The Continuing Prophetic Ministry of the Church:

PFR’s Response to the Spahr Decision

May 8, 2008

The Event
The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) recently lifted a lower court’s
censure of PC(USA) minister Jane Spahr for conducting same sex commitment ceremonies that she
called “marriages.”

This “Spahr Decision” is deeply troubling to Presbyterians who are committed to the traditional
view of marriage and to biblical faithfulness in the church. But beyond our initial emotional
response, we must be precise in our reaction:

This complex decision is not about Jane Spahr

The decision includes at least one discernible step forward in the effort to uphold biblical
faithfulness through the PC(USA) Constitution
The decision also includes unnecessary and self contradictory statements
The decision requires careful analysis and prayerful interpretation

The Spahr Decision is complex, in part because the case is complex. In this response, PFR will:

Highlight aspects of the case that impacted the GAPJC’s decision

Identify one potentially positive impact of the decision
Challenge several significant and gratuitous statements that are theologically inaccurate
Offer reflection on the role of “the prophet” in the life of the church

The Facts
The GAPJC lifted the lower court’s censure of Jane Spahr for performing what she called same-sex
“marriages.” The GAPJC ruling states that the charge brought against Spahr by the Presbytery of
the Redwoods was not technically constitutional. The charge said, in part, “Spahr conducted two
same gender marriages…” and “By performing these wedding services, [she] violated
Authoritative Interpretations of the General Assembly…” (emphasis added)

The GAPJC ruling holds that Spahr cannot be found guilty of the disciplinary charge that she
performed “same gender marriages” or “wedding services,” because according to the PC(USA)’s
Constitution, no such thing exists. The ruling states:

By the definition in W-4.9001, a same sex ceremony can never be a marriage. The SPJC
found Spahr guilty of doing that which by definition cannot be done. One cannot
characterize same sex ceremonies as marriages for the purpose of disciplining a minister
 of the Word and Sacrament and at the same time declare that such ceremonies are not
marriages for legal or ecclesiastical purposes. (emphasis added)

We believe this aspect of the GAPJC’s decision is technically accurate, even if the desired outcome
is unfortunate.

The problem rests with the wording of the original charge, not with the logic of the GAPJC. Simply
stated, the original charge did not describe the offense in constitutional terms. The charge could
have read, for instance, that Spahr violated the Constitution by “performing ceremonies she
represented as same-sex ‘marriages,’ ceremonies that were specifically designed to be understood
as ‘marriage ceremonies.’” Instead, the charge used Spahr’s own “marriage” terminology.

The GAPJC did not say Spahr did nothing wrong. It said she is not guilty as charged. This ruling is
more a rebuke of the Presbytery of the Redwoods and the SPJC than an exoneration of Jane Spahr.

While this is, admittedly, a technicality, constitutional language must be respected. An important
lesson to learn from this disappointing ruling is that future disciplinary charges must be precisely
worded with careful attention to the language of the Constitution.

One Potentially Positive Impact: A New “AI” on W-4.9001

The status of “same-sex ceremonies” and whether or not ministers of the PC(USA) are allowed to
perform them and call them “marriages” has been a matter of debate for two decades.

The PC(USA) Constitution clearly states (W-4.9001) that in a service of Christian marriage, “a
lifelong commitment is made by a woman and a man to each other.”
But can ministers perform “ceremonies” for which the Constitution has no category, such as
so-called “same-sex marriages”?
If there is no such thing as a “same-sex marriage” according to our Constitution, is a minister
violating the Constitution by performing such a ceremony?

Is the prohibition of such ceremonies implied by the positive definition of marriage? The biblically
faithful answer is, “yes!” But the long history of debate over this issue in the PC(USA) has
presented different perspectives requiring further clarification.

In 1991 the General Assembly provided guidance in the form of an “Authoritative

Interpretation” (AI) stating “it would not be proper for a minister of the Word and Sacrament to
perform a same sex union ceremony that the minister determines to be the same as a marriage
ceremony.” Certainly the self-avowed activities of Spahr fall within the activity described in this
“AI.” However, the AI said “it would not be proper” to conduct such ceremonies. It did not say the
minister “shall not perform such ceremonies,” which is the language typically required in order for
such guidance to amount to a definitive prohibition.

It is at this point that the GAPJC’s ruling adds the definitive guidance we have been needing. The
ruling states unequivocally:
 …officers of the PC(USA) authorized to perform marriages shall not state, imply, or
represent that a same sex ceremony is a marriage. Under W-4.9001, a same sex ceremony
is not and cannot be a marriage.

With this language, the GAPJC adds a new “Authoritative Interpretation” of W-4.9001, closing a
potential “loophole” those desiring to ignore constitutional clarity might have found useful.1 All
ministers and all lower governing bodies, including their PJCs, are bound by this ruling. The only
future decisions not bound by this new “AI” are actions of the General Assembly or future
decisions of the GAPJC.

