Jun 26, 2008

Today was the full day for the General Assembly to meet in plenary.

Highlights from today's actions:
  • There was spirited debate on the floor regarding our ecumenical efforts with the Muslim community. The debate centered on the language "The PC(USA) affirms that Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship a common God..." After much debate and several amendments, the GA approved the following statement, "Though we hold differing understandings of how God has been revealed to humankind, the PC(USA) affirms that, as children of this loving God, we share the commandments of love for God and neighbor, the requirement to care for the poor." This is much better language than the original.
  • There were more problems with pc-biz. This is the second GA where we've gone paperless. But once again, commissioners had great difficulty seeing the business at hand because the system kept crashing.
  • The GA voted to create another sexuality curriculum knowing that we will lose money on this. The previous sexuality curriculum was so bad that no one used it. And now we are going to create another curriculum - knowing we will lose money on it - and with no guarantees that it will be faithful to our confessions and the scripture. That's pretty nuts.
There will be more substantive items for tomorrow.

I will do my best to keep you posted. Please pray for this GA. If things don't go well this could be one of the darkest assemblies we've had in a while.

Your prayers are coveted.

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