Day 8 Encounter

My morning began, as usual, with listening to speakers to seminary students. This morning, our speakers were a bishop speaking about the world wide nature of the church and a woman from Methodist Federeation for Social Action (MFSA). We have heard over the last few weeks from Good News, MFSA, Reconciling Ministries, several bishops, restructuring, global nature of the church, and the running of General Conference. When the bishop spoke, he explained a few points that I never before understood. He explained the concept of the Global Book of Discipline. In this proposal, we would have one Book of Discipline in most of it, but some can be changed to fit the context of each Central Conference. For some time, I have feared this, because I worried that it would be too easy to argue what parts are contextual. The proposal, however, states that the only part that may be changed is Part V of the Discipline. This section deals with the Administration of the church. The earlier four sections include our Constitution, Doctrines and theology, and the Social Principles. At this announcement, I had a question (since I did not know this part of our polity). I asked him, "What happens if a Central Conference adopts something in Part V that is in conflict with something in Part I-IV?" He explained that at that point it would be referred to the Judicial Council who would rule whether or not the petition can be accepted. I suppose this is something I would have learned in UM Polity class next January?

After we were done hearing from speakers, I headed up to the plenary, and I discovered one of the main duties of a reserve delegate...one who runs errands! I was asked to head down the street to the supermarket to buy a wedding card and reeses cups for a member of our delegation. This delegate is getting married 6 days after she gets home from General Conference! In this case, I had no problem acting as errand runner! I was gone for perhaps half an hour, and I returned in plenty of time to hear the more controversial debate.

The main petition discussed this morning was regarding the restructuring of the UMC. The plan that was set forth is not any of the original petitions. It was intended to be a compromise and is simply referred to as Plan UMC or The Plan. Plan UMC was printed in yesterday's DCA (Daily Christian Advocate). It is important to note the background of this plan. Last week, in legislative committee, no plan for restructuring was passed to the full General Conference. On Monday, permission was given for a small group of people to work on a compromise of the plans and for it to be printed in the DCA. To read the full plan (all 70 some pages of it), go to planumc.org. Otherwise, google it to find a summary.

During the debate, we understandably had people on all sides. Those who were against the petition explained that it was not given with enough time to fully understand the petition, especially since the only way to get it in any language except English was in Google Translate. They also explained that it was developed behind closed doors by a few people,,, and this made them uncomfortable. GCORR and GCSRW, the general commissions that deal with issues of race and women, respectively, were unhappy with the plan because it combined the two. There was even a motion made to change that. Central Conference delegates also feared the lower numbers of representation, and they made a motion to change that. This motion was passed, and the numbers were increased to accomodate their motion. In the end, right before lunch, Plan UMC was approved as the plan for restructuring in our denomination. Boy am I glad I have not yet taken Polity! It passed by 59%, and one person rose after lunch to ask that it go before the Judicial Council to be sure that nothing in the Plan requires a constitutional amendment. If it does, it would actually require a 2/3 vote. Polity at work right in front of my eyes!

During lunch, I was informed that I would be able to sit for one of our delegates, in order to give me the opportunity to experience voting. It was particularly interesting because this afternoon, we were scheduled to discuss divestment from Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard, and Motorola because they supply Israel with items that Israel proceeds to use in a way that many disapprove of. So, excited, I went to sit behind the bar to vote for the very first time. In fact, my first vote was about whether or not we should send Plan UMC to the Judicial Council. After a few fairly routine votes, we moved to Israel and Palestine. First, we voted on a petition that revised the Book of Resolutions regarding the situation between the two countries. This did pass.

Second, we voted on the petition regarding divestment. The original petition called for divestment and named the companies. In committee, it was amended to remove that language, to call for peace in Israel and Palestine, and to call for additional standards for any company in which we invest. A minority report was proposed which presented the original language. In a case like this, we first vote on which petition from which we will work. By a large margin, the conference decided to spend time on the majority report without the language of divestment. The first motion, then, was to amend the petition to include language of divestment. It failed. The second motion added language condemning Israel for its actions with aettlements along the wall. It failed. In the end, the petition passed as amended by the committee. Some of the highlights of the debate included 1) a woman compared Israel to Nazi Germany, 2) a man explained that modern Israel and Judaism are not synonymous, 3) people testified to the pain they have seen that is inflicted by Israel, 4) people spoke of pleas by Palestinian Christians and some Jewish groups for divestment, 5) others highlighted Jewish groups against divestment, 6) some explained that the situation is far too complicated to assign total blame, 7) some explained that punishing Cat for how Israel uses its bulldozers to punishing a car dealer for a teen getting in a car, 8) one pointed out that it is a bad idea to mandate investments and not just let the General Board of Pensions and Health Benefits do their job, 9) yet another explained that this was hypocritical and young people leave the church because it is hypocritical, and many more pleas on both sides were given.

It is interesting to sit on the floor, because you can see things that are not visible from the stands. For instance, most people, from all countries, spend most of their time on their phones, texting, on twitter, or on facebook. The delegates tend to make comments back and forth between each other just as we do in the stands, and many are sarcastic. You are less likely to get called on if you sit in the back of the room. It is impossible to tell from where each person is speaking unless you happen to know where that microphone is. Finally, voting electronically is a bit anticlimactic after seeing the many issues people had on the first day. For the most part, we simply needed to push 1 for yes and 2 for no. There were times of confusion when it was not a yes/no question, though. A benefit to sitting on the floor is that my District Superintendent bought snacks for the entire table and shared them around. I love my DS!

At the end of the plenary, just at the beginning of the prayer that was to preceed the announcement of a recess and after the announcement that divestment had not passed, there was a loud protest. Probably at least a hundred people marched into the bar of the conference, down the center aisle, singing and chanting. For some time, I could not understand what they were saying. As they made all this noise, the bishop continued to pray, he just got louder. He included the protesters in his prayer, praying over them because there are people who are hurting. As he called the recess, I and most others, went ahead and left, since it was dinner time, so I do not know how the protest ended. At first I was confused. I was not positive what the protest was actually about. They were mostly wearing rainbow items, but the timing was immediately after divestment was voted down. I assumed that many of them could stand for both issues. In the end, we concluded that they were protesting in favor of homosexuality, since they were apparently yelling that movement's slogans. Many (from the very liberal to the conservative) were upset because they interrupted a prayer. Others pointed out later on the floor that this was a violation of the rules of the Annual Conference. The presiding bishop that evening ruled that the earlier bishop had already called the recess. Many chose to stand and join the protesters. Many others simply made no stand to support or reject. Tomorrow we will be discussing homosexuality for most of the day, and we can undoubtedly expect more protests and demonstrations as the delegates discuss, debate, and pray. Tomorrow will be a very emotional day for many.

This evening, the worship service was a memorial service for all the bishops who died in the last quadrennium. It was an absolutely beautiful service. During the sermon, the bishop preaching gave an illustration that I hope never to forget. She explained that death is like a ship going off into the horizon. As it goes out of sight, the observers say, "there it goes." At the same time there are others waatching from the other direction saying, "here it comes!" As they do in many services like this, each person who passed away was named. As they were named, people stood to honor them if this bishop touched their lives. Bishop Sheldon Deuker was named tonight, and ene though I never knew him, I stood. I stood because he came from Indiana, but more, I stood because he spent time at Grace. I stood knowing that there were people at my home church, Grace UMC, who would have stood for him and did not get a chance tonight. I chose to stand on behalf of my church, in his memory knowing he would have affected the identity of the church that shaped me. In a way, I guess he did touch my life.

God bless and good night.