Theological Issues and Institutions

Well, we're off. After three days of being spread out into eighteen committee meetings, the General Assembly is gathered again under a single roof and faced in the same direction.

Moderator Cindy Bolbach began the meeting with a test of the voting machine system. There had been problems on Saturday night and in the intervening days, GA staff conducted tests to be sure that the system would be reliable. So far, so good.

The Assembly's first significant debate came with the report of Committee 16 on Theological Issues and Institutions. The committee had two proposals that will have continuing importance for the church. One was a proposal to continue the process of preparing a new translation of the Heidelberg Catechism, to replace the current one in our Book of Confessions. Since the translation is not yet finalized, there was no document to send to the presbyteries, and so the Assembly concurred in the request to continue the discussion for another two years before voting on whether to send the new translation to the presbyteries.

The other was the Assembly decision to go ahead with presbytery votes on whether to include the Belhar Confession in our Book of Confessions. Belhar was written in South Africa in 1972 in the Reformed Church there, and has continued to be one of the most important theological statements on the sinfulness of racism. If included in the Book of Confessions, it would be the only statement representing the southern hemisphere. The vote to send the Belhar Confession to the presbyteries was not close, and the document will be before our presbytery for vote in the coming year.

Adopting a change in the Book of Confessions is a more demanding process than amending the Book of Order. It requires the approval of a general assembly (in this case, already accomplished), then the approval of two-thirds of the presbyteries, and finally the approval of a second general assembly (in this case, the 220th GA in 2012). More from the Assembly floor later.