From the history of ISSUES

ISSUES, conceived in the living room of the late William Stringfellow, has been around as a voice for social justice at General Conventions since 1967.  This year we are going to reprint some articles from our history.

    October 3, 1973, Louisville

“WHAT IT IS ALL FOR”

Yes, General Conventions are more than a bit tiring and depressing. Yes, the procedures seem miserably slow to laity accustomed to the fast pace of secular work and to clergy aching to get back to myriad pastoral problems. And yes, there’s a GREAT deal of fussy housekeeping, from the election of a Presiding Bishop to the nuts and bolts of committee revision.

But having bought into it, all this is desperately important if the Church is to do the job for the next few years. The wrong housekeeping decisions will hinder, maybe cripple her. And there is a kind of demonic tediousness about major church gatherings which makes good, sensible, positive decisions so difficult to achieve. The price of an effective Church structure is eternal vigilance at dull conventions.