Task force members told of time constraints for making their case
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, January 16, 2006
The Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity has already been granted time for major exposure for the meeting of the 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala., June 15-22 – but that wasn’t enough to satisfy all of its members.
The members asked during their meeting last week in Atlanta to have an opportunity to present the case for their report to the entire General Assembly during a plenary session – maybe including videos or having all 20 members on stage.
But Gradye Parsons, Clifton Kirpatrick’s associate stated clerk, explained the facts of life.
The task force’s report will have to go through the normal process: first, a review by a General Assembly committee; then, the committee’s recommendation and a minority report, if there is one, will go before the whole assembly.
Besides that legislative process, the task force has already been ceded a block of time on June 14, the day before the General Assembly convenes. But commissioners are not required to attend that session because it’s not a part of the official business.
Some task force members wondered whether it could be made compulsory. Parsons said no. Without reaching a decision, several task force members indicated that they would send a letter to commissioners urging them to attend the pre-assembly meeting and including the final report and material supporting their proposals.
Some of the task force members wanted more time on the General Assembly agenda to clear up “misconceptions” and “inaccuracies” contained in criticisms of the report.
They also noted that their pre-General Assembly promotion work will include a small-group discussion of the issues raised by the report and an abbreviated version of their discernment and consensus decision-making. Much of its final report criticizes making “winner-take-all” decisions by parliamentary procedure.
Parsons was asked how much time the task force would be allotted before the committee considering its report. Reminding the task force that the committee would have other business to transact, he said the time allocation would be the decision of the committee’s moderator.
How about an hour with a Power Point presentation? asked Barbara Everitt Bryant, a Presbyterian elder and former director of the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Power corrupts, and Power Point corrupts absolutely,” responded Barbara Wheeler, president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City.
William Stacy Johnson, a professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, suggested the task force request 30 minutes to present its side of the issue. He said it needed enough time “to highlight salient points” – not to try to duplicate the task force’s four years of work.
Parsons said he believed the task force will find that many commissioners – including most members of the committee that will receive the report – will have read the report.
“We want them to focus on what we’re recommending,” said Sarah Sanderson-Doughty, the pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Lowville, N.Y. “All of the overtures opposing it are based on inaccuracies.”
Mark Achtemeier, a professor of theology at Dubuque Theological Seminary in Iowa, said the task force needed to make a presentation to the General Assembly committee that puts its recommendations “in a theological context that makes sense, which by itself casts a shadow over misconceptions.”
After committee members seemed to reach an agreement – without a vote – to ask for 30 minutes before the committee and without the accompaniment of a Power Point presentation or video, Sanderson-Doughty declared, “We are the visual.”
And Jenny Stoner, co-moderator of the task force and an elder at East Craftsbury Presbyterian Church in East Craftsbury, Vt., suggested that if all task force members couldn’t sit on the stage during the plenary session when the report is considered, maybe a few could.
“Is it possible,” she asked Parsons, “to have a video shown on the large screen?”
He didn’t commit, even though Kirkpatrick, his boss, has applauded the task force’s report as a great gift to the church, comparing it with the decision by the Council of Jerusalem that’s reported in the 15th chapter of Acts.
The task force members left Atlanta with some sketchy ideas about how they will make their presentation in Birmingham and also how they will continue promoting their recommendations at presbytery meetings.