Deputy Booker - Day Two

Day two of General Convention started for me with hearings for the Legislative Committee on Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations.  We covered some really interesting issues, chief of which was meeting with a delegation from the UMC (United Methodist Church).  Our committee has several members who have been active with the UMC in talks about full communion.  It looks like we may…I hope…have an agreement to bring to the General Convention in 2021.  The committee I’m on has the capacity for some levity, and our discussions with the UMC devolved, for a while, into a light-hearted digression about the merits of wine versus grape juice. 

There was a special joint (Bishops and Deputies) session about racial reconciliation.  The presenters were a poet, a “dreamer” priest, a former skinhead, and the director of the Absalom Jones Center in Atlanta.  That was the first of three special sessions that will reflect the Presiding Bishop’s priorities of racial reconciliation, care for creation, and evangelism.

In the late afternoon we went into legislative session and started discussion of one of the BIG issues of this General Convention – possible revision of the Book of Common Prayer.  We got off to a clumsy start when we spent half an hour debating allowing an hour for debate.  After that, there were many people who spoke for and against the Resolution, and we didn’t even get to possible amendments.

I did get my face on the Jumbotron when I queued in to talk about whether translations were happening quickly enough for our Deputies who don’t have English as their first language.  (Sometimes we get in a hurry and vote on things before they've been translated.) Protip: The Jumbotron adds 800 pounds.