MC/11/13

Hope in God’s Future: Statement of Conference

Basic Information

Contact Details

/ Richard Vautrey, Chair of the Redrafting Group ()
David Webster, coordinator of the consultation exercise ()
Christopher Stephens, Research Officer ()

Status of Paper

/ Final
Action Required / Decision on options set out in part 4
Draft Resolution / n/a

Summary of Content

Subject and Aims / This paper provides information on the redrafting process for Hope in God’s Future and invites a decision from Council on how to proceed given the nature of the response to the consultation and the approach taken by the redrafting group.
Main Points / Background
Consultation Process
Consultation response and subsequent approach
Decisions to be made by Council
Background Context and Relevant Documents (with function) / Standing Order 129 – Details on Statements of the Conference
Conference 2009, paper 10: Hope in God’s Future Christian Discipleship in the Context of Climate Change – Original document now redrafted
Consultations / Connexion-wide; the Faith and Order Network specifically

Summary of Impact

Financial
Personnel
Legal
Wider Connexional / The relevant portion of the original report will, if accepted by the Conference in the light of this report, become a formal Statement of the Conference.
External (e.g. ecumenical) / Receiving a revised version will mean the three Churches involved in the original report will no longer be working with exactly the same document.
Recommending that the redrafted version be received as a Statement of Conference, if welcomed by the Conference, will lead to the Statement being a necessary point of reference in all external communication on the subject.
Risk / The limited response rate to the consultation exercise has impacted on the approach taken to redrafting.


Hope in God’s Future: Statement of Conference

1 Background

1.1 The Methodist Conference in 2009 directed that parts 1 – 4 of the report Hope in God’s Future: Christian Discipleship in the Context of Climate Change be considered a draft Statement of Conference and should be subject to a consultation on that basis.

1.2 A Statement of Conference is defined at Standing Order 129 (1) as:

a Statement of the judgement of the Conference on some major issue or issues of faith and practice, and framed with a view to standing as such for some years.

1.3 The Conference adopted the following as Resolution 10/3:

In accordance with Standing Order 129(3), the Conference directs that the following consultation process shall be used:

-  the full draft statement shall be published in print and online by October 2009

-  a purposive sample covering a range of districts and a range of perspectives within the Connexion shall be drawn up by the Connexional Team and a focused consultation process conducted using group work and subsequent analysis of key issues

-  an opportunity shall be offered on the Methodist website for any individuals, Local Churches, Circuits and Districts to submit a response no later than 30 September 2010.

-  the Faith and Order committee shall be consulted for its advice

-  a report arising from the responses shall be presented for debate at the Methodist Council

-  in light of all the consultation, the draft statement shall be presented in its original or revised form (with proposed amendments highlighted) at the Conference 2011.

2 The Consultation Process

2.1 The consultation process was followed according stages 1 and 2 of this plan:

Stage 1. Focus groups in a range of Districts will be consulted to gather a wide range of views from different perspectives as to whether this report (as it stands or revised) should be a Conference Statement.

Stage 2. Using the outcomes of the focus groups, a consultation questionnaire will be designed and made available so that all Methodists can give their views on the wording of the draft Statement by 30 September 2010. The questionnaire will be available in spring 2010 on the Methodist website (www.methodist.org.uk/higf) with paper copies available for those without internet access.

Stage 3. After analysis of the results of both these stages, the draft Statement will be redrafted and presented to Conference in 2011. Suggested changes to text will be presented and voted on. The aim is to end up with a Statement of Conference that the greatest number of Methodists will be happy to own as an official statement of their Church.

2.2 This Methodist Council paper represents the first step in achieving Stage 3.

3 Consultation Response and Subsequent Approach

3.1 Response Rates

Focus groups were arranged in various districts in order to lay the ground and develop appropriate areas of questioning for a Connexion-wide consultation, held primarily online, which would provide for the Conference an indication of the views of the Methodist people on the draft Statement. After a pilot to test and develop the focus group process, three general district groups were run, as well as a specific group of Church Stewards and some facilitated group work at Youth Assembly.

The consultation analysis presented to the redrafting group needed to make more use of the focus group material than was originally planned. This was owing to unexpectedly low participation in the general online consultation. 85 people (all Methodists) contributed to that online consultation. Of those responses which qualified for inclusion in the subsequent analysis, 55 were complete responses and 30 were incomplete. 7 of these respondents had already participated in the focus groups.

3.2 Decisions Made

The redrafting group, in discussion with the Research Officers, debated whether revisions could in fact be made considering the number of responses to the online consultation. Alternative options would include:

·  commissioning a further consultation stage to glean more information

·  to propose that Hope in God’s Future not be made into a Statement of Conference, remaining simply a report received by the Conference

The redrafting group decided to work from the position that a representative sample of the Methodist people might already have been seen to have contributed to the statement’s development, both via the recent focus groups and the Conference debate over the original report. The focus groups were a valid form of consultation in themselves. They bring a wealth of detail which, combined with the online responses, provided definite steers for the redrafting group. It would be a valid reaction to conclude that a range of opinion has been gleaned and all members have had the opportunity to contribute, whatever the response rate – the low take up does not negate this. A response rate of 85 responses across a church of 241,000 is, obviously, very small. We would not expect a large percentage of Methodist members to respond to such a consultation, and it is not the case that the usefulness or validity of any consultation hangs upon a much larger proportion of responses. However, this response rate is certainly lower than expected.

