Debate Sought on Church’s Sexuality Report

Eleven former moderators of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) or its two predecessor bodies have signed a statement urging “prayerful discussion” and “open and honest debate” of a controversial denominational report on human sexuality.

The letter from the 11 is a qualified counterpoint to two previous letters signed by eight former moderators opposed to the report. Critics claim that the report discards traditional norms of Christian behavior by adopting an ethic of “justice-love” that allows, among other proposals, relationships between homosexuals and those who are not married.

The 200-page report, called “Keeping Body and Soul Together: Sexuality, Spirituality and Social Justice,” is scheduled to be taken up at the denomination’s June 4-12 General Assembly in Baltimore.

For the last several months, the battle lines hardened as group after group in the church took votes or issued statements on the report--practically all opposing it.

Moderators serve one-year terms to preside over the annual General Assembly and act as roving spokesmen for most Presbyterians. The present denomination was formed from a merger in 1983 of the so-called Southern Presbyterians and the United Presbyterian Church.

The 11 former moderators do not endorse the report, but say they hope commissioners to the assembly “will be faithful to Presbyterian polity and thus seek to discover and express the will of God in the prayerful discussion of the issues related to the report of the Special Committee on Sexuality.”

The moderators acknowledge that they are not all in agreement on the report’s recommendations but said they do agree that “the whole church deserves open and honest debate by the commissioners in a sincere effort to seek the leading of the Holy Spirit in this matter which has produced so much anger, conflict and divisiveness.”

“The issues raised in the report are far too important to be misconstrued, subjected to quotations out of context or caricatured. They deserve our best and most serious attention as a church,” they concluded.

Those signing the statement, issued in New York, were the Rev. Paul Wright, William P. Thompson, the Rev. Robert Lamar, the Rev. William Lytle, the Rev. Howard Rice, the Rev. Albert Winn, the Rev. Robert Davidson, Dorothy Barnard, Harriet Nelson, the Rev. Benjamin Weir and Isabel Rogers.