POSTED FOR JIM WALTERS:  Thanks, Loren, for this insightful analysis of yesterday's events at Annual Council.

By there's one thing I missed in the analysis:  recognition of the chasm separating (A) the reality of events leading to yesterday's 169-121 vote, and (B) the articulated and supposed accurate underlying assumption of democracy/representative government.

That a single person could speedily bring such unprocessed documents to the fore is unbelievable. It isn't unbelievable in the culture from which many Annual Council delegates come. But it's unbelievable in an American-based denomination with a prophetic history of criticizing the unchallenged authority of a handful of men.

Democracy is more than the simple casting of ballots. True democracy is based on an underlying framework of (A) voters' knowledge of basic facts (via a free press); and (B) checks and balances in governance structures; and (C) processes that apply to all. Without such a framework, voting becomes a sham.