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Conservative Christians were encouraged to hear that efforts to allow sexually active gays and lesbians to serve as clergy in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) were defeated for a fourth time.
On Saturday, the 87th, 88th and 89th votes against deleting a "fidelity and chastity" provision in the PC(USA)’s constitution were recorded, according to the Presbyterian Coalition, giving “no” voters the unofficial majority.
Though a little more than a dozen of denomination’s 173 presbyteries have yet vote, only 87 were needed to overturn a decision by the denomination’s General Assembly to remove the requirement for prospective ministers, deacons and elders to live in "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between and a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness."
Alan Wisdom, director of the Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Presbyterian Action, hailed fellow traditional Presbyterians for having “held the line on sexual morality.”
“They have stood against the cultural pressure to legitimize any relationship between ‘people who love one another,’” he expressed in a statement Monday. “They have maintained the Church’s historic teaching: that God’s provision for human sexuality is found in marriage-the ‘one flesh,’ lifelong, life-giving union of the two created sexes.
“Faithful Presbyterians ask the proponents of non-marital relationships to stop forcing this divisive issue and instead endeavor to live within the church’s constitution,” Wisdom added.
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The Presbyterian Coalition, which has been keeping an unofficial count of votes, had reported on Saturday that the Presbytery of Northern Plains cast the deciding vote and that the Presbyteries of Boise and Sierra Blanca followed later that day.
Once the votes have been confirmed by PC(USA)’s Office of the General Assembly, examinations of and judgments about candidates for office must continue to comply with the current “fidelity and chastity” standard, which has been contested since the 1970s.
“The decision gives witness to the Church's strong conviction that the Savior came to offer redemption to those held captive by any sin, including the prevailing sexual sins of our time,” commented Terry Schlossberg, coordinator of the Presbyterian Coalition’s Campaign to Defeat Amendment B.
“We have the Savior's promise that he will care for us, forgive us, and tenderly lead us to repentance,” Schlossberg added.
Presbyterians on the other side of the debate, meanwhile, saw this past year’s effort as a “historic shift,” noting that a larger percentage of presbyteries had voted so far in favor of the change than in the past two attempts.
Previous efforts to delete the provision, like the latest, failed at the presbytery level in 1998 (55 to 45 percent), in 1999 (66 to 33 percent), and in 2002 (57 to 43 percent).
So far, 69 of the 158 presbyteries that have voted so far (43.7 percent) have voted in favor of deleting the “fidelity and chastity” requirement. Overall, however, that makes up only 39.9 percent of the total 173.
For there to be any sign of an upward trend from 1998, ten more presbyteries of the remaining 15 would have to report “yes” votes.
The remaining presbyteries have until June 28 to cast their votes.
Christian Post reporter Aaron Leichman contributed to this article.
