The UM NeXus Blog

Attorney John Croft represented the South Central Jurisdiction College of Bishops. He is not affiliated with SMU.

By Cynthia B. Astle,
UM NeXus Editor
The South Central Jurisdiction has recessed for lunch after electing Earl Bledsoe, an African American district superintendent from the Texas Annual Conference, on the third ballot for bishop. Bledsoe’s election interrupted the floor fight on petitions regarding efforts to sever the ideological institute from the President George W. Bush presidential complex at Southern Methodist University.

The Rev. Morris Mathis, chair of the Petitions and Resolutions Committee, said the committee received three petitions regarding the Bush complex. One petition by Diane Smock of Greenville, SC, was referred by the 2008 General Conference. A second petition was submitted by four delegates from the Central Texas Annual Conference: Joan Gaspard, Jerry Longwell, Brenda Wilson Wier, and Rev. Jeannie Trevino-Teddlie, director of the Mexican-American Program at Perkins School of Theology at SMU.

Mathis said the petitions committee heard from Rev. David Severe, SCJ executive director and a member of the Mission Council; Rev. Tex Sample, representing the grass-roots educational campaign “What Would John Wesley Do” and two SMU representatives: Patti LaSalle, vice president of public affairs, and chancellor John Croft, who gave a legal opinion that the South Central Jurisdiction could be sued for breach of contract if it overturned the Mission Council’s decision.

Mathis presented a third petition, originally from the North Texas Conference, that had been radically amended during the committee meeting. The committee rejected both the Smock and Central Texas petitions and submitted the following:

“The South Central Jurisdictional Conference does not concur with Petition 80089 because the South Central Jurisdiction Mission Council was duly authorized to take final action on the matters contained therein during its regular meeting in 2007 and, therefore, acted properly and in good faith.

“The Petitions and Resolutions Committee believes it is essential that the President George W. Bush Institute function in a manner that maintains the integrity of Southern Methodist University and the South Central Jurisdictional Conference. To this end, the Petitions and Resolutions Committee moves the following:

“The South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church understands that the institute does not speak for the South Central Jurisdiction of the UMC or Southern Methodist University. The South Central Jurisdictional Conference is dedicated to academic freedom and instructs Southern Methodist University to report back to the 2012 South Central Jurisdictional Conference on the relationship with the Institute and its impact on Southern Methodist University nand the level of compliance of the Foundation and the Institute with the covenants of agreements protecting the integrity of Southern Methodist University. Furthermore, South Central Jurisdiction expects the institute to function in a manner that protects the integrity of both Southern Methodist University and the South Central Jurisdiction.”

When the petition came to the floor, Nathan Jeffries of the Missouri Annual Conference moved to substitute the wording of the Central Texas petition for the committee’s version. The Central Texas petition reads:

“We hereby petition the South Central Jurisdiction to prevent leasing, selling or otherwise participating in or supporting a George W. Bush policy institute on the property of Southern Methodist University.”

After Jeffries spoke in favor of his motion, Central Texas delegate Joan Gaspard asked to suspend the rules to allow local attorney John Bryant to address the conference with a legal opinion contrary to that of the SMU chancellor. Her motion failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote, so Ms. Gaspard then read Bryant’s opinion into the record. The attorney said that the threatened breach of contract was a null threat because SMU’s articles of incorporation specifically state that no land may be leased or sold without the jurisdiction’s permission. Thus legally, the Bush Foundation was prohibited from suing for breach of contract because the restriction on use exists in the articles of incorporation.
Ms. Gaspard further stated that Article 13 also requires that any institute on SMU land be for religious or educational purposes and be under the governance of the university. She then quoted from the cover letter signed by Bush Foundation chair Donald Evans and Marvin Bush in which the purpose of the institute was described as “to further the domestic and international goals of the George W. Bush Administration.” Ms. Gaspard said she wasn’t opposed to a presidential library and museum at SMU, only the policy institute.

As Ms. Gaspard finished speaking, presiding Bishop Ann B. Sherer announced that the “conversation” about the Bush Institute would be interrupted for results from the last ballot. After Bishop-elect Bledsoe and his wife Leslie Jean were introduced to the conference, Bishop Sherer ruled that the conference would recess for lunch until 2 PM, at which time the floor debate on the Bush Institute petitions would resume following the next episcopal ballot.

