General Conference – the day after

I personally know a delegate to General Conference. We are both in the same performing organization and gave a concert today. We talked for a bit before concert preparation got underway. She said the denomination was very close to splitting before the whole issue was thrown to the bishops who proposed a commission and a possible additional General Conference. She also said in most populations there are about 10-15% who take the firm progressive and conservative stances, leaving 70-80% as moderates. But at GC it seemed more like 35-55% were firm progressives and conservatives, leaving maybe 20% moderates.

Will Green spotted a whiteboard sign at the hotel where the bishops were staying, "Press 1 for Unity. Press 2 for Incompatible. Please vote now." I'm sure this refers to the voting devices used during plenary sessions. At first this seems cute. But the bishops are promoting unity by maintaining the "incompatibility" clause. Pressing either button gets us the same thing. Green wrote:

The UMC has created a situation that guarantees failure. They can promote their version of unity, which leaves many of us incompatible with Christian teaching. Or they can support the church’s current statements on sexuality, which means we are not united.

Someone had pointed out that during GC this has been an issue of "human sexuality" – there was a Human Sexuality Committee, there were items on the agenda about human sexuality. It seems a lot of people in power cannot yet bring themselves to say lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Most of the sexuality issues were really issues about LGBT people.

Green reports the Council of Bishops met after GC. One item on the agenda is the commission that is supposedly going to keep the denomination together and resolve this issue. So all the work to set up the commission, choose who will be on it, get the meetings organized and the work to begin – a very high priority – will happen … in November. The commission won't begin work until 2017. Ready for an extra GC in 2018 or 2019? Um...

Green summarized the situation:

If you think we are going to get the best of the system if we get the right people in the right seats and get them to vote the right way, then hope will die again and again and again. We have been doing that for 44 years and we have lost, lost, lost… Our power is not in the system.

Our power is the equivalent of civil disobedience. Defiantly come out! Defiantly ordain LGBT people! Defiantly officiate at same-sex weddings! Defiantly be in meaningful relationships with LGBT people and be in ministry with and for them!

Because of this new commission (which seems comatose on arrival) all LGBT issues were not voted on at GC. That includes all those petitions wanting to work out what to do with those who defy the Book of Discipline – and most of those were about punishing defiance.

Even so, the Reconciling Ministries Network has some good things to say about the commission and what is going on around it. First, Bishop Ough, now the leader of the Council of Bishops, confirmed that queer voices will be represented on the commission. Second, the full Council of Bishops (not just some of the American bishops) have promised to look for ways to avoid church trials.

The United Methodist news service has an article summarizing all that happened at GC. I saw an item I had missed during the week. This was a petition that requires all petitions get a vote in legislative committee and all petitions passed by committee must get a vote before the full plenary. It passed by 53%. This GC was 10 days. Considering how many petitions did not get a vote, perhaps the next GC needs to be a month long. I'm very aware how fortunate we are that many of those petitions were not acted on.

Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey wrote a post for the Reconciling Ministries Network blog. She said that GC wasn't after just oppressing LGBT people. There were several other areas of oppression at work, such as withdrawing from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. This GC was a strong push towards conservatism. Lightsey wrote:

The genuine clues to help us expose the deep bigotry held by far too many within our denomination come by watching the evidence of the mounting coalescing of persons who believe it’s time to end oppression. These persons understand that where you find homophobia, transphobia and institutional racism, you will also find strategies to deny reproductive rights, ecological justice, affordable healthcare a living wage, and much more.

We're in this together.