We have not given enough attention to the fact that voluntary alternatives have been proposed. Dave Sarafolean has suggested one way, and Martin Hedman has proposed another. The rumor is that another alternative, voluntary plan is in the works

To the best of my knowledge, all the Presbyteries that are going to vote in 2010 on the funding plan have voted. I would just like to make a few concluding observations for 2010, but don’t worry. We’ll be back in 2011 as full of acetic acid and other fluids as ever as ever, if God wills. For now, I’d like to conclude with a few observations.

1. The key story in 2010 on the funding plan is that the amendments were changed the morning of General Assembly debate on the motion (see the changes here). I have talked to several people on the Admin Committee of Commissioners, including myself, and none of them knew that the amendments had been changed. We voted thinking that we were voting on the amendments as they were sent out in the Commissioner Handbook. That’s why the commissioner from Central Carolina actually apologized to his presbytery for not realizing what he was voting on. The key difference is that the revised amendments make clear the cumulative nature of the tax and thus that it is indeed a tax. This was a surprise to many. Watch what happened when the Assembly learned that the tax was cumulative. Go to the video of GA here, then watch at minute 92:00-114:00 (while you are at it, watch Travis Hutchinson’ speech against at 83:30). I would highly recommend reviewing this whole discussion.

2. We have not given enough attention to the fact that voluntary alternatives have been proposed. Dave Sarafolean has suggested one way, and Martin Hedman has proposed another. The rumor is that another alternative, voluntary plan is in the works and may come up as an overture next year.

3. The first Presbytery votes rejected the funding plan overwhelmingly. It looked like a rout of the funding plan. Even Dr. Chappell’s presbytery, Illiana, unanimously rejected the plan. However, the Admin Committee responded with what one news site termed a “full court press.” The heart of the Admin strategy was to delay the vote to give them time to rally the troops. As a result, Presbytery after Presbytery voted to postpone voting on the plan. As of now, the vote is 17-16. You can read the full report here.

4. ByFaith finally began to report on the Presbytery votes last week. The vote on the amendments was actually 14-15. However, the first report from ByFaith was: three presbyteries vote in favor and one against. After I featured it on my blog, byFaith removed the post and put up a new headline saying that the vote was 9-7 in favor while noting in the article that the unofficial count was 15-15. However, they had included a Presbytery that did not vote, and so they apologized and corrected the article. It appears they now have the correct count of 17-16 in their most recent article. In byFaith’s defense, they did publish Dr. Roy Taylor’s reply to Dr. Aquila without linking to Dr. Aquila’s article. I responded to Dr. Taylor’s article here.

5. I have written an almost absurd amount of articles on this funding plan. As you may have noticed, I have revised the categories in the sidebar in a lengthy process of revising this blog. I would suggest that you go to the category “taxation” to review what has happened in the past year.

6. Don’t forget to check out the best quote from the funding plan debate so far.
Look for more news on the funding plan on the first Tuesday of 2011.

Wes White is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He is currently serving as the Pastor of New Covenant Spearfish Presbyterian Church, Spearfish, South Dakota. This article originally appeared on his web site Johannes Weslianus and is used with permission.

[Editor’s note: Some of the original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed. Also, Pastor White’s blog has moved to weswhite.net.]