Dispatches from GA227: A holy book by a guy named Robert

Photo: Unsplash.com.

Every two years, Presbyterians gather for the General Assembly of the PC(USA) expecting to talk about theology, Scripture, and the Church. We pack our Bibles and our devotionals, thinking these are the texts that will get us through the long days. But once you sit down in a committee room, even in online gatherings, you quickly realize there is another book that everyone treats like sacred scripture.

It is thick.

It is dense.

And people debate its words like ancient text.

I am talking about “Robert's Rules of Order.”

To most people, parliamentary procedure is just a tool to keep a meeting moving. To a Presbyterian at the national level, it feels like a holy text. It even comes in a special wirebound form, which allows serious users to flip it open and lay it perfectly flat on a desk like a precious relic.

Note: I first learned Robert’s Rules of Order in the third grade at Aliamanu Elementary School in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was what we used for Student Council.

We do not just use it; we study it and look to it for salvation when a debate starts to spin out of control. There are moments where asking the parliamentarian for help feels less like a point of order and more like consulting an oracle.

This hit me during a meeting of the Theological Education and Ordination committee. We were deep in a heavy discussion about how the Church trains future leaders. The room felt serious and theological. But then the parliamentary gears got stuck over an amendment to a report. The tension broke in the most Presbyterian way possible.

A colleague reached pulled out her well-worn copy of “Robert's Rules.”

I could not help myself. I screamed "Bingo!" in my head.

I did see a couple knowing looks on Zoom that we had crossed the line from spiritual discernment into the mysteries of meeting-laws.

It is a funny kind of devotion. We are a people who believe things should be done decently and in order, and we take that so seriously that we have an exact rule for how to handle a motion to change a motion.

There is a strange comfort in it. No matter how messy the debate gets at General Assembly 227, there is a manual to guide us. We will keep voting and praying our way through the schedule, keeping one eye on the Gospel and the other on our third favorite book.

Note: “Book of Confessions” and “Book of Order” are tied for second. Books by Mister Rogers are up there, too.