wfn.org | UCC by-laws change sparks debate

[powellb@ucc.org]

United Church of Christ
Newsroom
Saturday, July 11, 2003
newsroom@ucc.org
http://www.ucc.org

By William C. Winslow

MINNEAPOLIS?Changes in bylaws usually excite only bureaucrats and lawyers.
Not in the United Church of Christ. In a jam-packed committee hearing here
the opening day of General Synod there was a passionate defense of the
biennial General Synod rather than to extend its frequency to once every
four years.

"I came to my first Synod as a radical youth visitor," said the Rev. Davida
Foy Crabtree, Connecticut Conference Minister. Two years later, she was on
the Executive Council. "That passion would have been dissipated if Synod
had been every four years," she said.

General Synod is about networking and lifting special voices, added the
Rev. Steve Camp, Southern Conference Minister. The partnership between
conferences and the national setting "will not be helped" with the change,
he cautioned.

Synod is a place "where minority groups call the church to accountability,"
insisted Denise Page Hood of Detroit, Mich. She thought the four-year
interim would make the task more difficult.

When it was pointed out the proposed change is intended to save money,
opponents, who seemed to be the majority, would have none of it. Giving
will "continue to decrease," warned the Rev. Malcolm Bertram of Christians
for Justice Action, because meeting every four years "increases the
separation of the local church and national organization."

If it's a financial problem, it's a stewardship problem, explained Ron
Fujiyoshi of Hawaii. "Our churches aren't challenged enough," he suggested.

In other action, there seemed to be more give and take concerning a
proposal to bring back nominations from the floor in the election of
officers for the church. Some argued it was the only way delegates could
express an opinion on the election process, while others insisted that
multiple candidates turned church elections into a political circus.

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