My first comment on Lance's blog from February 3 (which is still available in the archive) addressed the issue of who the WE in HERE WE STAND really is.
I suggested that the two comments offered before mine proved that WE, the people of the CGGC, are not the WE of HERE WE STAND. I said that the comments demonstrate that WE don't stand here and that the document was foisted on the whole CGGC body by a few people.
The issue raised by the comments made before I made mine raise an important question about who WE really are.
In my opinion, there no longer is a WE in the CGGC.
In my opinion, the lack of the existence of WE became apparent in 2010, even to General Conference staff.
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In 2010, Ed Rosenberry the General Conference Executive Director.
His staff and he were proposing an update of WE BELIEVE and CGGC credentialing standards and Ed and the General Conference staff scheduled meetings across the CGGC to receive feedback.
I attended one of those meetings. While I wouldn't say that meeting was contentious, it was spirited. One other person present at the meeting and I expressed concerns, especially about WE BELIEVE. Interestingly, one of the concerns, even back then, was on the use of the word WE.
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Anyway...
...In the end, WE BELIEVE was tabled in 2010 by the Ad Council and re-presented in 2013.
But, in 2013, it was not presented to the people of the body for face to face dialogue.
WE BELIEVE was subsequently approved by the Ad Council and the General Conference in session in 2013.
But, in my opinion, it was approved at the highest possible cost to the identity of the CGGC.
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Here is the meaning of what the people in Findlay actually did:
Between 2010 and 2013, the General Conference staff, the Ad Council and the General Conference in session changed the meaning of the word WE in the CGGC.
In doing so, they ripped apart what nearly 200 years of vigor in Winebrenner's movement had built and fed off of.
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From our first days, our body functioned as what theologians call a Presbytery, an Eldership. In this case, ours was an extremely democratic Eldership in which the voice of every Elder was sought and welcomed and respected and where it was taken for granted that the Holy Spirit speaks through the body, the Eldership, no matter how chaotic the process may be and no matter how patient the church may need to be in waiting for the body to reflect the work of the Spirit.
When, between 2010 and 2013, Winebrenner's commitment to giving voice to every elder was abandoned and the body, the community of Elders, was ignored in the creation of WE BELIEVE, the very essence of who we had always been, since the first Eldership meeting in 1830, was gutted.
Human leadership by a community of Elders, as our founders envisioned it, was cast on to the trash heap. From the perspective of human authority, a new head was placed on the CGGC body.
And a new WE was asserted.
(As far as I know, I'm the only one who noticed that, and squawked about it at the time and, as far as can tell, I may still be the only person who cares.)
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I will add one more thought which, I believe, is the most important thing I'll say in this post.
In my opinion, at the present time there is no longer a WE in the CGGC.
My guess is that the reason that Ed and his staff set aside our historic commitment to seeking and respecting the voice of every Elder and ignored the body in 2013 is that they knew that, if they sought feedback from Winebrenner's WE, it would become clear that there is no consensus in the body and WE BELIEVE would, again, not be revised.
In other words, they realized that there is no longer a WE in the CGGC.
But, rather work on the real problem, the lack of genuine community in the CGGC, they chose an easy solution and redefined the meaning of WE and, in effect, dismantled the vision of community that was at the core of Winebrenner's Spirit-led movement.
They dismantled human leadership by the CGGC community and put themselves in that place. They conducted a silent coup.
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Having said that, I'm certain that they were not thinking about any of this at the time. But, that is a meaning of what they did.
So, the WE in HERE WE STAND is not the WE Winebrenner envisioned. It's a faux we.
And, the CGGC's putrification continues.
We must repent.
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