Jane Spahr is not the issue. The issue is our God-given mandate to uphold a biblical doctrine of the
covenant of marriage as a holy and lifelong union of a man and a woman. The Spahr Decision
strengthens Presbyterian polity built on this doctrine. That is a very good thing.

Unnecessary, Contradictory, and Theologically Impoverished Statements

But the GAPJC ruling also includes several comments that seem to have no connection to legal
findings in this case. Some of these comments, apart from being gratuitous, reflect a distorted
understanding of the PC(USA) Constitution and of Reformed theology. We will mention two
examples. The first:

The GAPJC faults the denomination for creating the tension at issue in this case, saying, “The
tension the church has created between sexual orientation and sexual practice has led to
turmoil and dissension that will likely continue for some time.” (emphasis added)

While this comment is superfluous to the GAPJC’s findings in this case, it is far more disturbing
that this statement reflects such an impoverished understanding of basic Christian theology as it
is clearly expressed in our Book of Confessions, the foundational interpretation of Scripture on
which our Book of Order is founded.

The difference between “sexual orientation” and “sexual practice” is the difference between
inclination and action: the fundamental difference between being inclined to sin and actually
engaging in that sin. No human being is free from the inclination to disobey God: sin. No one can
or should be barred from serving in ordained ministry because they are inclined to any form of sin.

1 One “opinion” appended to the GAPJC decision laments the fact that this Authoritative Interpretation
was included in the decision. Because this separate opinion has caused some confusion about the
binding character of the AI, we should note that the additional opinion’s lament is based on the fact that
the AI is in fact now an Authoritative Interpretation of the Constitution. The minority’s disagreement with
the inclusion of the AI is just that. See the “Concurring Opinion and Dissenting Opinion in Part of Judy L.
Woods, Patrick W. Notley, Mary Eleanor Johns, Fane Downs, and Susan J. Cornman for Specifications of
Error 1 and 2.” The fact that not everyone who joined the “majority” opinion agreed with the inclusion of
this AI does signal that the GAPJC is not of one mind on this issue. Future GAPJC decisions could rule in
a different manner. Unless and until the GAPJC (or the GA) rules differently, however, all lower courts and
ministers are bound by this new AI.
The Westminster Confession describes our condition in clear terms when it says that after the fall
of humanity into sin, we are “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and
wholly inclined to all evil” (Book of Confessions 6.034—emphasis added). This destructive
inclination to sin remains in those who are in Christ (BC 6.035, 9.23, etc.). Our sinful hearts and
disordered desires can “give birth to sin” (James 1:15), but the calling of any Christian who is being
renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit is to put such temptations to death in order to live as one
with Christ (Romans 8:5-17, BC 6.053, 6.075-7, 6.081ff, 9:21ff., etc.). In our own lives, we find “a
continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
flesh” (BC 6.076).

Indeed, the central message of Jesus’ prophetic ministry is the call to repentance, to engage this
war by His Spirit (e.g. Mt. 4:17). The Good News of Jesus Christ brings us “double grace,” as John
Calvin put it: forgiveness of sin and renewal of life. This is the very message God has given us to
believe, the Holy Spirit has empowered us to embody, and Jesus Christ has commissioned us to
share with a sin-encumbered world (Matt. 28). The church therefore embraces as members and
officers those who are continually inclined to sin but are striving by the power of the Spirit to live
out the righteousness of Christ.

The tension between our sinful “orientation” and the calling to “practice” obedience to God is not
a tension “created by the church.” It is the tension created by the conflict between human sin and
God’s claim on our lives in Jesus Christ by the power of His Spirit.

Both heterosexual and homosexual people who struggle with sexual inclinations that do not honor
God face a “continual war” that is deeply painful. This war is constantly being intensified by our
culture’s deepening obsession with lust, promiscuity and the flagrant abuse of God’s gift of
sexuality. We denounce any effort to “single out” a special class of persons deserving derision.
We call the whole denomination, beginning with ourselves, to have compassion for and extend
grace to anyone struggling with sexual sin. To do this is to honor God and to embody the
transformative love of our Lord Jesus Christ. Together as the redeemed Body of Christ, we can
struggle against the powers of darkness in our fallen world and proclaim the renewal and hope
that comes only through Jesus Christ.

The second comment offered unnecessarily by the GAPJC uses language of “justice” and
“compassion” in a manner that is irreconcilable with a basic Christian understanding of these
virtues and is in contradiction to the Constitution of the PC(USA). The GAPJC states:

Christians are called to do justice. The language of W-7.3000 and W-7.4000 is replete with
admonitions that are inconsistent with imposing censure on a minister of the Word and
Sacrament for reaching out to a marginalized and oppressed segment of the body.

