Imagine that your car has been stolen, and you find out who took it--let's say it's someone named X. Then picture the following scenario: You go to the police and make a complaint. The police investigate, and determine that the facts are as you have reported them: your car is no longer at your house, but is at X's house. But, the police say, they cannot charge X with theft. They explain that the title to the car shows that the car belongs to you. Since the title clearly shows that the car is yours, X cannot possibly possess your car. Therefore they cannot charge X with stealing it, since it is not possible for X to acquire possession of something that X cannot possess.
At this point you would certainly think that the police were in collusion with X, or that you had somehow stumbled, like Alice, into Wonderland.
A similar thing has just happened in the PC(USA). The Rev. Janet Edwards, who officiated in 2005 at a marriage ceremony between two women, has been acquitted in ecclesiastical court of performing a marriage between two women. She has been acquitted by the Pittsburgh Permanent Judicial Commission because the Presbyterian constitution defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. Therefore, says the PJC, since the constitution says a marriage is only between a man and a woman, Edwards could not possibly have performed a marriage ceremony between two women, and so she cannot be charged with it.
This is the same so-called reasoning that was used earlier this year by the GA PJC to acquit the Rev. Janie Spahr of performing a same-sex marriage ceremony.
Just as in my hypothetical example above, either the PJCs are grasping at any way they can find to get an acquittal, because that's the side they're on, or the PC(USA) has stumbled into some sort of Wonderland.
Justice is no longer obtainable in the PC(USA), it seems.
We must all hope that this sort of reasoning does not spread to the criminal courts, or no law will be enforceable.
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Since first writing this post, another analogy has occurred to me. Human trafficking is a problem today, and unfortunately sometimes instances of it are discovered in the United States. The U.S. Constitution prohibits slavery. Suppose it were discovered that some people had been enslaved somewhere in the U.S. When those people were rescued and freed, we would expect that the people who had enslaved them would be charged with a crime. But according to the reasoning used by the PJCs described above, it could be possible for the authorities to say that since slavery is prohibited by our constitution, it is impossible for anyone in the U.S. to enslave anyone else. Therefore no one can be charged with enslaving anyone, because slavery in the U.S. is impossible.
Such an analogy shows how ridiculous and unfair these PJC rulings are.
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13 comments:
Its not news that we disagree about ordination, but I definitely don't like these PJC actions either. First, it seems to be just avoiding the question entirely - offering an answer that is nonsensical. If you're on the side of gay ordination, then it behooves you to take the personal risks of resisting what you see as an unjust system of exclusion. Lots of people are taking those risks, losing calls, being defrocked, facing hostile Presbyteries and committees, being taken to church court and so on. That's the price that doing what you think is right demands sometimes. Second, as it is easy to point out, the legal reasoning is just not that solid. I'm not a law major or anything, but I'm pretty sure you have to at least acknowledge either the spirit or the letter of a law.
So, I dunno. I don't want to say too much about people who I've never met, whose intentions I'm not sure of, but this isn't helping resolve this issue or bring people together. People on my side can't be satisfied with this because it is a non-answer. People on your side can't like it because it is a decision that ignores the BoO, much as I want to change it.
I respect Janet Edwards for the risk she took, doing what she believes is right. Unjust rules demand resistance from those whose consciences are pricked. If I was Rev. Edwards, I would expect my action to have repercussions, and I'd have prepared myself to accept them for the sake of what I believe. But I don't think avoiding the issue entirely actually helps either side.
Thanks for the thoughtful post.
Mr. Moderator, thank you for reading my post. I hope you will take it into consideration during your time of leadership.
Doug, thanks again for another thoughtful comment. It is always good to debate ideas with you. I am glad that we agree on the nonsensicality of the reasoning that was used in these cases.
I have to take issue with you, however, on the idea of using a form of civil disobedience within the PCUSA--disobeying parts of the PCUSA constitution because one finds them to be unjust. The PCUSA is a voluntary organization; no one has to be a part of it. This makes it different from the United State, for example. If we are living in the US, we are forced to be subject to its laws. We can't resign from the US and join a different country. So civil disobedience to the laws of the US can be appropriate if we find them to be unjust; this was very effectively and appropriately used, for example, by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and others.
But no one forces us to be Presbyterian. If ordained persons don't like the Presbyterian constitution, they have two choices: they can work to change it, or they can leave the PCUSA. But they do not have the choice of disobeying it. This is because they voluntarily joined the PCUSA and voluntarily became ordained, and when they did so, they promised to obey the constitution. They promised God that they would obey it. Breaking that promise is a grave thing--a sin even.
I worked at Wheaton College for two years in the late 1980s. When I took the job, I had to promise that I would not drink any alcoholic beverages. I like to drink a glass of wine now and then, and I see nothing wrong with it, but while I was employed by Wheaton College, I never had a single glass of wine. I thought the rule was unnecessary, but since I had promised that I would not have any wine, I kept my promise. No one was forcing me to work at Wheaton College, so even though I thought it was an unnecessary rule, I kept it, because I had promised.
