The Sins of the Conference, Pt. 3

The purpose of the initial meeting between Elder Ramirez and Brother G was described by Elder Ramirez himself, “We talked about the need to have a meeting to address all the issues that are before us…however, before we do that…I need to have a meeting with one representative of your group to discuss process.”(1) From this we clearly understood that the described intent of the meeting separated matters of “issue” from matters of “process” and was to be exclusively about the matters of “process.” However, when the meeting actually took place it consisted almost entirely of Elder Ramirez asking “issue” questions. The only aspect of that meeting which even remotely resembled a discussion of “process” was when Elder Ramirez stated that he would next have a similar conversation with Pastor DeSilva and then have a phone call with our representative.

F) Elder Ramirez wronged us by misrepresenting the intended nature of that meeting.

Elders Miller and Ramirez accused us of failing to follow Matthew 18 in expressing our concerns. They persisted in this accusation despite being provided with a chart which included a partial list of the many private and semi-private conversations we had with Pastor DeSilva about our concern, per Matthew 18 guidelines. They further insisted that we must go through the Matthew 18 process again before the conference would even consider granting us our right to appear before the conference Executive Committee.

G) Elders Miller and Ramirez have wronged us by making accusations in spite of evidence to the contrary.

H) Elders Miller and Ramirez have wronged us by placing conditions on what the Church Manual stipulates as the unconditional right of every member to appear before the conference Executive Committee.

In accordance with the request made by Elder Ramirez in his letter of October 30, a statement was provided to him describing our concerns prior to the one on one meeting with Pastor DeSilva. In the email correspondence following the meeting our representative, Brother G, provided a synopsis of the meeting. Brother G observed that Pastor DeSilva made no reply to the observations he had made in the meeting. Elder Ramirez wrote back, “No where in your synopsis do you mention the issue at hand…Perhaps this is the reason why pastor DeSilva did not response to your other observations.”(2) This is our issue. It is ours to define what does or does not fall within it, and everything stated does fall within the provided statement when interpreted properly. For example, Brother G’s comments regarding the misinterpretation of Elder Bediako’s guidance speaks to the issue of whether or not Takoma Park is in harmony with the Church Manual because Elder Bediako is one of the foremost experts on the content and proper interpretation of the Church Manual. Brother G had pointed out that Elder Bediako had clearly told Pastor DeSilva that the current state of things at Takoma Park was not in harmony with the Manual. How could such testimony not pertain to the issue at hand?

To put it another way, suppose you were giving a Bible study on the book of Romans and the Apostle Paul were to walk into the room and tell you that your interpretation of what he had written was wrong. Would you ask him to correct you or contend that you had two thousand years of scholarly work to support your interpretation and he was wrong? The point here is that the author of what is written always knows better than anyone else what they meant in writing what they wrote. Elder Ramirez had no right to try to dictate to the Group the meaning of the Group’s own statement.

I) Elder Ramirez wronged us by attempting to dictate to us the nature and extent of what we are concerned about.

(1) Email to Sister L dated Aug. 18, 2008, 9:57am
(2) Email to Brother G dated Feb. 15, 2009, 10:49pm