Statement on B

As promised, here is my argument before the PSL in regard to amendment 08B. I have taken out the person's name in the last paragraph because, while I got their permission to use the example before the presbytery, I did not ask about publishing in on the internets.

Sisters and brothers in Christ,

I rise to speak in favor of amendment 08b. I do so first and foremost as a disciple of Jesus Christ. The new amendment B returns Christ to his proper place at the center of our ordination standards. In the life, death, resurrection and abiding presence of Christ, we find our only hope and our only standard for right conduct as believers and officers. Jesus taught us that all the law and the prophets hang on the command to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus Christ, his love and grace should stand at the center and at the height of our standards, and amendment 08b returns Christ to this rightful place. The current G6.0106b makes no mention of Christ and conflates the roles of Scripture and the confessions, raising the confessions to a status equal to Scripture, and assigning to the confessions the role of defining sin. The new amendment will restore the historic Reformed emphasis on obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, through the instruction of the confessions as the standard for ordination.

I also speak in favor of amendment 08b as a student of St. Paul, of John Calvin. Paul taught us that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” and that we are justified by God’s grace as a gift. Calvin taught us the doctrine of total depravity and our radical dependence on the grace of Christ alone, and not our works. Sin does not discriminate; thankfully, grace does not either. G6.0106b denies this historic tenet of the Reformed faith, as if our righteousness and fitness for ordained office depended on our ability to refrain from sin. Brothers and sister, all of human history, as well as the recent events in the life of the Presbytery of South Louisiana, witness if nothing else to the reality of human sinfulness. If the purity of the church is dependent on the ability of its officers to remain sinless, if it depends on us, then we are without hope. The Good News is that the peace, unity and purity of the church, and of each of us as individuals, rests on the grace of Christ alone. The new amendment B returns humility to our ordination standards, acknowledging that though we may strive for perfection we are yet sinners.

I also speak in favor of amendment 08b as an advocate of Reformed polity. This amendment returns to governing bodies the responsibility of determining the fitness of a candidate for ordained ministry. It is the local governing body that is in the best position to discern whether or not a candidate for ministry, with all of his or her gifts and shortcomings, is qualified by God’s grace to fulfill the office to which they have been called. This is not new, but is the norm in our historic practice as a church.

Finally, I speak in favor of amendment 08b as a pastor of many men and women, gay and straight, called by God to ordained office for whom g6.0106b is a symbol of the pain and exclusion they have received at the hands of the church, who nevertheless continue to serve Christ faithfully. One of those people is a member of UPC named ****. **** is a social worker and was part of the LSU social work faculty at the time of hurricane Katrina. As LSU was turned into a triage center following the storm, **** found herself providing for the needs of those who were brought to campus. One of the needs she saw was that the people arriving by helicopter from New Orleans did not have Bibles. They needed and indeed were crying out for the consolation of God’s Word. She called UPC and we teamed with other churches in Baton Rouge to provide Bibles to those the floodwaters. This is just one part of ****’s ministry of mercy and compassion following the storm. My friends, we expect deacons, to minster to those who are in need, to the sick, the friendless, and to any who may be in distress. I have never known anyone to embody that ministry of diakonia as much as **** did following hurricane Katrina. It impoverishes us as a church to deny ordination to one who so clearly lives out God’s call.

Therefore, I humbly ask you to vote in favor of amendment 08b. Thank you.