Okay, it's not "WarGames" but a major crisis was still averted

Perhaps you recall the 1983 film "WarGames" in which Matthew Broderick played a teen computer hacker who thinks he is playing an online computer game but actually sets off a failsafe scenario for Global Thermonuclear War.  A parallel event nearly happened in the world of Presbyterian constitutional governance Friday afternoon.  There is a real danger when you get 700 commissioners and 200 advisory delegates together, when many have only a cursory understanding of our polity.  That danger is that they could unwittingly be led into a decision that would have disastrous consequences, not merely for church policies or funding, but for the constitutional foundations of the church itself. 

The Constitution of the PCUSA faced and averted a major crisis late this afternoon when a minority report on Item 05-21 was rejected by the Assembly.  The report would have asked the Assembly to rule by its own Authoritative Interpretation that only its interpretations of the Constitution were, effectively, binding on the Church, in direct violation of G-13.0103r of our Form of Government.  For the "unbaptized" in Presbyterian polity, that is like allowing the Congress to declare that no Supreme Court decision is binding on the nation unless it corresponds to Congress's own interpretation of the Constitution.  That sounds easy enough to refute, except that in PCUSA polity, both "the Congress" and "the Supreme Court" are empowered to interpret the Constitution, and there is no "Marbury v. Madison" decision that allows the latter to review the acts of the former.  The report, if adopted, would have restricted the "Supreme Court" to have the power only to rule on the Constitution in the limited scope of a specific case, but without binding authority on the whole church, if it contradicts an interpretation of "the Congress."

G-13.0103r says the General Assembly has the responsibility and power, "to provide authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order which shall be binding on the governing bodies of the church when rendered in accord with G-13.0112 or through a decision of the Permanent Judicial Commission in a remedial or disciplinary case. The most recent interpretation of a provision of the Book of Order shall be binding...." Two prongs of interpretation -- one from the plenary assembly and one from the Permanent Judicial Commission -- each of which may serve as a check and corrective on the other; each of which draws its authority directly from the Constitution.

Both the Advisory Committee on the Constitution and the GA PJC agreed that the Constitution does not establish a hierarchy between the two prongs.  In fact, the Constitution anticipates that they will at times be at odds as demonstrated in the last sentence which says the most recent interpretation will be binding on the church.

The minority report was an embarrassing effort in short-sighted politics by one wing of the church which is unhappy with a recent PJC decision.  The left wing was upset that just prior to the 2008 Assembly, the GAPJC overturned the authoritative interpretation of the plenary assembly in 2006 that established a loophole to allow persons to be exempted from mandatory provisions of the Constitution such as are found in G-6.0106b (the "fidelity and chastity" clause).  Their answer -- to subordinate the GAPJCs work to that of the currently more liberal Assembly by the Assembly's own action -- not only constitutes an egregious arrogation of power, but is both dangerous for the future of the church and even to their own political ends.

A mere fifteen years ago, a then-very liberal GAPJC threatened to overturn the "definitive guidance" of the church on ordination of "self-affirmed, practicing homosexuals" which had recently been deemed an "authoritative interpretation" through its own authoritative interpretation.  The General Assembly, it was determined DID NOT have the power to restrict the GAPJC from doing so short of an amendment, ratified by the presbyteries, that would write the language of "definitive guidance" into the Constitution.  That amendment became G-6.0106b.  Fifteen years from now, what one side of the church thinks will benefit them now could just as easily turn around and bite them.

The situation was compounded when a commissioner asked directly if such a change would require constitutional amendment of G-13.0103r.  The moderator, in direct violation of G-13.0112 of the Constitution directed the question to the Stated Clerk instead of to the Advisory Committee on the Constitution.  The ACC, anticipating the question, had caucused and voted that an amendment would be required.  Instead of referring to the ACC, the Stated Clerk announced (erroneously) that an amendment would not be required.

That was when my heart started to race.  I was not the appointed ACC person on the floor of the Assembly at the time, and it would have been terrible form to call out the Moderator and Stated Clerk on their error.  Instead, the Assembly moved quickly to a vote after that, and the substitute motion to approve the minority report was soundly defeated by the Assembly anyway 451-173 (72%-28%).  As one of my friends put it, "It's like handing a child a nuclear bomb and hoping he doesn't accidentally push the button."

Were the GA to have adopted such an interpretation, a constitutional crisis would certainly have resulted.  There is no provision for filing a remedial case against the General Assembly itself.  The only remedy would have been a new authoritative interpretation undoing the former (but implicitly acknowledging that the previous action was permissible), or an amendment to the Constitution explicitly to prohibit what should never have been permitted in the first place.

Within the PCUSA, the General Assembly does not control the Constitution.  The Constitution belongs to the whole church (historically called the "General Synod").  Therefore the Assembly's power to interpret the Constitution is a derived power, not an inherent one.  It is derived from the whole church, not from its own authority.  For the Assembly to have arrogated control of the power of interpretation to itself would have been an offense against the whole church.  Thank God, who in Jesus Christ is alone the Head of the Church, that it didn't happen.

Take us back down to Defcon 5.