General Conference – Day 9 – May 2, 2012
Poster of the Day
Violence has been a part of religion since God kicked folks out of Eden and kith killed kin. When God is involved things get heightened to the proverbial nth degree and that means enforcing doctrine until it is established and then using it to enforce more.
Reflections on the Day
A new structure has been put into place. All the rest of the issues were distractions for that to be able to be done. There are very good strategist who are able to plan well ahead to construct situations in which decisions seem to be inevitable. Would that someday they would use their gifts for the inclusion rather than exclusion of many. Over 50 white males from the southern USofA blocked several different proposals and in the vacuum put in their own “compromise” that does away with monitoring of our relationship with racial minorities and women and reduces the number of people who will oversee our work. A comparison was made to the year the Southern Baptist Convention was taken over by their religious right. 2016 will be the year for loyalty oaths, restrictions on seminaries, and other more overt legislation against anything considered deviant.
There was one vote that stands out: 44% voted that God’s grace was not available to all: John Wesley wept, John Calvin winked.