Legislation…
“The World Conference is the highest legislative body in the church and should be organized with primary reference to its legislative functions,”(Bylaws Art IV Sec. 2), thus it is probably understandable that at World Conference we deal with legislation. This year not counting items related to the organization of the conference, sustain of leadership, election of people to various boards, sustain of calls of ordination and or calls to various leadership councils and quorums, budget projections, canonizing words of council… we had 28 items that had been submitted to vote upon.
At times, I think we moved a bit to quickly, such as the times an item is brought forward, the mover spoke and the first person in the queue was to amend or refer, we discuss the amendment and someone would call for the previous question on all matters, and we agreed to it, and thus never discussed the main motion but voted upon it. Sadly this conference was not an exception to that process and it took place at times.
Other times we did spend time discussing… and sadly I often saw people who were set in their view, not listening but rather watching videos, playing games, reading a book, as we dealt with important matters. I heard people go, “come on we’ve heard this”, even when we hadn’t really, at least not as a body. Rather than listening to our diversity, respecting the worth of all… Then of course those who choose to leave early, or only attend some sessions (I’n not talking about those who fell ill, had emmergencies…), I must admit this frustrated me at times. At times we also struggled with translation issues, be it with the speed of the people talking, speaker and translator talking over one another, the translator translating to the wrong language…. At times we struggled with people not speaking loudly, or clearly… Yet as a whole there seemed to be an environment of compassion, of listening with respect, of disagreeing, but still being together, caring and able to move together as a people.
When it came to the legislation, we did not deal with 28 items as a body, we dealt with just 7, for the First Presidency ruled that 17 items would not come before the conference, and then ruled 4 items as “no longer necessary or in order” as the were resolutions to refer some, most of those 17 resolutions that they had just ruled would not come before the body.
These 21 resolutions were related primarily to the issues of sexual orientation. They were presented by a total of 14 mission centers, representing parts of, or the entirety of 10 nations, and (if I did my math right using the 2009 data) 38,310 members of the church. Though I am sure a lot fewer members participated in the various conferences that lead to the items being sent to the World Conference for consideration.
One item related to Homosexuality was left on the agenda, one requesting the First Presidency provide the Church an annual update on the progress and results of their consultations on Human Sexuality. We passed this item after striking the phrase referring to the church’s website.
In 1982 Community of Christ’s World Conference passed WCR (World Conference Resolution) 1178 “Nuclear Arms Reduction” which called for the church at all levels to contact appropriate government officials regarding the need to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear armaments, encourage a day each month to “fast and pray for peace and disarmament” urged the conversion of resources of war to productive forms of human development, and work with others organizations that “are constructively promoting a reduction of instruments of mass destruction.” This year we were provided with the opportunity of another related piece of legislation “Abolition of Nuclear Weapons” after a “friendly amendment” to alter the wording of the first resolve from saying “that the production, deployment, use, or threatened use of nuclear weapons are crimes against humanity” to “an unacceptable threat to all of humanity and creation itself” we adjourned for the day and then brought it back up in the morning. After some discussion, a person moved to refer it to the Peace and Justice team, to reflect on the resolution and bring back a resolution to the next world conference. Sadly the referral carried… I had hopes we would pass it rather than wait another three years to act on this issue again. As for the amendment, I was fine with the word crimes, but I understood how that could be problematic to some. I personally like the amendment a bit more however, not because of that change, but because of the inclusion of creation. If it had been changed to “crimes against humanity and creation itself” I would have been fine as well. I think having both humanity and creation, better reflects our core values, and the reality the treat nuclear weapons carry. For amongst our enduring principles is not just “worth all persons” but also “Sacredness of Creation”.
