE ― With nearly three-fourths of the votes in, a hotly-contested proposed amendment to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Constitution is showing signs of a fourth quarter rally. The amendment ― officially dubbed “Amendment B” ― would replace the current unjust requirement that church officers live in “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness” with a new G-6.0106b that is more just.

As of March 22, the unofficial tally is 51 presbyteries in favor, with 79 opposed. The final tally will be certified and announced by the Office of the General Assembly. The 130 presbyteries that have voted represent 75 percent of the PC(USA)’s 173 presbyteries.

The current “fidelity and chastity” provision was added to the Book of Order in voting following the conservative manipulation and stacking of key committee chairs at the 1996 General Assembly. Two subsequent proposals to delete it have failed in presbytery voting due to scare tactics employed by the right.

In the most recent voting, Mackinac Presbytery, the Presbytery of Newark, and the Presbytery of West Virginia became the 21st, 22nd and 23rd Presbyteries to "flip" from opposition to ordination equality in 2001-2 to support for the 218th General Assembly's Ordination Amendment 08-B in 2009. The Presbytery of Grand Canyon's vote of 98 YES to 93 NO adds to these 3 "flips" to make the total of 4 YES votes for Amendment 08-B in one day and to narrow the chasm between approval and defeat! As the Presbytery voting enters the final period both supporters and opponents wonder about a fourth quarter rally that could only happen in the madness of March.

With only 43 presbyteries left to vote, can a miracle for supporters of inclusion be waiting in the wings? Time will tell. The Holy Spirit has been known to blow from and in unexpected directions. The same Holy Spirit that gave a poor, young, unmarried Jewish maiden a child and added about three thousand believers following Peter’s Pentecost Sermon may indeed be behind this recent surge in the possible approval of 08-B and guide the winning shot into the hoop just as the buzzer sounds.

While the passage of 08-B is not certain, it appears as though its detractors have fielded an old, tired team whose best play is behind them, but they have been enjoying a home court advantage. Year after year many of their top players have not been returning. The supporters of 08-B, meanwhile, have seemed to field a much younger and more energetic team this year, many of whom will undoubtedly return for any future matchups. So if 08-B does not pass this year, there is always 2011 or 2013.

Letter to the Editor of Presbyterian Outlook

Dear Editor:

In defense of Leslie Scanlon, she probably wrote her news and analysis piece for the February 23rd edition Enough Already? Presbyteries, people consider yet another vote on ordination (pages 6-7 in the print edition) before Western North Carolina Presbytery, on January 31st, became the first of several presbyteries to flip-flop and approve Ordination Amendment 08-B after consistently voting to maintain G-6.0106b in previous years. Therefore she could not have noted the symbolic irony in that Western North Carolina Presbytery is the presbytery in which Parker T. Williamson, editor emeritus of The Layman, resides and is a member.

I take exception with her opening sentence that “The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is in the midst of voting, yet again, on whether to ordain sexually-active gays and lesbians.” We are not voting on that but rather on removing thinly veiled pejorative language that restricts congregations and presbyteries from exercising their right of discernment and at least consider ordaining sexually-active gays and lesbians. This distinction may seem like a matter of semantics but as followers of the Word made flesh we ought to be more careful about what words we use.

In her final paragraph she notes Michael Adee saying “We’ve spent 30 years on this. Let’s just come to a solution and move forward.” I presume the “30 years” is a reference to the 189th General Assembly (1977) of The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA) authorizing the creation of a task force to study the church and homosexuality in response to overtures from the Presbytery of New York City and the Presbytery of the Palisades seeking definitive guidance on the question of the acceptability of an avowed practicing homosexual as a candidate for ordination to professional ministry. It has now been 32 years since the creation of that task force, 32 years since the 1977 PCUS document, The Church and Homosexuality: A Preliminary Study, and 31 years since the 1978 UPCUSA document, The Church and Homosexuality, which gave us “Definitive Guidance”. In other words, it has been about a generation since the question was first asked.

Any Hegelian would argue that there is no need to question an opinion everyone agrees with. As soon as the question was asked change was inevitable.

The Scriptures remind us that while it took only one night for the enslaved children of Israel to get out of Egypt, it took forty years of wilderness wandering to get Egypt of the children of Israel. The generation that experienced enslavement in Egypt, including their leader Moses, had to pass away before a new generation led by a new leader, Joshua, finally entered the Promised Land. Along the way there was much quarreling and testing, and even a desire to return to the good old days of enslavement. Why should we be any different?

By such a rendering we have another eight to ten years before our debates focused around G-6.0106b are resolved. If 08-B is not passed in this round of voting it will return in one form or another in six to eight years and will eventually pass. Such change is inevitable. It is the conclusion of the trajectory established in 1977 when the Presbytery of New York City and the Presbytery of the Palisades asked for definitive guidance.

Even if 08-B does pass in this round of voting there will still be work to be done regarding its interpretation and implementation. New questions will be asked. A new generation that has not personally experienced definitive guidance, authoritative interpretation and the former G-6.0106b will begin living, serving, worshipping and finding their own way in a land of promise.

In Christ,

John E. Harris

Western North Carolina Approves 08-B

Both Tricia Dykers Koenig of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians and Michael Adee of More Light Presbyterians have reported that Western North Carolina Presbytery has become the first presbytery to approve Ordination Amendment 08-B after consistently voting to maintain G-6.0106b in previous years. Michael reports that the vote was “144 Yes, 108 No.” Tricia reports that “By a margin of 57% approval, we believe that this is the first presbytery to "flip" from opposition to approval. In 2001, the vote was 38% Yes and in 2009 it is 57% Yes, making this a 19% positive gain.” Neither Tricia nor Michael seems to have noted the symbolic and ironic significance of this vote, however.

Western North Carolina Presbytery is the presbytery in which Parker T. Williamson,editor emeritus of The Layman, resides and is a member. My hunch is that he would have been present for this historic vote.

Can anyone else hear the shackles of years of injustice being loosened?