The Epic, Pt. 70

The recommendations of the executive committee had made it clear that they either could not or would not answer the question the Group had posed to them. Throughout the appeal process the Potomac Conference administration had treated the Group as if we were squabbling with the pastor over who got to use a prime spot in the church parking lot. Not surprisingly, then, their perspective on resolving the situation was that what was needed was for more heads to get together in order to think up a compromise. This was not the purpose for which we had appealed to the executive committee. Either the Group was correct that the new governance was contrary to the Church Manual, or the pastors were correct that the new governance was not contrary to the Church Manual. The point of our appeal was simple: to have the executive committee render an expert opinion as to which interpretation of the Church Manual was correct. From there the proper course of action would be obvious. If the new governance was judged to be wrong it should be undone. If it was judged to be right there would be no need to make any changes. This simple nature of the matter put before them had been entirely ignored by the executive committee.

To make this point still clearer, allow us to offer a parable before we proceed with our story. A young man had a large family with many siblings. One day he observed his eldest brother taking some pills. He investigated and discovered that they were prescription drugs that his brother had no legitimate reason to be taking. When he confronted his brother about the drug abuse the brother denied everything, claiming that he had only been taking vitamin pills. The young man took what he knew to the rest of the family to seek their help in staging an intervention with the eldest brother. The family was shocked. They went to the eldest brother and he repeated his denial and the story that the pills had merely been vitamins. The family members began taking sides. Some believed the young man, others his eldest brother. Finally, the young man’s father came to him and insisted that he sit down with his eldest brother and reach a compromise because of what the situation was doing to the rest of the family. This demand perplexed the young man. What sort of compromise could he reach with his brother about a drug habit? That his brother would only abuse pills on alternate days? That he would switch to abusing less potent pills? On the other hand, what if somehow he was wrong and his brother was only taking vitamin pills? It would be silly to demand that his brother stop taking vitamins, or even that he take fewer of them. The young man couldn’t escape his conviction that in this situation the truth had to be established and an all-or-nothing course of action taken as a result of that truth.

In the wake of the executive committee’s recommendations the Group was left with three problems. The first was that the fundamental question at the heart of our appeal had gone unanswered. The second was that, in contradiction to his earlier statements, Elder Miller was now insisting that we were not permitted to seek clarification from the union in what had turned out to be the absence of a direct answer from the conference. The third problem was that the conference’s recommendations put responsibility for answering the question in the hands of the Takoma Park Church which, given the heavy-handed way business is conducted by the pastors, effectively meant that the decision was in the hands of Pastor DeSilva. With Pastor DeSilva’s established bias on the subject, this would virtually guarantee that even if the recommendations were approved for formality’s sake that they would never actually be implemented.

To address these matters the Group took a two-pronged approach. First, Sister L communicated with a contact in the North American Division administration, seeking a second opinion on Elder Miller’s interpretation that the Manual would not allow the Group to appeal to the union. Second, Elder B made contact with Elder Ramirez to address the Group’s concerns that there would be no follow-through on Pastor DeSilva’s part regarding the recommendations. Both of these communications had interesting results.

Elder B’s communication with Elder Ramirez took place by phone. During the conversation Elder Ramirez expressed surprise that there had not been more Group members present at the ministries board meeting in which the conference had presented its recommendations. He particularly mentioned the absence of Brother G. Elder B explained that as a member of the accountability board Brother G was specifically excluded from membership on the ministries board, and that since whomever had called the meeting had closed it to all but members of the ministries board, Brother G and other leaders of the church who were not on the ministries board had been prevented from attending. (This exchange highlighted a couple of significant facts. First, there is no single administrative body in the Takoma Park Church that can be called to meet which includes all of the high-ranking elected leaders of the church. Second, in choosing to believe Pastor DeSilva’s interpretations of the workings of the church’s governance the conference found that they did not get what they expected.) On the matter of not being able to trust that Pastor DeSilva would follow through on the recommendations of the executive committee Elder Ramirez promised Elder B that a representative of the conference would attend both of the upcoming meetings at which the recommendations were due to be discussed in order to see that they were taken seriously.

On Friday evening, June 19, 2009, Elder B received another phone call from Elder Ramirez. He wanted to know whether she would be attending camp meeting the next day, and if so, whether they could meet in the afternoon. Elder B responded that she was planning to attend and would be willing to meet. During that meeting the following afternoon it came to light that in researching the question of right to appeal Sister L’s NAD contact had called Elder Miller that Friday to hear directly his views on the subject. In the course of the conversation the NAD contact had mentioned that Sister L had been providing him with regular reports about the situation in Takoma Park. While he didn’t show it in conversation with the NAD contact, Elder Miller was rather unhappy about the conversation and the information that someone in the Group had been in regular contact with NAD administration. The purpose of the meeting between Elder B and Elder Ramirez was to convey this displeasure. It was expressed that if the Group were to attempt to appeal further before the church had taken formal action on the executive committee’s recommendations and the executive committee heard about it that they would consider the Group very arrogant. There was an implication that negative consequences would result from such action. It was also implied that the communication between Sister L and her NAD contact was somehow improper and ought to be stopped by the Group. Elder B was rather taken aback by this “advice,” which was presented as being for the Group’s own good. The Group as a whole, upon hearing about it, was rather taken aback that the conference administration would have the nerve to attempt to dictate whom members of the Group could or could not speak with or that they would seek to restrict the subjects of any such conversations.

On Sunday evening, June 21, 2009, Sister L finally received a formal answer from her NAD contact on how the Church Manual’s statement about appeals ought to be interpreted. The response was that there was no consistent opinion among Church Manual experts. Some believed that a group such as the Group did have the right to appeal to a union executive committee for clarification; others so far restricted the right to appeal as to allow only conferences to do so. (This ambiguity of policy was clarified by changes made to the Church Manual that were just ratified at the GC Session in Atlanta. Our next post will speak to this matter, as well as the long-promised discussions of the powers of the various levels of the denominational hierarchy and analysis of Elder Miller’s presentation to the ministries board, which ultimately all speak to the same issues.)

Next: At the Ministries Board

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