Possible contributing factors to this are:

·  Difficulty of access to the consultation/lack of knowledge about it

·  Difficulty in completing the consultation

·  Large numbers feeling they have nothing further to add or contribute (including, perhaps, members of Conference feeling that they had already had their opportunity to contribute as part of the Conference debate)

·  Lack of enthusiasm for participating in a consultation

·  Lack of enthusiasm for the area of work

The first two points are unlikely. The consultation was advertised via The Methodist Recorder, eNews, Stipend Mailing, Momentum, the Methodist website homepage, Twitter, District Communications Officers and following the debate at Conference, and was known about widely through governance bodies of the Church. More likely are the latter two factors.

It is helpful to compare this to equivalent consultation work in the Church. Responses to research exercises are generally low. However, when members become excited about a particular issue in Church life, or feel more qualified and confident to comment, this can change. We might compare this to the response rate of 677 to the new hymn book consultation, which was advertised no more widely than this HiGF consultation.

In light of this, the redrafting group decided to take a light-touch approach to the redrafting exercise and agreed that the Methodist Council ought to be asked to make the final decision as to whether to recommend to the Conference that a lightly revised version of the report be adopted as a Statement, rather than follow one of the alternative options.

The group made some changes to the report, addressing concerns raised by the consultation (both in the focus group and online forms) only where these did not impact significantly on the content and overall approach of the report, which had already been welcomed by the Conference. This document was sent to the Faith and Order Network for comments, alongside the detailed consultation analysis report.

Faith and Order provided additional general comments, which have been taken into account and the draft adapted accordingly. Most significantly, of the four comments received, this was the final one:

Agreed that there were no apparent F&O problems with this text

4 Decisions to be made by Methodist Council

4.1 Council is asked to consider which proposals should be made to the Conference in 2011. There are two stages to this:

1) Approve or reject the general approach of the redrafting group in light of the response received in the consultation

If Council is not happy to accept the use made of the consultation materials by the redrafting group, it should provide direction about how the group should proceed. Additional work to get more data from a wider range of Methodists would be possible, but the resources required would result in delaying the final redrafting significantly, and the document could be brought to Conference only in 2012. Alternatively, the Council may suggest that the minimal response to the online consultation ought to lead to proposals that the Conference leave Hope in God’s Future simply as a report, rather than a Statement of Conference.

However, if Council is happy to accept the decisions outlined in 3.2, it should proceed to:

2) Approve or make alternative recommendations about the a) extent and b) type of changes made to the draft statement in response to the consultation

3) Recommend that this revised draft statement be presented (with proposed amendments highlighted) to the Conference 2011

A full copy of the analysis report compiled by the Research Officers can be requested from Methodist Church House, if required, in advance of the meeting of the Methodist Council.


Appendix: The Redrafted Statement

Changes are highlighted in bold.

Hope in

God’s Future:

Christian Discipleship in the Context of Climate Change

Draft Methodist Conference Statement 2011

Summary

1. Approaching God in the context of climate change

The theological task is to reflect on modern scientific accounts of current and threatened furture harms from climate change in the context of affirming the triune God as creator and redeemer of the universe. The scientific analyses of climate change and the role of human greenhouse gas emissions are well-grounded. It is now morally irresponsible to fail to acknowledge and address the urgent need for radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent intolerable damage to human populations and mass extinctions of many plant and animal species.

2. Encountering the Word of God

Reading the Bible in the context of climate change gives a vision of hope in God’s faithfulness to creation, a call to practise love and justice to our human and non-human neighbours, and a warning of God’s judgement of those who fail to do so. In this context, closing our ears to the voices of those most vulnerable to climate change would be nothing less than giving up our claim to be disciples of Christ.

3. Responding to God’s Word

What is required of God’s people in the industrialized world is repentance. The first step towards this change of heart and practice is confessing our complicity in the sinful structures that have caused the problem.

4. The body of Christ in the World

A core component to Christian discipleship is now a commitment to lifestyles consistent with levels of greenhouse gas emissions the earth can sustain. The church must commit itself to this standard of sustainability. At the time of writing, this means signing up to the UK government target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 and to urgent action to meet appropriate interim goals, as well as assisting members of its congregations to make similar changes and engaging with government to enable national and international change.


1: Approaching God in the

context of climate change


To you, our God, we bow the knee

in praise and worship; honour be

to you for all around we see,

your glorious work in land and sea.

Summary

The theological task is to reflect on modern scientific accounts of current and threatened future harms from by climate change in the context of affirming the triune God as creator and redeemer of the universe. The scientific analyses of climate change and the role of human greenhouse gas emissions are well-grounded. It is now morally irresponsible to fail to acknowledge and address the urgent need for radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent intolerable damage to human populations and mass extinctions of many plant and animal species.

1.1 The Christian doctrine of creation

The foundation of the Christian doctrine of creation, and therefore the starting point for theological reflection on the issue of climate change, is the great affirmation of Genesis 1.31: ‘God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.’ In this statement we see both that the universe, our solar system and all life on earth are entirely dependent on God for their origin and continuing existence, and that all these things were declared good by their creator. The opening of John’s gospel identifies this creative work with the Word of God, incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, showing that the reconciliation of all things to God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus cannot be separated from God’s act of creation (Col. 1.15–20; Eph. 1.9–10). Creative and redemptive work also belongs to the work of the Spirit, recognized by Christian theologians as sweeping over the face of the waters in the beginning (Gen. 1.2) and inspiring a groaning creation as it awaits redemption (Rom. 8). God, Creator and Redeemer, Father, Son and Spirit,2 is the transcendent and immanent source, sustenance and salvation of all creation.3