John Wilkinson oral history, 2019.

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    All right. This is Elizabeth Wittrig interviewing John Wilkinson on
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    June 2nd 2019.
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    So John if you just to start by talking about how you became involved in the movement for
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    LGBTQ inclusion?
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    Sure. Well it's a great question I've been thinking about it a little bit.
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    I think my first experience to a person
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    was in college. A friend of mine a close college friend came out
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    and that was my first experience. That would have been in 1985 or
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    so and then I went to McCormick Seminary where there was
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    an active gay and lesbian support group and I got to know those
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    classmates and friends pretty well and then worked
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    in a church in Chicago as a seminary student where the minister actually came out to me
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    and that was a new experience for me.
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    And then the first church I served in Chicago
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    one of our musicians also came out to me.
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    And I think that's all public so it's ok that I can say that.
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    But those were you know having no real experiential basis for that.
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    It didn't really cause me any
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    kind of great consternation. But it was kind of an OK.
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    Here's here's a step along the way and kind of both in my head and my heart that didn't
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    feel like a big deal to me. And then when I went to Fourth Church in Chicago where I
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    served for seven years we had an
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    active study group and gay and lesbian support group.
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    We did not declare ourselves to be a More Light congregation
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    but my argument always was you know we were a 5,000 member church in
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    Chicago we probably had as many gay or lesbian members as any congregation in the
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    denomination. We just didn't know it and there many people working in law
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    firms or banking situations in the loop and had to remain closeted.
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    But in the church at least they could be out and I happened to be the one that worked
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    with that support group and we had a kind of weekly prayer gathering so it just my
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    experience and my thinking about that just kept evolving and evolving and it
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    never really hit a bump that I said well what does this mean or what you know what I
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    think about this it just felt kind of pretty much a natural trajectory.
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    And then you know
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    because Fourth Church was active denominationally I
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    became kind of involved in the ordination debates within the denomination kind of at
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    a certain level. And then when my colleague John Buchanan ran for moderator I
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    was very active in helping to organize that campaign and then
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    John won. And then when G-6.0106b passed suddenly
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    everything got amped up a lot. And we had this policy
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    in the denomination. And I'm sure others have gone through the whole self affirmed,
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    practicing and all those things up leading up to that authoritative interpretation but
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    suddenly we had something in the Book of Order that we didn't like and
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    that John as a former moderator and Bob Bohl as a former moderator
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    said you know we're going to do something about this. The whole Covenant Network story
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    happened and because
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    I had a leadership role at Fourth Church and a leadership role with the General Assembly
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    stuff I became kind of almost suddenly into
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    that. Into the midst of the debate about legislation and
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    change. So again it didn't take much for me to know what
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    I thought or believed about that. I've thought about this a lot.
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    I kind of enter the debate through the polity avenue.
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    I mean from my point of view G-6.0106b was just dreadful Book of
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    Order legislation because it didn't make sense.
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    It was inconsistent. It didn't have a way to apply it.
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    And then over time my
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    understanding about why it was bad for all these other reasons in terms of justice and
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    inclusively and hospitality and theology and
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    biblical interpretation really took root. So it was that combination.
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    And so it was that Fourth Church experience where I
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    kind of got involved and then I came here Third Church in Rochester seven
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    years later and Third Church was declared itself to be a More Light
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    congregation in 1987 and still remains I think the largest More Light
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    congregation for whatever that's worth.
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    But but they had already been through that conversation about what it means.
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    Rochester and Genesee Valley Presbytery was a different water
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    to be swimming in. But I'd already kind of known where I was and they were pleased to
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    call me here because of my Covenant Network background and then we kind of kept working
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    away at things.
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    So that's how I got involved.
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    I think when I came here because there were
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    so many more people out in our membership and in the presbytery it just
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    really confirmed what I believed in my head about the legislation.
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    But it put many more human faces and journeys and call
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    stories into the into the context of this.
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    And it was then that I really kind of was
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    able to pull together. You know I'm a polity guy.
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    My PhD dissertation is on the Book of Confessions.
