I begin with a word of thanks to the four candidates for Moderator of the General Assembly – Robert Austell, Randy Branson, Susan Krummel and Neal Presa. Last night’s election session was thoughtful, entertaining, enlightening and thought provoking. In the end only one Moderator can be selected but this field of candidates has given us lots to think about for the time ahead.

With that said I also offer congratulations and prayers for TE Neal Presa who was elected Moderator of the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on the fourth ballot, although he led the other candidates by a significant margin throughout the voting.

And in case it was ever in doubt, it should be noted that the YAADs once again successfully predicted the outcome on their first ballot giving Mr. Presa over 50% of the vote.

Now, if you want a recap of the session you should check out my live blog/stream of consciousness/data dump from last night.  My intent today is to go back and highlight and discuss a few points from last night.

First, you have to give the commissioners credit and the elephant in the room was asked right away – What about the tension in our polity between the prohibition on same-gender marriages and the need to be pastoral in jurisdictions where same-gender marriage is recognized by the civil authorities. (My wording of the question.) Randy Branson talked about trusting each other and building trust among colleagues in ministry. Neal Presa talked about it not being an “issue” but being about persons. It also gave him an opening to proactively discuss the fact that his Vice-Moderator selection had preformed a same-sex marriage (see my previous post for more on that) and how we have to listen to each other and disagree in unity. Susan Krummel shifted the focus and asked if this was about answering that question or how we go about making decisions. And Robert Austell talked about how it was not just people but about friends and parishioners. He went on to talk about how even though he supports marriage as between one man and one woman, the recent constitutional amendment in his home state of North Carolina went too far in banning civil unions and how as a pastor he had to oppose it.

A lot of good questions including “What is the Gospel?”, fostering relationships at GA and what about all our small churches.  The question about dealing with conflict got most of the candidates a nickname in the group around me, and from looking at Twitter similar monikers elsewhere in the hall as well. Randy talked about golf so he was the golf guy. Neal talked about herding cats – literally – so he was the cat guy. And Susan talked about the spice cabinet in the church kitchen (the place that is a hot-bed of church controversy if there ever was one) so she was… yes, wait for it… Spice girl. (Tweets indicate that elsewhere in the hall it was being called spicegate ) Sorry Robert, nothing stuck for you.

And in case you missed it, golf was a recurring theme for Randy Branson (maybe to his detriment because it was not an answer and metaphor that was appealing to several demographics around me and on Twitter). But I will give him credit for a great turn-around on us as he was talking about fostering a relationship with another pastor with different views and in the end where we were expecting him to say that it was all due to golf he pulled the surprise and said basketball instead. Well played!

Another interesting question asked each candidate to define “missional” and to give an example of how they had done something missional. (Or as a great tweet from the Presbyterian Outlook put it “TEC asks what is missional? show your work.”)  Great examples ranging from Susan Krummel’s presbytery’s challenge grants of $100 per church to Robert Austell’s church fostering a relationship by helping at a local school so when they needed a space for a Christmas program not only were they able to use the school but their involvement in that community drew in attendees and participants who might never go near the church building.

One of the interesting points, and a current topic, is about churches leaving the PC(USA). While this was not a specific question the speakers mentioned it in various other responses throughout the evening. None of the candidates expressed sentiments about aggressively keeping congregations or the property in the denomination. For the most part they emphasized the need for relationship and discussion even long before a church may talk about leaving – but if the church ultimately wanted to leave they should be graciously dismissed. But Susan Krummal may have made the most interesting comment when she talked about the PC(USA) being a church with particular beliefs and understandings at a particular place and time and if a church no longer feels they fit it is best for both to part ways.

Only one question was a bit off-topic. A commissioner talked about how a pro-Israel group was offering free orientation trips to Israel to commissioners related to the divestment business that is coming to this GA. While it gave the candidates a chance to talk about transparency, integrity and avoiding politics, they also said that related to policy violations as an enforcement matter it would be best referred to the office of the Stated Clerk.

A total of eight questions were asked  which were enough to give a good feel for the candidates. I do feel sorry for the two or three commissioners and delegates standing at each microphone when time was called.

The results of the YAAD vote and the first vote made it clear that at some point Neal Presa would probably be elected Moderator. He was preferred by every group except the Ecumenical Advisory Delegates who generally preferred Randy Branson all evening. The YAADs and the Mission Advisory Delegates overwhelming preferred Mr. Presa right from the start.

Even among commissioners Mr. Presa always held a double-digit lead that grew by about 4-5% with each round of voting.  (If you had known that in advance you could have extrapolated out and known it would take four ballots.)  Here is how the voting went (And yes, the reported percentages on the first vote don’t add up to 100% – I don’t know if it is a calculation error, rounding error or reporting error):

Interesting voting pattern. Frequently there are two candidates who have a lead on the first ballot and then there is a migration from the other candidates to those two leaders. In this case the single strong candidate first drew away supporters from the trailing candidate (with small changes in the numbers for the two middle candidates) and then the two middle candidates lost incremental support on the last vote, but it was enough to put TE Presa into the majority.

Does this indicate anything for the voting patterns in the rest of the Assembly? I don’t think so. Seldom do I see strong indicators for the rest of the Assembly in the Moderator vote and with these candidates only distinguishing between themselves in minor to moderate ways the potential for drawing theological conclusions is limited.

So we wish Neal Presa well and offer our prayers for his two-year term as Moderator. Best wishes.

UPDATE: While proofing this I had the Sunday afternoon live stream on and the election of the Vice-Moderator. This is usually a formality but concerns were raised about her officiating at the same-gender marriage. There was a motion to suspend the rules to allow for discussion of this candidate but needing a super-majority of 2/3 is failed only getting 55% yes votes. On the election itself 60% supported Ms McCabe, 37% voted no and 3% abstained. If you are looking for an indicator of theological leanings you might find one in those numbers.