General Conference ended Friday night and I have to say that even though I’m glad I will be able to enjoy regular sleeping hours now, I’ll miss it.  Overall, it was a great experience.  I learned so much about myself, the church and others. I learned that I am called to help bring justice and healing to our broken church.  I learned a lot about the UMC these past two weeks, too.  I saw the church at its best and at its worst at General Conference.

Overall, General Conference was amazing, awesome, horrible, boring and exciting.  There were definitely bad moments; I witnessed ageism, sexism, racism and homophobia while there.  But there were also many, many good moments.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned while at General Conference is that the UMC really
does have a future with hope.  And I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that I am called to be a part of shaping that hopeful future.

(I don’t intend to blog here much more, since General Conference is officially over.  However, I do have another blog which I post at fairly regularly. It’s called “Curt Comments from Kurt” and you can find it here.  I write about a wider variety of subjects in that blog, but United Methodist polity and related topics are some of my favorite still!)

Yesterday afternoon was a horrible, horrible plenary session.  We voted on several calendar items about homosexuality issues.  The afternoon was dominated by discussion on paragraph 161G in our Book of Discipline, which among other things, calls “homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching.”  Now if you’re familiar with me and my theology I strongly disagree with that statement.

Prior to General Conference convening, I never expected this clause to be removed this time around.  However, when the Human Sexuality subcommittee of the Church and Society #2 legislative committee passed a petition that struck this clause and said that faithful Christians have very different understandings of this issue but would be in dialogue with each other until the Holy Spirit illuminated a new understanding for us.  I had even more hope for its passage when this revision of 161G passed the full CS2 committee.

There was, however, also a minority report.  To those who are not familiar with parliamentary procedure, a number of persons can submit a minority report if they substantively disagree an issue.  According to procedure, the body votes on the minority report first and if it gets a majority, it becomes the majority report and the committee’s majority report is disregarded.

With this being such a controversial issue, there was a minority report.  This report retained the incompatibility clause and after amended by the whole General Conference contained even more discriminatory language than already in the Discipline and Book of Resolutions.  (Note: This is a social principle of the UMC and therefore appears both in the Discipline and Book of Resolutions.)

The process frustrated me so much.  The presiding bishop, with all due respect, was not at all impartial.  When speeches for the minority report were out of order, he allowed them or waited a rather long time
to cut the delegate off.  And when it came time to vote, a motion to suspend the rules to not have debate on the actual minority report passed!  We really only debated the minority and majority report through amendments, never the actual report.

I don’t think I ever felt so much suspense as I did yesterday when the room waited for the results to be tallied.  When the results were posted, I was so angry.  The minority report passed and the former majority report was discarded. And then, without much more debated we voted on adopting the minority report (new majority report) as becoming the new language for paragraph 161.  I so hoped that it wouldn’t pass, since the current language in the 2004 Discipline is less hateful.  Unfortunately, it passed 55-45%.  (I have been told that, despite its passage, the votes to retain the clause has narrowed each General Conference.)

After its passage, delegates gradually began standing up as a symbol of solidarity with out LGBT brothers and sisters.  During the vote, many people in the spectators’ gallery already stood up.  After the vote, the delegates joined them.  It was an amazing moment, seeing all these people standing up.

This vote happened right before we adjourned for dinner.  As usual, before we adjourn, the secretary of General Conference has announcements to read.  As he was reading, one delegate who was standing up a few rows behind me started singing “Jesus Loves Me.”  Slowly, just like the standing, others started joining in.  Soon, the secretary’s voice was drowned out by the singing. Some were crying, many were hugging and lots were singing.  It was truly an amazing sight to witness.

Several years ago, when I went to China on the Mission of Peace, I remember being in a Chinese church where they sung “Jesus loves me” in Chinese.  We, the Americans sang it in English.  That was such an amazing moment because it testified to the unity across cultures in Christ.  Yesterday was so different.  It showed the division within the Church.  It showed we are a divided body.  It showed that the communion is deeply broken.

