The A Way Forward is now available for English-speakers while the translated documents will be another few weeks.
Despite well-intended efforts by the Council of Bishops to have them distributed simultaneously in multiple translations, a delay by the Commission on General Conference meant that the English report is now available whereas the translated reports will be another 2-3 weeks.
The document
The document is here (if that link is broken, you can get to it from the official UMC site here, scroll to the third to last entry on the three plans. The plan starts on page 132.
Hacking Christianity will have in-depth coverage after we’ve finished reading all 100+ pages!
What happened?
It’s a comedy of errors which helpfully highlights the three branches of government in The United Methodist Church.
- The Executive Branch (bishops) certified the document and its release after the General Conference translated it.
- The Legislative Branch (General Conference) renegotiated a translation service because the Judicial Council opened the floodgates of petitions. So their translation was delayed even though they had the document for over a month.
- The Judiciary Branch (Judicial Council) then released the English version as part of their October 2018 docket files.
So that’s how we have it! Amazing huh?
Your turn
Hacking Christianity will have in-depth coverage after we’ve finished reading all 100+ pages!
Thoughts?
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The Judicial Council did not open the floodgate of petitions but determined (correctly) that all petitions in harmony with those coming from the Commission on a Way Forward may be considered by the special GC. (They simply ruled that no one had authority to construct a dam to hold back petitions in the first place.) A footnote in the JC decision made clear that the Commission’s petitions to the GC could NOT come from the bishops but only from the Commission itself, per the initial directive from GC 2016. Had not the bishops petitioned the Judicial Council to rule on the constitutionality of all three proposals from the Commission, the Judicial Council would not have had an item on the published docket for which it included the report. That’s even more amazing!
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