Commentary: Slowing the Onset of FOG

LOUISVILLE—Working nearly until the hotel dismantled the meeting room September 21 in Louisville, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly Council crawled to a feverish finish with neither a quorum nor its lunch. It did, however, make some decisions regarding the controversial new Form of Government (FOG) being proposed. Normally routine, this final plenary session featured some emotion and difference of opinion, even as the number of voting members dwindled when the session ran long and flight times approached.

In fact, soon before adjournment, business concerning the PCUSA legal corporation, of which General Assembly Council (GAC) members serve as the corporate board, came up short of a quorum. The insufficient number was determined only after 22 of 50-some members conducted a couple of routine items of business that became null and void because of failure to have a majority of members present.

The Go-Stoppers
Typically, the GAC rubberstamps its committee reports and adjourns early. But on September 21, debate on four topics delayed the close of business:

1. A proposal to gather a denominational every-member database for communication and solicitation of support. This provision, part of a report on mission funding, was removed on second thought. GAC member Ann Moe noted that while she could see value in such a database, “it seems impractical and it raises issues of trust. Just how will this information be used?”
2. Some rather large block grants to spend restricted-giving funds. These three grants, totaling nearly $800,000, sat quietly in a large list of otherwise prosaic allocations that together totaled only around $200,000. The heft of the three large allocations raised some eyebrows. Whenever a full money trough is found, many are the mouths that would like to feed from it! A sense of fiduciary responsibility for the three large grants led to their being removed from a consent agenda. The proposals will now be subjected to further scrutiny before approval and disbursement at a later date.
3. Proposed wording revisions about what qualifies as gifts accredited to the $40 million Mission Initiative. The changes caused quite a stir. Normally such language is of interest only to lawyers and accountants, but in the case of a struggling capital campaign, everyone’s attention locked onto the proposed changes. (See “What Qualifies as a Mission Initiative Donation?“)
4. A complete rewrite of the PCUSA Form of Government in the Book of Order. This item garnered particular attention. In a time of a crisis of trust, any fiddling with the one document that details the polity that has held the denomination together is bound to receive rapt attention. And this was the second time the item had come up at this meeting.

Looking through the FOG Rewrite
The GAC had heard extensive reports two days previously from the Form of Government Task Force and from one of its own members, Steve Benz. Then the GAC had briefly discussed the reports and what its counsel might be for the 2008 General Assembly, which will consider replacing the present Form of Government with this new version.

The FOG Task Force leaders had described and touted their work. The proposed new FOG is “shaped and guided by missional ecclesiology,” the GAC was told. (“Missional” seems rapidly to be becoming the new “it” term among Presbyterians, used broadly but only occasionally accurately to describe anything thought to advance the mission of the church.) The new FOG is said to “reduce confusion,” now supposedly found in the beloved first four chapters of the Form of Government. The new FOG is sparer, lacking much of the clarifying detail of the present FOG. And it is especially touted as “flexible,” which could also mean malleable or more easily sidestepped, if one prefers not to abide by the present FOG’s stipulations.

The FOG Task Force presenters listed some key changes that come with the brevity and looseness of the new FOG, such as:

• Most policies and procedures would simply be removed from the FOG, left for every one of the 11,000 congregations, 173 presbyteries, and 16 synods to wrestle with individually.
• The category of “inactive member” would vanish, removing a particularly useful touch point to minister to people drifting away from involvement in a congregation.
• The new FOG would return to the terms “teaching elder” and “ruling elder.”
• Ministers serving in validated ministries would be required to preach the Word and administer the sacraments as part of their call, narrowing drastically the present broadly celebrated richness of a variety of gifts and callings among ministers. Apparently, according to the new FOG, if a minister’s call doesn’t particularly involve preaching, baptizing, and serving Communion, he or she shouldn’t remain ordained.
• Interim pastors would be allowed to be called as the next installed minister of a congregation, which is a significant departure from the current practice of the church.
• “Governing bodies” as a term for sessions, presbyteries, and synods would be replaced by “councils.”
• The requirement for the existence of certain committees—such as the Committee on Representation, the Committee on Ministry, and the Committee on Preparation for Ministry—would be abolished.
• Interpreting the Constitution would fall on the shoulders of the one committee that would remain mandatory: the Advisory Committee on the Constitution (ACC) (on which Paul Hooker, a FOG Task Force member, now sits, oddly enough). This ACC would be elevated from a wise and respected giver of expert advice to much more of an arbiter of what the constitution means. This arbiter’s role is now shared among the General Assembly and the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, through their power to issue authoritative interpretations, and the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, through his ability to issue less binding advisory opinions.
• Permanent Judicial Commissions at all levels are not mentioned in the new FOG (although the function would remain in the Rules of Discipline section of the Book of Order).

As she concluded her report, FOG Task Force Co-Chair Sharon Davison confessed: “I am a lawyer, and I don’t have a problem with the present Book of Order. I like the Book of Order. I read the Book of Order! But for many people, the present Book of Order has become a barrier. The current Book of Order is standing in the way of people doing mission.”

