GENERAL ASSEMBLY

PERMANENT JUDICIAL COMMISSION

Eric Parnell
Bruce McIntosh
Cordelia Shieh
Margaret Gelini
Greg Roth
Marsha Roth
Randy Young
Session, Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church
Appellants
v.
Presbytery of San Francisco
Respondent-Appellee / Rem. Case 2010-107
Part II
RESPONDENT-APPELLEE’S REPLY BRIEF

Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.

1 Timothy 8:11-12 (NRSV)

Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect.

Titus 2:9 (NRSV)

To the married I give this command – not I but the Lord – that the wife should not separate from her husband . . . and that the husband should not divorce his wife.

1 Cor. 7:10-11 (NRSV)

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.

Mark 10:11-12 (NRSV)

STATEMENT OF FACTS

On November 10, 2009, the Presbytery of San Francisco (“the Presbytery”) examined Lisa Larges and voted to approve her ordination as a minister of Word and Sacrament. At that time, former G-6.0106b required that ordinands “lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church” and specified that “among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman . . . or chastity in singleness.” The Presbytery found that Ms. Larges was fit for ordained ministry despite her declaration of a scruple with respect to the “fidelity and chastity” clause of this section.

The SPJC affirmed the Presbytery’s action on September 25, 2010, after an extensive, day-long trial in which both parties called a number of biblical scholars who testified to various understandings of what Scripture and the Confessions teach about sexual ethics. Complainants appealed on November 4, 2010. During the pendency of that appeal, on July 10, 2011, the church replaced former G-6.0106b with current G-2.0104b, which makes no express mention of “fidelity and chastity” but requires that councils “be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.”

On August 1, 2011, this Commission issued a decision in which it declined to rule on the allegations of error relating to G-6.0106b (as that provision was no longer part of the Constitution) and found no basis in the record for the contention that the Presbytery itself departed from essential tenets of Reformed faith and polity. However, the Commission noted that the record “does not reflect that the SPJC ruled on the Appellants’ contention that Scripture and the Confessions prohibit certain sexual behavior.” The Commission stated that it was “not ruling on whether doctrinal error or abuse of discretion occurred” but that “it was error for the SPJC not to expressly rule upon the issue.” Second, this Commission required that the SPJC rule not only on Presbytery’s process, but also on the constitutionality of the Presbytery’s decision itself.

On September 17, 2011, the SPJC issued its decision on remand, in which it held that:

Presbytery did not commit doctrinal error in its decision to accept the departure and to ordain the candidate. The record and trial testimony make clear that interpretations of scripture and the confessions, and the conclusions that result from those interpretations, have not been uniform in the history and practice of the Church. Nor are those interpretations uniform among theologians and biblical scholars within the denomination, as witness testimony and the record make clear. This vast diversity of interpretation of scripture and the confessions regarding human sexuality evident in the record is also manifest across the churches and members of the denomination. Such thoughtful disagreement among reasonable and faithful Presbyterians is itself an important and faithful part of the Reformed tradition. This range of interpretations reached through thoughtful and prayerful discernment is, in itself, evidence that the candidate’s departure cannot be from an essential of Reformed faith and polity. . . .

Having determined that Presbytery’s decision to ordain the candidate was neither doctrinal error nor an abuse of its discretion, this Commission finds the decision to ordain the candidate is constitutionally valid in both its process and its content.[1]

This appeal followed.


ARGUMENT

I.

THE SPJC PROPERLY AFFIRMED THE PRESBYTERY’S DETERMINATION THAT LISA LARGES’ CONSCIENTIOUS BELIEFS ARE WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF OUR REFORMED UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE AND OUR CONFESSIONS.

Appellants have alleged a number of errors in the SPJC decision, but common to many of them is the premise that the Constitution requires church officers to adhere to “the confessional and scriptural sexual standard formerly articulated by G-6.0106b” (App. Brief p. 2). Appellants specifically allege that the SPJC failed “to warn and bear witness against error in doctrine” and to enforce “the interpretation of Scripture found in the Confessions . . . with regard to sexual conduct” (Spec. of Error #1 and 5). However, these premises undergird the Appellants’ other contentions as well.

