Cold and Stiff

I am uncommonly cold for June in St. Louis and way more stiff than is usual even for 58. That’s what being on a concrete convention center floor for several hours will do to a body.

Twenty or so folks from Fossil Free PCUSA and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship staged a die-in just outside the entrance to the plenary hall this afternoon following the assembly’s decision not to divest from fossil fuel companies. As I lay on the floor my mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions: disappointment; anger; and, ultimately, hope.

I am disappointed that my church chose a path that does not seem promising to me. I am peevish that the powerful central parts of the institution used – I might even say abused – process to ignore the voices of the 40 presbyteries that endorsed divestment and the committee that held hearings and voted 35-20 to support divestment. That’s more such endorsements than any other single item before the assembly, and yet the plenary session heard supporters of a minority report speak for almost a half hour while supporters of the main motion were essentially shut out.

I do not question the motivations or convictions of those who voted for the minority report. Unlike at previous assemblies, I did not hear a single commissioner questioning the reality of climate change nor the centrality of burning fossil fuels in driving climate change.

Instead, commissioners supporting continued engagement with the fossil fuel industry focused their arguments on three main points:

1.     The fact that money in the retirement fund – the Board of Pensions – actually belongs to members of the plan and not to the denomination (and that some members of the plan are not even members of the denomination).

2.     The suggestion that divestment from fossil fuel companies might cost retirees money.

3.     The desire to maintain a “place at the table” by virtue of being a shareholder.

At one level, each of these points is true. But truth, when partial, misleads rather than sets free. Each of these points is a partial truth, or, at least, was presented in a partial manner.

Opponents of divestment used the fact that Board of Pension money belongs to plan members to, in effect, blame individual plan members for not electing a socially responsible retirement savings option. There are all kinds of problems with that argument, including unanswered questions about how what percentage of plan members have any retirement savings plan beyond the defined benefits pension plan. But more to the point, while individual actions are important we have a board of pensions so that we can act collectively.

I wrote this reflection in a hotel restaurant. I took a moment this evening to suggest to the waiter that she ask hotel management to adopt a “straws optional” policy and told her a bit about how much straws contribute to plastic waste (another fossil fuel related problem). When she brought me my salad a few minutes later she said, “I stopped putting straws in drinks.”

I said, “cool; thanks for doing that!” and I mean it.

Individual steps are all well and good, but collective action is so much more effective. A ban on unnecessary straws would be a major dent in a significant waste problem. Jessica’s personal “no straws” policy? Not so much.

“Not so much” may also be the answer to what retirees stand to lose from divestment. I don’t know. Neither did any of the commissioners who voted today because nobody offered a guess. Guess, of course, is the operative word. Nobody knows how a stock will perform. Past performance, as they say, is not guarantee of future success. We do know, however, that fossil fuel is a lousy long-term investment because in the not-so-long term the supply will run out.

While we wait for that to happen, though, this general assembly wants to maintain a place at the corporate table to try to influence corporate behavior through our Mission Responsibility Through Investment board.

If we’d been playing a drinking game that compelled a drink every time “place at the table” was mentioned we’d all have been under the table. Yet that strikes me as the weakest argument of them all.

For one thing, the amount of money we have to invest is barely a drop in the oil barrel. I keep imagining the dialogue when MRTI calls on Exxon Mobile.

MRTI: be nice to the earth.

Exxon: who the hell are you again?

MRTI argues that, as part of a larger coalition of investors, they do have a reasonably significant voice. That remains to be seen, but it still does not give me confidence.

After all, fossil fuel executives ought to have exactly as much credibility as tobacco company executives have. As much as the latter lied about the health effects of its products the former have lied about the environmental health effects of its. Burning tobacco is lousy for your lungs. Burning fossil fuels is lousy for your planet. But we wouldn’t know it from listening to the lies and propaganda of the corporate executives. Why do we want a seat at a table where our conversation partners lie to us?

As one commissioner suggested during debate today, Jesus didn’t seek a seat at the table of the money changers, he flipped the tables over.

As I walked out of the restaurant this evening, I ran into a man in a kilt. John, a Scots Presbyterian who enjoys hanging out with the colonists at general assemblies, had been moved by the young adults advocating with Fossil Free PCUSA and the Peace Fellowship. He loved the energy and joy with which they advocated throughout the week. He was also struck by the powerful witness of our former co-moderators and our stated clerk. (He also said “clerk” with a Scottish accent and I nearly swooned, but that is a different post.) He noted a completely different feeling about this assembly compared even with two years ago in Portland.

“It’s like you know who you are now and you’re walking with confidence into the future.”

I’ve seen the same thing this week, as we walked through the streets in threat to civic order. So, despite being down on the floor for a few hours this afternoon, I believe that, together, we are rising up to something new in the church. We will, inevitably, divest from fossil fuels, because we are learning who we are even as we become something new.

We are, slowly, decently and in order, becoming a people who value justice more even that the process that we prize, and who are beginning to trust the One who taught us that where our treasure is there are hearts will be as well.