By the Rev. Rebekah Miles*

FORT WORTH, Texas (UMNS) — As we reach the end of the 2008 General Conference, some of us delegates are feeling a little like the 87-year-old John Wesley, who, as he neared death, wrote to a friend, “I am half blind and half lame; but by the help of God, I creep on still.”

General Conference delegates have done their very best while deliberating under the influence of too little sleep and too few breaks. And we, like Wesley, creep on still.

General Conference sessions are always tiring and long, but this year was the worst, according to many experienced delegates. The organizers of General Conference, in a praiseworthy effort to save money, cut two days from the General Conference calendar. And with the addition of some new events and speeches, we were left with even less time for legislative committee deliberations. And it showed.

Many legislative committees and subcommittees worked not only through their regularly scheduled times, but also through lunch and dinner breaks for three and four days running, through plenary sessions, and then even after late-night plenary sessions were over, as late as 1 a.m.

Just two days before the end of General Conference, one of our 13 legislative committees was still meeting. Many of the General Conference delegates estimate that they got about five hours of sleep – on a good night – while legislative committees were meeting.

You could see the effects. Delegates would forget in the middle of a sentence what they were trying to say, and they would cry over things they would normally shrug off. I’ve heard slurred speech and seen staggering gaits, with not a drop of alcohol in sight.

This is no big surprise.

A person who has lost a lot of sleep will experience the same impairments as someone who’s had a couple of margaritas. If you go 24 hours without sleep or go a week with only five hours of sleep a night, like many General Conference delegates, you are just as impaired as someone with a .10 percent blood alcohol level.

Sleep deprivation is linked to poor judgment, increased irritability and anxiety, and lowered productivity and social skills.
In one study, researchers found only one difference between those who went 24 hours without any sleep and those who went for a week with only five or so hours a night: Those with no sleep at all recognized that they were messed up!

For all of their sleep deprivation, most delegates have enough wisdom to know this is not the best way to get the church’s work done. We did our very best to get our work done in the shorter-than-ever time that was allotted – even when that meant little sleep and no breaks. Indeed, delegates may have been sleepy and foggy-headed, but like John Wesley, we “crept on still.”

United Methodists are known for being hard-workers. Wesley’s instructions to his preachers are still read during the clergy session at each annual conference: “Be diligent. Never be triflingly employed. Never trifle away time.”

But that was not all of Wesley’s advice about the use of time. He once wrote that we should not “begin or continue in any business which necessarily deprives us of proper seasons for food and sleep, in such a proportion as our nature requires.”
The 2008 General Conference did just that in a more extreme way than previous General Conferences.

This is not a good state in which to deliberate. We would have suffered no less impairment had the marshals and pages been passing out shots of vodka at the convention center entrances!

That’s not at all what abstemious United Methodists are recommending. We don’t want vodka! We don’t want margaritas! We don’t even want long nights of sleep and lengthy breaks! (OK, maybe we do want a good, long night’s sleep.)
Mainly, we just want enough time to finish our task.

To the new General Conference Commission, we say: Give us the time we need to do our work.

*Miles is a clergy delegate from the Arkansas Conference and an associate professor of ethics at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. This commentary was provided by the United Methodist Reporter.

Here’s a section of the Good News perspective on General Conference:

Being a global church in word and deed

Much has been said recently about United Methodism being a global
church. We are that, and our lives are enriched by this reality. But
it is time we consider how truly to be a global church, in both word
and in deed.

This is to say, simply, that there are immediate concerns–serious
justice issues–that we United Methodists must deal with concerning
our Central/Regional Conference delegates between now and Tampa in
2012.

For starters:

* The French-speaking African delegates never received the Advanced
DCA in their language until they arrived in Fort Worth. Those of us
who received it two months earlier felt overwhelmed by it.

* Some delegates report they had to change the language they were
listening to because of poor translation.

* There have been inferences to African delegates by Americans about
who foots the bill.

