Session asks Stated Clerk
about Dobbs Ferry defiant Reformation Service:
What are you doing to preserve and
defend our church Constitution?
October 25, 2002

We received a copy of the following letter from Grace Presbyterian Church, in Montclair, New Jersey

The Reverend Clifton Kirkpatrick
Office of the Stated Clerk
100 Witherspoon Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40202-1396

Dear Reverend Kirkpatrick;

We are writing to express our deep concern regarding an announced service to be held at the South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, New York this Sunday, October 27, 2002. While ostensibly listed as a Reformation Day service, the purpose of this event is to engage in public defiance of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church USA. The service asks for “letters of dissent and defiance” (the first is of course acceptable, the second, not). The worship will include a “reaffirmation of ordination vows of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender leaders.” This is intended to be in violation of our denomination’s Constitution. This fact is made abundantly clear in an open letter from South Church’s session dated August 2, 2002.

Rev. Kirkpatrick, you have the unique authority as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly to “preserve and defend the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).” We need to know what actions you intend to take to fulfill that obligation in the light of this upcoming service. The decision of the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly in the recent case of Londonderry Presbyterian Church v. the Presbytery of Northern New England, Remedial Case 213-2, already establishes for the whole church that actions such as those taken by South Presbyterian Church exceed “the constitutional bounds of freedom of conscience” and therefore require “a response on the part of the governing body exercising oversight.” That governing body is the Presbytery of Hudson River which to our knowledge has taken no action to bring South Church or a number of other defiant churches in that presbytery into compliance with the Constitution of our church.

Please do not ask us to initiate yet another remedial case when we already have the decision in the Londonderry case which addresses this issue. If that decision is being ignored, we fear any additional decisions will likewise be ignored.

Service such as this one announced for this coming Sunday invariably receive media attention here in the greater New York area. We have people in our congregation who do not join our church because they do not see the PCUSA upholding its own standards. It is useless for us as a session to tell prospective members that we are part of a denomination with a constitution when they see that constitution being defied repeatedly and publicly.

We need to hear from you as to your actions to preserve and defend our church constitution.

Be assured that we continue in prayer for you.

In Christ,

The Session of Grace Presbyterian Church

Paul Leggett David Beesley
Moderator Clerk of Session