Lasting General Convention Commitments

The issue here is:  "How can I feel safe, if I know that a future General Convention could take some action that I would strongly disagree with, such that my conscience would force me out of ECUSA?"

Today, this issue is of intense interest to those who strongly disapprove of homosexual activity, especially those who feel that the 1997 General Convention broke promises made 21 years before at the 1976 General Convention when the 1976 Convention approved the ordination of women.  The promises are remembered by many of these conservatives as "You'll never be forced to do something which is against your conscience," and/or "This legislation is permissive, not mandatory."  (Other remember things differently -- see below.)

The 1997 General Convention passed legislation that no diocese (Bishop and/or Standing Committee) can refuse to ordain (or refuse to permit ordinations of) women just because they are women.  The conservatives who remember the above-quoted statements from 1976 (in the forms quoted) see the 1997 actions as breaches of 1976 commitments, and feel betrayed and endangered.  These conservatives project the liberals' thinking into the future, and see themselves being forced out of the Church in the future by similar-thinking liberal majorities who will prohibit refusals of ordinations to homosexuals who are in relationships just because they are in relationships.

In short, the issue for these conservatives is: "Since no Convention can bind a future Convention, and if Conventions are getting more liberal all the time, how can I feel safe in this Church?"  

In the opinion of some, the best answer to these conservatives (and to liberals who have corresponding concerns about the impermanence of their own safe places) would seem to have two parts:

1. ECUSA must adopt an attitude and practice of reconciliation, and repent of an attitude that "The voting majority doesn't have to make room for the minority, even if the minority hold attitudes that were perfectly mainstream in the past." (Consider the history of Prayer Book revision, which shows a similar disregard for those whose views were mainstream in the past.)
2. The providing of a safe place must be done in the form of a formal, legislated promise to (and/or formal agreements with) the minority, so that any future General Convention wanting to overrule the legislation which provides a safe place would have to see itself as being unfaithful to past promises and agreements.  This approach would also explicitly document the promises/agreements, so that there would be less chance of future disputes over what the promises approved by the Convention actually were.

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