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    I teach polity a lot so I could make the case from that point of view why this
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    was not a good thing. But then I could make the other case in terms of real life human
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    people why they were being prohibited from serving fully
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    in the biblical and theological discussions.
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    So there you go.
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    And what was your role in the Covenant Network?
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    So the Covenant Network was
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    founded out of the 1997 General Assembly in Syracuse
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    and a legislative strategy
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    to replace the words fidelity and chastity with fidelity and
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    integrity passed in the General Assembly.
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    My friend Tim Hart Andersen led that kind of legislative
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    effort. And then at the end of that assembly a group of people got together.
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    I had been at the assembly but I went back to Chicago to kind of tend to Fourth Church.
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    But at the end of that assembly a small group got together and said we want to now
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    organize something to to try to pass
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    this piece of legislation to get fidelity and integrity
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    into the Book of Order. So John Buchanan came back to Chicago
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    and said I've got a project for you.
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    Tim Hart Andersen and I began almost daily
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    communications at that point.
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    We didn't really have a kind of organizational theory about what we were going to do.
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    We thought we could do this in a year.
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    This was back when General Assemblies met every year, not every other year.
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    We would win this legislative battle, get the Book of Order back on track and then move
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    on to our thing. So Tim and I were kind of a team.
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    I always like to think of him more strategically, legislatively.
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    I was kind of more organizational, relational and we worked together on that.
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    And in August we brought a group together in Chicago
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    and then in September we did the same thing. We met in Chicago mostly at Fourth Church
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    for that first few years.
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    And I was in fact kind of moderated
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    at the first meeting because there wasn't any kind of identified established leadership
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    structure or people were just kind of came together.
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    People who we knew who we thought would could make a difference.
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    And then after a bit and I'm sure others have spoken about this a lot more we identified
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    Pam Byers as our first executive director and so Pam and Tim and I
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    began if not daily very regular calls several times
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    a week in those first few years to kind of get the process going.
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    And as we know it took a while and all those other meandering.
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    So after a while I was then we kind of
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    adopted a more kind of structure leadership model with co moderators and boards and terms
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    and things like that.
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    So I still had a Tim and I and Pam were still pretty much
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    regularly in contact.
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    We had added a few more people to that in terms of kind of a strategy committee within
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    the leadership team. And then I just began a long term of
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    board service.
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    I think I think when certain I was on writing teams
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    like when we did Call for Covenant Community I was on that writing team.
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    I think that was one of our really good pieces of work.
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    The nice thing about the early Covenant Network years is we had really good theologians.
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    We had seminary leaders.
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    We had really good preachers so our writing
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    was good. Our communications was good.
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    We we spent a lot of time wordsmithing maybe probably too much time but I spent a lot
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    of time wordsmithing kind of every word and every sentence in every paragraph because
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    we wanted to be clear and thoughtful about what we were saying.
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    So I felt really privileged to be a part of those teams.
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    I think at some point when there were
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    I was able to contribute certain things in certain ways.
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    I felt grateful for that.
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    Could you talk a little bit about what it was like to work with Pam?
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    Yes. So I didn't know Pam.
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    We had the early
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    another affinity group in the denomination
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    had a model where an associate pastor of a large church
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    served in that role but also served as the executive director of this
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    affinity group. So maybe for three minutes or so we kicked around that idea
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    and that would have been me. So I would have kind of a stayed at Fourth Church as
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    associate pastor but my portfolio would have been organizing Covenant
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    Network stuff and I had a strong call to do that work but not a strong call
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    to serve in that role.
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    And so then Tim and I.
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    Tim having ideas from San Francisco leadership had
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    known Pam obviously as a member of the congregation and he kind of recruited
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    her and then we kind of quickly brought her on board.
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    I think Pam I think a lot of things about Pam.
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    I was trying to find I did a little speech at her retirement that
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    we had in San Francisco and I don't I can't find that speech but what I remember
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    is her spirit of some kind of absolute
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    graciousness but graciousness that was had a theological
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    underpinning to it.