* We have seen and heard much about the pain many have experienced by
actions of General Conference on controversial issues, but seem
oblivious to the deep pain and distress felt by many of our Central
Conference brothers and sisters.

* There have been intimidating notes and pictures left on the desks
of African delegates by General Conference delegates or from
spectators off the floor.

* By GC 2012 in Tampa, Central Conference delegates should be
guaranteed access to a cell phone and lap top computer. Money saved
by doing the ADCA digitally could provide funding to purchase laptops
for those yet without them.

This list could no doubt be expanded. But if we are to be truly a
global church, let’s determine we will be such in both word and deed.
It’s just a matter of plain fairness.

It occurred to me, in that time between sleep and wakefulness, that when we have talked about homosexuality, we’ve all been looking at our own realities and not acknowledging the realities of others.

I’m speaking particularly of those delegates who come from the Annual Conferences on the continent of Africa. They have a reality in which they have to preach the Gospel that is totally alien to those of us in the United States. They have to compete against native cultures and religions, in which what we’d call promiscuous sexual behavior (both same sex and opposite sex) is considered to be normative. The proof of that is that almost 90% of the cases of HIV/AIDS in the world, have occurred on the African continent.

To proclaim Christ’s Gospel of wholeness, United Methodists in Africa literally have to say, to the people in their communities, that same-sex practice, in addition to men having sexual relationships with their wives, is contrary to what God calls them to do and be. This is their reality.

Fortunately, this problem is not as real in the United States. Increased social acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships has led to less promiscuous sexual behavior among homosexuals. The gay and lesbian communities in the United States has grown to the point where they advocate for gay marriage, and for people living the same kind of monogamous sexual behavior that the church proclaims for those who are ‘straight.’

We now have the phenomenon where the majority of United Methodists in the African continent desperately and responsibly need to proclaim against same-sex sexual practices. In the United States, the majority of United Methodists understand that we need to affirm the development of monogamous and committed sexual partnerships.

The problem is that each group seems to think that their particular reality is or should be the reality for everyone else.

If ever there was a time when and a place where we need to allow our Church Social Principles to be regionally amended, this is that time and place. United Methodists in the United States need to be free to proclaim that those who are gay and lesbian are called, like all other Christians, to be in monogamous, committed relationships, regardless of what secular law calls it. United Methodists in Africa need to be free to proclaim that all people are called to be in committed, non-promiscuous, non-same-gender sexual relationships for the sake of a life of wholeness in Christ.

Is this really so hard for us to affirm?

– Tom Griffith

In a polity change that got buried in a long petition report that came from the Local Church legislative committee, calendar item 298, on the final consent calendar,
the General Conference will vote to make a change in local church Staff-Parish Relations Committee membership. It is expected to pass without resistance.

In the past, there was no limit on the number of terms a professing (lay) member could serve on the Staff-Parish Relations Committee of a charge. In the new legislation, a member can serve a maximum of two (2), three-year terms on that committee.

In many local churches and charges, the same members have served on the Staff-Parish Relations Committee for many years. This new legislation, which takes effect on January 1, 2009, will make major changes in the practices of local churches.

Tom Griffith

West Ohio Conference won the covered bishop’s basketball for “Nothing But Nets’ with a bid of $80,000. The winning bid will be matched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to William Gates, Jr., Bill Gates’ father and foundation president who spoke to General Conference.

Altogether, the General Conference raised more than $420,000, meaning that United Methodists will save 42,000 children’s lives through the distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito bed nets in malaria-prone areas of the world.
– Cynthia Astle

By Cynthia B. Astle

A stark and somber witness May 1 by LGBT people and their supporters, including delegates and bishops, called The United Methodist Church’s retention of exclusionary policies “wrong and a sin.”

By the end of the day, dialogues around organizing the dignified demonstration evolved into a commitment to continue “holy conversations” on sensitive issues over the next four years.

Some 500 people peacefully walked – not “stormed,” as claimed by John Lomperis of UM Action in an initial post he subsequently updated — onto the floor of General Conference during a recess as a result of negotiations between leaders of Common Witness and the Council of Bishops. Common Witness was the name given to coordinated efforts on behalf of LGBT people by Affirmation, Reconciling Ministries Network and Methodist Federation for Social Action, with consultation from Soulforce.