Yet, within all of us who stood together singing (and I am very proud to say that every delegate from NCNY stood up except the one delegate who ran off the floor crying) there was a sense of unity.  Though we may be in the minority now, we know that this will someday change.  The minority is growing and the majority is shrinking.

The part that frustrated me the most was that the majority report was misrepresented by those presenting the minority report.  They called it vague, incoherent and one that does not represent their views.  However, the majority report specifically said, “Faithful, thoughtful people who have grappled with this issue deeply disagree with one another; yet all seek a faithful witness.  We continue to reason and pray together with faith and hope that the Holy Spirit will soon bring reconciliation to our community of faith.  The fire in our disagreements points to a deeper human mystery than we knew.  We believe that the Spirit has brought our collective conscience to acknowledge this mystery more honestly,  and to make our claims with greater humility before God and our neighbors.  We therefore ask the Church, United Methodist and others, and the world, to refrain from judgment of homosexual persons and practices as the Spirit leads us to new insight.  Let us seek to welcome, forgive, and love one another as Christ has accepted us, that God may be glorified through everything in our lives.”

These statements don’t state that we accept or condemn homosexuality.  It merely says, to use a familiar phrase, that we will be in holy conferencing with each other.  This was not a ploy by the liberals to take over the church.  Nor was it insensitive to the conservatives’ beliefs.  It remained open to dialogue from both sides. It allowed for a future with hope.  I am deeply disappointed that this did not pass.

In case you’re wondering, I do not identify as gay.  I just think it’s hypocritical that our church excludes people.  The God I follow, love and worship does not discriminate. After the vote yesterday, I said to a member in my delegation that I just don’t understand how we can do this to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Jesus offered radical hospitality and anything short of that, in my opinion, is incompatible with Christian teaching.

Today, there was a witness/non-violent protest about the issue.  It’s posted on the UMC General Conference website here. I don’t really have anything to comment about it. I think that it speaks for itself.

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.

Full communion, in Western ecclesiology, means that the denominations mutually recognize that they share essentially the same doctrine and beliefs while still maintaining their distinct, denominational identities.  The UMC is currently in full communion with the pan-Methodist churches – African Methodist Episcopal Church, AME Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopa.  So the ELCA is the first non-pan-Methodist church that will be in full communion.

The Lutherans will vote on the measure for full communion at their denomination’s legislative gathering next year.

What are your thoughts about this historic decision?

Laity:
Angela Brown (California-Nevada)
Reuben Reyes (Philippines)

Clergy:
Kathi Austin-Mahle (Minnesota)
F. Belton Joyner (North Carolina)
William B. Lawrence (North Texas)

This slate of candidates were proposed by about 50 delegates (from US and central conferences) because they will offer a fair and balanced view.  They also strongly support a unified denomination.  What’s even better about this election is that Mary Daffin and Rev. Keith Boyette, two former judicial council members, were only elected as some of the last alternates. They supported the decision the judicial council made last quadrennium to allow pastors to discriminate against membership.

We also accomplished the following today:

• Commissioned a study to reorganize the UMC to reflect our denomination’s world-wide nature (the study will look at making the US a regional conference)
• Commissioned a hymnal revision committee (which the 2012 General Conference may or may not choose to adopt)
• Adopted or rejected all petitions with financial implications!
• Wasted A LOT of time debating how to save time (UMs love to debate  anything and everything!)

Tomorrow will be another busy day.  I imagine we’ll be dealing with a lot of church and society issues – abortion, homosexuality, immigration, war doctrine… the list goes on! Also, tomorrow President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, a United Methodist herself, will address the General Conference.   President Bush was also invited to speak to the General Conference, but he declined the offer.

Good night!

