Consensus: Cooperation or Coercion?

GENEVA—At the World Council of Churches Central Committee meeting, each voting member has two half-sheet-sized cards to use: one orange and one blue. Orange stands for warm feelings for what is going on, and blue for cold. Since most World Council of Churches (WCC) decisions are made by consensus, and since few delegates are familiar with that process, the delegates were tutored on how to wield their cards early in the February 13–20 meeting in Geneva.

Delegates were asked to use the cards frequently by holding one unobtrusively in front of one’s chest. This meant not only during straw-votes, when the chair asks for a show of opinions. (These formal testings of the mood of the body by the chair are dutifully deemed not to be votes per se, because the WCC frowns on votes. But the procedure certainly functions like a vote, with orange serving as yea and blue as nay.) The cards are meant to be in play during any speech or action. Thus, a speaker, while not likely get booed, may get blued in the middle of his or her time at the microphone!

A delegate at the WCC Central Committee Meeting expresses his “warm feelings” for the proceedings. (Photo © WCC / Peter Williams)

The delegates were instructed that crossing the two cards in front of one’s chest indicates that one is becoming bored with whatever is being said and would like business to move on. While the same lack of interest could be communicated by folding the cards into paper airplanes and tossing them, the crossing mechanism appears to be the preferred method.

One does wonder, however, the effect of such instant feedback on a speaker’s confidence when speaking in such a large room with so many people weighing one’s ideas. That can be a scary prospect for any speaker, but especially for those speaking in a second language, which is common at WCC meetings. It would seem that seeing the random blue card start to appear—and then another, and another, and another—would tend to dampen anyone’s sense of enthusiasm for speaking out! While such feedback could suppress the windbag or clue the chair, the effect it could have on the freedom of a reticent minority to be fully heard seems ominous. Just a few “early-carders” could routinely intimidate any who might voice an opinion different from their own.

Consensus for the WCC
Rule 20 in the “Constitution and Rules of the World Council of Churches” details how consensus is meant to operate. “Consensus shall be understood,” according to the rules, “as seeking the common mind of the meeting without resort to a formal vote, in a process of genuine dialogue that is respectful, mutually supportive, and empowering, whilst prayerfully seeking to discern God’s will.”

How does one know when consensus has been achieved? “[W]hen one of the following occurs: (1) all delegates are in agreement (unanimity); or (2) most are in agreement and those who disagree are satisfied that the discussion has been both full and fair and do not object that the proposal expresses the general mind of the committee.” In other words, when everyone agrees or those disagreeing are willing to let it ride, there is consensus.

Consensus may not be in agreement to approve a proposal. Another outcome may gain consensus, according to the rules, such as “agreement to reject a proposal, to postpone a matter, that no decision can be reached, or that there are various opinions that may be held.” So even agreeing to disagree or to hold things in tension can be a consensus agreement.

Partial agreements can also be okay. “As discussion proceeds,” the rules explain, “the moderator may ask the meeting to affirm what is held in common before encouraging discussion on those aspects of a proposal about which more diverse opinions have been voiced.” In other words, the body can come to some clarifying statement that “this much we agree on, but these other items are still sticking points.”

Further, if an impasse arises, “a delegate or the moderator may suggest that the matter under discussion be referred for further work to an appropriate group holding a range of points of view.” That group then tries to hammer out something that can gain consensus. Only “if a decision must be made at this meeting” can the body “move into voting procedures to decide the matter.”

There are safeguards for member churches. A particular outcome may not be first preference for all, leaders acknowledged. In that case, a minority position or an abstention can be recorded, although “dissent needs to be a matter of conscience, not just ‘It wasn’t my first choice,’” delegates were told. Thus a delegate could go home and say that he or she is on record as not approving a decision, but being willing to go along.

There is, as well, what might be thought of as a “nuclear option” to bring everything to a crashing halt. It serves as a veto of sorts. “Where a matter being raised is considered by a delegate”—it takes only one person!—“to go against the ecclesiological self-understanding of his or her church, the delegate may request that it not be submitted for decision.” If that proves to be the case, then “the moderator shall announce that the matter will be removed from the agenda of the decision session” and “the materials and minutes of the discussion shall be sent to the member churches for their study and comment.” One person who feels ecclesiologically compromised can prevent a decision. The WCC takes this consensus business seriously!

Concerns about Consensus
Consensus sounds, at first blush, so warm and pleasant. It is wonderful when everyone just naturally agrees on something and no one is left out. But such a situation is rare, once people get involved. Thus, for any decision involving five people, one often finds at least a half-dozen opinions. What is one to do if it has been decided that consensus has been achieved and one is not truly in consensus with that decision?

That question came up about committee work. Let’s say the committee brings an item back to the plenary session and a committee member is not in agreement? What is he or she to do?

The official instruction coming from the leader training the delegates was this: “Committee members are expected to honor the work and decisions of their committee.” In other words, “when the committee reports, members of the committee are obligated to support the report.” There is no process for a minority report or a substitute motion. Just to be clear, the leader hammered the point home: “Plenary is not a time to have your viewpoint reheard” if one opposed a measure in committee. “You had your opportunity in committee.”

“If I had my dissent recorded” in the committee decision, asked The Rev. Dr. Moiseraele Prince Dibeela of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, “am I required to support the decision of the committee?”

“You have recorded your dissent to a consensus decision,” he was informed. “It implies that you have been heard and understood and cared for. So you can go back to your church and tell about the care you received. You are not asked to bury your conscientious dissent. You can talk about how your were able to carry forward,” despite how the decision went. Note how he could say he disagreed once he was back home, as long as he said how nice people were to him when he disagreed. But he is not to seek to change the decision his committee takes to the plenary session.

There is also the future. “If you want to mount a campaign [later] to overturn the decision, you would be able to do so,” Dibeela was told. “You can still engage in the issue at a later meeting. You can accept that that was the decision at the time, but you are not silenced.”

How about recording a dissent in both the committee and the plenary? “Consensus accepts that there are those who have been heard [in dissent] and yet agree to have that decision go forward. Those who do that would be expected to go along. But if you record your dissent in committee, you can indicate it with the larger body, too.”

It appears that consensus works when a number of factors coalesce providentially:

• Everyone understands the process;
• Everyone is gracious and full of goodwill;
• No one is adamant for any one perspective;
• Everyone is willing to give up one’s own convictions to go along with the larger group;
• No one minds being forced to agree or remain silent following committee decisions;
• The moderator is completely unbiased, free from any desire to reach a particular outcome, enormously gifted in intuiting the shifting will of the body, and greatly skilled in group processes; and
• Everyone is supremely patient.

Such a divine convergence can happen. It does happen at times, and at other times something not too bad results from a rather convoluted and confusing set of events. But often, it seems, events get steered to go pretty much the way leadership, key forces behind the scenes, and the moderator want them to go. It is easy for a dissenting voice to be cowed or steamrolled into going along to get along. Or, conversely, a single dissenter can halt the entire process for the other 150-some.

Consensus is the WCC’s chosen mode of operating, in part because the Orthodox churches were finding themselves a minority on significant issues about which they could not assent. Consensus may be the most important factor keeping the Orthodox churches in the WCC, because it gives them the ability to halt some potentially disastrous decisions pressed by mainly European and North American progressives. At its best, consensus also accords enormous respect to a lonely blue card holder. Sometimes the moderator stops everything to ask a blue card holder what he or she is thinking.

Thus, consensus has its better and its worse aspects. Whatever its virtues, however, consensus is the name of the game for now in the WCC—at least until the consensus on consensus shifts.