Many people out there in ARPLand/Erskineland would dearly love to get their hands on the Minutes to the Emergency meeting of Synod.
Well, so would I!
Thanks to a contributor, we know how to do so. Because the Emergency Synod was not an executive session, the minutes are not “secret” and will be freely available in September in printed form co-joined with the Summer Synod, and in digital form available via email.
Physical copies cost a few dollars each and will presumably be mailed or available for pickup at the ARP Office.
Digital copies are available online free of charge from Paul Bell, the Executive Director of Synod, at pbell@arpsynod.org.
My question then is this: the minutes are already written. Why prevent their release on the internet now?
The meeting of Synod was only two days, and minutes are effectively written when the meeting is over, anyway. We are in our third month since the meeting – it is high time to let us see the minutes. Attendance at the Emergency Synod was lower than normal meetings; shouldn’t church representatives get a chance to read the official recording of what happened? Shouldn’t members who were there get a refresher in the motions made, speeches given, and votes taken? Shouldn’t their congregations get a chance to see what happened and send their pastors off with full knowledge?
Think of all the incredible events occurring this Summer at Synod: a heresy trial, the lawsuit, and possibly restructuring the entire governance of Erskine. It seems a little bit important to know what happened to bring all this about!
In the entire history of the ARP Church has a Synod EVER met without having the minutes from the previous Synod? I sincerely doubt it.
Internet distribution costs nothing. I believe the minutes should be released online now, before the Summer meeting of Synod to allow proper discussion among the delegates.
What do you think?
Tomorrow: How To Compromise
However the Aquila Report has already given their "clearly unbiased" report on this meeting. Why ever do we need any further "information". (Bleating of the uninfomed lambs)
ReplyDeleteHopefully the Synoptic Gospels can be published soon and the corresponding learned and unlearned commentaries (true and untrue) can commence their birth and delivery.
ReplyDeleteThere is a potential that the minutes may give us a new perspective on the " ARP Doctrine of Inerrancy". We await the delivery. (may also illustrate the necessity for original manuscripts or utterings.) :-)
ReplyDeletedear richard, michael and dr. gaston
ReplyDeletepack your bags. you days are numbered! you think the synod is going to get you...think again.
Anon #4: email me please.
ReplyDeleteTDG,
ReplyDeleteWhile seeing the minutes would be nice, you and others should know that the minutes of the ARP Synod do the best job in reporting the events without actually reporting the events. The "niceness" of the ARP makes it so that nothing of substance put in there except "so and so spoke. This other so and so spoke."
So, getting the minutes probably won't provide any new revelation.