Dressed in black, the witnesses expressed their grief at the actions taken the day before by General Conference, which upheld the right of a pastor to refuse membership to LGBT people and that the UMC holds homosexual practice “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

“We have heard Jesus said, ‘follow me,’ but our United Methodist Church refuses to accept what God has already done,” said a spokeswoman. “The unchurched notice that LGBTQ people are being sacrificed on the altar of so-called unity. The young notice … the world notices … God notices.

“We claim from our baptismal liturgy the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil in whatever form it presents itself, even in our church. We declare that the United Methodist church’s anti-gay policies are wrong and sinful.”

While many delegates sat stony-faced, others stood in solidarity with those who joined the witness. Among the standing delegates were a lone woman delegate with the Nigeria Central Conference and two delegates from the Phillipines Central Conference. The witnesses draped black cloth over the altar in the center of the auditorium, then invited others to place more black cloths on the altar as symbols of the church’s brokenness. Photos

Among those who came forward was retired Bishop Melvin Talbert. Referring to the creation of the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction in 1939, Bishop Talbert said, “That action was a sin against God. In the name of Jesus Christ, we have taken an action that is wrong. Those in the Central Jurisdiction remained in the church and worked out our relationship. But we leave out these LGBTQ brothers and sisters.

“General Conference, General Conference, this is wrong. I invite you to reconsider your action.”

Although live audio and video streaming had been requested, misunderstanding and accidents resulted in the live Internet feed not being completed, explained the Rev. Gail Murphy-Geiss, chair of the Commission on the General Conference.

“After meeting and discussing most of the night, we had about 90 minutes to get out memos,” Murphy-Geiss said at a late-afternoon press conference. “It was a tense, difficult, anxiety-filled time. We ordered the mikes to be live and the cameras to be live, but we just forgot to turn on the Internet feed. I had a call from my husband telling me the Internet feed was dropped. It was totally accidental.”

Instead, the events were videotaped and audiotaped. In response to a question from UM NeXus, Murphy-Geiss said leaders would see about editing together an introductory statement from the Council of Bishops, which was given during the plenary session before the witness, with the videotape of the demonstration, so that the entire event will be available for viewing online.

During the press conference, a panel stressed that as a result of the negotiations that created the atmosphere for the witness, the Council of Bishops have agreed to continue “holy conversations” with leaders across the church around “sensitive issues,” said Bishop Gregory V. Palmer (Iowa Area), president of the Council of Bishops.

Press conference audio

Press conference photos

“We have agreed to love, serve and lead all United Methodists, to preach the gospel and to live out the ‘three simple rules’,” Bishop Palmer said. “We’re inviting the whole church to be in conversations.” [The “three simple rules” refer to John Wesley’s instructions for Methodists to “Do No Harm. Do Good. Stay in Love with God.”]

Also speaking during the press conference, the Rev. Troy Plummer, executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, noted wryly that “today is better than yesterday.

“We were in shock,” Plummer said. “We were hurting at the harsh actions taken by General Conference on membership. We thought we’d have to have civil disobedience in order to be heard. Instead, the trust we’d built through our conversations with the Council of Bishops before and during General Conference saved us. We were able to tell the Good Friday story, to tell of the church’s brokenness.”

Plummer said the actions taken April 30 were so shocking because Common Witness observers had heard so many “holy conversations” around petitions relating to LGBT issues during legislative committee meetings.

Bishop Scott Jones (Kansas Area) said he joined the conversations May 1 in response to a plea for volunteers from the Council of Bishops from Bishop Sally Dyck, one of the negotiators. He emphasized that “holy conversations” are difficult to sustain amid the legislative context of General Conference.

“Holy conferencing requires time, small groups and building trust,” he said. “How do you do that with 1,000 people in only 10 days? You’d need a month-long General Conference.”

Bishop Dyck (Minnesota Area) said the conversations between bishops and LGBT leaders on the last day of General Conference probably will focus on next steps in continuing the dialogues.

“We have no idea where this will go,” she said. “We’re building this bridge as we’re walking on it.”

