In his Letter to the Editor of the Cumberland Presbyterian magazine, Mark J Davis critiques a faction’s insistence on excluding LGBTQ Christians from leadership roles, despite the constitutional rejection of such measures by presbyteries. Davis advocates for a return to the denomination’s tradition of tolerance and compromise, urging a focus on real ministry rather than internal power struggles.
To the editor:
“Let it go to Presbyteries. It is their right to decide on our direction and future.” This was the demand from a group of Cumberland Presbyterians who, unsatisfied with a Statement on Homosexuality approved by the 165th General Assembly (although they apparently subscribe to most of the text), nevertheless consider exclusion of LGBTQ Christians from leadership positions in the denomination one of their highest priorities in ministry. One can only assume that their exhilaration at having successfully fomented the split of one of our presbyteries over the issue now leads them to their efforts to extend what they surely know will be further discord and ugliness wrought by that split to the entire denomination.
But we are, after all, Presbyterian in our government, so we did. We did let the question of whether or not we would be a denomination known for codifying exclusion in our foundational documents go to our presbyteries, “to decide on our direction and future.” And despite what by many accounts was a very aggressive (and, I would argue, unseemly) effort at lobbying on behalf of exclusion, the presbyteries responded to that constitutional question by saying, NO.
But now, I understand that having failed in that effort, that same group of Cumberland Presbyterians has apparently decided that the only way to get their way—to indulge their preoccupation with the sexual orientation of others whom they rarely know personally, or with whatever sexual activity may or may not take place in committed relationships—is through an active effort to stack sessions, ministry teams, committees, leadership positions, and agencies of General Assembly with people who think just as they do. Some have even suggested presenting the proposed amendments again, requiring congregations to vote individually this time, a polity technique stolen from the Baptist tradition. This, at a time in our history when we can least afford to turn inward, expending precious energy and resources on power struggles rather than in taking and demonstrating the Good News to a world in desperate need.
Anyone not embarrassed for our denomination by this hubristic unwillingness to accept a decision made through a constitutional process that they themselves demanded should be. Sadly, such desperate efforts have become rather commonplace in our society over the last three or four years, so perhaps it’s just that many of us have simply become inured to the patent absurdity of it, and wish only to be able to turn our attention back to doing what the Church should be doing.
For some of us, however, the annoyance of this unnecessary distraction is driven by something other than (that is, in addition to) the insistence of those who seem to believe that they alone have an exclusive corner on the complexities of Truth or on the rich history of diversity in the Cumberland Presbyterian tradition.
I have observed with some curiosity that a not-insignificant number of the loudest voices arguing today for restrictions on whom God may call to service and ministry in the denomination (and now plotting to “take over” the denomination in order to mold it in their likeness) came to us from other denominations. They have not spent their entire lives in Cumberland Presbyterian Sunday schools, camps, conferences, and prayer meetings led by hundreds of committed Cumberland Presbyterian teachers, and in sanctuaries listening to literally dozens of different ministers with different theological perspectives preach. They have not grown up in families where membership in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church goes back for generations. They came to our denomination having been steeped in, and apparently preferring other traditions. Not “bad” or “false” traditions, mind you, but different traditions—traditions that have not, as a rule, embraced a “whosoever will” approach to welcoming people whom God calls into their communities of faith as we have.
I point this out not as an indictment of those other traditions, and certainly not as one who believes that a Cumberland Presbyterian pedigree confers any kind of exclusive privilege or rank to those of us who were born into this denomination. I do not. But it does seem note-worthy to me that neither I nor any “life-long” Cumberland Presbyterian that I know personally has ever been taught that one’s sexual orientation is a relevant factor in determining whether that person is worthy of holding a position of leadership in the church. Against the backdrop of our denomination’s handling of the issues of human enslavement and the ordination of women in the 19th century, the issue of sexual orientation seems yet another opportunity for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church to demonstrate the kind of “big tent” DNA for which it has become known. We have a number of highly qualified and committed members of the LGBTQ community serving in a variety of capacities in a number of congregations already, and we have been better off for this diversity in our leadership. Cumberland Presbyterians—at least in all the Sunday School classes, camps, and conferences in which I have participated—have been taught that it is OK, and even a good thing to wrestle actively with questions of faith. That it is OK if we disagree about matters of non-essential doctrine such as sexual orientation with others in our community of faith. This kind of freedom is essential to our tradition, and when anyone—especially someone who is a relative newcomer to our tradition—tries to tell me that what I have been taught for over seven decades is “wrong”, or amounts to “false teaching”…well, anyone in that position could be forgiven, I think, for becoming a bit annoyed.
To be sure, our denomination is struggling with the issue of sexuality as it relates to God’s call to positions of service and ministry. And that’s OK. What’s not OK is for anyone to suggest that a congregation or a presbytery of like-minded Cumberland Presbyterians should be stripped of the right to approve calls to service and ministry they decide are worthy simply because some group in another congregation or presbytery disagrees with their experience and interpretation of scripture—and especially when some of the loudest voices in that group are drawing on traditions that are foreign to our own.
There is a solution to this struggle, regardless of what one believes about God’s call to LGBTQ persons to service and ministry—and that is to indulge our uniquely Cumberland Presbyterian proclivity for tolerance and compromise. The proposed amendments have been rejected by a constitutional vote. Let us get back to doing real ministry now, allowing congregations and presbyteries to minister in accordance with their own experience and interpretation of scripture within the Cumberland Presbyterian tradition.
Mark J Davis
