A Beautiful, Heady,
Exasperating Mix
A Report from General Synod 24
Acts 15 (selections) September 7, 2003
From the earliest days as this reading from Acts demonstrates, leaders of the church have “met together to consider” important matters, to engage in “much debate,” to listen to speeches and sermons, and when all is said and done, to make decisions and render judgements. A 21st century example of such debate and deliberation was all over the front pages of our newspapers this summer, as the Episcopalians voted in Minneapolis to ordain an openly gay man as a bishop.
While no similar national coverage occurred, there was another meeting in the same convention hall two weeks before the Episcopalians hit town: the 24th General Synod of the United Church of Christ. Since I was there as your representative, and will this week submit expenses of $205.34 for you to pay, I feel that I owe you a report. (By the way, chalk up the receipt from Manny’s Steak House to naivete. Little did a friend or I know that only Fortune 500 expense accounts were in order, but neither did we buy the $2500 bottle of wine. To economize, I slept late the next morning, and skipped breakfast. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.)
There is no better way to describe the United Church of Christ or the 24th General Synod than to use the phrase Oliver Powell coined twenty years ago: “a beautiful, heady, exasperating mix.” Let’s start with the mix. Although this was my first General Synod, I knew in advance that the UCC is quite diverse, but truly I had no idea until I saw the mix all stirred into one vast convention center. There were 1000 delegates, 150 members of the national staff, and over the course of the week more than 2000 visitors. The national church is now divided into four main divisions: general administration, local ministries, world ministries, and social witness. Every one of those divisions has several branches. And then there are countless additional interest groups ranging from: the evangelical “Biblical Witness Fellowship,” to Pacific Islanders, to seminary officials, Pension Board representatives, and the United Farm Workers, who this summer celebrated that thirty years ago, a plane load of delegates from Synod #9 flew to the Coachella Valley to support their union organizing efforts. Twenty teenagers from our Central Atlantic Conference made the trip. African-Americans were represented in large numbers. I met several Micronesians from the islands served by the mission school where Ellen and I taught in our first jobs. This is only the beginning of the mix! There was astounding diversity. Beautiful diversity.
I also knew in advance that this meeting would exasperate me. I was not disappointed. The council in Jerusalem had only one issue on its agenda: whether Gentiles were going to be required to fulfill Jewish law. Acts makes it sound like they knocked that issue off in an afternoon and retired to pleasant outdoor cafes for a beer before dinner. We were in Minneapolis six days: meetings started at 7:00 in the morning, often lasted until 10:00pm, and if that weren’t enough, there was a big room down the hall where you were invited to stop in to give blood. Delegates to our meeting did not consider either Jewish law or whether to elect gay bishops. But we did have 60 some resolutions before us, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, every one of which was vetted first in committee rooms with equally uncomfortable chairs, and then debated in plenary.
Having been to my share of Conference meetings where many of these resolutions originate, I was not unfamiliar with the process, but I had never heard it named before. Credit William Sloane Coffin: we were engaged in “resolutionary Christianity.” By far the biggest chunk of time at Synod 24 was spent on resolutions. I recall only one close vote, whether to amend the word “reparation” with the word “reconciliation,” but beyond that only one other issue was hotly contested, and that was whether to hold these meetings every four years instead of every two to save money. More on that in a minute. Virtually every other vote was a foregone conclusion. The UCC is generally a liberal body, and the Synod is overwhelmingly so. Everybody knew what would pass -- what would fail.
Resolutionary Christianity exasperates me in several ways: the parliamentary wrangling drives me strange; the wide array of interest groups means that no current social issue goes unaddressed; and finally with a few significant exceptions, I don’t think anybody pays any attention to these actions, even though they are most often addressed to government and society at large.
