The One Church Plan...

No surprise here, really. After the more-or-less deprioritizing of the petition yesterday (though it had received two-thirds of the bishops' support when it came as the recommendation from the Commission on the Way Forward), the prevailing sense was that it would not be passed today.

The debate moved predictably: those against the One Church Plan argued for a way of reading the Bible that sees the strict injunctions as normative, and other mitigating or redefining texts as less authoritative. Those who were for the One Church Plan appealed to our historic unity, and our current missions and ministries and the need for "contextualization." Those against the OCP called contextualization by another name: congregationalism. Those for the OCP noted that contextualization is the way we work already in a whole lot of ways.

Jesus' words on marriage were invoked; so was the fact that Jesus' answers may not have been to our question (much as the Good Samaritan redefines the lawyer's question about neighbor).

A man from Liberia, another from Congo, a man and a woman from Russia and one from the Philippines spoke in their own languages (contextualization) as to their hopes and fears. The two from Russia suggested the OCP would destroy the Church in Russia, though nothing in the plan demand any conference change their current stance on human sexuality, marriage or ordination.

Tensions rose incrementally through the afternoon, and "points of order" were continually raised as a ways to camouflage speeches for and against, but I found myself thinking the will of the body was already evident. At 3:22, a second vote was taken to close debate and call the question. At 3:25, the vote was taken on the One Church Plan. Here is the vote:

Again, today is technically a "legislative committee" meeting, designed to debate, amend and perfect the motions that will be voted on tomorrow in the "plenary session." Because this is a special called conference to discuss the one issue related to human sexuality and its correlates, the same delegates who vote in the plenary also constitute the legislative committee.

In other years, there would be any number of legislative committees working on the many sections of the Book of Discipline. Delegates would be assigned to one of these committees. This session, there is only one matter before us, and so all the delegates are serving in both capacities.

Whatever is passed today will be forwarded to tomorrow's Plenary Session for final vote. The failure of the One Church Plan today means it will not come up tomorrow.