This is how ordained people in the PCUSA should be viewing the Presbyterian constitution. They can work to change it if they find it to be unjust. But they have promised to obey it, and their promise is something they should keep. Are promises something they can lightly throw away?
I pray to God that my state's Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage will be changed with the election, but in the meantime or if it doesn't, it would be interesting to know how a PJC would rule here on such a case since the civil ceremony would, unlike in Pittsburgh, be legal.
Debbie,
This is an interesting problem because it forces us to examine the fundamental assumptions of our culture.
First, I wonder if you mean the following without exception?
"This is how ordained people in the PCUSA should be viewing the Presbyterian constitution. They can work to change it if they find it to be unjust. But they have promised to obey it, and their promise is something they should keep. Are promises something they can lightly throw away?"
It seems everyone is willing to throw away one promise or another.
But then I also wonder if you consider marriage to be a sacrament?
Because, as best as I can tell, a religious marriage ceremony has no bearing on the status of the union between two people, whether it be same sex or opposite. Society decides what a marriage is, the State makes it law (hence Viola's comment), and a minister basically invokes God's blessing on the marriage - something outside the jurisdiction of the State, but fundamental to the calling of all God's people, ever since Abraham.
But take the case of California.
Anybody can get a license from the state to declare a couple married. Should pastors be defrocked for doing what everyone else is allowed to do? And should a pastor be defrocked for invoking God's blessings?
It will never be wrong to invoke God's blessings. Never.
PS I think your analogy falls a little short because it involves the actual change in status of an object or a person. Something moved from point A to point B. The defense you dislike is based on the premise that no change in status ever took place. It was only a crime of the imagination. It would be like calling the police and telling them somebody >>said<< they stole your car, but never touched it. It is still sitting in your driveway. Or complaining that they >>feel<< like a slave, but nobody is actually holding them or forcing them to work against their will.
People in fact say that all the time.
Yes, Jodie, I actually do consider marriage to be a sacrament, because I grew up Episcopalian, and I still believe that particular teaching. (Apparently, however, this is not a Presbyterian doctrine, according to my husband.) And I can't think of a promise that I am willing to throw away. (I am opposed to divorce, if that is what you are implying, except under the conditions that Jesus allows: abuse and desertion. That's not to say that I don't believe that divorced people can repent and start a new life. I believe the same about any sin.)
Frankly, I don't understand the question you're asking regarding defrocking pastors for getting a license from the state. If you mean, should a pastor be defrocked in California for marrying a same-sex couple, it would depend on the denomination. In the PCUSA, a pastor should be disciplined for doing that, because no matter what the state laws are, the pastor is still bound by the PCUSA constitution.
No, it's not wrong to invoke God's blessing, but invoking it does not automatically imply that God will give it. A person could invoke God's blessing on a murder she was about to commit. God would not give God's blessing on that.
And as far as your criticism of my analogy goes, I think that you and the PJCs misunderstand the point. Yes, techically in that state, apparently the actual status of the two women that Janet Edwards married did not, under the state laws and under the PCUSA constitution, legally change from unmarried to married. However, what Janet Edwards was not supposed to do, according to the PCUSA constitution, was perform a ceremony of marriage between two women, whether or not it would lead to a technically legal marriage. The fact that it did not lead to an actual marriage does not cancel out the fact that Edwards officiated at such a ceremony. Edwards herself called it a marriage. She intended it to be one. She is guilty of willfully defying the constitution.
Debbie,
It seems you believe in two opposite things at the same time about marriage.
On the one hand you believe it is a sacrament (not only not Presbyterian but not even Reformed).
But on the other hand you believe that a ceremony of marriage does not necessarily lead to a real marriage.
Clearly the PJC interprets the BOO as forbidding the causation of a status from singleness to married. If a ceremony is not the causation of a change of status, then it is not forbidden.
Obviously not how you would have interpreted the BOO, but that is why we have courts.
If we Presbyterians believed that marriage was a sacrament, then your argument makes sense. The ceremony is the causation of a change of status, it mirrors something happening in heaven, and so conducting a forbidden ceremony is the crime regardless of whether the State recognizes the result or not.
But then we have another problem. Having conducted the ceremony, God has now joined them. What God has joined let no man put asunder. The marriage stands and we have to get used to it.
And if God is willing to join a gay couple in marriage, then why do we have a problem with that?
If on the other hand they are not married, then the ceremony is only pretend - not even symbolic. No marriage took place. Its only value is to invoke God's blessing, and God blesses whom He blesses.
I think Edwards might agree with you that marriage is a sacrament. When she says it was a marriage, she believes God has joined them in marriage through the ceremony.
So, which is it?
No, Jodie, my beliefs are consistent. I believe that marriage is a sacrament. But I do not believe that two women (or two men) can be married to each other, and therefore any such union is not a sacrament. You cannot get me with such slippery logic.
