June 8, 2009 12 PM ET
A Brief Update: Annual Conference Votes on Proposed Constitutional Amendments
At least 24 of the 63 U.S. annual conferences have now voted on the proposed constitutional amendments. Some conferences have posted complete results, others partial information, and still others are not releasing any results.
The Detroit, Greater New Jersey, Minnesota, Texas, Baltimore-Washington, Central Pennsylvania, Memphis, Dakotas, Illinois Great Rivers, Iowa, Kentucky, North Alabama, South Carolina, West Michigan, and Wyoming Annual Conferences have all released complete vote tallies on some or all of the proposed amendments.
The Red Bird Missionary Annual Conference simply noted that only proposed amendments 8, 19 and 22 received more than two-thirds support from its delegates.
Several other annual conferences have voted, but have yet to release any information on how their delegates voted on the proposed amendments.
Here are results where available on the most contentious proposed amendments:
Proposed amendment 1 which would dramatically liberalize membership standards has failed to receive two-thirds support in 12 of the 15 annual conferences reporting results. Only the Minnesota, West Michigan and Wyoming Annual Conferences have surpassed the two-thirds mark. For the 15 annual conferences reporting actual tallies the overall results stand as follows:
Proposed amendment 1: 5,622 (51%) Yes 5,491 (49%) No
For a proposed amendment to be ratified 66.67% of all the world wide annual conference delegates present and voting must vote yes. Thus far, proposed amendment 1 is far from ratification.
The 23 proposed amendments on the World Wide Nature of the UM Church have failed to receive two-thirds support in the following annual conferences: Detroit, Greater New Jersey, Minnesota, Texas, Memphis, Dakotas, Illinois Great Rivers, Iowa, Kentucky, North Alabama, South Carolina, West Michigan, and Red Bird Missionary. Only the Central Pennsylvania and Wyoming Annual Conferences exceeded the two-thirds mark. Five of the 23 proposed amendments would authorize the creation of regional conferences. Here are the total results from the 13 annual conferences that have reported voter tallies for those five amendments:
Proposed amendment 4: 3,685 (38%) Yes 6,065 (62%) No
Proposed amendment 10: 3,538 (37%) Yes 6,147 (63%) No
Proposed amendment 13: 3,525 (37%) Yes 6,072 (63%) No
Proposed amendment 23: 3,476 (36%) Yes 6,187 (64%) No
Proposed amendment 26: 3,463 (36%) Yes 6,079 (64%) No
Finally, proposed amendment 19 which would extend to provisional members and certain local pastors the right to vote for clergy delegates to the General and jurisdictional conferences has been receiving substantial support. Here are the total tallies from the annual conferences that have released information:
Proposed amendment 19: 7,561 (80%) Yes 1,746 (20%) No
During the month of June 51 U.S. annual conferences will be held. Good News will provide results when annual conferences make the information available through their official websites or other media resources.
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Please note, if you are aware of official and publicly shared voting results that we have not included in this update, please share them with us (wbfenton@goodnewsmag.org). Thank you.
To respond to this article write: Steve@goodnewsmag.org
Source http://www.goodnewsmag.org/news/8June09UpdateConstitutionalAmendments.htm
Amendment one would radically change the church if it would make more persons feel loved and accepted. When did we decide that we have the right to deny God’s grace to certain persons.
Hasn’t the church been welcoming to all in the past?
All this amendment does is say that all are welcome to the church – a means of grace.
Amendment one has nothing to do with pastoral authority to deny membership. Pastors don’t have that authority now and would not have it after amendment one passed.