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| Brian Spolarich |
Given the perennial nature of the matter before us this afternoon, I want to respond to two big questions that are likely in the minds of many of us in the room. First, “Why do we have to keep voting on this question?” Second, “What will Amendment 10-A mean if passed?”
A flip answer to the first question might be “Until we get it right!” but I think that there is a deeper truth at work here.
Hear then these words from the 32nd chapter of Genesis:
Then Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’“I will not let you go unless you bless me.” So too I think we lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons in this denomination have been wrestling, wrestling with this church and its discriminatory policy that has been used to prevent us from claiming the equality promised to us by Christ Jesus, an equality sealed by our baptism and remembered each time we share a common loaf and cup with our heterosexual sisters and brothers.
I want to also point out that it has taken an act of not civil, but “ecclesiastical disobedience” to have a person officially banned from ordination argue for the adoption of this Amendment. I am deeply humbled to have the privilege to speak on behalf of those who have been silenced in our Church for too long.
We will not let you go unless you bless us. Not because we believe we “deserve ordination”, or have “more light” than anyone else, but because we have felt the Spirit’s calling in our own hearts. Some of us have been raised in this denomination, and others have come as adults. But we are your sisters and brothers, and we want to serve alongside you using the gifts that the Spirit has seen fit to give us, in the ways that God has called us to serve.
As to the second question: what would this Amendment actually mean to my church and this Presbytery if adopted?
It would mean that governing bodies would be permitted to determine a candidate’s fitness for ordained office using the same historic principles and standards that have served this denomination well for the past 232 years. No congregation would be forced to ordain or install anyone they do not feel God has called to that office, nor would this Presbytery be required to ordain a minister that it did not likewise feel was called to that ministry.
And crucially, it would be those in closest relationship with the candidate who would make that determination, both through personal discussion and the biblical process of discernment and consent by election, subject to the movement of the Spirit. However it does put lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender members of this denomination on equal footing with our heterosexual brothers and sisters. And it does so on the basis of relationship, which models the same values that Jesus taught us in His ministry.
To put this in the most practical terms, at Northside, this has meant that we have had people who disagree with us, like Reverend Bohn [Rev. Christine Tiller-Bohn was an “Against” speaker who followed me], moderate the Session on which I served as clerk. We can work together.
Some have argued that by amending G-6.0106(b) we will open the floodgates for sexual immorality in our denomination. I do not find such ‘slippery slope’ arguments persuasive, and I am confident that we can trust ourselves to apply the high standards for ordination that have existed in our denomination for the last 232 years.
The important question here is whether we will approve this amendment and uphold our historical Presbyterian principles of fairness and equality, or whether we will instead continue to arbitrarily ban one group of people from ordained service, representation, and leadership.
Some will also argue that the amendment before us does not go far enough. But I believe that this Amendment represents a practical solution, a “third way” that enables us as a connectional church to move forward together, while honoring the gifts of faith, service and ministry that LGBT persons possess and have been waiting, some for decades, to demonstrate and to share.
