News Service provides summary report at
the end of the GAC meeting
[posted here 3-2-01]
This report from the General Assembly Council
meeting in Louisville was recorded on VoiceLine on Saturday, February
24, by Evan Silverstein of the Presbyterian News Service.
You can view
this report on the PCUSA website.
Meeting in plenary today, the council responded to a controversy over a
conference speaker's statements that some critics have alleged to be
heretical by approving a document that affirms "the Lordship of
Jesus Christ and our salvation through Christ," but also defends
"the propriety of open dialogue at GAC-sponsored conferences."
The controversy developed after the Rev. Dirk Ficca of Chicago, a
speaker at last summer's Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference in Orange,
Calif., suggested that an omnipotent and merciful God might provide
other avenues to salvation for Jews and Muslims and other non-believers
in Christ. Twenty-one sessions of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and one
presbytery had called for the GAC to discipline Ficca or disavow the
views he expressed. GAC Chair Peter Pizor said before the discussion
that the council lacks authority to take judicial action against Ficca
or to "make theological statements on behalf of the church."
The Rev. Jeffrey Bridgeman, a 44-year-old evangelical
pastor from Solvan, California, was elected chair of GAC on the second
ballot today. The Rev. Adelia D. (Dede) Kelso of Pearl River, Louisiana,
was elected vice chair, also on a second ballot. They will begin their
one-year term after the General Assembly in June. Bridgeman has been
pastor of the Santa Ynez Valley Presbyterian Church in Santa Barbara
Presbytery for 11 years. He is a graduate of Fuller Theological
Seminary, ordained in 1983. Kelso has been pastor for eight years of the
Northminster Presbyterian Church in Pearl River, La., which belongs to
the Southern Louisiana Presbytery. She is a graduate of Union
Theological Seminary in Virginia, and has advanced degrees from Columbia
Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA, and the University of Edinburgh in
Scotland.
In recapping Friday's GAC plenary action, the council
approved a proposed mission budget for 2002 of a little more than $136
million, and also approved a new budget process intended to make it more
systematic and "transparent" and to insure that input is
sought from all PC(USA) entities. The 2002 budget includes $49.8 million
for the Worldwide Ministries Division, $30.7 million for National
Ministries Division, $22.6 million for Congregational Ministries
Division and $6.3 million for Mission Support Services. It will be
presented to the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s 213th General Assembly for
approval in June.
The council on Friday also approved a recommendation
from the Congregational Ministries Division (CMD) that curriculum
publishing no longer be expected to be financially self-sustaining. CMD
Committee Chair Lynn Shurley said the area has not been self-sufficient
"in the past" and cannot realistically be expected to pay its
own way in the future. He said CMD officials have been doomed to "a
mad scramble at the end of the year to find funds from anywhere" --
what CMD Director Don Campbell calls "budget-reconciliation
funds" -- to offset its loss. The curriculum area's loss for 2000
was about $850,000.
Also on Friday, the GAC voted to approve the formation
of a new Presbyterian Mortgage Corporation, in effect making it possible
for the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program (PILP) to make more
funds available for lending to PC(USA) borrowers. The new corporation
would raise funds by "selling" future interest revenue from
PILP loans to financial institutions in exchange for cash equal to the
loan principal. The measure would enable PILP to legally circumvent
capital-reserve regulations that otherwise limit the volume of loans it
can make available for lending. PILP has outstanding loans approaching
$40 million; officials say loan demand in the PC(USA) exceeds $330
million a year.
