World Conference, 2004

These are my comments about World Conference 2004 of the Community of Christ church. Any opinions expressed are my own, and should not be interpreted as being anyone else's position unless specifically stated (and I doubt I will).

For those people who have never been to a World Conference (whether members of the Community of Christ or not) there is a need to read Acts 15:1-22 (New American Translation):

Some who had come down from Judea were instructing the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved." Because there arose no little dissension and debate by Paul and Barnabas with them, it was decided that Paul, Barnabas, and some of the others should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and presbyters about this question. They were sent on their journey by the church, and passed through Phoenicia and Samaria telling of the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they arrived in Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church, as well as by the apostles and the presbyters, and they reported what God had done with them. But some from the party of the Pharisees who had become believers stood up and said, "It is necessary to circumcise them and direct them to observe the Mosaic law." The apostles and the presbyters met together to see about this matter. After much debate had taken place, Peter got up and said to them, "My brothers, you are well aware that from early days God made his choice among you that through my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness by granting them the holy Spirit just as he did us. He made no distinction between us and them, for by faith he purified their hearts. Why, then, are you now putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they." The whole assembly fell silent, and they listened while Paul and Barnabas described the signs and wonders God had worked among the Gentiles through them. After they had fallen silent, James responded, "My brothers, listen to me. Symeon has described how God first concerned himself with acquiring from among the Gentiles a people for his name. The words of the prophets agree with this, as is written: 'After this I shall return and rebuild the fallen hut of David; from its ruins I shall rebuild it and raise it up again, so that the rest of humanity may seek out the Lord, even all the Gentiles on whom my name is invoked. Thus says the Lord who accomplishes these things, known from of old.' It is my judgment, therefore, that we ought to stop troubling the Gentiles who turn to God, but tell them by letter to avoid pollution from idols, unlawful marriage, the meat of strangled animals, and blood. For Moses, for generations now, has had those who proclaim him in every town, as he has been read in the synagogues every sabbath." Then the apostles and presbyters, in agreement with the whole church, decided to choose representatives and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. The ones chosen were Judas, who was called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers.

I have often maintained that this captures the general spirit of the Conference: not that it is God dictating to the people, but it is people working together to attempt to figure out what is important. There are a mixture of people, from "conservatives" who never want anything to change, to "liberals" who are so anxious for change they would change everything according to the whim of the moment. Yet there is an honest attempt to work together, and to find common ground where there cannot be common ground.

Keeping this in mind, I will begin my comments.

First, conference started on Saturday, March 27, 2004. Saturday is mostly rehearsals, so not a lot of people show up. The real big show starts Sunday. None-the-less, I went to a discussion group on Saturday.

Sunday was the opening ceremonies. There were some regular church services Sunday morning, then the Flag Ceremony Sunday afternoon. The Flag Ceremony is always impressive, people bring the flags of all the nations represented in the church into the conference chamber, currently about 49 nations. The flags are brought in in the order in which the church was established in the nation. This time there was a flag for "indigenous peoples" which had not been there before.

There were two developments which were a change from tradition. First, the flags were brought in for the initial ceremony, but they were not placed there for the business sessions, that is, they were all stored. This is because of the very mild controversy (in the United States) about the advisability of having the flags on the rostrum at church. Later in the week I went to a discussion of this topic, which was very enlightening to me, but not necessarily as it was intended. In addition, during the closing Flag Ceremony, the "indigenous peoples" flag was missing. This later was probably due to a complaint by the African church. They pointed out that the term "indigenous peoples" brings to mind the problems with European colonization that has plagued Africa. By the way, the conference quite deliberately, and with no discussion, just dropped (by conference actions) the term "indigenous" from all the resolutions (actually only "Restorative Justice", where it was replaced by "local"), and I suspect the closing ceremony was changed also without comment.

There were two resolutions ruled out of order. The first was "Scriptural Authority of Resolutions" which was ruled out of order for several reasons, I suspect the most important of which is that it is unworkable. There is really no way to implement it (where in the scriptures does it say when the World Conference will meet, or what the format is, for example.) The second was "Consideration of Homosexuality." This was out of order primarily because it wouldn't work. That is, it required the consideration of same-sex marriage, which was not before the conference. Similarly, it tries to limit debate by a simple majority vote. I suspect the idea is that if you don't want to talk about anything any more, then just quit talking.

There was a new section adopted for the Doctrine and Covenants. This section is characterized mostly, I think, by the verse, "Let the Spirit Breath." That is, we should not become so caught up with legalities, and form, that we forget the function of, for example, church sacraments. The discussion on this took almost one complete day, with some discussion both for and against. Personally, I like it, because it allows the Spirit of God to work in people even in cases where some technicality in the law might forbid it. As Paul said, "by the Law are all men condemned."

