Vote My Lambs

It comes as no surprise to most of us who have been active participants in the life of the Presbyterian Church that we are in a time of great division. While this division is generally understood as being rooted in the positions and orientations across the spectrum of theological discourse, what is equally important is that this has also moved out of the “soil” of its origins and now manifests itself as a chasm of distrust that comes close to paralyzing process. Thus votes grow ever closer and closer.

Parliamentary procedure using Robert’s Rules of Order can be a wonderful process and tool for effecting decision making. There are complex layers of rules and procedures that can offer a reasonable process for consideration of actions beset by the twists and turns of change and amendment.

Thursday evening the General Assembly was asked to act on the recommendation to divest funds from corporations that have been understood by the Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee to be complicit in the partition of Palestine by Israel. As part of parliamentary process a substitute motion was offered. Without providing a lesson in the intricacies of Robert’s Rules, the process for dealing with a substitute motion involves a sequence which first “perfects” the substitute motion, then debates it, finally voting on its actual substitution of the original motion. Clear?

The process unfolded over a period of two hours and culminated in a vote of 333 for substitution to 331 against substitution with two abstentions.

The assembly then took action on the new (formerly the substitute) motion approving it by a margin of 369-290-8.

Now, that would seem to do it, wouldn’t it?

                                        

Well, as I stated before, Robert’s Rules allows a process for all sorts of twists and turns, including “second thoughts.” Friday morning as the assembly reconvened, a commissioner moved that the assembly “reconsider the previous action which provided for the substitute motion.” Her rationale was that the vote “did not show the heart of Jesus, because the 333-331 vote included at least two votes which were cast incorrectly” one of which was hers.

Had the vote on Thursday evening been 333-331 against the substitute motion, for this delegate would that outcome have shown the heart of Jesus?

The assembly, to its credit, resisted comments like, “this is Pittsburgh, not Palm Beach,” and orderly proceeded to defeat the motion for reconsideration by a significant margin.

But the reality of our division remains – actions at this assembly, even some that would seem to concern issues that no one that might normally consider controversial, often have been accompanied by refusals to consider voice votes or consent agendas.

It also seems that irrespective of the outcome of any vote, the “winning” side very quickly states that the outcome is not only the “will of the body,” but the body’s “discernment of God’s will.”

Do we really believe the Holy Spirit always speaks through the winning side?

I guess then, for every wide receiver who has just caught the winning touchdown, in the perfunctory on-the-field-postgame interview and says, “I want to thank my Lord Jesus Christ for letting me catch this pass and avoid the defenders and win the game for my team,” there must be some defensive back, sitting on the ground, having been faked out of his cleats by that wide receiver hero, muttering, “Man, that Jesus Christ sure don’t like me.”

How can any side claim to discern God’s will in such divided votes?

Most certainly, our parliamentary process is important. But even more important is the notion that such process is to be understood as a tool for our discernment, not the discernment itself. And each time we forget that, we move just a bit closer to thinking that we can decide God’s will.

 

In John’s Gospel, after feeding the disciples breakfast, Jesus, responding to Peter’s declaration of love, did not say, “Vote my Lambs.”