You may be interested in the following. Apologies to those of you who have
already seen this or who will get two copies or who aren't interested.
On Thursday, March 14 the Presbytery of the Midwest of the Orthdox
Presbyterian Church met to hear my appeal concerning the guilty verdict
rendered at the heresy trial last summer (concerning my views on the
primate ancestry of Adam's body) which was held at our local church
(Harvest OPC) with the Session (board of elders) serving as the judge/jury.
I was asking the Presbytery to overturn the Harvest Session's ruling where
they had found me guilty by a 4-3 vote.
There were 34 delegates in attendance (many other visitors). 3 of these
were not eligible to vote since they were members of the Harvest Session.
We (myself and Rev. Doug Felch, my defense counsel) presented our case in a
90 minute presentation, after which the Session made a much briefer
presentation. After that there were about 4 hours of debate. The only
speeches made in our favor were made by Rev. Felch, myself, or the 3 men
from the Session who had voted on my side at the trial. There were 10-15
speeches against.
A voice vote was taken and there were only 2 audible votes in support of
the appeal. If everyone else voted then the request to overturn was
defeated by a 2-29 vote.
I am likely to appeal the decision to the OPC General Assembly this summer.
The text of the orginal charges against me and the text of the appeal is
available with the World Wide Web at the following URL:
http://mcgraytx.calvin.edu/gray/evolution_trial/
Sincerely,
Terry M. Gray
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt