pinakidion.*

The UP (now the UPC) is back in the news again. This time, it wasn’t me. First, Scott mentions it, then Mike. It makes me think that the steering committee is trying to drum up support for the UPC again. Why? Are they going to try to get more people to sign or something? Why on earth do that?

In any case, the following is the history of the UPC based on available documents.

History of the UPC (Statement of Facts)
At the Seattle ILC, the process to draft the UPC began. Who asked for it to be drafted? The 33 member planning committee for the next 2006 ILC in Virginia Beach, Va This committee of 33 nominated 9 brothers by secret ballot to coordinate proposals for unity and revival. (The 33 are assumed to be a similar to the 31 that met at the 2004 ILC in Chicago.) Who presented this idea of a select nine person “Brotherhood Group” to the planning committee? The leaders of the Los Angeles Church of Christ.

Previous to the 2005 ILC, LA presented its own unity proposal via its website on August 25, 2005. (This was replaced two days later by a revised version, then later removed altogether.) This proposal was born out of a meeting in Portland during the World Missions Jubilee on the afternoon of Aug 20, 2005. At that meeting, Al Baird, Bruce Williams, Steve Johnson, Doug Arthur, John Louis, Mike Fontenot, and Kip McKean discussed how to word the statement of core beliefs as a part of LA’s proposal. As stated in both versions of the Call to Unity, the leadership group of the LA Church of Christ initiated the August 2005 effort.

Therefore, it is important to understand the origins of the present UPC. It came from an effort by the LA church to unify our family of churches. This effort was LA’s second effort at unity, the first being the CALSURE/Affiliation Agreement instigated by Harvey Woodford. In April/May 2003, many emails and proposed agreements floated around. At first, the contention centered around the formation of a “kingdom level” group that could decide matters of church conflict and doctrine. Subsequent amendments all but removed the power of the central group. The ability for the ICoC to exist as a parent company to handle benefits and liability insurance was all that remained. As many as 100 US churches signed this affiliation agreement, however, a board of delegates never met to call a unity meeting as described in the final document. Many churches discovered that they could purchase liability insurance much cheaper locally, so this effort failed. In 2004, a memo was sent to the churches that the ICoC would exist as a corporation as basically an empty shell.

Unity, however, was a major topic of concern at the 2004 ILC in Chicago. A Unity discussion called a “crucial conversation” took place on September 23, 2004. A group of 31 men chosen by the Tony Singh and Steve Staten met to discuss issues of “ethics, core convictions, missions, collaboration, communication, and other topics.” Although two outsiders were to report, 2 of the 31, Andy Fleming and Phil Lam presented the report on September 25, 2004.

One item to note from the report (I have the audio) deals with identity. The three points around identity were: we can only define ourselves and not others, a name change cannot be explained to members in the ‘third world’ and a redefined ICoC should keep its distinctives. The redefined ICoC would be about evangelizing the world and discipling relationships defined through the one-another passages. The other item of note is that the decision was made to have yearly conferences. Seattle offered to host 2005, and the rest has been mentioned above.

Oddly enough, much was made of unity with other Restoration Movement Churches in Chicago, but not much has been said since.

For the record, there was only one mention of the 2003 ILC in Dallas on upcyberdown. I attended personally and can attest that this meeting was more about mutual encouragement than anything else. Yes, Bob Gempel yelled at us for not giving like we used to and Kip autographed a Bible in the lobby. (I saw both of these events personally and will sign an affadavit to that effect.) However, unity was more of a hope than an agenda item.

Conclusions

Given the history after 2003, the lead committee appears to be whomever organizes the next ILC. The organization committee of the 2004 ILC became a select group of men to discuss unity and international issues. This select group was supplanted in 2005 with a Brotherhood Group and finally a Steering Committee was formalized, complete with term limits.

Despite over 40 different proposals sent to the Brotherhood Group, and discussion with hundreds, the final UPC is very similar in content to the original Proposal forwarded by the LA leadership in August 2005. Remember that these tenets of common belief and practice were written largely by seven men, Al Baird, Bruce Williams, Steve Johnson, Doug Arthur, John Louis, Mike Fontenot, and Kip McKean.

It is illogical to believe that there is a coordinated conspiracy by any select group to ‘take control’ of the ICoC. A consolidation of power do not prove the intent of those that benefit from that consolidation.

Implications (Reasonable Inferences)

One of the biggest implications is that the ICoC on paper has become a paper tiger of its former self. A comparison of the LA unity document and the present UCP is similar in content. However, the UCP is a milder version of the basic tenets in LA’s document. In other words, doctrine has softened, but not really changed.

A few men make the rules. With all the talk of diversity and early efforts to include as many as possible, there are nine leaders of the ICoC. Their power is not fiat as Kip’s was, but their influence is considerable. Remember that the House of Representatives consists of 430+ members, but the agenda is set by the Speaker of House. In the same way, we have 70 delegates, but the agenda is set by the nine.

Without change, we will revert back to what we were. Now, two years after the UPC and four and a half years after HKL, we see the results of our folly. Things are going back to what they were pre-2003.

More later, especially with recent mentions of the UPC.

…now there is bacn. Bacn is defined as email you want, just not right now. Read the site for explanations.

More is coming, especially in comparing Alan’s article of Family Dynamics with this one about being Christians, anyway.

In a sentence, it is a gross simplification to say that the basis of unity is doctrine. (A longer peace on unity by doctrine can be found here.)

Maybe you have some bacn of your own, now, especially those that read via RSS.

I did communion this past Sunday. Thanks to my friend on the sound board, it was recorded.

Grace Puzzle

Everyone involved with the ICoC is waiting for news from the World Missions Jubilee in Portland this past weekend. I’m sure that there will be a mention of the situation in Salt Lake City. Jay, the former minister there, mentioned moving to LA to receive more training in his last sermon. Those of us in the ICOC know that means, “Kip fired you.” Yet, it doesn’t appear that the congregation wants a replacement from LA. Who knows? The situation is fluid and the end is bound to be different from anyone’s conjectures.

Still, I imagine that sermons in LA will mention the weakness or lukewarmness of Salt Lake for months to come. With no one to really stop Kip from saying what he really wants to say, I imagine the article after the one about the Jubilee will belittle and criticize his former congregation. Then again, who can predict the moves of the Great One?

In other news, Seattle’s blog mentions the need for the Plan for United Cooperation. Me and other readers here commented to the post about other avenues of cooperation that were also encouraging. This prompted responses here and here.

First, congratulations on the baptism. I look forward to the day that my children come to the Lord. Second, I think it is great that a non-UP congregation works together with a UP congregation. I believe that this kind of cooperation, as well as cooperation with other Restoration Movement churches is critical for all of us. I believe in the efforts of those within the RM to bridge the historic gaps that divide us. We need each other. More than that, I believe that cooperation with non-RM churches is also critical. There should be no limit against working with other men and women that call upon the Lord. That is a subject for another column.

As someone that believes in unity, I think the UP is relevant to the discussion of working with other churches. When RM cooperation was mentioned during the formation of the UP, all that was said was, “any church can sign that desires to do so”. Would a document of this kind be any help to RM Unity efforts? I do not believe that it would.

I understand that the UP was primarily a tool to establish order in a confusing time. I disagree that order was more important to establish than righteousness. To my knowledge, we, as a denomination, have done nothing publicly to deal with our past and present teachings that led us to where we are now. I’m not talking about individual church efforts - I’m talking about high-level folks saying unashamedly that we are going in a new direction as a result of our repentance of shameful acts. Instead, order is still the number one priority. Those that disagree create varying amounts of disorder and it does not appear that disorder is tolerated.

Within the RM, though, we do not need order. We also do not need a call to minimum standards and clarity. It would be nice for all of us in the RM to get together in a room and vote that will be unified. However, lacking the efforts to even try to get us all in a room, there is a more excellent way. We should be looking for ways to serve one another instead of ways to get along with each other. When Jesus showed the full extent of his love, it was by taking the role of a servant. He went on the tell his disciples that people will know you are his disciples by the love for each other. Love wins the day. The Pharisees searched the Scriptures because they believed they were saved by their efforts. Jesus chided them for their short-sightedness. I pray that we do not become as short-sighted.

Small things happen. A new website, a few articles, VBS, and more. When we humble ourselves to let others love us, when we humble ourselves to love others, God works. Only God can bring us together by the call of His Spirit within us.

As far as Salt Lake, are we going to get them sign the UP like we did in Syracuse? I hope not. I hope that others, like the church in Denver, will choose to serve. The church I attend has folks that know members there. We should offer to help - not because we want more people on our team, but because it is the right thing to do.

As far as UP congregations, we need to serve them, too. It doesn’t matter if others signed with the hearts - there’s not a place to sign the thing anyway. Love covers over a multitude of sins, including the creation of divisive document.

Actually, I am around. Moonlighting project is keeping me busy. I’ll be around next week.

Needz monies. kthxbai.

Don’t know why it’s funny, but it is to me. I now await the scorn of Scott and others.

UPDATE 8/7/2007: Spoke to my father-in-law in Vermont. He is fine.

UPDATE 8/4/2007: Still no word from father-in-law. We believe that he and his wife are in Vermont. Where they went in Vermont is a notorious cell phone dead zone. Thus we are waiting, but pretty sure that they are okay.

I suppose that you’ve heard about this on the news. In case the link is down, the Interstate 35W bridge across the Mississippi river collapsed at about 6pm CDT. This bridge is just east of the Metrodome.

To give you an idea, here is how far away it is from where we got married. We got married just a minute east of my father-in-law’s house.

We have not heard from my father-in-law or his wife. We have no reason to believe that they were in the area. They are retired and have no need to take busy streets during rush hour. It is possible that they were in transit from their home to a house in Grand Marais, about six hours north, but it is still unlikely.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law, along with my nephews are in upstate NY, so I know that they are okay.

I’ll let you know as things progress.

Recent Comments work, now. I know you just love reading about Babbage’s Engines, but now you’ll have to stick with recent comments on this site.

Of course, this means that the feeds from the other portal sites are broken. I’ll see if I can get them working without breaking other plugins.