Ayr Presbytery’s meeting last week was the really difficult for me. Not only was parliamentary procedure thrown out to the window to detriment of everyone, but presbyters kept making the distinction between tackling a certain matter before presbytery in terms of discipline or pastorally.

Not once did anyone challenge the assertion that a complaint made to the clerk could either be taken up as a matter of church discipline, or as a matter of pastoral concern. It was a telling moment.

If I made that absolute distinction before my presbytery committee overseeing my ordination process, or if I argued that distinction on my polity ordination exams, I imagine I’d be in for some major challenges.

For those of us in the PC(USA), the discipline of the church is pastoral. Sure, discipline may not always seem so, but the beauty inherent to the Book of Order is that discipline is always delivered in a pastoral manner. More, the discipline process itself is seen as the height of pastoral concern, not as distinguished from it.

Read the preamble to the PC(USA) Book of Discipline, and marvel at its beauty:

D-1.0101 Church Discipline

Church discipline is the church’s exercise of authority given by
Christ, both in the direction of guidance, control, and nurture of its
members and in the direction of constructive criticism of offenders.
The church’s disciplinary process exists not as a substitute for
the secular judicial system, but to do what the secular judicial
system cannot do. The purpose of discipline is to honor God by
making clear the significance of membership in the body of Christ;
to preserve the purity of the church by nourishing the individual
within the life of the believing community; to achieve justice and
compassion for all participants involved; to correct or restrain
wrongdoing in order to bring members to repentance and restoration;
to uphold the dignity of those who have been harmed by
disciplinary offenses; to restore the unity of the church by removing
the causes of discord and division; and to secure the just,
speedy, and economical determination of proceedings. In all
respects, all participants are to be accorded procedural safeguards
and due process, and it is the intention of these rules so to provide.

Darn tootin.

image by stroinski