Even with all sorts of Bible texts at our side, even with strong feelings, even with weighty sociological and psychological evidence, we still don't know everything. And the other side to that proposition, the corollary for Christians, of course, is that God knows it all. This is what I have seen. This is what I honestly feel. And since God very seldom speaks directly to us, without any intermediary, we have to rely on the fact that God often speaks to us through each other.
Truth is something which is discovered in community.
The highest truth is always discovered in unity, in agreement, and not in division. This church has certainly had a lot of experience with division. We have seen it up close, many times. This yearly meeting has had a lot of experience with division, too. I think that it is one of the peculiar gifts of our meeting, of this particular group of the people who are called by the name of Jesus' friends, to ask that question.