Appellants’ attempt to re-establish the former “fidelity and chastity” rule as an ongoing requirement from Scripture and the Confessions is belied by the positions they took earlier in this case, when they argued that elimination of G-6.0106b would free presbyteries to accept the kind of scruple declared by Lisa Larges. In particular:

§  When they tried to prevent the Presbytery from even examining Ms. Larges, Complainants claimed that scruples regarding “fidelity and chastity” were disqualifying because G-6.0106b, by its own terms, stated a “requirement” and if departures were to be allowed, “the word ‘requirement’ must be excised from the Constitution.”[2] Likewise, on appeal to this Commission, Complainants argued that “G-6.0106b remains the mandatory standard for the whole church unless it is removed by constitutional process.”[3] Now that G-6.0106b has been removed by constitutional process, Complainants essentially argue that the word “requirement” was irrelevant and that nothing has changed.

§  After the Presbytery was allowed to examine Ms. Larges and accepted her scruple, Complainants again challenged its action, arguing that “G-6.0106b sets forth a requirement. . . . The point in having such a requirement is to define what the church will affirm and what it will not.”[4] Complainants argued further that “forbearance is a worthy virtue and is rightly extended in the period (however long) before a matter is decided. But once the church agrees to a constitutional provision by majority vote, forbearance ends”.[5] Thus, Complainants argued that “the point” of G-6.0106b was to define mandatory rules in cases like this, because Scripture and the confessions themselves do not do so, and that if G-6.0106b did not exist, “forbearance is rightly extended.”

The recent reform of former G-6.0106b puts Appellants in a difficult position. In arguing that it makes no difference, Appellants stand opposed to the discernment of the whole church and a key principle of Presbyterian polity, that freedom of conscience must be respected here. More tellingly, they stand opposed to their own prior claims.

A. Given Presbyterian understanding of Scripture, the Presbytery may ordain a candidate who believes that Scripture permits some same-sex relationships.

Presbyterians seek to discern the true meaning of Scripture in light of its central themes, its historical and literary context, honest recognition of the difficulties posed in the translation of ancient languages, and other serious Biblical scholarship.[6] Such efforts have led to important reappraisals of some beliefs that, until recently, were held unquestioned since the beginnings of Christianity. Three of these are noted at the beginning of this brief – relating to people’s inherent traits (gender), their unchosen but potentially changeable condition (slavery), and freely chosen behaviors (divorce and remarriage). In each case, Scripture contains plain declarations that would appear to be (and for centuries were allowed to be) oppressive and exclusionary. In each case, the Presbyterian Church has discerned that the Gospel requires something other than persecutory readings of “plain” texts.

The church is now on that journey in thinking about gay/lesbian people. In eliminating the former “fidelity-and-chastity” provision of G-6.0106b, General Assembly and virtually every presbytery focused intensely on what Scripture and the Confessions teach about sexual ethics. A majority of the presbyteries discerned that these authorities may permit the ordination of qualified Presbyterians who are in same-sex partnerships – or at least that Scripture and the Confessions are sufficiently open to different understandings that it is improper to impose a mandatory interpretation to the contrary.[7] The church is not yet ready to declare new truths, but is willing to acknowledge that old understandings may not have been correct. The result of the church’s recent discernment was not to impose a new interpretation on the entire church, but to lift a rule that had oppressed many Presbyterians. We have finally accepted that here, too, faithful Presbyterians must have the freedom to follow their biblically-formed consciences.

While Appellants argue that the meaning of Scripture is plain, this amounts to little more than a willful refusal to acknowledge the widespread debate around the church and among theologians about what sexual ethics the Scriptures actually teach. Appellants express an astounding degree of certitude about an interpretation of Scripture that places them wholly at odds with many biblical scholars. The Presbytery introduced at trial a statement from over half of our Presbyterian seminaries’ Bible faculty that Scripture does not condemn all same-sex relationships.[8] Commentaries on the isolated texts from Scripture that are commonly cited as condemnations of same-sex relationships show that these passages are open to a range of interpretations.[9] The point, insofar as this case is concerned, is not whether a particular interpretation is correct; the point is that this is an area in which faithful and informed understandings differ, and in which freedom of conscience in interpreting Scripture therefore plays a critical role. Presbyters were well within their rights to find Lisa Larges’ biblical interpretation acceptable.