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    And whether you agreed with her or not whether
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    you were have important role or not she treated
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    you very graciously and as a kind of the beloved
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    child of God you were and was our face in a lot of ways
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    to the church when we in the leadership team weren't able to be or couldn't
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    be. And she knew people
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    up and down and all around.
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    She went to places and had a very gracious presence.
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    She was kind of a very creative dervish
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    isn't the right word but a lot lot of energy around her.
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    And you know sometimes you had to redirect that energy
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    in the right ways to get things done.
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    I mean again we were you know this would be
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    interesting for somebody in either an MBA program or an organizational
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    theory program to look at our leadership model.
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    Cause we didn't have a theory going in, how we're going to organize this.
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    What was our board going to be like. What staffing needs do we have.
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    We said we thought we'd be in this in and out of this in a year.
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    And when we weren't then we knew we weren't able to just as volunteers to manage
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    things. So that's when we identified Pam and she was the perfect complement I think to
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    Tim and me and the perfect complement then to all the co-moderators that followed
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    her. She was very articulate, very
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    compassionate, very passionate.
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    And again I think because she was you know had this literature-editing
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    background really fit well with our hopes for good communications and
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    things like that. So I found her very delightful to work with.
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    She was just a pleasant person.
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    And you know I had to because I didn't
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    know her in San Francisco and only saw her from time to time to time others got to know
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    her a lot more staff people and people in San Francisco.
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    But I just always had very positive interactions with Pam and enjoyed enjoy being with
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    her and just her deep commitment to this cause and
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    to the work and her kind of indefatigable spirit
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    even as we lost you know vote after vote and when we would
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    win we would win General Assembly votes and then lose Presbytery votes.
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    That happened a bunch of times. That can be discouraging.
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    She didn't project discouragement very much at all.
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    I was always grateful for that.
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    And then you also served on the Peace, Unity, and Purity task force?
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    I did. Yes. So
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    coming out of the 2001 General Assembly it
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    was a moment where the word schism was being used not lightly.
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    And of course we had been fussing for all those years about ordination and
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    homosexuality. But this moment was actually about Christology.
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    And there had been a kind of a controversy coming
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    out of an ecumenical interfaith event and someone
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    else can I don't know all the details but those are other details.
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    But but the notion was what what does one need
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    to believe about Jesus in order to be Presbyterian within the Christian faith.
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    And so that combination of human sexuality and biblical authority interpretation and
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    Christology meant that there was kind of this perfect storm of controversy coming out.
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    So the General Assembly in 2001 created something called the Theological Task
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    Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the church.
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    And I was named to that.
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    Three, the current and then two previous moderators, appointed that.
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    And I think why I was appointed was several reasons.
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    One is at that point I was under 40 and there were only two of us under
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    40.
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    One was in their 20s I was in my I was 38 when I was appointed.
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    I'm not that anymore.
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    But so that youth piece of it or younger adult piece of it.
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    I had been I had just come to
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    Rochester from Chicago. So of the however many of us there
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    were 20 or so of us there weren't many people who were pastors of kind of churches our
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    size and I had a counterpart of a more conservative bent.
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    Michael Algman and he and I were kind of this kind of church pastors
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    in this group.
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    I'd been active in Covenant Network and the Covenant Network.
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    There were people from More Light on the task force but the Covenant Network did
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    have this reputation I think an important one that not only did we want change in
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    ordination standards but we really did care about the unity of the church and
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    relationship building was a part of our was a part of our deal so
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    they knew that about me. And the other thing is I'd written a dissertation on the
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    Confession 1967. I knew our polity, I knew our confessional history, and our
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    denominational history.
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    I wasn't a seminary professor but I was kind of this quasi church historian
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    that could tell the story and I think from my own personal temperament I worked well in
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    those kind of groups and was a decent strategic thinker.
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    So we came together with this four part mandate.
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    Human sexuality, biblical authority, Christology and then
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    they threw a fourth one in the mix power and how power is used in the church which
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    actually we didn't understand at first but now I think at the end of the day that
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    was very wise thing to do and yes we met for five years.
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    I served in kind of sub teams around some of the history
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    stuff and some of the writing teams and did a lot with when in Presbyterian
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    history had we come to a point of perhaps schism and what had we done to
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    avoid it. So what can we learn from our history for this moment.
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    And the fact the matter is there are points in the 1700s and the
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    1800s and in the 1900s when we were about to divide and we didn't.
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    And so we tried to appropriate those lessons for this work and
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    then we also tried to come up with a proposal that
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    the vast majority of the church could live with and it was
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    called recommendation 5.
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    We liked it a lot. It was passed unanimously by our task force so people who were pro
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    ordination and not pro ordination voted for it because they thought it
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    gave us a way out of the of the moment we were in.
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    Its local option is a shorthand.
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    It's not a totally fair shorthand that kind of allows
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    you to get what it meant.
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    I used the phrase local application. That we had a standard that each Presbytery or
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    each congregation was was able to apply in its local setting which has
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    kind of been our tradition in our practice. We worked really hard on
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    the language of it. I think what was disappointing to us is that the assembly
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    passed it but not by by a 58 to 42 margin
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    which in many other cases would have been a really big margin but for us we wanted a
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    larger embrace of the notion of allowing local
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    ordaining bodies to apply a sense of call
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    to their work. But it's in some ways where we ended up anyway denominational.
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    So the other thing.
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    I saw people talk to me about the Theological Task Force.
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    We had a model for our work that
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    people embraced. So we did Bible study
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    and discernment.
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    We took very few votes. We tried to vote only when we had to vote.
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    So lots of consensus building and
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    people all across the denominations said we really like the way you
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    modeled how to build community how to
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    discern in the face of kind of disagreement in a way that doesn't
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    feel binary and doesn't feel like win or lose.
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    So I count the Theological Task Force as kind of one of the highlights of my ministry.
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    And I'm always grateful that people still kind of remember it even
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    though you know we did our final report in 2006 which is hard to believe.
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    You know it's a great experience for me and made lifelong friends and colleagues
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    in that experience as I did with the Covenant Network.
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    So yeah.
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    Well I guess looking back on moving back to the Covenant Network, what was it like
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    when Amendment 10-A finally did pass?
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    Well it was it was great for us.
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    I mean I think I think by the time it passed we kind of knew
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    where the church was heading and the culture was heading.
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    You
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    know it was very gratifying. It was gratifying.
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    And it was gratifying in a sense that we had done a lot of relational
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    work. One of the things about the Covenant Network was I
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    think the Presbyterian Outlook, I found that article and I read it recently you
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    know there was a poll in the Presbyterian Outlook at some point along the way.
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    And Covenant Network scored really high in terms of credibility.
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    So even if you disagreed with our stances on things you
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    believed us to be credible and had integrity in terms of how much we cared
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    for the church and how much relationship building mattered.
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    So we spent a lot of time building relationships to the right of us and
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    to the left of us. We did that I think because it was good politics but more so we
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    really believed in that vision of peace, unity, and purity only happens through
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    relationship building and and some of us had been trained at McCormick
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    Seminary which was a seminary that did a lot with community organizing training.
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    Community organizing is at heart about relationship building and then figuring
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    out where power is and how you how you exercise power in the context of relationship
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    building.
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    So that was the work we did. So we were glad when it
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    passed. We I think tried to kind of be a low key about it.
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    What we realized all along is that you know Covenant
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    Network at the start in any way was primarily straight, primarily white,
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    primarily large church and my ordination
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    and my colleagues mostly weren't up for debate in all this.
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    So and if you were part of you know first PLGC or the
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    More Light Presbyterians or That All May Freely Serve yours was.
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    And so we tried to be mindful that.
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    I think mostly we did OK with that not always I'm sure in
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    terms of being sensitive to how we you know the language about privilege wasn't prevalent
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    then but certainly we had it in in large measure on several fronts.
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    And so I think when 10-A passed we were we were grateful
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    not jubilant but kind of grateful and said OK this is where we think the
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    church needs to be and then we're ready to move to that next thing.
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    And then marriage happened much
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    more quickly than that. I mean as culture accelerated this conversation so did the
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    church. So you know rather than almost 20 years of debate about ordination
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    it was just a handful of years of debate about marriage.
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    And that happened so quickly as to almost to leave our
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    breath away. One of the great moments of my ministry was when
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    the ordination overture came to the General Assembly in
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    2014 I had been a candidate for moderator or that General Assembly moderator and did not
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    prevail and that was too bad.
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    But I was able then to be a commissioner and I was able to make a
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    motion on the floor that broadened
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    the language a little bit and allowed some more people I think to
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    vote for that overture.
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    That language eventually ended up in the Book of Order.
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    So it's always a little footnote that I said that.
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    That was reported on and that was a cool thing.
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    But I think that was really in the spirit of Covenant Network where we were trying to
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    build broadly bridges in both directions so that we were able to advance the
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    marriage conversation but also with that language bring some of our more
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    conservative friends along by the language that is still in the Book of Order.
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    So that was fun.
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    Can you talk about some of those relationships that you built with people across the
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    aisle?
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    Sure yeah yeah. Well they were they were important.
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    They still are important. I'm still in touch with people.
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    I'm still in a group that meets annually
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    and some of the people with whom and we try to really avoid kind
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    of language about battle and opponent and things like that.
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    But but in terms of legislation and Robert's Rules of Order they
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    were pretty intense. We had most of the
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    a lot of it happened behind the scenes.
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    So regular conference calls with representatives of PFR Presbyterians for Renewal maybe
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    once a quarter so just to say OK here's what we're
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    thinking what are you thinking, what's your take on the temperature of the church right
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    now.
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    We really tried to say no surprises things like that.
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    We had fewer of those conversations with people like More Light and That All
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    May Freely Serve. We tried to coordinate our strategies
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    with them. Obviously you know if we're trying to win votes at an assembly or
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    if we want to vote in assembly win votes in presbytery we did much better when we were
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    coordinating than not. We always had at every assembly and this was again mostly when
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    assemblies were meeting every year.
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    We would get together informally to talk.
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    We always tried. I always tried to be present you know
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    at the General Assembly there are you know these crazy breakfasts every morning.
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    You know each group does it. I try to go to all the ones of groups with which we agreed
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    and disagreed because I think that you know whatever pursing
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    the issue pursing the relationship felt really important and
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    I think I think what the people on the right knew was
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    that we disagreed pretty fundamentally not just on
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    ordination but I would say on the things that lead to ordination.
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    So our Christology stuff certainly biblical authority and interpretation.
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    I think there was no doubt ever that we love God we love Jesus we love
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    the church and we wanted it to do well and that our
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    efforts were in the context of that pretty
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    bedrock ecclesiology and I think that's where those colleagues appreciated
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    what we were doing and how we cared about the mission of the church.
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    I mean these were and we cared about the denomination.
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    So but there were rigorous conference
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    calls, rigorous meetings.
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    They weren't angry or contentious but they were rigorous.
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    And I think in the spirit of relationship building it really helped
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    move things along in a healthy way.
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    But I do remember walking out some of those you know exhausted
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    mentally and physically or mentally emotionally and spiritually
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    just because the intensity of the conversation.
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    Was there any of that relationship building happening
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    here at Third Church?
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    Well yes. So when I came here this this Presbytery, Genesee
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    Valley Presbytery had and has a reputation as a pretty progressive
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    presbytery. You know when I came here there were five or six More Light
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    congregations. That wasn't the case in Chicago Presbytery where there
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    were two or three maybe.
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    And those congregations all got together from time to time and did
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    things. I made it part of my task to begin
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    to build relationships almost immediately with people who I knew disagreed with me.
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    So I spent a lot of time in the car driving to places having lunch with ministerial
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    colleagues saying listen we disagree on this.
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    My hunch is we agree on a lot of things.
