It’s a Mad Mission… Sign Me Up

I’m not going to write about homosexuality today, at least not directly. You can read about that many other places. That is what we did today though. Basically the whole day. I missed most of the discussion actually. I left the session at about 10 AM because I wasn’t feeling well and I napped until 1:00 pm. I worked on a paper from then until about 5:00 pm, ate dinner and came back for the evening session. I made the mistake of opening the GC live feed for ten minutes at a time several times and thus was not nearly as productive as I could have been.

I guess my first question on the day is, “am I a coward?” I basically excused myself from all of the discussion today on homosexuality: the social principles, church membership, ordination, the whole bit. Granted, it was to get healthy and do homework. I can’t say I was looking forward to it though. I’m not sure what I think about homosexuality, even still. I absolutely hate having to engage in discussion about it. There is so much passion behind it and understandably so. And I can empathize with them. When I saw people weeping tonight after the vote, I also wept. But I didn’t engage and I don’t engage in what is for some an issue of justice. Being elected chair was great for that part of me because I could make it my job to make sure that everyone gets to be heard (a very necessary thing on the Kansas East delegation) and not have to engage the part of myself that is struggling.

Following the adopting vote for what is a less progressive paragraph 161G, many advocates for a church inclusive of homosexuals around the arena stood and began to sing “Jesus Loves Me”. This started quiet, but grew louder, although it was much louder following another vote after the dinner break. This continued until the dinner break while our intrepid Secretary of the General Conference read aloud a lengthy and technical Judicial Council decision relating to several petitions on mandatory recusal in cases of a conflict of interest. This went on for what must have been nearly 10 minutes. The contrast is what got to me and still gets to me. A steady voice reading the monotonous, legal business of the church over (or under) the voices of a hundred profoundly wounded souls. I don’t know a better way, but there sure aren’t many worse ways.

The way in which we addressed requests from several African Conferences for more bishops and from most of Africa for more support for theological education was another bit of “business as usual” which disgusted me. Remarkably with all the growth in Africa, there still isn’t a way to assess the need for episcopal leadership. Several areas requested more bishops to lead their rapidly growing churches and we turned them down for four years of study and perhaps eight years until implementation. Now, there were good reasons why we didn’t grant every request. Resources are limited and we should be sure that we put are money where it is most needed. That sure is easy to say though when you are American the ones with the money. We did not agonize over those decisions nearly enough. Theological education in Africa is also a tremendous need which we haven’t addressed adequately. One of the African delegates (forgive me for forgetting his conference/country) talked about how 500 people apply for spaces in a theology program and they can only accept 10 of them. We did barely pass $2 million dollar off-budget for theological education in Africa, but who knows what will happen when the General Council on Finance and Administration gets done with it. We also refused to pass a $300,000 study to aid ministry with Pacific Islanders in the United States and in an (increasingly common, praise God) act of leadership, the General Secretaries of our agencies agreed to see that the work gets done within the current budget.

This isn’t how you run a mission movement. I’m with Kacey Andrews, another young delegate from Missouri who came to the mic and spoke with sadness about the time it would take to get new bishops where they are needed in Africa. We have got to find a way to get things done more quickly. We are paralyzed with bureaucracy and in all reality by distrust.

-Luke