A barrier, she says? A barrier to what, exactly? Is there one church in the PCUSA that would thrive if only we didn’t have our present Book of Order? One doubts that the Book of Order is the cause of denominational lethargy! And exactly how does the Book of Order stand in the way of churches being excellent in their mission? Outstanding congregations that do their mission with excellence can readily do so under the Book of Order. Davison’s dramatically overstated closing statement cries out for elaboration, but its rhetorical effect did end her presentation with an emotional flourish.

In 2006, General Assembly stipulated that the draft from the FOG Task Force be available by September 1 this year, in order to give the church ample time to consider the draft prior to possible adoption. However, the system let us down. Davison announced that she was “proud to say that as of 2:15 today [9/19],” the material was posted on the PCUSA web site (here and here).

That posting was nearly three weeks late, depriving the GAC, in this instance, of the opportunity it should have had to consider the correct draft. Such tardiness deprives presbyteries of valuable weeks to use in evaluating the draft, composing amendments or other responses, approving the overtures in a presbytery meeting, and submitting such overtures prior to a February 22 deadline.

The GAC was assured, however, that if overtures do reach the General Assembly in a timely manner, such overtures or other commissioner-proposed amendments to the FOG draft will be in order. Approval or disapproval of the draft in total is not required; it can be amended.

And one further complication fogs the picture: The task force has been given permission by the Stated Clerk to change its proposed draft up until the February 22, 2008, deadline for submission of agency reports and presbytery overtures affecting the constitution. Thus presbyteries may end up attempting to amend portions of the proposed FOG that will be altered in other ways by the task force at a late hour. In addition, presbyteries quite possibly will have no time to respond to the final FOG Task Force manuscript prior to the deadline. This situation, outlined and allowed by Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, runs counter to the orderly provision of a September 1 deadline for the task force draft, a provision quite purposefully stipulated by the General Assembly in 2006.

Early Sticking Points
During the September 19 evening discussion, the biggest GAC sticking point for the new FOG at first glance appeared to be the provision allowing a temporary pastor to be called as the installed pastor. “I need to think about that an awful lot,” confided GAC member Gary Skinner.

Another GAC member, Dale Lindsay Morgan, provided some reasons for her skepticism about this proposed change. “There is no search for an interim pastor,” she reminded her colleagues. “The interim is hired by session, so it becomes a narrow entryway for a lot of political stuff to go on. It opens the door to things I’d rather not see a door opened to!”

“The interim succession part is one that I cannot support,” declared Steve Benz more pointedly.

A GAC Member’s Impressions
Benz had been invited by the GAC chair to present a response to the proposed FOG draft. Perhaps with tongue somewhat in cheek, he thanked Chair Allison Seed for tasking him with hundreds of pages of documents to review for his presentation. But Benz had obviously been assiduous in his preparation.

“I think that the work of the Task Force is, by and large, brilliant,” he began. “I am especially taken with the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity section … in the simplicity of language and the depth of its reordering our understanding of church in a more coherent form.”

But Benz also entertained some doubts about the FOG rewrite. He said that the Form of Government section is “full of changes that raise questions for me both as a GAC member and presbytery staff. Most of them are minor, some of them I wondered at, and others I thought, ‘Hmmmm. Never thought about it that way!’ On the whole, I think it is a very good work and I think that the church will be well served to figure out how it impacts our lives together.”

Benz did zero in on some big changes: removing the GAC from the Book of Order and removing “all governmental bodies mandated by the current Book.” Benz also expected the FOG Task Force to produce “proposed manuals” for the various bodies excised from the new Form of Government. He felt that the manuals “have to be a part of the overall discussion before we can make informed decisions.”

Benz is in for a big disappointment. For the most part, such manuals are not going to appear. Instead, the FOG Task Force is providing a substantial list of complicated decisions that various governing bodies will need to hash out individually, plus a couple of sample manuals with no authority in themselves.

In other words, all those matters that once were wisely tied down in the Book of Order would be up for grabs at every level. Every session, presbytery, and synod would need to gear up for years of debates and decisions as multiple matters need to be straightened out in myriad ways across the country.

Benz did offer a major suggestion to the GAC. He called for more time to digest this sea change being hastily and belatedly proposed. “The Task Force … gets what they have done,” he recognized. “But I don’t get it yet, and I have read it through three or four times, and taken notes line by laborious line.” What’s more, he expects that he “will not get it before June 2008, much less before February, when it goes to press finalized.”

Benz’s solution was simple. He wanted the GAC to recommend that the General Assembly wait until 2010 or even 2012 before taking a final vote on the new FOG. “I hope that we can recommend that [General Assembly] receive this document and recommend it to the presbyteries in such a way that the presbyteries will then ‘vote on it’ by their comments and their recommendations for change,” Benz suggested. Then the document could come back for actual approval in two to four years “as the will of the denomination, in whatever form that may take.”

General Assembly Moderator Joan Gray commented that she had helped appoint the task force and that she wanted to honor those on the task force who had put in so much work during the last year. Applause followed.

