Chapter 34: Special Rules Pertaining to Process Against a Minister

34-1. Process against a minister shall be entered before the Presbytery of
which he is a member. However, if the Presbytery refuses to act in doctrinal
cases or cases of public scandal and two other Presbyteries request the General
Assembly to assume original jurisdiction (to first receive and initially hear and
determine), the General Assembly shall do so.

34-2. As no minister ought, on account of his office, to be screened in his
sin, or slightly censured, so scandalous charges ought not to be received
against him on slight grounds.

34-3. If any one knows a minister to be guilty of a private offense, he should
warn him in private. But if the offense be persisted in, or become public, he
should bring the case to the attention of some other minister of the Presbytery.

34-4. a. When a minister accused of an offense is found contumacious (cf.
32-6), he shall be immediately suspended from the sacraments and his office
for his contumacy. Record shall be made of the fact and of the charges under
which he was arraigned, and the censure shall be made public. The censure
shall in no case be removed until the offender has not only repented of his
contumacy, but has also given satisfaction in relation to the charges against
him.
b. If after further endeavor by the court to bring the accused to a sense
of his guilt, he persists in his contumacy, he shall be deposed and
excommunicated from the Church.

34-5. Heresy and schism may be of such a nature as to warrant deposition;
but errors ought to be carefully considered, whether they strike at the vitals of
religion and are industriously spread, or whether they arise from the weakness
of the human understanding and are not likely to do much injury.

34-6. If the Presbytery find on trial that the matter complained of amounts
to no more than such acts of infirmity as may be amended, so that little or
nothing remains to hinder the minister’s usefulness, it shall take all prudent
measures to remove the scandal.

34-7. When a minister, pending a trial, shall make confession, if the matter
be base and flagitious, such as drunkenness, uncleanness, or crimes of a greater
nature, however penitent he may appear to the satisfaction of all, the court shall
without delay impose definite suspension or depose him from the ministry.

34-8. A minister under indefinite suspension from his office or deposed for
scandalous conduct shall not be restored, even on the deepest sorrow for his
sin, until he shall exhibit for a considerable time such an eminently exemplary,
humble and edifying life and testimony as shall heal the wound made by his
scandal. A deposed minister shall in no case be restored until it shall appear
that the general sentiment of the Church is strongly in his favor, and demands
his restoration; and then only by the court inflicting the censure, or with that
court’s consent. The removal of deposition requires a three-fourths (3/4) vote
of the court inflicting the censure, or a three-fourths (3/4) vote of the court to
which the majority of the original court delegates that authority.

34-9. When a minister is deposed, his pastoral relation shall be dissolved;
but when he is suspended from office it shall be left to the discretion of the
Presbytery whether the censure shall include the dissolution of the pastoral
relation.