Tonight was our Presbytery meeting, the last one we will have until September. I generally like these meetings. I like the connectionality of our denomination, I like to see my friends, I like to sit back and watch some people look like numbskulls. (Okay, I don't really enjoy that last part, but it does give my pals and I something to talk about later...)

Occasionally there is a small ruckus, or as close to a ruckus as midwestern frozen-chosen can get. Tonights ruckus was about the election of a member to the Committee on Preparation for Ministry--the group that is charged with the care of Inquirers and Candidates for ministry. These are the folks who walk beside you (sometimes jumping with you if needed) through all the hoops to ordination.

A minister member of presbytery was nominated who is very well known as one of the most conservative members. His church does not pay per-capita, which is the amount each church is assessed according to the number of adult members. This is the money which supports our denominational offices. Some churches that disagree with the decisions that come out of the denominational headquarters simply refuse to pay. His church is sizeable. It does not support the denominational offices. His church also does not ordain women to any office. Somehow they found a loophole in church polity that allows them to get away with this. It is generally understood that if he was on this committee, he would try activiely to block ordination of certain persons. Still...he was nominated.

Our polity states that nominations are always taken from the floor for committee elections. Never is the Nominating Committee's slate just elected without at least the invitation to nominate other persons on the floor of presbytery. Somebody else was nominated, and that other person was elected by paper ballot, by a four vote margin. The group of people I somehow got stuck eating dinner with was incensed by this.

But that was not the part that disgusted me.

Later, in worship, during the sharing of prayer concerns, one of the people at my table shared out loud his prayer concern for the "soul of the person who disrespected the Nominating Committee's wisdom" calling them distrustful and divisive. During the prayer time!

It's almost enough to make me lose my religion sometimes.