While present on the floor of the General Conference, I was seated between two clergy members of my Annual Conference near the center aisle of the hall. I never once attempted to get the attention of the bishops presiding over the conference because I simply had no idea what I would say or do once at the microphone. For me, most of my experiences at the conference (the ones that I remember) happened outside of the convention hall. Part of the decision making process at General Conference is a series of committees that help to shape policy in assigned areas. At the time, I was interested in becoming a missionary so I was asked to work on the Global Missions policy section. This section at the 2000 iteration of General Conference was not nearly as political as some other sections such as Social Concerns or Faith & Order. In this much smaller forum, I was able to interact with persons from a wide variety of contexts on a much more civil level than was experienced in the full gathered conference.
Even further off the floor of the conference were the gatherings of the young adults who had been selected by various conferences as part of a campaign to have 20% of the delegations be under 30 years of age. This largely did not happen but there were a significant number of us all the same, mostly from the US context. These gatherings gave me hope that I could not find on the floor of the conference. The individuals who gathered for these events represented what the Church could look like in another twenty years when the warring factions on the floor had since retired. With time, cooler heads could possibly prevail. Patience is key when waiting for change.
For those of you reading this who were at General Conference 2000 or were following it at home, you know that there was a protest action that was enacted on the floor of the General Conference. This action, by far, gave me the most hope and the most sadness that I experienced during this entire event. The progressive folks with whom I’d aligned myself knew that this action was coming and encouraged me to participate, which I did. After it became clear that the assembled body would not approve any legislative changes to the church’s stand on the sacred worth of persons who identify as homosexual, same gender loving humans, those who chose to engage in direct action went to the front of the auditorium and actively disrupted the session by locking arms in front of the bishops. These individuals began to sing while wearing stoles representing various colors in the rainbow. Among those who took direct action were many clergy members and even some bishops. I did not choose to engage in the direct action but instead stood in solidarity with those who did at my seat as did many others. We wore stoles of the rainbow colors and sang with those at the front. Some of them were arrested because they broke the invisible line that the conference organizers had designated at the edge of the stage. While a significant contingent representing a majority did leave the floor of the conference so they weren’t seen as being part of this protest, those who remained gave me hope. The fact that there were people who were willing to stand up for those who were silenced or at least not listened to by the General Conference helped me to see what a version of the future of the church could look like.
I could go on about General Conference but a) I’m not sure that path would be healthy for me and b) I’ve another seven years of the period I planned to write about in this series. See you next time.
