Obedience to whom?
Presbyteries consider Amendment 08-B

Presbyteries are now voting on Amendment 08-B, which would replace the current language of G-6.0106b, with its narrow focus on “fidelity and chastity,” with broader, more faithful language emphasizing officers’ discipleship to Jesus Christ.*

Many presbyteries are engaging in the “listening and discernment” that the General Assembly commended, so votes are often later than they traditionally have been.

When presbyteries voted in 2001-02 on Amendment 01-A, to delete G-6.0106b, 46 presbyteries voted Yes and 127 voted No.

While not all presbyteries have yet voted, it is now evident that Amendment 08-B will not pass this year. A majority of presbyteries have now voted No. The general direction, however, makes it clear that change is coming.

Sadly 08-B did not pass this year. However, in the voting on Amendment 08-B, 34 presbyteries that previously voted No on 01-A switched and voted Yes on 08-B. Only two switched the other way. The final vote was 78 Yes, 95 No. Eighty-seven presbyteries are needed to pass or defeat an amendment.

We will post vote tallies as we receive them.  If you’d like to be connected with other Presbyterians working for passage in your presbytery, please contact National Organizer Tricia Dykers Koenig, 216-658-1770 or triciadk@covenantnetwork.org.

*Amendment 08-B would remove the current language of G-6.0106b:

Those called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church.  Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage of a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.  Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of Word and Sacrament.”

In its place would be new G-6.0106b:

Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by their assent to the Constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards.