Lee McKenna-Ducharme

The first Summit of the Americas took place in Miami in 1994; the second in Santiago in 1998. At the first Summit, David Rockefeller, the president and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, was asked, ‘Can you tell us what, if anything, has changed since President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress Summit with the leaders of Latin America?’ His reply: ‘Well, back then business leaders like myself were more or less sitting on the sidelines watching the negotiations unfold. But now we’re sitting in the driver’s seat and writing many of the documents ourselves.’ 

In Québec City this year, our political leaders got caught offering up for sale a menu of access-to-national leaders options. For $750 000, you and your CEO could sponsor a coffee break; for $1 million you could put on a lunch; for $2 million a dinner. At such events, of course, you could rub shoulders with the political leaders of the 34 nations (Cuba excluded) of the Western Hemisphere. All evidence to the contrary, our Prime Minister denied that this in any way indicated that corporations were running the show at the Summit of the Americas, that CEOs had a privileged access denied to civil society.

I was sitting in a little café, two blocks from the infamous wall, the $100 million chain link fence that encircled the conference site and much of the old city of Québec, listening to francophone radio commentators deliver a blow-by-blow account of the descent and arrival of Air Force One and its nine armoured vehicles. The numbers of those arriving in Québec were swelling by the hour, drawn to protest the insult of the wall and its pregnant symbolism of globalised capital. Insiders and outsiders. 

Thousands of canisters of tear-gas were lobbed at us over the next two days; water cannon, plastic bullets, pepper spray. In the streets there was protest and pageantry, poetry and pique. Within hours, the wall was breached and the response of the six thousand police was unrestrained. More than four hundred people were arrested, one of them for lobbing teddy bears from a catapult over the perimeter. Of the tens of thousands in the streets, the tiny fraction bent on mayhem determined the police response. The vast majority of the demonstrators were young, articulate, clear about why they were there. Most of them could quote chapter and verse of the North American Free Trade Agreement; they knew why GATT (The General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) is such bad news for all of us; they could tell you all about chapter 11 challenges and the strengthening of investor/state rights in the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Many of us were there to pray, to observe and bring to bear upon what we saw and experienced the reflections of our faith. One of us brought candles from Acteal in Chiapas, Mexico; others of us were accompanying Colombian trade unionists, who have lost thousands of their members to the state-sponsored death squads, and who are here to protest the US government’s demonic Plan Colombia. Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club talked about the Sydney (Nova Scotia) tar ponds. Bolivians talked about their water. Salvadorans and Ecuadorans talked about the dollarisation of their economies and the disneyfication of their culture. All of them connect the dots. All of this is about neo-liberalism and economic globalisation. All of this is about the rights of capital over the rights of people and the capitulation of our governments to corporate rule.

In Québec City, I walked and prayed with pastors and laity, with Mennonites, Quakers, members of the United Church, Baptists, Anglicans and Presbyterians. In pairs, in small groups, in large sessions, through direct action, we thought about what was going on and what we were witnessing, in the light of the gospel. The preachers among us wondered, How do we talk about the Fence and its vigorous dividing up of the powerful and the powerless, insiders and outsiders? How do we talk about the great divide between the confident images and promises of prosperity from within and the images from the bottom rungs of our thirty-four countries of deepening poverty and economic violence? We talked about where Jesus would be. Out here or in there? We talked about the task of bringing together our experience and the words of scripture, the life and work and meaning of Jesus Christ. 

I spent a great deal of time with young people who had nothing good to say about the church that I love and the faith that gives me life. Young people who could speak the language of religion, but wanted nothing to do with an institution that, in their view, had precious little to say at such an event. They decried its misogyny, its self-protection, its institutional wealth and lack of caring for those beyond its walls. I sat dumb. My words stuck in my throat. 

We laughed, we cried — particularly when the our eyes and skin burned with tear-gas — we sang, we marched. 

We ate and drank together and shared stories late into the night. The media’s predicted twenty five thousand turned into sixty or seventy or eighty thousand of us. It was both horrible and wonderful: horrible because I will never think about my country in the same way again; it changed me, it damaged me. This was wonderful because there seems to be an awakening from our collective slumber, an activism in my country that, in my lifetime, has never been seen before. 