Moving well beyond the Constitution and the mandated work of the GAPJC, this language assumes
that the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer (GLBTQ) community in the PC(USA) is a
“marginalized and oppressed segment of the body.” While we will always have much work to do to
consistently demonstrate grace to all persons in the PC(USA), our theology and polity are indeed
gracious and accepting of sinners of all sorts.
Only if the words “oppressed” and “marginalized” are defined according to activists in secular
society could such terms be justifiably applied to the life of the GLBTQ community in the PC(USA).
But the church is called to be an alternative community, a witness to that society (e.g. 1 Peter
1:13-2:12). Understood as a community guided by the Word of God, in which God sets limits on our
individual choices, the PC(USA), while by no means perfect, provides gracious and loving
boundaries for the GLBTQ community within our denomination.

Our Constitution describes our calling when it says: “God sends the church in the power of the
Holy Spirit to share with Christ in establishing God’s just, peaceable, and loving rule in the
world” (W-7.4001). It also defines marriage as “a covenant through which a man and a woman are
called to live out together before God their lives of discipleship” (W-4.9001). These constitutional
statements are not in conflict with one another.

Further, within the context of a decision that hangs on technical precision (see above), the GAPJC’s
citation of W-7.300 and W-7.400 is woefully imprecise. These sections of the Directory for Worship
call the whole church to compassion and justice, and they have nothing at all to do with permitting
ordained officers of the church to disregard other parts of the same Constitution in which these
very admonitions are found.

It is our own Constitution, the Book of Confessions and Book of Order, which shape our
understanding of what is “just” and “compassionate” on the basis of the Word of God. The
Directory for Worship says “God sends the church in the power of the Holy Spirit to exercise
compassion in the world” (W-7.0301); it does not say that God sends individuals within the church
to unilaterally set aside the church’s understanding of justice and compassion.2 As the GAPJC
itself states later, “Submission to the current standards of the church may not always be
comfortable, but [such submission] is not optional.”

The Role of “The Prophet”

Activist movements can have leaders, such as Jane Spahr, who are heralded by their followers as
“prophets.” As observers of this recent GAPJC decision take a deep and reflective breath, a
general word about “prophets” seems in order.

We learn from Scripture that God called prophets to be messengers to his people, often calling
them to repent of their sin and turn back to the ways of God’s justice, and obedience to God’s Law
(BC 3.05. 5.013, 5.023, 9.18, etc.). Biblical prophets were also reluctant messengers, in part
because they recognized their own inadequacies, and also because their lives were often filled
with turmoil caused by their prophetic ministry. (Think of Moses and Jeremiah, to name just two.)

The biblical role of the prophet was to apply the Law of God to the present reality of God’s people.
In the Old Testament, this meant admonishing the people for their failure to obey God’s law and

2The “Concurring Opinion of Mary Eleanor Johns, Catherine G. Borchert, and Susan J. Cornman” makes matters worse,
by selectively quoting a litany of sections of the Directory for Worship out of context.
pointing forward to God’s deliverance through the future Messiah. For the prophetic ministry of
Jesus Christ, this meant recovering a right understanding of the Law of God, its perfect fulfillment
in his own life on our behalf, and the gift of his Spirit to enable us to become more and more like
him in our own lives.

Christians in the Reformed Tradition lift up Jesus Christ as the Prophet of God, the One to whom all
previous prophets point (BC 4.031, 6.043). Because Jesus was the fulfillment of the great line of
prophets, we have always been reluctant to identify anyone since Christ as a “prophet.”3 Instead,
we believe the church is called to continue the prophetic ministry of Jesus Christ, in the power of
his Spirit, on the basis of the revealed Word of God in Holy Scripture. The church engages in a
prophetic ministry that is not its own ministry, and certainly not the ministry of any one individual.
Prophetic ministry is the calling of the whole church following “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us
in Holy Scripture” (BC 8.11-12, 9.27, etc.).

This brief description of biblical prophets goes a long way toward helping us recognize false
prophets in our own day. It is not enough to say that they cause division in the church, for the
prophets of old did that, and for good reason. But when divisive individuals today are heralded by
a small group of followers as “prophets,” we must ask: is the division they cause for the sake of
encouraging God’s people to follow in God’s way or are they misdirecting God’s people to follow
the personal vision of this “prophet”? Are they reluctant messengers of God for all God’s people or
celebratory activists for a certain select few? Do their lives exhibit suffering for the sake of the
Gospel or exuberance in the gentle martyrdom of an ideology?

In this era of democratized spirituality, many individuals are proclaiming unique versions of the
“Gospel” that conflict with God’s Word and our confessions. We must keep ourselves grounded in
biblical faithfulness, renewing our resolve to conform our personal faith and life, and the faith and
practice of the PC(USA), to the teaching and example of Jesus Christ, who is our only Prophet.

We must always allow ourselves to be molded by His Spirit, becoming more like him who is the
perfect embodiment of God’s love and the perfect fulfillment of God’s Law. May his gracious
forgiveness of our sin “give birth” not to further sin but to lives that demonstrate his
righteousness, for the sake of all to whom we witness as ambassadors of Jesus Christ.

“Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful
desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though
they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day
he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:13)

3A rare exception is found in the Second Helvetic Confession XVIII (BOC 5.147), which is likely a reference to the
progenitors of the Protestant Reformation such as Martin Luther.