The Epic, Pt. 20

The following is a transcript of the announcement made by Pastor DeSilva on Sabbath morning, April 26, 2008, regarding the letter sent by the Group to the congregation.

“Good morning everyone. Pleasant Sabbath to you. I usually reserve announcements for business meetings like this but I felt it necessary to make an announcement this morning, and first elder is here. By the way, that brown insert about the business meeting, we’d really like for everyone to fill it out so we can get a good time, and we’d like for you to start attending business meetings.

“You know, over the past couple of days my eyes have been severely red. A lot of people perhaps think I’ve been crying, but it’s not the case. This is my worst year for allergies yet. And I made a mistake on Thursday going for a motorcycle ride and it just got worse. I thought my eyes were going to bug out for a minute.

“But what I’ve come to address you about is a letter that has been circulating. Some of you may have gotten it, and some of you may not have gotten it. And, um, if you have gotten the letter I as a leader I’ve just come up to announce, and the first elder is here with me. To let you know that there are some gross inaccuracies in the letter. And I consider the letter extremely divisive. And um right now the conference president is in Germany. When he gets back there will be a complete open disclosure and we’ll be looking at the letter and the individuals that wrote the letter. A full investigation. And there are two letters that are included in the letter from the North American Division and the General Conference. To this date I’ve never ever met any of these individuals and never ever talked to me about the reorganizing of the church, and I don’t even know if they know that their letters are being circulated amongst the membership.

“And so we are going to ask you just to discount the letters, and uh we will be addressing it. The conference president knows exactly what’s happening in our church, and the conference president approves everything that is happening. And so this letter is considered very divisive. We are asking that you just treat it that way. And we will be dealing with this. And the board of elders besides a couple that’s mentioned on it are firmly behind what the church is doing at this time. God bless you and we will continue to move forward.”

We don’t need to offer very much commentary about this announcement; its “My big brother is going to come beat you up” attitude speaks pretty loudly for itself. Briefly, there are two significant points worth noting. The first is the abject failure of open-minded leadership. If you are part of an organization and individuals within that organization speak up to say that a problem exists, a good leader listens respectfully, investigates the matter thoroughly, and considers it carefully before rendering any opinion on the matter. In this situation we have instant condemnation. Only a bully reacts that way. The second significant point is the assumption that no one but the leader is capable of properly communicating with the outside world the nature of the situation within the church, and therefore the responses from “upper management” must be invalid. This attitude is equal parts ego and censorship and has no place within a true representative system of governance. It is perfectly at home within the dictatorship which Pastor DeSilva continually denies having created.

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