Lee McKenna-Ducharme is a member of the Gathering and also of the Board of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. The above remarks are taken from her ‘Country Report’ given at a recent Board Meeting of the BPFNA.

Cam Watts

Imagine wrapping-up hope and sealing it so tightly that no one can open it. According to Revelation 5, that brought John of Patmos to tears. He was in the middle of a vision that had him believing in a future for him and God's people. Oppressed, exiled and killed by the Roman Emperor Domitian, his brothers and sisters had to wonder about God's goodness. They believed that with Christ's resurrection all reality was changed. But they lived with suffering and death.

This vision granted to John was God's answer to everything which undermined their belief in God's good creation and new creation. The vision reaches a pinnacle as John, looking into heaven's throne room, sees the One seated there with a sealed scroll. On that scroll was written the future. It was a future of renewal and restoration and peace. It had to be opened. If it remained sealed then the future was left in doubt. A voice cried out for someone worthy to open it. There was no one. John wept, for himself and his brothers and sisters who suffered without hope. Then another voice: "Don't cry"-there is one who has conquered who is worthy to open the scroll, one who died to guarantee the future.

John looks and sees that conqueror, a lamb standing as if slaughtered, deathly. The lamb takes the scroll. He is worthy to open it; to open up God's future and hope. Angels are singing of the Lamb's worthiness. Every creature in heaven joins in, calling for blessing and might and power. The Lamb is being enthroned. He rules over Domitian and the kings of the earth and all oppressors. The one who guarantees the future is a lamb.

It is one who was, and is, vulnerable: the one who was put to death by the powerful. The powerful try to buy the future, and disregard or eliminate those who stand in their way. It is the lambs, the vulnerable, who open up the future.

For me it has always been the vulnerable who have opened up the future, who have opened my life to hope. One of those people was my paternal grandmother, Irene. She taught me the secret of making a perfect ice cream soda and a perfect pot of coffee and perfect gravy (unfortunately that one didn't take). She was a belle from St. Louis who believed in God's faithfulness even when she had reasons not to, not the least of which was the incredible change in my grandfather's personality when he returned from the first great war completely disillusioned and more or less without faith. He had been studying to be an Anglican Priest after graduating from Royal Military College with an engineering degree. After the war he was not the kind man she had married. She believed in God's faithfulness when two of her three children's marriages broke up and one of her grandchildren committed suicide. Even when she was confined to the nursing home her gratitude overflowed, over small things like a ride in the car through the fall colours or a cup of Baskins and Robbins strawberry ice cream or a shot of brandy smuggled in in a Geritol bottle. She wrote me at camp and at university. She'd write things on the outside of the envelope she'd forgotten to write inside, or scripture verses and stuff like "JOY=Jesus first, others second, you third". And she prayed for me daily. All of that mattered, but I think now that her biggest impact on me was her hope, her faith in God's future.

The vulnerable have also opened my life to new directions in ministry. They may not always intend to, but when I have listened to their voices I have found clarity in my own life. Inmates at Springhill Penitentiary, abused women, individuals struggling with poverty and trouble-making children at camp all taught me that there wasn't much difference between me and them. They helped to focus my attention on a gospel of justice and continue to nudge my ministry in directions hardly imagined, let alone hoped-for. People with whom I gather who are marginalized even by their brothers and sisters open the future for me. They protect me from getting lost in cynicism and remind me that despair is a necessity if I am to understand hope. They are my friends who hold onto the future for us, people who believe in each other and in the future and that we will find a way in God's purpose.

Cam Watts is a member of the Gathering and Minister at Aylmer Baptist Church, Aylmer, Ontario.

Ray Hobbs, Delegate from MacNeill.

I attended all of the business sessions of the Assembly, and this report is of the major items of business discussed. They were [1] The proposal to close the Baptist Leadership Education Centre in Whitby, and adopt the ‘Next Wave’ Youth Ministries project; [2] The workshops and presentations on the ‘New System for a New Century’ on the governance of the BCOQ; [3] The proposed Budget for 2002; [4] The election of Officers.