By Tom Griffith, UM NeXus Correspondent

I’m not usually a person who joins a protest march. After a few attempts at doing that in the Viet Nam era, while in seminary, I joined a lot of protest marches. I stopped participating in them when I realized they were little more than what I called “intellectual masturbation”: they seemed to make the participants feel better, for a
little while, at least; but it had little hope of being productive or reproductive!

I recall being in one protest march in the 36 years since I left seminary, and that was mostly to be supportive of a member of my church in a cause with which I happened to agree. Otherwise I’ve stayed out of those marches.

Today, though, I joined the “witness” on the floor of the General Conference, in protest of that body refusing to change the anti-gay rules in our Book of Discipline. In previous General Conferences, I stood silently when the protest marches took place. I agree with their sentiment, but I didn’t feel like being part of the disruption of the General Conference meeting.

What caused that change of heart? Simple: one of the delegates from an Annual Conference in Africa referred to people who are homosexual, as a bloc, as “the spawn of the devil.” That was over the top! Many of my friends are homosexual, or have children who are homosexual and who feel abandoned by the church. Some who are homosexual have been members of churches that I have served.They have served Christ and the churches of which they were a part, faithfully and well. To call these faithful Christians “spawn of the Devil” is not only contrary to my experience, but an insult to people whose faith I would never, ever, question.

I joined the “witness” as we marched into the floor of the General Conference in a pre-planned and sanctioned protest march today. I found myself getting teary as I watched those whom I know to be faithful Christians who happen to be gay or lesbian, weeping at the hurt the church once again has heaped upon their head. I was teary as I saw how many people in the floor of the General Conference stood in solidarity with us. I was teary as I saw more people in the gallery standing than there were members of the General Conference present. I was thrilled to see more Bishops standing with us than have stood before.

It seems to me that there is a small majority in the church who are using the subject of homosexuality, not because they believe that it is wrong, or those who are homosexual might be the “spawn of Satan,” but because they are trying to defend what they think is the “authority of the Scriptures.” As if the Scriptures, if they truly are of God, needs to be defended!

The sad truth is that those who say they “believe in The Bible,” in fact, do. They believe in The Bible! They don’t believe in the lives of faithful people, who told their stories of how God intervened in their lives and gave them a sense of wholeness and hope, and had their stories preserved in the pages of the Bible. They believe that if any
one part of the Bible might be found to be wrong, *any* part of it could be wrong, and then they would have nothing left to believe in. Perhaps of all people, they are the most to be pitied.

But I can no longer remain silent. I resent it when they seek to impose their fears on the rest of us, and in the process, end up hurting and excluding faithful Christians from full participation in The United Methodist Church.

By: Gregory S. Neal, Correspondent, United Methodist Nexus

For several days we have enjoyed glorious services of praise and worship, prayerful unity at the table of the Lord, and uplifting sermons which have called us to ministry and mission in a broken and hurting world. The theme of this General Conference has been “A Future with Hope,” and we have all been encouraged to hear our Episcopal leadership call us to living this hope with a focused emphasis on Wesley’s three rules: “Doing no harm, doing good, and loving God.” During the weeks and months prior to the General Conference we have all been encouraged to approach one another with the grace of God and enter into a period of what has been deemed “Holy Conferencing.” The call has been real, the message gracious, and the vision clear. Sadly, the Spirit of Holy Conferencing – if not the Holy Spirit of God – left the General Conference on Wednesday afternoon when the word “devil” was used of our Homosexual sisters and brothers.

What we appear to have stumbled into is the painful morass of Un-Holy Conferencing. Harm is being done, no good is coming of it, and the grace of God is not being shared … neither with each other nor with those who have not heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I shall go to my hotel room tonight and spend some time in anguished prayer and fretful sleep as I watch my friends, on all sides, gnashing their teeth at each other and sniffing back tears of pain and hurt. My prayers will most especially be for the delegate who applied the label of “devil” to some of his brothers and sisters in Christ, for those whom he so-labeled, for myself, and for this General Conference of the United Methodist Church. May the Holy Spirit descend upon this gathering and may the spirit of Holy Conferencing take hold upon us with true hope and the calling to do no harm, do good, and staying in love with God.