Remarks byJoseph Slife,
lay leader, Gateway Church,
urging rejection of Amendment IV

2001 N. Ga. Annual Conference Session
Athens, Georgia
June 12, 2001

The intent of Amendment Four is to redefine what it means to be a member of the United Methodist Church and of a local congregation, so as to clear the way for full implementation of By Water and the Spirit, a 1996 report that attempts to set forth an official intepretive United Methodist statement on baptism.

In recent days I have spent considerable time studying that report -- as well as the Judicial Council ruling which held that the implementing legislation for that report violated our long-established church constitution.

By Water and Spirit is worth reading -- and I commend it to you for study. But in attempting to settle the theological issues surrounding baptism (issues, by the way, on which Scripture is not completely explicit), the document and the implementing legislation have exchanged one set of thorny issues -- the nature of baptism -- for another -- the meaning of membership.

To quote from a concurring opinion in the Judicial Council ruling, "The meaning of membership is not only a sacramental issue but also has implications for our polity and matters of governance."

The problem, as the Judicial Council pointed out in its main ruling, is that -- and this is a quote -- "The General Conference enacted legislation... without thoroughly anticipating the full ramifications of the changes."

Do we not stand in that same place today? Aren't we being asked to make a fundamental change in our church constitution, without fully anticipating the full ramifications -- ramifications that may not appear until 20 or 30 years from now?

I suggest that this amendment -- no matter how well-intentioned -- is flawed, and will lead us down a path of theological murkiness and administrative mire that in years to come we will regret having chosen.

I urge rejection of the amendment.