Two Issues That May Be Bigger Than They Seem

There are two issues that may play out to be the two most politicized controversies of General Conference '08... Judicial Council Nominees and petitions surrounding the Worldwide Nature of the United Methodist Church.  So what's at issue?  

1) The first issue relates to Judicial Council decision #1032, you remember, 
the one that made it o.k. for a pastor in Virginia to not allow someone to join 
their church because of their sexual orientation and at the same time made 
it not o.k. for that pastor's district superintendent and board of ordained 
ministry to hold him accountable for the act...  Well, because of that decision, 
the nomination and election of Judicial Council members is going to be a 
bigger issue than ever.  This issue becomes compounded when you realize 
that there are two lay, three clergy, one lay alternate and 1 clergy 
alternate position now open.  That is more than enough to change the
make-up and potential rulings of the Judicial Council over the next four years.

Also, it appears that Good News and Confessing Movements (GN/CM) have already decided on a slate of candidates and are helping them to get out glossy mailings to all of the voting delegates to GC.  So who are these individuals and what is their track record in light of Decision #1032... They are: Mary Daffin (lay, SCJ), presently vice-president of JC, voted for #1032, and running for re-election;  Solomon Christian (lay, SEJ), presently 1st lay alternate of JC and was supported by GN/CM in 2004 as another lay candidate to consider;  Ron Enns (lay, SCJ), who according to Wikipedia is suing the General Board od Church and Society to force them to use much of their endowment monies only for temperance issues and is also known to be anti LGBT;   Keith Boyette (clergy, SEJ), presently secretary of JC, who also voted for 1032 and is now running for re-election;  Gloria Brooks (clergy, NCJ), presently an alternate on JC although has not been seated, and who was supported by GN/CW on their slate as a clergy candidate for JC in 2004; James Barblee (clegy, central conference) who is a delegate to GC and whose letter was mailed from Buffalo, NY; Raymond Mutombo (clergy, central conference) whose letter lists his return address in the Congo but was mailed from Quad Cities Illinois.

Besides the nominees themselves, there will be several petitions focusing on how Judicial Council members are nominated and how they are to be held accountable to the general church for their decisions. Please see the MFSA Plumbline on Judicial Council Elections for more insight: www.vunymfsa.org/JCelections.pdf (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open this page).

2) The second issue relates to "The Worldwide Nature of the United Methodist Church" and proposals for re-structuring the UMC to be more of a World-wide denomination and less US-centric. On the surface, that all sounds very good and fair to most of us. However, I would invite you to check out the website: www.umglobalstructure.org/ which gives you a copy of an alternative proposal and rationale known as the"Okayama-Robbins Proposal". It is my belief that the current proposals coming forward, from "The Global Nature of the Church Task Force", leave too many openings for long-range politicizing of our structure and a potential for inequitable balances of power. The Okayama-Robbins Proposal attempts to address that... so I offer it to you as another resource for getting informed and prepared for General Conference.

Of course, we will know full well where the big issues will lie, when we see which committees have been packed with the leadership of the Good News, Confessing Movement, and IRD leadership. That is how it seemed to play out in 2004.

Blessings and Peace to You!
Steve