I could go on... But to take a stab at being fair, some of the church’s resolutions through the years have made a difference. Earlier in the summer, one of the lawyers who argued successfully before the Supreme Court about laws affecting the gay community, told me that nearly a quarter of his brief was based on what churches like the UCC had said about the issue. Resolutions had been used to demonstrate that the attitudes of society have changed. So I need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. But that said, 60 issues?! And then a pint of blood? I believe the church has a limited amount of moral and social capital and when we spread it so thinly, our impact on wider society is diminished. Resolutionary Christianity is broken, but nobody seems to have the stomach to take on the many constituents who promote it.
There was a moment when it seemed as if the issue of resolutions would be debated, and that was in relation to holding General Synod less frequently. A study committee identified the problem, but then didn’t pursue it. They also attempted to raise the matter of finances, not only as related to General Synod, but also with respect to the serious deficits which our denomination has been running for several years now. Less frequent Synods would save approximately $800,000 a year, not counting certain meals at fancy steak houses. But with the beautiful, heady, exasperating experience of a General Synod very much in our consciousness, delegates were overwhelmingly reluctant to reduce the frequency of these meetings. While I heartily concur with that opinion after my first experience, (Synod meetings are vital), I was discouraged that we never debated the two issues which brought the matter to the floor: resolutions and budget.
In a committee meeting comprising 40 of the 1000 delegates, we learned that the national church faces a 40 million dollar budget deficit over the next five years. Much of that deficit however, will remain hidden because it will be covered by drawing down the denomination’s endowments. While substantial, those endowments have already been significantly eroded in recent years, and the trend continues. To balance the budget will require a 20% cut, which in turn would mean reducing the national staff from 200 to 160.
At one time the United Church of Christ had 40 people writing church school curriculum in its Division of Christian Education. That whole division now, with many more responsibilities has only 6 members. Fat was trimmed from our national budget decades ago. Little muscle remains and we are cutting into bone marrow. I was astounded that these critical matters were not faced: none of these figures were presented in plenary, and time ran out for debate as I stood in line to make the little speech you’ve just heard.
You will hear more from me about Brookside’s contribution to the United Church of Christ. In comparison to many churches we are quite generous. But the proportion of our wider ministries budget given to the UCC has not kept pace with the increases in that budget. While our giving to wider ministries in general has increased by 80% in the last ten years, we have only increased our support of the UCC by 15% in that same period. We need to talk about that.
With that statement, you now think that I have lost my senses. I’ve stood up here talking about exasperation for 10 minutes, and now I’ve said we should send these folks more money! But wait, I’ve only hinted at what was beautiful and heady. The UCC is worth supporting, and here’s why.
I’ve been telling you the truth: for me there were hours of tedium at General Synod 24. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I gathered resources in the exhibition center, went to the book store, and ate my share of the 1 million cookies the members of the Minnesota Conference allegedly baked for the meeting. But the truth is also that I have never been so bored and so elated in such close proximity. Hours of tedium were repeatedly broken by moments of transcendence, and I would gladly be confined to a chair in a hall with no windows from morning till night to experience those beautiful moments again.
Minneapolis in July is a grand place. Being partly Swedish and fully midwestern, I felt right at home. On top of that there was reunion. I hadn’t anticipated how wonderful it would be to see so many old friends and acquaintances. Classmates from seminary; a young man from a long-ago confirmation class who has now been ordained and is going to Michigan to start a new church; a friend of a mutual friend who died in Japan two years ago, we had a few minutes to grieve together; another friend who worked with me on vacation Bible school and youth groups in my first church. Among others I encouraged her to go to seminary. A good church is now lovingly served by her ministry. I crossed paths briefly with Lois Sundeen, former Conference staff member in NJ, who took a chance on me when I was unemployed. I bought our former seminary intern, Eric Elnes, a beer the night after he risked leading an innovative worship service modeled on what he has created in Scottsdale Arizona. A few critics and nay-sayers shot him down, but I believe Eric is on to something vital. In Eric’s service, a woman in a wheel-chair whirled with joy on her face as part of a dance team. She wasn’t cured. She didn’t get up and walk. But you could tell she was healed.
