Full day again today. We were up early, started worship at 8 am…the sermon was awesome…and right on time. We had an ecumenical celebration this morning and in part to honor the vote we took to enter “full communion” with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). This means that we fully recognize one another’s theology, ordination, etc. We are not merging, we just say we really like each other.
The preacher was the president of their denomination, Mark something…I don’t remember his last name, but that first part sticks with me. Anyway, he brought a great message about rooted-ness and how memory is valuable for framing the future, while nostalgia is a misrepresentation of the past that stifles the future. Really fun and meaningful.
We then went back to our Methodist ways of hours of minutia. We adopted a new national vision statement: Making Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World. I think each of the 1 thousand delegates tried to amend it to their better liking, but alas all attempts failed and here it is.
We spent a lot of time trying to agree on a formula for how many bishops the shrinking United States needs while the growing African Countries are calling for more. Lots of hyperbole…some of it couched in some regional bitterness between the more conservative and vastly larger southern areas and the vast, but smaller and more liberal western areas. Distrust proved to be too slippery a slope for a decision so we referred it to a committee to study for 4 years…this was our action on the recommendation that came from the last study committee when we couldn’t decide four years ago…so, nothing.
All the homosexuality petitions are rumored to be heading to the floor of the conference tomorrow. We will see. My guess is that there will be a softening of the “incompatible with Christian teaching” language and probably a “we disagree on this issue” statement. But the issues of gay marriage and ordination will no doubt continue to be defeated. There seems to be a more conciliatory tone to this conference. This should not be mistaken for a wash of liberalism…but a genuine feel for getting along. If this proves true, I have several ideas about it, but that blog can wait until we see how things pan out.
The Judicial Council has not yet announced their ruling on the constitutionality of General Conference mandated recusals for them. That should come tomorrow.
The highlight today was the president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf came and spoke to the Conference. This was really a big deal. Security started taking over the building at noon. At 3:55 pm they locked down the entrances and exits to the building. She is a lifelong United Methodist, educated at a Methodist high school in Liberia (far west Africa) and has a masters from the JFK school at Harvard.
She gave a great talk over 45 minutes and had about 20 standing ovations. After she was done, she stood and shook all the Bishops hands…which took so long we thought maybe we should have done away with a couple when we had a chance. They unlocked the doors and turned us loose for dinner.
Since there was nothing pressing after dinner, besides 4 more hours of legislation ranging from…and I am not making this up…passing a petition that adds a comma to the Book of Discipline…to dropping another couple of million dollars over here for some critically important initiative in a developing country…a couple of us reserves managed to find our way to the ballpark to watch the Royals beat the Rangers 9-6. It was nice to be outside and unwind. Turns out, we ended up sitting next to some delegates from North Georgia. We got back to the hotel the same time as the delegates and we had an hour’s worth of discussion about coming legislation…that meeting ended at 12:15.
It was also good to get out tonight because there will not be any more time for breaks until this is over around midnight Friday. Discussions of money and sex are on their way to the plenary floor…
More tomorrow…
Hanson … it’s Bishop Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the ELCA. And I’m glad to see y’all have seen the light, even if it’s from a long way away.
~ matthew
Thanks for keeping us up to date.
I really just want to say hello to Matthew – especially since I only remember one Lutheran Matthew from seminary.
Hello, Cathy. Thanks for chiming in, and thanks for remembering.