We also dealt with and passed legislation regarding Human Trafficking. Calling the members of the church to learn about resources and engage in the efforts to end human trafficking, assist victims of it…. After much discussion we passed it with an amendment that the Human Rights team work with the Presiding Bishopric to determine the way in which the church will financially support efforts against human trafficking
Item G-15, “World Trade Day” was referred to the Peace and Justice Team to act or not act as they see fit. This item, I was in part hoping to be defeated. For while the idea of having a day set aside to try and encourage sharing amongst people around the world to spread peace and hope, foster relations between all people, sounds nice the baggage within this resolution, of focusing on one single horrific event, and one single inspirational young boy, isn’t right. We are a global family, yes 11 September 2001 was a horrific day, bust so are so many other days where people are killed in acts of terrorism, acts of genocide, of war, and of other horrific actions and inactions of various groups within humanity. If we are going to set aside a day, it should be a day remembering all the tragedy of the past and present and with an aim to the end of such horror in the future. It should be on a day that is not linked / chosen do to a particular event, in a particular place. Hmm, perhaps we should make every day the day, perhaps we should live out Christ’s peace every day, we should take time out every day to pray for peace… to take the Daily Prayer for Peace, and use it to energize ourselves each day into embracing our call to go and be a people of healing and reconciliation… To go and build the peaceable community, to be Community of Christ…
We passed item G-17 “Abundance” I’m still not sure what the originators of the resolution intended, I just know in my reading of it it seems to embrace some not great ideas… but that could be my reading of the words which I believe are a translation, and thus hiding the true desire of what was intended. We spent little time on it, we didn’t really talk about it, just on an amendment that was made regarding it…. Well my thoughts are mixed in what I think might be the intent, the desire, I hope the intent is not what I think of when I read it. I hope those tasked to deal with it, will have some better idea of its intent, and also how to follow it without promoting bad theology, principles, actions or things contrary to our enduring principles. Which in my reading I fear could be a result intended or not of the resolution.
The Item on Structural Support for a Mission of Holistic Ministry was referred to the Presiding Bishopric for consideration and action as appropriate in consultation to appropriate jurisdictional leaders. I think this was the appropriate action to make, as the legislative item, did in part express a sense of uncertainty. I think some of the concerns addressed needed to be brought to the attention, but the path to engage those concerns and dreams is different… In many ways I think the concerns could be addressed by better communication within the church…
We also dealt with the by-laws of the church. While this item was labeled G-28, I feel it should have been placed as an Organizational and Administrative item instead of an other, for it was amending the bylaws, which itself was an A item when we passed them a few years back…. A friend of mine wanted to change the length of notice given for the special field, national, and cultural conferences. He said his wife would kill him if he did…So was trying to get others to do it. I probably would have, but was glad he did it himself. I was also glad to hear the words of one of my other friends from the Pacific North West stand in support of it. We approved the change and now 12 weeks advance notice must be given rather than the 4 originally proposed. I wish that the World Church leadership would seek to attack the US via mission fields rather than as a nation, as I fear we will never reach consensus as a nation, as fields we might be able to… As cultural areas perhaps even more so.
I also wonder about the few congregations that are in Mexico or Canada that are in mission centers that are mainly made up of US congregations. will they be Considered part of the US, or part of their country when it comes to policies that are developed as a result of these conferences, and if they are considered part of their country, and the policies are different there than where the majority of their mission center is, how will the Mission Centers deal with two sets of policies, one on one side of a political line and one for those on the other side, with all of them part of the same church jurisdiction… Then what about nations that are a single mission center, and might not be in the same place with the rest of the field they belong to in issues that need to be addressed by these conferences, now having two different conferences for the same group of people (not sure there will be such a case but there could be, for example Kenya, or Australia are both mission centers of an entire nation).
One thing to note as well.. When we passed the resolution for the dates of the next World Conference we rescinded WCR 1263. The stated reason for this was that it was difficult to propose dates on or near the church’s organizational anniversary (which 1263 encourages) and also does not fall on Easter. However 1263 was not primarily about the date of when conference should be, as it’s title “The Focus of World Conference” indicates. It encourages the dates to be proposed to be on or near April 6th, to keep a conference length of 8 days, and encourages “broadening the focus of such conferences beyond legislative endeavors to include such things as educational and training components for leadership and spiritual development for all ages.” No mention was made of this part of it… not sure how much we have followed this encouragement, though we have started to embrace more spiritual formation and discernment practices as part of our experience. Granted the removal doesn’t prohibit these things, but it does remove the World Conference’s encouragement that we do these things….
Well that’s all for now
Let’s go share the Peace,
— Lyle II