While Appellants would have this Commission impose a single interpretation of Scripture, their own expert witnesses conceded that the relevant texts are open to a range of interpretations. For example, Dr. Robert Gagnon stated that proper interpretation of a key text “is very much a matter of dispute. There simply isn’t enough evidence one way or the other to resolve it.”[10] Dr. John Thompson likewise noted that “the church is being asked to make a dogma out of something that I don’t think we yet know in terms of the rightness and wrongness of same sex gender relations.”[11] It is precisely in such areas – where Presbyterians sincerely hold informed but differing views – that our constitutional guarantee of respect for the freedom of the biblically formed conscience (F-3.0101, F-3.0105) is most important.

Appellants make the remarkable claim that Scripture is “univocal” in establishing the sexual ethic of former G-6.0106b (App. Brief p. 8). In this, they echo the three dissenters on the SPJC, who claim that “when scripture speaks of sexuality generally it describes the blessing of a union between one man and one woman in holy matrimony. No other form of human sexuality is blessed by scripture.”[12] Such a claim is utterly insupportable in light of the many texts telling us that God blessed the patriarchs and kings of Israel with many wives and concubines.[13] To speak of a “univocal” sexual ethic in Scripture also ignores the rapture of the unmarried lovers in the Song of Solomon, meeting at night in the garden to evade the discipline of the men in the town (a book sufficiently discomfiting that many commentators try to explain it as allegory, rather than according to its “plain” meaning). Nor do sexual ethics become any clearer in the New Testament, which presents apparently contradictory teachings about the satisfaction of sexual desire, celibacy, marital servitude, and divorce from Jesus, Paul, and the writers of the later epistles. Such observations are not made in order to endorse polygamy, premarital sex, or oppression; they are simply to insist on an honest acknowledgment that Scripture does not endorse a single sexual ethic, and that it must be understood in light of its greater teachings about love, covenant fidelity, and reconciliation. There is no reason such values cannot inform same-sex relationships just as they do heterosexual ones.[14]

Matters do not become clearer when one turns specifically to consideration of same-sex relationships. For example, the three dissenters from the SPJC’s judgment here acknowledged that the expert witnesses who testified at trial “all agreed that the beginning of the interpretive process is to return to the original language, either in Hebrew or in Greek, to determine the actual text of what was being said.”[15] However, the dissent then concluded its discussion of Scripture and the Confessions by quoting the English Standard Version (ESV) of 1 Timothy 1:8-10 as condemning “men who practice homosexuality”. The ESV is not a particularly scholarly, or even widely accepted, translation. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), which is generally considered more reliable, translates this passage (and a similar list of wrongdoers in 1 Cor. 6:9-10) as a condemnation of “sodomites,” thus raising a host of issues about what “sodomy” is: consistent with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16-19:29), many believe that “sodomy” condemns rape, promiscuity, homosexual practice by heterosexual men, or egregious inhospitality – not loving and faithful same-sex relationships between gay/lesbian persons. Examining the question more deeply, scholars have noted that there is great uncertainty about the true meaning of the words malakoi and arsenokoitai, which are the original Greek words used in these texts. Given uncertainty about their meaning, many scholars believe that these words must be understood in the historical and cultural context in which they were used, when heterosexual men commonly abused slaves and pre-pubescent boys as sexual objects. Understood in this light, many have concluded that these texts – far from condemning all “men who practice homosexuality” – don’t speak about gay/lesbian persons in loving, covenanted lifetime partnerships at all.[16]

In short, Scripture holds up many models for sexual conduct, and does not speak clearly about same-sex relationships. To claim that it presents a “univocal” witness on sexual morality, excluding all but marriage between one man and one woman, is to ignore what in fact it says.