Parker’s Back?
PCUSA’s Renewal Leader Fights Ministry Invalidation
by Terry Schlossberg
The Reverend Parker Williamson, executive editor of an independent publication in the Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA) called The Layman, is taking his presbytery to church court. In a dramatic and well-publicized turn-around, the Western North Carolina Presbytery voted last February not to “validate” his ministry with the Presbyterian Lay Committee (PLC), as it had done every year since 1989.
Loss of validation is less significant for Reverend Williamson than for his ministry. He is a minister in good standing in his presbytery, as he has been for 32 years, and the presbytery continues to recognize him as one of its own. It is his ministry that they do not wish to validate. The action does not limit the ministry, but Williamson and others believe it not only unfair but a strike against orthodoxy.
Formerly Pro Forma
The Presbyterian Constitution requires that each presbytery (there are 173) validate each minister’s ministry each year and, until recently, most presbyteries have treated the requirement as pro forma. The constitution requires that the ministry conform to Scripture and to the historical confessional statements of the church.
Validation is not an issue for ministers serving as pastors of churches. It is other forms of service that are beginning to be treated as problematic. Some of these are mentioned in the constitution by way of example, including not only chaplains and missionaries, but also social workers, counselors, and administrators. The list is in practice much longer and the language used to describe a ministry is so broad that almost any employment an ordained person takes can be (and usually has been) interpreted as a calling.
A presbytery would find it difficult to evaluate some of the “ministries” it approves: positions in hospitals, schools, or community agencies, for example. The relationship between the minister and the ministry in the validation process is vague.
Some decisions appear to be based on a presbytery’s like or dislike for a person or organization. Two years ago Central Florida Presbytery refused to validate the ministry of a minister who moved to that presbytery to assume the position of executive director of a conservative or renewal organization called The Presbyterian Coalition. The presbytery ruled that the coalition was not a validated ministry of the PCUSA and refused to validate the minister to that ministry, although, in fact, the presbytery itself sets the criteria for validation.
Although the constitution requires presbyteries to have written criteria for validating a ministry, many have none. Williamson’s presbytery produced no written criteria to cite in deciding not to validate his ministry. Its only charge against him appeared to be “destructive journalism.”
Williamson’s Offense
Terry Schlossberg is executive director of Presbyterians Pro-Life (www.ppl.org), one of the sixteen unofficial renewal groups in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
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