I also met lots of people. Kelly, a barrel chested, bearded, former Southern Baptist preacher from Tennessee, run out of that denomination, but as grateful a member of the UCC as you’ll ever meet. A lovely, grandmotherly lady at the Parents of Lesbians and Gays booth, part of the group for 25 years, was as helpful as could be, a loving mother, a pioneer and inspiration. Young graduates from Pacific School of Religion, my seminary, were articulate one day at lunch, clearly a talented and committed group. I had hope for the future with these young leaders coming along. We need to do more to encourage our young people to consider ordained ministry as a calling and career.
I also met some people I don’t often cross paths with at Kings. Pat Conroy works for Social Justice Ministries in Washington. She is about 6'2", has a deep bass voice, was elegantly dressed, and once I got beyond the recognition that Pat is a transgender person, I listened to an articulate, highly informed analysis of national health care policy and pending legislation.
For those of you who read the DaVinci Code this summer, and are seething about the church’s suppression of the feminine, you’ll be gratified perhaps to hear, that the ablest leader of the plenary sessions was a woman seminary professor from Minneapolis who, with others started a church which embraces people of all sexual identities. I say Professor Christine Smith for the next president of the UCC! Furthermore, a majority of preachers at Synod were women, and they were outstanding. Yvette Flunder, an African-American woman, descendent of a long line of Pentecostal pastors, and a lesbian, brought one of the choirs from the UCC church she founded in San Francisco. (Black, woman, and lesbian, don’t add up to a career in ministry in the Pentecostal church.) They sang beautifully. Given Yvette’s Pentecostal leanings, they sang energetically. Given the kind of church they are part of, this was a transgender choir. Again, it took me several beats to comprehend what I was seeing and hearing, but then I thought, this couldn’t happen in any other denomination. The congregation embraced them. The joy on the choir’s faces was radiant. I was catching up yes, but I was proud to be part of a church where all of God’s people are welcome at table, even and especially the ones I don’t see at Kings. I began to remember why I left the Presbyterian Church and joined this outfit in the first place!
Speaking of tables, at dinner one evening, I was proud to represent you as one of 77 churches which have become Open and Affirming Congregations in the UCC in the last two years. There are now 462 churches who have made this declaration. I got to personally thank my seminary classmate Bill Johnson, for having begun this movement after he was ordained thirty years ago as the first openly gay person in ministry.
The next night another choir sang. This one from South Africa. Their robes were colorful. Their music a mix of reverence, joy and sorrow. We have all read about South Africa, and its travails especially now with a rampant AIDS epidemic. Intellectually, you and I grasp how terrible that situation is, and then turn the page or switch the channel. But that night those of us at Synod 24 were confronted personally with the face of HIV in Africa, for each of the members of the choir was HIV positive. Their final anthem was a prayer. They sang:
“Jesus is a friend of mine. Jesus is a friend of mine. We are faced with this disease, HIV/AIDS. We have lost our friends. But even so we are still praising your name. And we are asking you dear God, we are begging you dear God, that you may please, please dear God that you may please give us the cure. Amen. Jesus is a friend of mine.”
We were grateful to be in the room. We joined in the prayer. The world seemed a much smaller place. You might even be willing to sit through a couple dozen resolutions if you could hear them sing their prayer.
These brief moments, these epiphanies when light shined in that windowless, cavernous room, were what made General Synod 24 such an amazing experience for me. There were others. You had to be there. I was. And I was proud to be part of the United Church of Christ, as exasperating as it is. Our best moments as Christ’s Church are sublime moments, filled with feeling and grace and love. But the United Church, a unique church, has spiraled into financial trouble. It is I believe an institution worth saving and sustaining. When budget time comes, I hope you will support my call for greater giving to this wider manifestation of our local church: it is a beautiful, heady, exasperating mix!
Would you like to raise a question or make a comment (even a provocative one)? If so, e-mail Craig Anderson at craig@brooksidechurch.org