LEGISLATIVE UPDATE:
WE SAVED GBCS!
Tonight, the General Conference voted to table indefinitely a petition that would financially cripple the General Board of Church and Society because of its involvement in a case with the District of Columbia. I don’t know all the details of the case, but the General Conference decided not to impose any punitive action on GBCS since no ruling has been made.
This represented the most serious threat to GBCS ever. There’s always petitions to stop its funding or for its complete dissolution, but this was more sneaky. Fortunately, GBCS will continue to receive funding so it can continue to be the church’s prophetic voice for justice.
And to be honest, that’s about all we did today. Today was not very productive at all. It took us over 2 hours to debate 2 petitions!
After the motion to table passed, there was much applause from the Conference. Bishop Scott Jones, the presiding bishop at the time, told us applauding was not in order, but none of us cared. We were done for the night and GBCS can continue to live out its mission.
CORRECTION: We also decided that each jurisdiction within the US would lose one bishop, except for SEJ, which will not gain any additional bishops this quadrennium.
6 comments
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April 29, 2008 at 11:48 pm
gavin
yeah, more gbcs.. i guess this means we can predict more years where people will complain about the gbcs speaking out on justice issues that are valid but people don’t know stuff about so they get peeved off.
rock on!
April 30, 2008 at 6:49 am
Gregg
Nothing significant? You cut a bishop from several jurisdictions today, including the Western Jurisdiction beginning in 2012. Have you seen the geographical size of these conferences and episcopal areas? Now we will, in essence, have another bishop with a two-point charge covering about 15-20% of the geographical area of the contiguous United States. Way to go… (Nothing significant, I guess)
April 30, 2008 at 8:06 am
Wesley Sanders
Although I don’t have any problem with GBCS, I have a bit of a difficult time using the language of “prophetic voice.” Social justice is very important, but speaking on political issues does not make any of us a prophet.
In the Bible, the entire time we speak of prophets (old and new testament), we speak of people who were directly inspired by God. I have to say that not every word spoken by Jim Winkler is inspired by God.
Prophetic ministry should really be termed what it is: social justice ministry. Social justice ministry is vital to our mission. Prophetic ministry is best left to prophets.
April 30, 2008 at 8:08 am
Wesley Sanders
By the way, on cutting a bishop from jurisdictions: it becomes a financial necessity that we must decrease staffing to the places where the church is in decline. It’s a sad reality, but we can’t really afford to keep the same episcopal areas when the membership in that area continues to decline and, subsequently, financial support within that area declines.
April 30, 2008 at 10:18 am
Gregg
It is extremely naive to think that the decision to cut bishops was made for purely financial reasons. This decision is part of a larger movement to marginalize the Western Jurisdiction and Northeast Jurisdiction because of their (majority, but not unanimously) different views related to diversity and full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks.
April 30, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Wesley Sanders
I probably am naive on these issues. However, ulterior motives notwithstanding, how should the church address the clear issue that the church is in decline in the U.S. and continuing to finance operations at the same level for ministries within the US is simply impractical? Frankly, I think the first things to go need to be some of the staffing positions at Annual Conference level before we begin cutting episcopal areas. We might also want to reduce episcopal salaries in general. Although the church needs to support our bishops, I think they don’t need to be much above the Denominational Average Compensation, rather than six figure salaries that exist today. That way, when someone desires to become a bishop, we can be clear that it isn’t about the money but is about a calling to that ministry.