Viewpoint
March 5, 2008

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts
By Robert Dooling

The Trojan War was ten years old. Both sides had lost their greatest generals, Achilles and Hector. Both sides were fairly evenly matched. But, one thing that the Greeks had that the Trojans lacked was the cunning of an Odysseus. It was Odysseus who concocted the idea of a Trojan horse. When the giant wooden charger was found outside the gates of Troy, the Trojans assumed that the Greeks had left it as a parting gift after giving up and heading home. The Trojan, Laocoon, however, did not agree. He cautioned "Do not trust the Horse, Trojans; whatever it is; I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts." But, in spite of his warning, the Trojans welcomed the gift and brought it inside their walls - blithely unaware that in the belly of the beast were enough armed Greek soldiers to destroy their entire city.

My purpose in writing is not to comment on ancient literature. Rather, I am hopeful of sounding a Laocoonian-like warning about the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity that has been proposed by the Form of Government Task Force. I believe that it is a Trojan horse.

Let me be very clear. I am not suggesting that the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity is a Trojan horse in the sense that it is the devious and infernal creation of a contemporary Odysseus whose intention is to mislead us into foolishly adopting something that will eventually do us harm. But, I am convinced that it is a Trojan horse in the sense that it carries deep down in its innards a threat that will be harmful to the long-term health of the Presbyterian Church.

More specifically, what concerns me is the fact that the relationship between the Foundations section and the balance of the proposed Book of Order is alarmingly imprecise. The question is, if adopted will all four parts of the new Book of Order (i.e. the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity, the (new) Form of Government, the Directory for Worship, and the Rules for Discipline) be equal in interpretive weight and authority, or will the Foundations section inevitably be construed to be the controlling authority for everything that follows?

Currently, precedent holds that all parts of the Constitution are equal. That is to say, one cannot successfully argue that section "x" of the Constitution is unconstitutional because it ostensibly conflicts with section "y." That was the explicit finding of the GAPJC's Londonderry decision of 2001. However, if we adopt the current recommendation of the Form of Government Task Force to add a fourth section to the Book of Order, that equilibrium could be lost – with all kinds of unwelcome consequences.

Consider the following scenario. Assume that the Task Force's recommendation to add a Foundations section to the beginning of the Book of Order is adopted without amendment. Would it not be reasonable for a future interpreter to conclude (both from its name and its location) that the Foundations section is intended to control the interpretation and application of everything that follows? And, if such an understanding were allowed to stand, is it not likely that sooner-or-later the will of the whole church (as expressed in any given constitutional amendment) could be declared to be unconstitutional on the basis of its deviation from some "weightier" principle in the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity?

If that were ever to happen, it would create a constitutional crisis in our church of unimaginable proportions – a crisis that would be disastrous to the fragile unity that we presently enjoy.

But there is a simple fix.