In addition to these items of business, there were several presentations from affiliated bodies, such as Baptist Women of Ontario and Quebec, and Canadian Baptist Missions. I was most impressed by the CBM presentation, and the deep sense of commitment from those representatives of CBM with whom I talked.

[1]. The most contentious matter discussed, at great length, was the double proposal to close the BLEC at Whitby, and to adopt an entirely new Youth Ministries’ Project entitled ‘Next Wave’. BLEC is a one-year residential programme for youth, and has been in operation for several years. Next Wave would be a Provinces-wide ‘field-education’ programme for young people between the ages of 17 and 25. Its design was to have young people located in churches, and being under the supervision of a mentor for one year. The focus of the NW project was leadership development.

Two ‘workshops’ were held on the proposal, and they generated a lot of heated discussion. In spite of extensive publicity for the NW project, there was a general suspicion of its validity, and notice was taken of the fact that no costs could be estimated for the project. There was a ninety-minute debate in a business session on Thursday, and the proposal was defeated by a vote of 194 (for) to 322 (against). Reaction of the Youth Leadership of the BCOQ was one of astonishment and deep disappointment.

The result of the vote is that BLEC remains open, at some considerable cost to the Convention, and the Next Wave Project is abandoned. There will be repercussions at many levels.
[2] The other important and contentious issue was the ‘New System for a New Century’ proposal, which offers a new, corporation-style system of governance for the Convention. Associations and churches (including MacNeill) have already examined the proposal. There was one extensive presentation of the proposal to the Plenary session of the Assembly. At this session there was no discussion. This was followed by a ‘Workshop’, which was a further presentation of the proposal, followed by a short time of questions.

Although there was supposed to have been a debate (30 min.) and a vote taken on the proposal ‘in principle’, neither of these took place. At the end of the final business session, the Chair of the Planning Committee simply asked for the Assembly to trust the Committee. Since there was no motion on the floor, no debate was held, and the ‘New System...’ is now being refined by the Planning Committee for presentation at the Assembly in 2002.

[3] The proposed budget for 2002 was debated and passed by the slimmest of majorities. It entails a deficit of approximately $400,000.00. This follows the pattern of the past several years in which the operating deficit is covered by monies from the capital funds. Unfortunately, these capital funds are decreasing at an alarming rate, and this system of financing cannot continue. Built in to the dismal projections for the future is the awareness that over the past decade there has been an erosion of the purchasing power of the dollar. There will be an added burden on the budget beyond 2002 with the decision to keep BLEC open.

[4] The election of officers of BCOQ was characterised by a small set of nominations, and many positions were filled by acclamation, there being no additional nominations. I was not present for the announcement of the election results.

A few things were surprising at this year’s Assembly. No resolutions were forthcoming from the Social Concerns Committee, and no report was given by McMaster Divinity College. This follows the pattern of recent years. 

My personal observations on the nature of the Assembly are as follows: I sense an increasing divide between the work done by the officers and staff at the BCOQ Office and the local churches. My understanding of the debate and the decision regarding BLEC and the Next Wave is that a large part of the problem was a sense of distrust of the centre by those on the margins, especially the rural churches. 

Without question, the staff at the BCOQ office are group of dedicated and committed people who do their work conscientiously. Hundreds of volunteers support this staff in Committees and Boards of the Convention. For this dedication all should be thanked most sincerely. However, the causes of the distance between the central body and the churches, which is seen most clearly in the decline in givings, needs to be thoroughly, and honestly investigated. It is my opinion that ‘New Systems’ will not deal with this problem.

Ray Hobbs is a Member of the Gathering, and Editor of the Newsletter.

ISSN 1499-111X
©The Gathering of Baptists

Editor: Ray Hobbs
Editorial Committee: 
Barbara Bishop, 
Daphne Hunt, 
Bert Radford

Gathering Web Page: http://Jubal9.tripod.com/home.html

Feedback can be directed to:  The Gathering Newsletter c/o Ray Hobbs e-mail ray.hobbs@sympatico.ca

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Ray Hobbs
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Canada