Washing Their Hands
Posted on April 18th, 2005 in Church, Tom | 5 Comments »
Well, it’s done (again?). The Session has handed over their jurisdiction to the Presbytery. The gist of what they’re asking the Presbytery is contained the following paragraph:
Therefore, we petition the Heritage Presbytery to establish a commission and to assume original jurisdiction, and to examine the issues involving Thomas Albrecht III and Sarah Albrecht in the “Bondage for Beginners” Shower Gift Incident of June 19th, 2004; and that the commission investigate to determine if Biblical repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation have been achieved; that they investigate whether charges should be made against Thomas and Sarah Albrecht; and if so, that they draft the charges and prosecute the trial on behalf of Immanuel Presbyterian church.
I don’t think the Session understands what they’ve just done, or at least, my understanding of what they’ve done according to my understanding of the PCA Book of Church Order. According to BCO, amongst the basic responsibilities of the Session is “to inquire into the knowledge, principles and Christian conduct of the church members under its care [and] to censure those found delinquent.” So, the IPC Session has written a letter to the Presbytery saying that they cannot perform a basic function of their job.
In the Session’s letter, they refer to Morton Smith’s commentary on BCO. Morton Smith is a pastor and professor, and one of the founding members of the PCA in the early 1970′s, and he has written a lengthy commentary giving background to a lot of the polity rules found in our BCO. Our polity is a bit complicated, because it goes back through a couple hundred years of Presbyterian history, so Dr. Smith’s commentary is often helpful in expounding the intricacies of the rules.
Anyway, they quote Smith saying that a Session with one elder is a case where it would be adviseable that a Presbytery would step in and assume original jurisdiction. However, they ommitted Smith’s comment immediately afterwards, where he quotes Ramsey, “In all cases where there is no Session, the Presbytery is the Session.”
BCO is not talking about a Session handing off cases to the Presbytery which they feel like they cannot deal. They’re talking about a Session being unable to function as a Session, and therefore ceasing to be the Session of the Church.
Smith then comments on the Ramsey quote:
The last statement of Ramsey [which I quoted above - Tom] indicates that when a congregation loses its Session, it is not necessary for it to be dropped to a “mission” status, but rather that the Presbytery, with consent of the congregation, appoint an administrative commission to act as the Session, until new elders can be elected. (emphasis mine)
It’s clear that the Session has told the Presbytery that they are unable to function. Whether the Presbytery will actually read it the same way is unknown. I could be wrong in my interpretation, but either way, they’ve washed their hands of the issue.
5 Responses
I’ve followed most of your posts concerning the session’s actions against you and your wife. I honestly don’t have a judgement one way or the other, I simply don’t have enough information. My question/s for you is/are; one, had they come to you asking for you to reconcile to your offended brother/sister would you or did you do that? I think I read where your wife did. Two, is this mainly an issue, to you, of your session overreaching their bounds? Or, are you trying to make a point of what you deem to be prudeness on the part of your session? Four, how has this issue affected your relationship with other congregants and individual session members?
1) Yes. It has already been done, and this has been our goal from the beginning.
2) I’m not really concerned about the personal views of the members of Session. If a member of Session had a more restrictive view on anything (say, they didn’t believe that elders should drink alcohol), I’d disagree, but wouldn’t really have a problem with it. However, when they’re trying to impose their views on members of the congregation, they are required to show from scripture where the actions were wrong. They’ve made no attempt so far to do so. In fact, I’m not sure they even know what I did wrong.
4) The relationship with session members (well, session member… there is only one) is pretty much shot. The relationship with other members of the congregation is good. It’s a stressful situation, but with a new pastor coming and our recent merger with another congregation, it’s disorienting all around.
Well, I hope a better understanding is reached with the new pastor and new session, or, better yet, the issue doesn’t follow over into the new church. Sounds like an issue that should no longer be an issue, unless someone has an axe to grind.
[...] The Session of Olive Street Presbyterian Church (we changed our name) has once again decided that they are unable to try Sarah and me, and have referenced the trial to Presbytery. Maybe they think that since we’re in a new Presbytery, they’ll get a different answer. I’m not sure why it took ten months to figure it out, but there we are. [...]
Bondage for Beginners?! Surely not. This sort of book was always going to be potentially offensive. I am not at all surprised at the reaction you got. I am very surprised that you were surprised.
I realise that I may be speaking out of turn, but it always hurt me to see Christians fighting like this. Yes, your Session seems to have been insensitive in its handling of this matter and that did not help. Writing letters is really no substitute for face to face visits. But you have focussed on the process rather the real issue, namely, whether this was a God-honouring gift to give.
Surely there is a better way forward.