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The Rev. Susan Andrews knows that homosexuality is a hot issue in the church right now with strong opinions on both sides, but she believes debate will only strengthen the Presbyterian Church (USA).

“I don’t want anybody to leave,” Ms. Andrews, head of the 2.5 million-member Protestant denomination, said in an interview this week. “I
need a church that has people in it that disagree with me on this issue because it helps me grow. And it also represents the diversity within the unity of Jesus Christ.”

The moderator of the general assembly of the PC (USA) and pastor of a church in Bethesda, Md., Ms. Andrews was in Maumee Tuesday to address a meeting of the Maumee Valley Presbytery, the regional body overseeing 80 churches with 15,000 members in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.

Ms. Andrews, 55, who earned a master’s degree from Harvard University and a doctorate in ministry from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, draws a sharp line between her role as moderator, in which she is calling for adherence to the church’s
constitution, or Book of Order, and her personal opinions.

While the church forbids the ordination of homosexual ministers unless they are celibate, the eloquent and feisty minister said she hopes that ban will be lifted for gays and lesbians committed to monogamous relationships.

She also would like to discuss changing the Book of Order to allow ministers to perform same-sex marriages.

“If two human beings want to be faithful and loyal to one another for the rest of their lives in a covenant of monogamous love, I fi nd that,
for me, that fi ts within my theology and I’d like to see the church
wrestle with that,” Ms. Andrews said.

But only after Presbyterians research and discuss the issues
civilly and thoroughly, letting every voice be heard, will they be ready to make informed decisions, Ms. Andrews said.

She urged the church to follow the lead of a special task force on peace, unity, and purity that is scheduled to report to the General Assembly in 2006. The 20 members of that panel span the spectrum
of opinion on homosexuality, Ms. Andrews said, and are spending the fi rst three years studying and discussing the issues before making any recomendations.

Ms. Andrews spent time with the task force in February and said the panel is recommending “that every Presbyterian, every congregation,
every presbytery, every session engage in the same kind of honest,
intensive dialogue with people with whom we disagree on these
issues to gain understanding and to build relationship.”

Such constructive debate has been one of the hallmarks of Presbyterianism through the centuries, she said, although it
has not necessarily been the case in recent debates over
homosexuality.

“What tends to happen is that people stand in little groups of people who agree with them and then kind of throw, as I like to say, ‘word
bombs of judgment’ at each other over the great divide,’ ” Ms. Andrews said.

She cited several Bible verses that, in her opinion, make homosexuality acceptable in a Christian church.

One Scriptures she quoted is in 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul describes the church as one body made up of many diverse parts.

The moderator also cited Acts 10, where Peter has a vision
in which he is told by the Lord to eat food that is not kosher.

Peter, a law-abiding Jew, protests but God rebukes him: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

“It’s a classic passage to show how within the body of Scripture the old becomes the new when there’s a vision,” Ms. Andrews said.

She said she would restrict the ordination of homosexuals to “partnered” gays and lesbians in “covenantal relationships.”
“I am not talking about a heterosexual or a homosexual that
is promiscuous and/or multiple relationships,” Ms. Andrews said.
She rejected arguments claiming that the ordination of homosexuals
will lead to a domino effect resulting in an “anything goes” mentality within the Presbyterian Church. “Conventional wisdom goes: ‘What’s next — adultery, pedophilia, incest?’ All of which I fi nd quite offensive,” Ms. Andrews said.

While homosexuality has been a hot topic of late, causing
turmoil in virtually all mainline Protestant denominations, Ms.
Andrews pointed out that there are many other topics on her
agenda — not all of them controversial.

“There’s lots of good stuff happening, it’s not just about the issues
that divide us,” she said.

Since being elected moderator of the general assembly in May,
2003, Ms. Andrews estimates she has been on the road “95 percent
of the time.”

She has visited 32 states, 5 foreign countries, 80 presbyteries,
and “dozens and dozens” of congregations in the last 12
months, and said some of the positive impressions from her
travels have been a growth in multiculturalism; vibrant seminaries;
enthusiasm in small congregations, and a commitment
to social justice ministries.

As for declining membership in the Presbyterian Church, as
with other mainline groups such as United Methodists and Episcopalians, Ms. Andrews has seen some positive signs.
“I believe that there had been a cultural shift in the 1950s when
the Presbyterian Church was booming like everybody else.

President Eisenhower was Presbyterian and all the mainline
Protestant churches were growing by leaps and bounds
as the post-World War II generation had families and went back
to church,” said Ms. Andrews, whose father and grandfather
were Presbyterian ministers.

“So it was a cultural thing and believe some of that membership
back then was not all that deepseated,” she said. “I believe that
the Presbyterians who are now with us are people who dearly love
the church, are very committed, and want to see the church grow.”
While there has been long-established trend in U. churches toward contemporary worship music using electrifi instruments and drums, with sermons accompanied by video screens showing videos and
Scripture verses, Ms. Andrews said that Presbyterians
“have a sense that worship is to be reverent and focused
on God, and so it doesn’t easily blend with rock music and
screens.”

But some congregations have experienced growth by holding
two services, she said, one with traditional and one with contemporary worship music.

“So rather than making people choose, they’re giving people options,” Ms. Andrews said. “As church opens up — and loosens
up a bit — in its worship, younger people are coming.”

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