The following response was written by the co-sponsors of the amendment, Ray Van Neste and Denny Burk. The views expressed are ours alone, and we do not intend to speak on behalf those who have signed-up as supporters of our amendment.

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We appreciate very much the service that the members of ETS’s Executive Committee (EC) render to our Society. Theirs is a time-intensive job, and they have made great strides to improve the quality of scholarship on display at our annual meetings. We wish to thank them for the course that they have set for the Society. We expect great things in the coming years.

Nevertheless, the co-sponsors of the amendment think it is time to express our disagreement with the EC’s public statements about our Amendment proposal. On at least two occasions since we introduced the amendment at the November 2007 meeting in San Diego, the EC has addressed the members of the Society in official forums in terms that have been prejudicial against our proposal. We have not yet been afforded an opportunity to respond in those forums, so we intend to make use of this one. Read the rest of this entry »