PresbyWeb, The Presbyterian Layman, More Light Presbyterians, and several blogs are reporting three committee actions on fairly controversial issues:
The Baltimore Overture (which would require per capita assessments to be remitted by congregations) failed in committee by a rather lopsided vote of 37-8-3.
The Heartland Overture to remove 6.0106b from the Book of Order as well as to nullify all authoritative interpretations related to ordination of self-affirming homosexuals failed in committee (on a motion to disapprove) 30-28.
A trio of overtures which would put the PC(USA) on record as affirming marriage as being between one man and one women failed. All of these appeared to cast their reach into the civil realm.
It needs to be noted that our Constitution (and the underlying Scripture from the New Testament) already defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. There are many fights worth fighting; is this really one of them?
What will happen now?
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the Baltimore Overture is going nowhere.
With regard to the Heartland Overture, no prediction here. Just a hope that we don't have to keep fighting this every two years...
The marriage overtures are probably not going anywhere.
Anything can happen in the Plenary Sessions, though, so we have something to look forward to.
I checked the official GA 17 web site, and as of this moment, none of the above are being reported by the PC(USA), but we need to keep in mind that these are recommendations to GA, not actions of GA.
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