ABSTRACT
In this quote, sociologist Nancy Ammerman describes her thoughts as she prepared to begin a fi eld study of the conservative-moderate struggle for control of the Southern Baptist Convention. Similarly, I went to Cleveland for General Conference because I wanted to comprehend more deeply why United Methodists were fi ghting over LGBT inclusion. I thought fi eldwork would help me understand what was at stake, how the two sides differed, and how their strategies and tactics played out. In this chapter, I report selected vignettes from the fi eld. They are in chronological order, but do not necessarily represent continuous experience. Rather, they are the moments that were most powerful at the time, and that ultimately provided particularly useful data.1