The Morning FOG Decisions
The various GAC committees were invited to discuss the FOG report further in their smaller groupings, and the Leadership and Vocation Committee did just that, bringing back a recommendation for action to the concluding plenary session on September 21. The committee considered the proposed FOG “generally good,” reported Mary Marks King, the chair, “but because it is so big, we recommend that the GAC not put this on a cycle where it becomes a formal [constitutional] amendment at this General Assembly. Rather, we could make it a two-year process of study and feedback, so that the church can grapple with the issue.”

The committee’s motion read: “Recommend the full GAC communicate to the Form of Government Task Force that they consider adding to their recommendations a process for discernment, study, and feedback within the whole church for a two-year period, beginning with the 2008 General Assembly and ending with the 2010 General Assembly.”

“We think it [the proposed new FOG] is a good thing,” King explained in short, “but we don’t think it is going to pass on the timetable of a regular Book of Order amendment.”

“I think I speak in favor of this,” ventured fellow GAC member Zane Buxton. He called the recommended process similar to the process for changing the Directory for Worship. “While there are great possibilities in this,” he figured, “we’re not ready for it.”

But Joan Gray was worried about the message this resolution would send. “If this body says, ‘Delay the vote,’ it would be very helpful to have a strong statement in support of the work of the FOG group,” she advised. “Without that, it will be seen as a negative assessment.”

“Perception becomes reality,” agreed Manley Olson, “and if people perceive we’re delaying things, then they’ll think we’re opposed to it. We need to strongly say we’re not killing the project and say why we’re doing this.”

Without further delay, the recommendation, lacking an explanatory proviso, was approved by vote. But then former General Assembly Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase introduced delay. “I’m feeling rushed,” he said. “I’d like just 60 seconds to silently think about it.”

The GAC Chair, Allison Seed, agreed to the period of silence. But then she took a rather irregular parliamentary departure, adding, “And then we will vote again.” Silence was kept for a minute or so, and then Seed explained her unusual tactic: “Because of confusion, I will reopen the matter for discussion”—a matter already decided by vote.

Joan Gray reiterated the need to “communicate to the task force a strong affirmation and positive assessment of their work.” The exact wording of this affirmation and positive assessment was never determined, and it certainly was never placed before the GAC in written form, so that the members could know what they were voting on. Nevertheless, without motion or vote, Seed considered Gray’s comments to be an informal amendment tacked onto the previously adopted recommendation, which she then put up for a second vote.  The GAC without further discussion unanimously adopted this fuzzy resolution, which some hapless recording secretary would then have to compose retroactively for the minutes.

Committee chair King brought another resolution to the GAC, that “GAC ask Allison Seed, Chair, to appoint a task force that will bring to the February 2008 GAC meeting a recommendation to the General Assembly on how to respond to the Form of Government Task Force report.” In part because of Steve Benz’s admission that even with all his study of the new FOG document, he “didn’t get it,” the committee was recommending further study by a group of GAC members.

“These two recommendations trigger in me a feeling that we’re dealing with a boundary issue,” GAC member Gary Skinner warned. “First, this FOG Task Force is not a task force of the GAC, and second, the work has been under the supervision of the Office of the General Assembly. Yet, here we are as the GAC taking actions.” He wanted to know what the Committee on the Office of General Assembly (COGA) would advise and said he didn’t want “to start down the road to take actions that exacerbate what has been a good working relationship between COGA and GAC.”

Others must have felt the same, because the committee’s second resolution was narrowly defeated. So the GAC’s discussion of the proposed new FOG has concluded, at least for now. Steve Benz remains possibly the only GAC member who has studied the proposal carefully, and even he admits that he doesn’t “get it yet.”

Beware the FOG
This mixture of cautious expectancy and expectant caution marks many Presbyterians’ response to the proposed FOG draft—at least many of those few who actually know anything about the draft. While good presbyters want a Form of Government that brightens the life of the church and furthers its ministry and mission, not everyone is certain that the proposed new rewrite of the foundational Form of Government is exactly the ticket. In fact, a number express grave reservations, or even determined opposition.

The General Assembly Council members seemed predisposed to like the new FOG. They appreciated what it is supposedly intended to do. They appeared grateful toward those on the FOG Task Force, even though the task force had dropped the GAC itself right out of the Book of Order!

But there was also the cautious, go-slow, “we haven’t quite figured this thing out” reaction, which seemed most appropriate for something so complicated and radical. People surely hoped the rewrite would be good and useful, but they were not yet convinced—and, some would argue, were most wise not to be convinced. Why erase the accumulation of several generations of wisdom in the Book of Order through a hurried move to be “more flexible,” whatever that really means?

The General Assembly Council would like to have the church ask that kind of question for at least two more years. If the council members, with their sophisticated comprehension of Presbyterian polity, think it wise to slow down, it would seem advisable for the rest of us to concur. After all, concerning Presbyterian polity, it’s just plain impossible to be a wonk in a wink!