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    I hope we can be friends and colleagues in this presbytery and
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    I think that that came out of a history in this Presbytery
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    that predates me of lawsuits being filed judicial
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    I mean ecclesial lawsuits being filed not
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    just against Downtown Church with that happened when Janie Spahr was called, one
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    of our members Jim Moore was her lawyer, and that in
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    that process James Moore really distinguished attorney in Rochester former
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    president of the New York State Bar.
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    He represented her and it was a devastating loss for
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    that. And still I don't understand how they how that decisions were made.
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    So we had also had charges brought against us when we declared ourselves to be More Light
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    in the 1980s. So there
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    were still vestiges of that dynamic when I came. Then almost 15 years later and I said
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    all right that's past I'm sorry that happened.
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    I support ordination equality.
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    I'm going to keep working for that. But I think we can be friends and colleagues so I
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    think that was I don't say my predecessors didn't ever do that.
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    I don't know if they did or not but I made it a point to.
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    And then the work of Peace, Unity, and Purity helped underscore that work so
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    that whenever there were votes taken in the presbytery which
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    were generally 73 votes all the time maybe
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    and now it would be even more than that as we've lost some congregations.
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    People knew that. I remember I would go to some churches congregations
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    and talk about this. I would say you know here's what I believe.
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    But here's what our Constitution says so you
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    know using those teaching moments to build relations that
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    here at least one person was representing a
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    congregation that took the unity piece of that seriously and wanted these
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    congregations to have a voice to be heard.
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    To be a part of the Presbyterian Mission. And I think some of that's continued
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    to bear fruit. It's a different pressure here now because it's a different denomination
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    now. I spent a lot of time the first five or six years doing that a lot not
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    and not any burden to me.
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    That's kind of what I felt called to do so.
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    And I think our members who were very committed to More Light.
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    I mean we're we're a strongly More Light congregation and
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    we still have a strong More Light committee. We do.
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    You know we've we sent overture advocates to
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    General Assembly on a regular basis.
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    We've also done a lot with civic legislation so sending people to Albany for
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    agenda and the Gender Non-Discrimination Act and the sexual orientation Nondiscrimination
  • speaker
    Act and all those things. We also the pride parade happens right
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    around this building so we're always kind of a hotbed.
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    It's Pride Week and we always have events here and I always march in the parade and we
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    always have a big group be part of the Pride parade.
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    So we've been very public in our leadership in
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    Rochester around issues of sexuality and inclusion.
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    A lot of that trajectory started long
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    before I got here. I've been really I think privileged to be able to kind of cultivate it
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    and be a part of that. And we didn't have to reinvent anything when I got here to say hey
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    we're on the same page in this.
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    We've also and we're active the
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    Divinity School has an active lecture series that we've been a
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    part of bringing speakers from across the country.
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    And usually when they do that we have them preach here on that Sunday and then speak at
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    the school on Monday and that's been fun.
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    I've mostly gotten people from the denomination who've been leaders to come and that's
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    been a good action to make.
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    So I think our people
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    often say for us well we've achieved ordination and now we've achieved
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    marriage. Do we still need to be a More Light congregation?
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    And I always answer yes I think the reasons for being More Light
  • speaker
    have evolved. You know now there is constitutional
  • speaker
    latitude for us to ordain who we think God has called.
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    And at the same time we still know there's prejudice culturally and in
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    the church. We still know there are issues of equality to be advanced
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    and we still know that there is a lot of baggage.
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    And I even talked about it just this morning in my sermon.
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    There is still baggage around perceptions of the
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    church's acceptance, mostly the big church out there, acceptance of LGBTQ
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    persons. We have a growing trans population at Third Church
  • speaker
    and so I think that's the more current conversation
  • speaker
    about how we can have the same kind of sense of equity and equality as
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    we have earlier for gay and lesbian persons.
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    So I think until I think we feel like we're firmly
  • speaker
    on the other side of a lot of these conversations we still need to be
  • speaker
    a More Light congregation. In fact we're just ordering, we have a big tower and we
  • speaker
    hang a 20 or 30 foot rainbow banner on it during Pride Week.