The list:

http://umcma.blogspot.com/
http://umportal.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/04/gc-delegate-the.html
http://bethquick.blogspot.com/
http://generalconference08.blogspot.com/
http://www.methoblog.com/
http://trinityunitedmethodist.wordpress.com/
http://cognitioetfide.blogspot.com/
http://nitrorev.blogspot.com/
http://mfsablog08.typepad.com/mfsa_at_general_conferenc/
http://conferenceimpressions.blogspot.com/
http://stephandjanatthegc.blogspot.com/
http://all-shall-be-well.blogspot.com/
http://www.genxrising.com/
http://www.umnexus.org/blog/
http://emergingumc.blogspot.com/
http://matthewlkelley.blogspot.com/
http://blog.hackingchristianity.net/
http://steverankin.blogspot.com/
http://www.generalconference2008.org
http://lukewetzel.wordpress.com/
http://www.theird.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=604&srcid=626 (just for laughs!)

It was my first large-scale protest/action I’ve participated in and I thought it was a great experience.  Here’s a couple reasons why:

• MoSAIC drummed for 24 hours prior to the rally, attracting many supporters and fundamentalist protesters.  I even got condemned to go to hell!
• Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger, a classmate of mine at AU, co-chair of UM Student Movement and a leader of MoSAIC spoke, calling the rest of the church to “meet us where we are.”  The speech was so powerful that it prompted the Institute of Religion and Democracy (IRD), a caucus on the extreme right, to blog about it. The blog says that Rachel is calling the church to meet us in sin.  Check it out here: http://www.theird.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=604&srcid=626
• A couple of my friends from AU came down for the weekend to just to participate in the protests.  A picture of Miriam Wood and Katie Kraft, more of my classmates, can be found in the UM News Service article about the event. Check it out here: http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=4017527&content_id={EDFDAA64-7BE9-4FE4-A0E1-93CF8619F874}&notoc=1
• Several other people in my delegation also attended in the rally and protest.  Some of them were adults, too!  One even wore a rainbow clergy shirt.

Now we’ll just have to wait and see if the church will choose to listen to us young people and meet us where we are in sin.

However, my legislative subcommittee was not following parliamentary procedure very well yesterday.  The chair repeatedly wanted us to vote on the amended petition before we officially adopted the amendment.  Sometimes he asked us to vote for rejection (because that was the group’s consensus) but you actually have to vote for adoption and if it doesn’t pass, then it’s rejected.  There was even a time when a delegate was conducting audible cell phone use, which is also out of order.  At the end of the session yesterday, the chair wanted to adjourn without officially tabling a petition, deeming it unnecessary to actually go through the formal motion.

I kept reminding the chair that these things were out of order, but most of the committee just seemed to dismiss my concerns.  (I think this dismissive attitude has to do with me being a young, progressive delegate.)  They thought that since an action was the general consensus of the committee it didn’t need to have a formal vote.  This, however, is a very, very dangerous precedent.  Operating by consensus can threaten to silence the minority’s opinions, which is the exact reason why we follow parliamentary procedure. Parliamentary procedure allows for their voice to be expressed when it may normally not be.

So, as someone who is in the minority both in age and in theological views, you can understand my frustration with a subcommittee that did not strictly adhere to parliamentary rules.  If we are really going to live up to the ideal of Holy Conferencing, we need to abide by parliamentary procedure, for it is the only way to ensure that all views are fairly expressed.  To call anything short of that Holy Conferencing would be a lie.

Because I was promoted to delegate status only recently, I was assigned, by default, to the Discipleship Legislative Committee. Had I had more say in my legislative committee assignment, this would probably not have been my first pick. My passions are social justice and (believe it or not) church bureaucracy and organization. Discipleship is not exactly my strongest suit.

However, I’m really glad that I’m sitting on the Discipleship Legislative Committee. Because it’s not my forte, sitting in this committee will challenge. It’s about music and worship – not justice.  These are not the areas I excel in, (If you want proof, just ask Justin Peck, director of FOSound for the UMSA at American University!) so I think it’s going to challenge me to grow.

I’ll be sitting on Hymnal and Ordinal Subcommittee (herein HO), which is very important because we will deal with the proposals to revise the Hymnal and Orders of Worship (Ordination, Commissioning and Consecration Services).  As a young adult, I thought about sitting on the Youth and Young Adult Ministries subcommittee but chose HO because I felt that a young adult’s perspective was needed when considering a new hymnal.

I’m excited to bring my ideas to this subcommittee.  I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.