So what the Rev. Edwards did at that ceremony was not a marriage; I agree with the PJC and our constitution about that. However, she performed a ceremony that she called a marriage, and which she intended to be a marriage. That is what is forbidden by our constitution: performing a ceremony for two people of the same gender and calling it a marriage. She took actions that led two women into the erroneous (as defined by our constitution) situation of thinking that they were married.
That ceremony did not join them in marriage, it was not a sacrament, and God did not join them. And even so, the ceremony is forbidden, and the Rev. Edwards was brought to trial, not merely because the marriage is impossible, but also because it leads people, including the two women involved, into erroneous thinking and belief, which is always unhealthy and not loving. It is not right for the church to bless a relationship that is based on sinful behavior, unless the two people are celibate.
Edwards may well believe it was a marriage, but that does not mean she is right.
I have been perfectly consistent throughout. In sum: That was not a marriage; it was not a sacrament; it was, however, a ceremony forbidden by our constitution, because Edwards called it a marriage ceremony; ordained persons in the PCUSA made a promise to abide by the constitution and ought to do so or leave the PCUSA; God does not bless everything on which God's blessing is invoked, and God is not active in every ceremony that is conducted in his name.
That last part is your logical error. You seem to think that if God is invoked, he comes and blesses whatever ceremony he is invoked in. But he is not at our beck and call. He is not, as C.S. Lewis said of Aslan, a tame God.
Debbie,
I am not trying it "get you". Just to get you to articulate clearly what you believe.
As far as legal definitions go, I'll just say this once for the record, although I already said it. What the BOO says is not what you think it says, but what the PJC thinks it says. As with the US Constitution, it is the interpretation of the Supreme Court that matters.
Their interpretation is that the thing that is forbidden is to cause a change in marital status.
Even though you disagree with that interpretation, it is their legal role and right to have it. With that interpretation, since you agree no change in status took place, you also agree that Rev Edwards is innocent, in spite even of her own intentions and beliefs.
And there are those who support gay rights that find that an equally offensive put down. They would rather she be dignified with a guilty verdict.
As far as God's blessings are concerned, I believe in letting God be God. Abraham interceded on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah. He may have lost the argument, but he played his prophetic role as well as he knew how. As members of the priesthood of all believers it is our role and calling to invoke God's blessing, and to intercede on the behalf of humanity, as if we were public defenders.
In this capacity, it is not our role to decide a priori what God the judge will decide. We are not called to judge our clients.
This is not taming God. C. S. Lewis understood this well. Much to the opposite, we do not dare decide for Him how he will judge, and whom he will bless. What he decides may even be as foreign to our way of thinking as the heavens are above the Earth.
We let God be God just as C. S. Lewis taught.
Jodie, what about what I believe has not been articulated clearly? Have you really not been able to discern what I believe from what I have written?
Yes, courts such as the PJC and the Supreme Court give official interpretations, but it is possible for people to comment on those interpretations and to find them incorrect or nonsensical, and that is what I have done. If the constitution said "The sky is blue", and the PJC interpreted to mean that the sky is red, we would have that as our official interpretation, but we would still be free to criticize it as a nonsensical interpretation that was both illogical and also unrelated to reality. If the Supreme Court interpreted the law against slavery in such a way as to let human traffickers go free, that would be our official interpretation, but we would all know that injustice was being done.
Jodie, you are the one who was asserting that since God had been invoked, therefore God had blessed the union. You were the one who was deciding a priori what God would do.
Jodie, this is the last of your comments that I am going to answer. I know from experience that we can continue back and forth like this endlessly, and neither of us will convince the other.
Debbie,
Just to answer your question. I think I understand your belief quite well, now, thank you.
You believe marriage is a sacrament.
And that is why the ruling of the PJC does not make sense to you.
I start from a different set of assumptions and get a very different answer. That's all. I respect and understand your opinion. I hope you respect and understand mine as well.
I do believe that if we ask God to bless someone, God will find a way to answer that prayer. However I never said God actually blessed the union just because his blessing was invoked. It is not something I can know.
In the case of the performance of a sacrament, I do think that historically, if it is performed inappropriately or by people later deemed unworthy of performing it, it has been the tradition of the church that the sacrament still holds.
So unless they formally recognize same sex marriage, performing a same sex union >>ceremony<< in the Episcopal church, or in the Roman Catholic church should create a huge dilemma, and priests are likely to be excommunicated for it. But it should be no issue at all in the Reformed Churches.
As the PJC has clearly demonstrated.
For those who may be reading these comments, please do not take Jodie's statement of what I think to be what I actually think. He clearly has not understood my reasoning. My problem with the PJC's decision is completely unrelated to whether or not marriage is a sacrament. His introduction of the sacramental (or non-sacramental) nature of marriage into this discussion has always been a side issue in my view, and others who do not believe marriage is a sacrament share my view of the PJC decision.
The original post explains my problem with the non-logic of the PJC decision.
In further support of my argument that the decision of the Pittsburgh PJC is logically untenable, see this opinion by Bruce Becker: http://www.presbyweb.com/2008/Viewpoint/1009-BruceBecker-NotMarriageCeremonies.htm.
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