Blackhawk Presbytery becomes 10th to vote NOT to affirm constitutional standards for ordination
Last Tuesday Blackhawk went on the record for refusing to affirm constitutional standards for ordination when they voted 48-68 with 3 abstentions to reject the overture presented by First Presbyterian Church of Aurora and endorsed by four concurring congregations: First Belvidere, First DuPage of Bolingbrook, First Rochelle and Sandwich Federated. The overture was the subject of the small group break-out sessions and then some heated debate ensued when the large group reconvened after lunch.
The Covenant Network board introduced a substitute motion which they intended to portray as a “clarifying” motion, when in fact, it did exactly the opposite, introducing a loophole for the ordination of people who choose alternative lifestyles. This substitute motion encouraged that we should all read and study the whole constitution, and with the help of God in Jesus Christ, “faithfully apply it within the context of their setting.“ (emphasis mine)
The battle lines are drawn. This seemingly innocuous statement, presented as a means of clarifying the confusing language we used in our overture, actually sounded like a reasonable motion. But the ambiguous language about the “context of their setting” was clearly intended to introduce a loophole to allow exactly the thing the original overture intended to prevent: the ordination of unrepentant practicing homosexuals!
While the people who want to do this remain a very small minority in our Presbytery, the seeming innocence of the statement appealed to a lot of people who didn’t understand the issue. In the end, the substitute motion was rejected, followed by the vote on the original overture, which also failed.
A good friend and one of our overture advocates had this to say about it:
Overtures like yours (ours) which are consistent with Biblical revelation as upheld by the constitution will no longer prevail because votes are dominated by (1) the ignorant who don’t know what’s going on; (2) the apathetic who don’t care about what’s going on; (3) the apostate who have caused what’s going on; and (4) the faithful who are outnumbered by the other three.
Sadly, I suspect he is correct.