Pretzelbyterianism

Yesterday, the PC(USA)’s highest court, the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly (GAPJC), issued the most befuddling court decision I’ve ever heard of (at least since Rose Bird last served on the California State Supreme Court). Faced with a disciplinary case against a Presbyterian pastor, Jane Adams Spahr, who had conducted same-sex marriage ceremonies and made no bones about having done so, and a denominational constitution that forbids doing so, they decided, essentially, this:

• Presbyterian pastors cannot perform same-sex marriage ceremonies because this is forbidden by the church’s constitution
• Therefore, what Rev. Spahr performed were not same-sex marriage ceremonies, because this is, by definition, impossible
• Therefore, she cannot be guilty of the charge, because she was charged with “doing that which by definition cannot be done,” which, by definition, could not have happened
• Therefore, she cannot be disciplined for doing something she couldn’t possibly have done

Never mind, of course, the fact that she did do it, or at least represent herself as having done it . . . The problem here is that the GAPJC confused a legal prohibition (it is not legally possible for you to do this) with an ontological prohibition (it is not intrinsically possible for you to do this), and thus concluded, essentially, that it’s impossible for human beings to break the law because the mere existence of the law makes breaking it impossible. If this logic applied in our courts, no one would ever be guilty of anything—this logic makes the very concept of guilt impossible by definition.Of course, they don’t really believe that themselves; and so they also made it clear that “a same sex ceremony is not and cannot be a marriage . . . Officers of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who are authorized to perform marriages shall not state, imply, or represent that a same sex ceremony is a marriage because under W-4.9001 a same sex ceremony is not and cannot be a marriage.” Unfortunately, having said that, they then pretended to believe that the Rev. Spahr hadn’t done precisely what they said she “shall not” do, thus enabling them to avoid the question of whether she shouldn’t have been disciplined for that, at least; this, of course, leaves that question hanging wide open for the next case (and there will most certainly be a next case, if only to test whether GAPJC will have the stomach to discipline people for defying their “shall not”). For now, though, they’ve tied themselves into such knots to avoid having to discipline the Rev. Spahr, they aren’t really Presbyterians anymore—they’re Pretzelbyterians.(Update: with his usual critical acumen, Ed Koster, Stated Clerk of Detroit Presbytery, has identified a few more major kinks in those knots that hadn’t occurred to me.)All this reminds me of a song by the great Steve Scott, whose album I happen to have been listening to this afternoon; this one struck me quite forcefully, given the current situation.

Ship of FoolsSome have called us heroes;
Others say we’ve lost our mind.
Some have called us visionaries;
Others say that we’ve gone blind.
But we’re done with their traditions—
We don’t want to get trapped—
So we’ve thrown away the anchor
And we’ve thrown away the maps.Sail away (sail away) on the ship of fools;
Sail away (sail away) on the ship of fools.The city quotes the jungle,
And the jungle quotes the heart;
In this wilderness of references,
We’re lost before we start.
There’s an aching contradiction
At the center of the search;
We’re moving ’round in circles,
But getting closer to the edge.ChorusAre we prisoners of confusion,
Or are we masters of our fate?
Are we caught in this illusion?
Is it really all too late?
Shall we try at navigation,
Or are we victims of the tide?
Do we have a destination
Or are we just here for the ride?ChorusWords and music: Steve Scott
© 1990 Northern Sierra Music
From the album Lost Horizon, by Steve Scott