Well, with the Episcopalians having so much “fun” in Ohio, I thought I’d turn to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), who “do it decently and in order” as the sexually suggestive t-shirts of yore described.
Well, bad news for GLBT Presbyterian office holders (including ministers) — “fidelity/chastity” is slated to persist, but efforts to establish an eight year moratorium have failed.
Other measures — bound for plenary action — include creating a fourth order (after pastor, deacon, and elder) of educating elder. Not such a stretch given Calvin identifying four orders, one of which it the teaching elder. This may interest some of my Unitarian minded readers, given the Puritan construction of the office of minister out of the pastoral and teaching elder offices.
Talk too about a new hymnal — the start of a new hymnal-writing era? — and an electronic hymn resource.
What might interest others is the electronic voting and documents management system the PCUSA GA has called LES. All voting business is handled with laptops and wifi. (The General Assembly provides the laptops to those who do not own or cannot borrow one.)Â Anyone can sign up for an account to review documents. Interesting.
