wfn.org | Communicators support open meetings amendment to constitution

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Jan. 24, 2000 News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{027}

CLEVELAND (UMNS) -- A ruling by the high court of the United Methodist
Church excluding bishops from the denomination's open meetings policy has
prompted church communicators to support a constitutional amendment.

The United Methodist Association of Communicators,  (UMAC), a voluntary
professional organization of church communicators, voted Jan. 14 to request
the General Conference to add an open meetings requirement  to the
denomination's constitution. 

The constitutional amendment is being sent to the May 2-12 General
Conference by UMAC president, the Rev. Al Horton, director of Communications
of the Virginia Annual Conference, and Lonnie Brooks, a layman from Alaska.
UMAC members meeting in conjunction with a Pre-General Conference News
Briefing in Cleveland January 13-15, voted to support the Horton-Brooks
petition. 

An open meetings policy, along with circumstances under which meetings may
be closed,  appears in a chapter on administrative order in the Book of
Discipline, the denomination's compilation of church law and procedures.
"In the spirit of openness and accountability," the current policy asks that
"all meetings of councils, boards, agencies, commissions and committees of
the Church, including subunit meetings and teleconferences, shall be open." 

Meeting in October, the nine-member Judicial Council members said the rule
covers only councils created by the General Conference, the denomination's
highest lawmaking body. The justices noted the constitution, not the General
Conference, created neither the Council of Bishops nor the Judicial Council.

Noting that information is power, Brooks sees the issue as one of
empowerment and involvement of the laity.  "If the bodies of the church can
meet behind closed doors and disseminate bits of information as it pleases
them, then the laity have no way on their own to evaluate the actions of the
bodies," he said.  
Horton said openness is critical to the identity of United Methodists. "Gone
are the days of doing things behind closed doors," he said. "Information is
power and when you control information, you control power. The more open the
church is, the more people share the power."

Calling the Council of Bishops "the epitome of what it means to be clergy in
the church," Brooks said the bishops "are people charged with enforcing the
laws of the church," and "have a special obligation not only to be
responsive to those laws but to be open in the manner in which they do it."

Amendment 6, proposed by Horton and Brooks and supported by UMAC members,
would read: "The United Methodist Church bears witness to the fact that
Christ came into the world to be the light of all people. Jesus charged
those who would follow him to be messengers of light as well. In keeping
with that witness to openness and truth, all meetings of all bodies of the
Church, including, but not limited to, those of the local church, the Annual
Conference, the Judicial Council, and the Council of Bishops, shall be open
to the public except under very limited circumstances specifically
prescribed by the General Conference."

In order for the church's constitution to be changed, an amendment must
receive two-thirds approval by General Conference delegates in Cleveland and
two-thirds aggregate votes of all annual conference members meeting in 2001.

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United Methodist News Service
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