While there were a lot of reports, I don't have any comment on them, so to find them you should go to the church's official site.

One difference between this conference and the previous conferences I've been to is the predominance of the Internet. That is, the various business sessions, and worship services were made available via video streaming to anyone who wanted to watch. They reported hits from hundreds of people in ten or fifteen countries. This made for several "greetings" from far flung places during the week. Greetings like, "We were watching the conference and want to send our greetings." In at least one case someone sent a greeting because of one of the ministers on the rostrum saying hello to a particular person in Australia.

There was also provisions for people from the Internet sites and the television feed to contribute to the expenses of the conference.

There was one running joke during the last half of the week. Someone noticed that the World Conference offerings were listed as $54,151.00 in Thursdays bulletin, but were listed as only $54,151.98 in Fridays bulletin. The question was, did we only get 98 cents from the offering on Thursday night. Larry Norris, who is in charge of this, pointed out that the totals lagged by one day because they couldn't get the offering counted in the evening soon enough to get them in the daily bulletins. Therefore, the 98 cents was for Wednesday, when they didn't have a service, and, therefore, no offering. The 98 cents was because someone left 98 cents on Larry's table on Wednesday, so he assumed it was an offering. Later that day, someone left 98 cents on several of the tables, and Larry pointed out that he had gotten several envelops in the offerings with 98 cents worth of change. Also, a check for $9.98, one for $98.98, and one for $99.02 (which added to 98 cents makes $100 even). There were several other 98 cent offerings given, as well.

By the way, offerings were up, so the conference was paid for before the week was out. In addition, there was money left over for the conference travel fund, so that the church can pay the travel expenses for some of the people who had to come a long way next time.

There were several issues discussed, and I will offer my comments on some of them. Note that I have not offered my comments on all of them, and some I offer comments on were (appropriately) not passed.

The hottest issue by far was homosexuality. There were several resolutions on this matter.

Another issue was the communion prayers. For those people not familiar with this, first, communion is called "Eucharist" in a lot of denominations. Secondly, when Joseph Smith first set up the church he specified the exact words that were to be said over the bread and wine (usually grape juice).

There was also a discussion of "Restorative Justice," "Organ donations," "Just War," "Globalization," "modern technology," and the use of language.

All in all, I think the World Conference was pretty good. I was extremely upset with the "Just War" issue, enough so that I had to take Friday night off to cool off. I have decided that I have to point out that I view this as my problem. That is, if one truly had faith in God, then one has to believe that the good will work out in the end. I may, therefore, disagree with Conference actions, but I know that if I do, then either I'm in the wrong (and need to review my positions) or I'm in the right, and will win in the end. In either case, there is no reason to become very upset. In the specific case of this Just War resolution, it was referred to the First Presidency, so I can trust they will handle it judiciously.

The closing worship on Sunday was interesting. At the appropriate time during the service someone released petals from flowers from the ceiling of the auditorium. For those not familiar with the Auditorium, it has a very high ceiling, with a sculpture. The ceiling is so high that I cannot judge either the height of the ceiling or the size of the sculpture, but keep in mind the auditorium holds between 5000 and 6000 people. They were released when someone from Hawaii was singing a song, and was very appropriate.

Another interesting service was Saturday evening's Song Fest. This is traditional, they get everyone together and sing songs, some I've heard, some are new. This time their was plenty of songs in languages other than English, which is always fun to try to sing to. Actually, a good number of the songs had the words in English, Spanish, and French. When you get 4000 (est) people together all singing it can really be awe inspiring.

Another first was that this conference was the first time there were not many people handing out anti-church tracts. I usually try to get one of each to read at my leisure. The reason is that one never knows what interesting piece of information can be gleaned. For example, last conference someone had a tract which said that this could not be a true church because they have a priesthood office called "High Priest." (See my article on that.)

This conference there were only two tracts I could get. The first was simply and emotional appeal to the reader to leave the church, with no real information given. The second, however, was very interesting. The general message is, "Since the church works for World Peace, it cannot be a Christian Church." This reminds me of the punch line, "If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you." I really doubt the church would even think about defending itself against the charges being made. In fact, I would believe that the church might even consider putting out a tract saying almost exactly the same thing.

It appears the church is starting to offend the right people.

So now World Conference is over, and I am back to my "normal life" which is pretty dismal in some respects. I don't have a job, so money is hard to come by, nor is it likely I will ever have a job again. Similarly, I don't have a wife, so I am very lonely. This is my reality, yet hopefully with the help of God I can overcome these burdens as well.

I could also say that I have some money, and ideas for getting more, even if none have succeeded yet. I know a few women who are single, and maybe some day one of them will see me as a desirable person. I have two children, and although they can be frustrating at times, they can also be a source of joy for me.