  • speaker
    We just ordered a new one because a big building with
  • speaker
    wind and stone the banner takes a beating so we're gonna keep
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    doing that work I think for a while as long as we feel called to it.
  • speaker
    Well I think we've gone through all of my questions but if there's anything else that
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    you've had on your mind to talk about?
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    No I think
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    I think what I think about a lot is you know
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    having served on the Peace Union Purity task force we had hoped
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    to craft a legislative response that
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    would allow people of conscience to stay within the denominational family.
  • speaker
    And I'm saddened that that hasn't always been the case.
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    So the
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    evolution of ECO and
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    just the leaving, the departing of churches to
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    whether the EPC or OPC or the PCA here it's generally the EPC
  • speaker
    saddens me because you know this morning's
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    Gospel lesson was from John.
  • speaker
    You know Jesus's prayer that they all be one.
  • speaker
    And that feels pretty compelling to me.
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    That doesn't mean unity doesn't have
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    to be denominational unity. I get that.
  • speaker
    I think it's at a deeper level around baptism and our identity as children
  • speaker
    of God. And at the same time when there is denominational
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    disunity even if it's this side of schism I still think that does damage
  • speaker
    to the body of Christ.
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    And I miss colleagues
  • speaker
    who have gone to other denominations and I miss their presence in ours because
  • speaker
    I think the more diverse theologically and experientially we can be
  • speaker
    the better. So I still hope somehow that
  • speaker
    that recommendation 5 could have had a different kind of traction.
  • speaker
    That people didn't feel they needed to leave.
  • speaker
    Now that's not to say that them leaving wasn't the right decision for them.
  • speaker
    I totally get that. I worked hard to keep some churches in and went
  • speaker
    to visit them and some did and some didn't.
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    So that's a piece of it.
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    I'm very grateful.
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    I was surprised you know we had this Covenant Network kind of reunion now a month
  • speaker
    ago.
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    I was surprised at the deep level of gratification in that gathering
  • speaker
    because again my job wasn't up for grabs.
  • speaker
    And at the same time we all made choices.
  • speaker
    This was how we're going to invest our time and energy and a big chunk
  • speaker
    of time and energy. And it was the right thing to do.
  • speaker
    My my hunch is other colleagues in Covenant Network it was riskier
  • speaker
    for them to do it than it might have been for me.
  • speaker
    But I could have been doing other things with that time.
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    Other worthwhile things.
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    Mission in Chicago or things like that.
  • speaker
    But not to overdramatize it you know with Queen Esther for such a time as this that
  • speaker
    happened to be the moment we were in and I think the combination
  • speaker
    of leadership and timing and energy and wisdom.
  • speaker
    I think what that weekend of reunion reminded us was
  • speaker
    how hard the work was.
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    How unclear it was sometimes. How discouraging it could be
  • speaker
    when you lose vote after vote after vote that can be discouraging.
  • speaker
    And at the same time how deeply gratifying it was because I think we did
  • speaker
    some really good work and we did it with integrity and we did it without kind of burning
  • speaker
    the house down. And that felt important to us.
  • speaker
    And now on the other side of that you know the denominations an entirely different
  • speaker
    enterprise now.
  • speaker
    But I think part of our legacy helped set it up for who it is now in terms
  • speaker
    of the Next Church Movement or other things
  • speaker
    around inclusivity. Even a conversation about race and racism that we're in right now.
  • speaker
    So deep level of gratitude for that being able to be a part of that Covenant Network
  • speaker
    history which I think you know in your head but until you get all these people in a
  • speaker
    room you don't know exactly what it means.
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    And I was still on I
  • speaker
    was in the young side of all those gatherings.
  • speaker
    And to see some of my senior colleagues
  • speaker
    for the first time in a long time for some of it was just deeply touching as well.
  • speaker
    And to remember those who have gone now.
  • speaker
    Pam Byers, Laird Stuart, Casey Tony.
  • speaker
    Some others really the saints of this movement and to remember them
  • speaker
    was really wonderful.
  • speaker
    That's a good place to stop.

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